Bumped (4 page)

FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY, MANDATORY BLOOD TESTS
confirmed that 75 percent of sixth through eighth graders at Princeton Day Academy Junior School had been infected with the Virus. Most parents hoped it was the unfunniest prank ever. Mine anticipated the spread of the Virus all along and had planned accordingly. Even though I’d heard Ash and Ty talk about Human Progressive Sterility Virus millions of times before, I never really understood what the words meant.

Zen knew. He had done his research. Even then he liked to be informed, even if such knowledge was the stuff of nightmares.

He made me watch a video that explained what had happened to us, or, more accurately, what
wouldn’t
happen: that we were among the roughly three-quarters of the planet who wouldn’t be able to conceive or carry a full-term delivery in adulthood. Most of us would go irreversibly infertile sometime between our eighteenth and twentieth birthdays, and petri-pregging wouldn’t be a viable option for us at any age. The video was called
The End of the World as We Know It
and it succeeded in making me so paranoid about what would happen to our depopulated nation—with a special emphasis on the inevitable takeover by the awesomely abundant Chinese—that I signed this letter of promise:

To understand why I would sign such a document, you have to understand Zen.

See, Zen has always prided himself on being able to analyze and argue all sides of any issue. It’s what makes him one of the top high school debaters in the state. I’m his best friend, so I know he doesn’t believe half of what comes out of his mouth or across his MiNet profile. But he’s so effortlessly persuasive that even I’m not always sure what half he believes and what half is bullshit. He knows what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and to whom. These skills have served him well at Princeton Day Academy: Everyone loves him.

I think we became best friends because I was one of the very few kids who didn’t do what he said.

“Why aren’t you calling yourself Lem?” he asked on the day he made everyone refer to themselves by the backward spellings of their first names.

“Why should I call myself Lem just because you want me to,” I replied.
“Nez.”

Zen loved that. He thought I was cool because I had a mind of my own. Only later, much later, did he discover the exact opposite was true and I wasn’t a nonconformist by choice. No, Ash and Ty already had me on such an uncompromising regimen of self-improvement that there was simply no time in my life for Zen’s ridiculous diversions.

Of course, my pact with Zen wasn’t ridiculous. It was dead serious. And in my limited worldview at the time, it was the first time Zen’s directives were totally worth following.

And yet, the letter was already a distant memory when I signed on with Lib at UGenXX Talent Agency a year later. Right away, I started getting major swag from the most affluential couples desperate for me to make a healthy delivery. At thirteen, I was boosting off the free merch and the surge in eyeballs on my MiNet profile but was in no way ready to settle down. By the time I was fourteen, my parents thought I was obsessed with famegaming and at risk of becoming terminally starcissistic if I didn’t close a deal soon. Later that year I was matched with the Jaydens, who put in a very strong bid: full college tuition, a Volkswagen Plug,
and
a postpartum tummy trim. When Lib pushed—and got—a six-figure signing bonus, there was no question as to what I had to do.

It’s hard to believe now, but this was a pretty radical decision at the time. Though popular in major cities on the coasts, going pro was still kind of a down-market thing to do in the suburbs, and at my school in particular. All preggers at Princeton Day Academy were amateurs, most of whom put deliveries up for nonprofit adoptions. I can count on one hand how many actually kept their deliveries, and those who did had them raised by the same nannies who had raised them.

Ash and Ty are—or
were
—Wall Streeters turned economics professors at the University who were way ahead of reproductive trends. They predicted sixteen years ago, almost before anyone else, that girls like me—prettier, smarter, healthier—would be the world’s most valuable resource. And like any rare commodity in an unregulated marketplace, prices for our services would skyrocket. It wasn’t about the money, really, not at first. It was about status. Who had it, and who didn’t. And my parents did everything in their power to make sure I had it.

As for me, I figured,
Why not? I won’t be using my uterus for anything else during those nine months!
So that’s how I was the first girl in my class to go pro and sign on to be a Surrogette. About a dozen girls at my school have followed my lead so far, with more trying to land contracts every day. Now even amateurs who aren’t quite upmarket enough to go pro can make decent money at auction if their deliveries earn high marks from Newborn Quality Testing Service.

The point is, Ash and Ty knew that if anyone could boost the image of commerical pregging in our community, it was me. It’s what they groomed me for, after all.

And my life has been ectopic ever since.

Only Zen would try to legitimize a pact between two twelve-year-old nubie-pubies who pretended to be more familiar with the how-tos of pregging than we actually were.

Only Zen would have any chance at succeeding.

“WHAT IS IT?” I ASK.

“Nothing,” Melody quickly replies, pinching the paper distastefully with her thumb and forefinger as she hands it back to Zen. He carefully smooths out the paper, refolds it along the original creases, and slides it into his back pocket before responding.

“I never pegged you for a renegger . . .”

The calmer Zen is, the more emotional my sister gets.

“I am NOT a renegger. You are beyond wanked if you think that piece of paper is binding. . . .”

I’m not following this at all.

Then, like the sun bursting through storm clouds, that grin.

“Dose down, Mel. I’m just scamming.” Zen’s cheeks dimple even deeper. “I really came by just to say ‘hey.’”

Melody eyes him warily. “So say it.”

“Say what?”

Now it’s Melody’s turn to take a step forward, lean in, and get within a few inches of his face.

“Hey.”

At first, Zen doesn’t move. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, he brings his face even closer to my sister’s. I watch his lips part and I watch Melody’s expression change to something expectant and—

Oh my grace! Stop watching!

I turn my head left. Newlywed Bliss Kits are on sale at Garden of Eden Sex Shop. . . .

Look away!

I turn my head right. The young trio from Babiez R U is immodestly strutting by us, flaunting their brand-new FunBumps. . . .

Close . . . your . . . eyes!

But I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
I can’t stop watching.
I can’t stop watching Melody and Zen as they hypnotically hover almost—
almost!
—mouth to mouth. . . .

“Hey,”
Zen whispers.

I’m startled by a sharp, high cry. Both by the sound and the fact that it came from me.

Melody and Zen lurch away from each other.

“YOU BLINKED FIRST!” they cry in unison.

Zen turns to me as if he wants me to vouch for him, but then his face darkens.

“Whoa. Are you feeling okay? You’re breathing heavy. And your skin—what I can see of it—is all red and sweaty.”

He’s right. I’m feeling a little light-headed. “I’m f-f-f-fine,” I stammer, fanning myself. “It gets hot under all these layers.”

Melody is patting her hair, trying to look unconcerned. “Oh, it’s nothing that a cold can of Coke ’99 can’t fix.”

Zen seems genuinely worried. “You should really take off that veil. . . .”

“Enough about the mutherhumping veil,”
Melody says in a cold voice.
“She’s not going to take it off.”

I don’t want to take off my veil, but I can’t catch my breath. I lift the netting from my face and flip it up and over my head so I can get some air. I shield my eyes until they adjust to the riot of light and color. I forget how much brighter the world looks without the veil. I avert my gaze from the Garden of Eden Sex Shop.

“Sweet Darwin’s revenge,” Zen says, eyes going wide at the sight of my bare face. “You’re Melody!”

Oh my grace. If there’s one thing I’ve already learned about my twin, it’s that she does not like being seen as anything less than unique. I square my shoulders, ready for Melody to explode at Zen. Ma taught me to only raise my voice in praise, never in anger. Despite her musical name, my sister gives little thought to the sounds that come out of her mouth. She doesn’t seem to understand that words can serve as a bomb
or
a balm and all too often Melody chooses to hurt instead of heal. This time she surprises me. Her words come out not in a ferocious rush, but slowly, like ice.

“She . . . is . . . not . . . me.”

I proceed very carefully. “She’s right!” I say. “I have freckles!”

“You do?” Zen squints at my nose. “You do!”

Zen can’t stop looking back and forth between us, comparing and contrasting and comparing and contrasting our faces. And he’s not the only one. A small crowd has gathered around us, all winking, blinking, and rolling their eyeballs in our direction. I know that as I stand here contemplating my freckles, images of the identical-but-ideodemographically different twins are already streaming the MiNet. This must be what Melody means when she refers to a surge in optics—but I don’t feel too good about it. It makes me squirmy, like a soilworm under observation in a terrarium. I pull my veil back over my face to put an end to it.

“I imagine this must be quite a change from your settlement,” Zen says.

“Yes it is,” I say. Then to provide an example of tolerance, I add, “I watched Melody try on FunBumps at Babiez R U.”

Zen’s enthusiasm wanes for the first time during this conversation. My sister takes in Zen’s stricken face, and seems to find courage in it. She continues with a new gleam in her eye.

“I was, um . . .” She casts a quick glance in the direction of Babiez R U for inspiration. “
Fertilicious
, wasn’t I?”

Again, the word sounds false coming out of her mouth. And yet it still causes Zen to tug on his hairspikes. His obvious distress emboldens my sister even more.

“Wasn’t I?”

I don’t agree with what my sister is saying, but I want her to like me. She gives up when I take too long to corroborate.

“Oh well,” she says with a shrug, “I’m done here. I’m taking the shuttle home.”

No! This is going all wrong.

“But what about my veil?” I ask, trying to stay calm.

“If you need it so badly, why don’t you go back to Goodside and get it?” She hesitates for a moment as if she knows she shouldn’t say what she’s about to say, but decides to say it anyway. “Maybe you should go back to Goodside, where you belong.”

Where I belong. If she only knew.

“But . . .” I say, trying not to well up. “I hoped . . .”

“What? That I would give up everything I’ve got here and go back with you? That I would settle down and get married and make”—she spits out the last word
—
“
babies
?”

She’s right. I had hoped—unrealistically so, I now see—that my blood sister would share Ma’s and my house-
sisters’ enthusiasm for marriage and motherhood. But Melody is nothing like the girls in Goodside. No, her reluctance to fulfill her feminine promise makes her so much more like . . .

Me
.

I gasp at the similarity. “Sister!”

Melody looks like she’s just been kicked in the chest. Oh my grace, I’ve said it again! She quickly rights herself, and without so much as even a careless farewell to me or Zen, spins around and speeds toward the nearest exit.

“Later!” Zen calls out, admirably unaffected.

I’m not ready to leave yet. There’s too much more I need to learn about my sister, and Zen is the person who can teach me. I’m nervous, but the spirit moves me to put my mission before myself.

“Zen,” I say before my tongue gets stuck. “Would you care to escort me to Plain & Simple?”

I’ve never been so bold with a boy—not even Ram. Church girls do
not
initiate. I know it’s an innocent invitation, and yet my face burns hotter than you-know-what.

Zen rakes his fingers through his hair. “Are you sure your fiancé won’t get jealous?”

“My fiancé? Oh, no. No! He won’t mind at all!”

This is true. Ram would never get jealous because such expressions of envy go against our faith.

“‘Let us behave decently as in the daytime,’” I say out loud. When I notice Zen is clenching his jaw, I keep the rest of the verse to myself.

“‘Not in sexual immorality,’”
I mouth silently, leading Zen down the causeway.
“‘Not in debauchery.’”