the far end of the porch. Ronda was working the sidewalk tables fronting Congress Avenue that Sunday night. She was twenty-five, sweet, and a lesbian; her black hair sported purple and green streaks, and colorful tattoos covered every square inch of her visible skin surface, most of which was visible since she was wearing only a blue jean miniskirt and a red halter top. From that distance, the tattoos blended together and made her look like a walking Jackson Pollock painting. She held up four fingers and raised her pierced eyebrows as if asking, Another round for the table? Andy nodded and pointed at Tres behind his back. Tres didn't know it, but he was buying.
Andy Prescott couldn't afford to buy a round for the table.
At twenty-nine, his financial condition should be a major life concern. By now, he should be contributing to a 401(k) plan, saving for a down payment on a mortgage, and planning for a secure future. Why wasn't he? Why didn't he have a burning ambition to make a lot of money, like Natalie said? Was it just a stubborn refusal to grow up? Was it genetic, an inherited trait like his brown hair and eyes? Or was it a character flaw? Why didn't he care more about such mature matters instead of 'Jesus, Tres, check her out.'
A gorgeous girl glided past their table and into the restaurant, but not before giving Tres a sly glance.
Andy yelled to her: 'He's taken! I'm not!'
Natalie had given Tres the night off-she was at home researching the 'rent a womb' business in India-so they were drinking Mexican beer with Dave and Curtis, two buddies from their UT days, who were in deep conversation on the other side of the table.
'She got back to the condo,' Tres said, 'jumped on the computer, hasn't budged since. That magazine article at the pool today really got her hormones pumping.'
'You really thinking about doing that? Outsourcing your baby to India?'
'Not until Natalie compared the costs. With an American surrogate, you're looking at a hundred thousand total out of pocket. In India, it's only five grand.'
'You paid more than that for your trail bike.'
'Yeah, but that's a fortune in India. Natalie said a third of the population lives on a dollar a day. An American surrogate makes fifty thousand, an Indian twenty-five hundred-but that's like seven years' pay over there.'
Andy scooped salsa onto a tortilla chip and stuck the whole thing in his mouth, an act he immediately regretted: the salsa was seriously spicy. He turned his beer bottle up and tried to shake a few cold drops out onto his hot tongue. No luck. So he grunted and pointed at a cute coed behind Dave and Curtis; when they swiveled their heads around to check her out, Andy grabbed Curtis' beer and drank from it, then replaced it without Curtis being the wiser. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
'Nine months at twenty-five hundred dollars? That's what, three hundred a month?'
'Two seventy-seven,' Tres said.
'She's renting her womb for nine bucks a day?'
'Yeah, and they've got better quality control. The clinic boards its surrogates for the entire nine months, makes sure they get proper pre-natal care and nutrition-they eat better than they have their whole lives.'
'The women live together?'
Tres nodded. 'To prevent conjugal visits. They'll have twenty surrogates in one house.'
'Baby factories.'
'And you don't have to worry she'll abort like over here. We paid for it, it's ours, and she signed a contract. She's got to deliver.'
Tres drank from his beer.
'Only downside is, Indian women die in childbirth at ten times the rate of American women.'
'So the surrogate has a good chance of dying while birthing your baby?'
'Yeah… but Natalie's willing to take that risk. Besides, if she dies, we get a full refund.'
'I'm sure that'll make the surrogate feel better.'
'And Natalie gets to keep her figure.'
'Hers is a figure worth keeping, Tres, no question about it, but the whole thing seems kind of like 'ugly American' stuff-you know, exploiting poor people in Third World countries.'
'You sound like your mother. Andy, it's no different than American companies manufacturing their products offshore for the cheap labor.'
'Exactly.'
Andy looked for Ronda with their beers then turned back to Tres.
'So you're going to manufacture little Cuatro in India after having sex with a test tube?'
Tres shrugged. 'I get to look at a Playboy. '
'That's romantic.'
Dave broke away from his conversation with Curtis and said, 'It always is for me.' Back to Curtis: 'They figured you couldn't afford their drinks.'
Curtis scratched his scalp deep in the dark jungle that was his hair then examined his fingers as if he'd found something.
'So?'
'So you'd just be taking up valuable space. Rent in the warehouse district is out of sight.'
Curtis pushed his glasses up on his nose.
'The doormen at Qua, they laughed at me-and I'll have my Ph. D. in nine months.'
'Advanced degrees won't get you in that door, Curtis.'
'Qua,' Andy said. 'That's the lounge with the aquarium in the floor?'
'Shark tank,' Curtis said.
'Curtis,' Tres said, 'those places have strict dress codes. What were you wearing?'
Curtis gestured at his attire.
'Same clothes I teach in.'
He was wearing black-framed glasses, a white T-shirt with 'got root?' across the front, baggy cargo shorts, and burnt-orange Crocs. He was scrawny, twenty-eight, and a grad student working on his Ph. D. in mathematics; he was a TA at UT. One of hundreds of teaching assistants employed by the University of Texas at Austin, Curtis Baxter taught math to undergrads so the tenured professors had time to write political op-eds.
'Curtis,' Tres said, 'you wouldn't get past the security guard at my condo wearing those clothes. This is the only place you can dress like that.'
This place was Guero's Taco Bar, formerly the Central Feed amp; Seed. Guero's still looked like a feed store, but it was now an Austin institution-everyone came to Guero's for Mexican food and beer and margaritas and mariachis: UT students and faculty, politicians and lawyers, trust-funders and slackers. The dress code was 'come as you are,' and so they came.
Andy was wearing shorts, a Willie Nelson 'Don't Mess With Texas' T-shirt, and flip-flops. Dave wore a red- and-black cowboy shirt over shorts and sandals, although he had recently tried to upgrade his appearance for his burgeoning business career; he now wore white socks. He swept his black hair back like a young Elvis, meticulously and often, like now.
'You missed a spot,' Andy said.
'Where?'
Dave checked his hair in a spoon; Andy shook his head. What a crew. Tres Thorndike appeared sophisticated and worldly with his stylish clothes and professionally cut hair; he was from Connecticut. After flunking out of the Ivy League, Tres enrolled at UT for the frat parties-UT consistently ranked as the number one party school in America-and ended up president of the most exclusive fraternity on campus. Dave Garner had gotten into a lesser fraternity on a legacy. Curtis Baxter had been denied admission to every fraternity at UT. Andy Prescott had never wanted to join a fraternity.
The story of their lives.
Ronda returned with four cold Coronas. Tres told her to put them on his tab; he was good about having a trust fund. Andy leaned back in his chair and took a long drink of the cold beer. It was another great night at Guero's. The sun was setting behind them, the heat of the day had broken, and they were sitting at their regular sidewalk table, a prime location to enjoy the live music of Tex Thomas amp; His Danglin' Wranglers playing in the adjacent Oak Garden and to check out every female entering or exiting the establishment. God, the girls of Austin. Between the twenty-five thousand UT coeds and the thousands of young women who moved to Austin every year for the nightlife, there were beautiful girls everywhere you turned in Austin.
