Life Blood ---I--Page 3

"Okay," I told her, "we're going to be filming, but ignore that
fact. Just look into the back of the camera and talk to it as though
it were me."

"Hey." She grinned. "You're dealing with a pro. This is my
thing."

I looked around at the cameras and the grips. "Okay, guys.

Roll sound." There was a retort as the clap stick used for synching whacked out the start of the shoot. "Scene one, take one, Carly Grove interview."

She proceeded to hit the ground running, recounting in great detail her story of many disappointments. She finally got to the point where she was trying to adopt the baby of a woman in a Memphis jail, and then even that fell through.

"Which was when my main lawyer, Chuck, just gave up and recommended I hock the family silver, take a Valium, and try this place called Children of Light. Where you go when all else fails. So I gave them a call."

"And what happened?" It sounded too good to be true. "Did they seem . . . in any way unusual?"

She looked at me, as though puzzled by the question. Then
she shrugged it off. "Well, first they tried to get me to check into
their clinic—it's this place up the Hudson—to let them see if my
'condition' could be cured somehow, using his special
techniques."

"His?"

"Goddard. Dr. Alex Goddard. He's a kinda spacey guy, but

he's the big-shot presiding guru there." She remembered the

camera and turned back to it. "I told his staff I didn't have that kind
of time, and anyway nothing could be done. They were pretty
insistent, so I eventually ended up talking to the man himself. He
sort of mesmerizes you, but I finally said, forget it, it's adoption or
nothing. So he just sent me back to the peons. Checkbook time."
        I stared at her, hungry for details, but she didn't notice, just
pressed on.

"The money they wanted, I have to tell you, was staggering.
Sixty thousand. And believe me, they don't give revolving credit."
        I thought about the figure. It was the highest I'd heard for
getting a baby, but it wasn't totally off-the-wall. Terrific babies
don't drop from trees.

Carly was still going strong. "It took me almost half a year to
scrounge it together. A lot of credit lines got maxed. But when I
finally did plunk down the loot, sure enough, I had Kevin in less

than three months. I don't even know where he came from. They
took care of all that, but I do know it was probably out of the
country, because of the blank INS forms I signed. But then, who
cares? With a deal this good, you don't press for details, right?"
        Carly Grove had a mutual love affair with the camera. The
footage was going to be fabulous. The only problem was, it
sounded like an "infomercial" for the adoption miracle wrought by
this doctor named Goddard.

When the interview began to wind down, losing its punch, I
suggested we call it a day. With the time pushing two o'clock, I
wanted to get the film to the lab, get it developed, and take a look
at the rushes. I also had a doctor's appointment, not to mention a
meeting with David to bring him up to speed on what I was doing.
But surely he was going to be pleased. The interview, with Carly's
honest intensity, would give the picture spine and guts. Just as I'd
hoped.

You could always tell by the reaction of the crew. Even Roger
Drexel, who usually hid his thoughts somewhere in his scraggly
beard, was letting his eyes sparkle behind his Panaflex. Scott was
also grinning as he struck the lights and Cafiero ripped up the
power lines, now taped to the floor. Everybody was in wrap mode,
flushed with a great shoot.

I followed Carly into the kitchen, where Marcy was feeding

Kevin some Gerber applesauce. The time had come, I thought, to
spring the next big question, out of earshot of the crew.
        "I hate to put you on the spot, but do you know any other
women like you, single, who've adopted through Children of
Light?" I decided to experiment with the truth. "God knows,
depending on what happens in my own situation, I'm . . . I'm
thinking I might even want to check them out for myself."
        "What do you mean?" She gave me a quick, concerned look.
        "Maybe I'd like to talk to them about adopting too." I realized I
 was babbling, my usual prelude to obsessing.

Carly's worried gaze eased up a bit, but she started twisting at
her hair.

"Well, I might have another name. When my lawyer first told
me about them, he gave me the name of another woman who'd
adopted from them, and I talked to her a little about how they
worked. She'd just gotten her baby, so I guess she was about six
months ahead of me in the process. Her name was . . . I think it
was Pauline or Paula or something. She's probably not the kind of
person who'd take their 'no disclosure' crap all that seriously. She

was adopting a girl, and she lives somewhere on the Upper West
Side."

"Any idea how I could find her?"

"You know, she wrote kids' books, and I think she gave me her card. In case I ever needed somebody to do some YA copy. Let me go look in my Rolodex. I filed her card under 'Y' for Young Adult. Right. It'll just take a second."

The woman, whose name was Paula Marks, lived on West
83rd Street. The business card, a tasteful brown with a weave in
the paper, described her as an author. The address included a
"suite" number, which meant she worked out of her apartment.

"Mind if I take down her phone number and address? I'd really like to look her up. To see if her experience was anything
remotely like yours."

Carly gazed at her fingernails a second. "Okay, but do me a
favor. Don't tell her how you got her number." She bit her lip,
stalling. "It's one thing for me to talk to you myself. It's something
else entirely to go sticking my nose into other people's business."
        "Look, I'll respect her privacy just as much as I respect yours."
I paused, listening to what I'd just said. The promise sounded
pretty lame. I'd just filmed her, or hadn't she noticed? "Look, let
me call Paula, see if she'll agree to be interviewed on camera. I'll
keep your name entirely out if it, I promise."

She reached down and plucked Kevin out of his high chair, kissed him on his applesauce-smeared cheek, then hugged him. "Sorry. Guess I'm being a little paranoid. I shouldn't invite you here, then give you a hard time about what you're going to do, or not do. I can't have it both ways."

In the ensuing tumult and confusion of the wrap, I did manage
to get one more item from Carly Grove. The address and phone
number of Children of Light. But I completely forgot the one thing
I'd been meaning to ask about. That little amulet, with the strange
cat's face and the lines and dots on the back. Why was Kevin
wearing it? And by the time I got to the street, surrounded by the
clamor of crew and equipment, it seemed too inconsequential to
go back and bother with.