Did she? It was, and it wasn't, an easy question to answer. "I don't know. I mean, I want to be able to when I want to, you know?"

"Uh, I guess."

Live sperm. It wasn't like she didn't have a man in her life. A responsible partner would discuss this with the person they were involved with, wouldn't they? "I need to call Bryant."

"Bryant in Minnesota?"

Hattie felt herself straighten. It was amazing how many people didn't understand long-distance relationships. "My doctor says I've got about a 6 month window and then I've got to actively have a baby or..." She felt panic rise and swallowed it down with caffeine because that was going to help.

"Or what?"

"Or maybe not, you know, be able to..." The coffee only fueled her panic, and she couldn't help blurting out. "Ever!" She took a deep breath.

"I get it, Hat. I knew this day was coming."

"You knew I'd be infertile, and you didn't tell me?"

Angela let out a world-weary sigh. "I knew you'd be one of those women, you know?"

Hattie waited, her own impatience showing.

"The kind who wakes up one morning and says, hell, I forgot to have kids."

"Not funny."

She felt Angela's hand on her arm. "I know. I mean that you're someone who should have kids, who would have kids. I've always known that. Why is this news to you, and why in god's name would you call Professor Bug-Up-His-Ass?"

"Entomology is a well-respected area of research--"

Angela held up her hand. "I do respect entomology."

"He should be the first person I talk to about this." In fact, that's exactly what she'd do. She might even talk to him while she drove to campus for her afternoon class. She didn't normally allow herself to use her cell phone when she drove, but this was-- "Second."

She turned her attention back to Angela. "What?"

"Nothin'." Angela stood, tipped her head back to the lounge. "Let me know what Worm Boy says."

"That would be heminthology. That's not his area of expertise."

"Sure it's not."

Hattie sat back in her creaky office chair. The old wooden swiveler was probably original with the building, both born in the forties. She couldn't love it more, and the book-filled space she'd worked in during the 7 years she'd been at Excelsior. But the peace she normally felt on campus escaped her. There was no more putting it off, so she dialed.

"Hello?"

"Bryant, it's Hattie."

"Oh, hi. What's happening at Excelsior?"

"Oh, everything's fine here. I --"

"Heard the competition's really stiff for the Thomas Fellowship this year."

"Uh, I suppose. I haven't really paid much attention to the... Bryant, I didn't call about work. I called about us."

"Okay."

Had he just drawn out the word okay? It sounded like it to her, but she was probably just nervous about worrying him with her fertility issues. "I know we haven't talked about things for a while, but since your research project is almost done, and you'll be coming back to Seattle..."

"Actually, there's the Brazil thing, remember?"

"You're coming back here."

"I didn't tell you? I totally thought I did. Brazil's the insect capital of the world."

"But, we've been--"

"Been what?"

"I just. Bryant, we've been dating for 3 years. How could you not tell me you were leaving the country?"

The silence seemed really drawn out. The okay might not have been, although it was, who was she kidding? But the silence just sat there like all the miles in between them.

He broke it first. "Well, this is awkward. Hattie, I just thought we were both on the same page."

"What page? The I really miss you, Hattie, wish I could be in Seattle page? How about the you should check out Minnesota, the bugs are huge here page? I took that as an invitation to continue the relationship, Bryant. I flew out there, and we did not spend the weekend checking out big bugs."

"Hattie, that was a year ago, and, you know, we're friends. I really respect your work."

He respected her work? Was that what he was calling the sex they'd had every time he was in town? Well, almost every time. Maybe not the last couple of visits... Oh, dear god. She wasn't in a relationship at all, and she hadn't even known it. It was like the time she'd lost the pastry cutter her mom had bought for her kitchen, and two years later she'd only discovered it was missing when her mother had asked about it.

And if she hadn't been in a relationship, she'd been what? She thought of Angela suggesting he was worm boy. Angela would understand things like that about a million times quicker than she did. She had to think like Angela would. She wasn't in a relationship with Bryant. She was his... what term would Angela use? Booty call?

"Hattie, I'm sorry if you thought there was more..."

Well, she didn't need a relationship, clearly, and she wasn't going to let a hack entomologist make her cry. "Of course I didn't." She ought to let him know she'd functioned just fine without a pastry cutter for two whole years. She'd do just fine without him. But would her eggs? Maybe if she didn't need a guy, she didn't need a baby either. She'd at least liked boys since she was a teenager. But had she ever really, deeply wanted a baby? Maybe not. Problem solved. Both problems solved. No men. No babies. No problems.

She'd reminded herself all week that she had no problems, no problems at all. As she headed across campus to the college radio station, she decided she was even getting pretty good at exuding gratitude. She'd had a plan for her life, and she'd nailed it. She'd completed the Ph.D. and secured tenure at a respectable university. Her life was fulfilling and interesting, and she made a sizeable contribution to others and to the community at large and...

"Momma."

She heard it first and thought for the briefest of moments that the sound was in her head. Then she saw him, a little brown-haired boy toddling down the sidewalk right toward her. His arms swung as if half-opened to embrace her, but his gait, not fully developed by practice, reminded her of film she'd once seen of bumblebees slowed down for the study of flight.

"Momma." His voice was higher with more excitement as he reached her, and it was all she could do to not drop to her knees and open her arms to match his embrace. She felt his small body brush by her leg on his way by, and for a moment let herself imagine picking him up just as the mother behind her did. She'd murmur his name too, and kiss him on the top of his sweet head with the ease only a mother could know and would know for a lifetime.

The woman, carrying the boy, walked past her, and she closed her eyes, tried to breathe and orient herself again. She was somewhere outside the biology building and inside her life, and she just needed to regain her scientist's calm even though every inch of her tensed with something she didn't want to identify as longing. She looked down at her clenched hand, opened her palm to free her office key, and saw that the wavy indentations had changed her lifeline.

She wasn't sure how she'd gotten to the radio station, but she'd managed to walk across campus and take a seat in front of a mic. Rose, the afternoon d.j., was smiling at her and finishing the introduction, just like every month Hattie had done a spot for the department.

"And now for a Biological Moment, sponsored by Iguana World, located on Seattle's west side. Be sure to stop in for something green. Biological Moments, an educational service of the Excelsior Biology department, with Professor Hattie McLean."

Rose pointed at her, and Hattie realized her notes were missing. Twelve times a year from three-thirty to three-thirty-five her notes sat neatly typed just below the mic, and she read, as best she could, what she had so carefully researched. She couldn't even remember what the month's topic had been.

"Uh." Uh was not it. "Well." Not better. That boy had done her in. He'd called to her basic animal instincts and temporarily knocked out her capacity to think. She'd probably left her notes on the sidewalk, right where he'd kick-started her urge to reproduce.

"Reproduction." That was a start, although Rose was raising an eyebrow at her as if questioning the subject. Hattie recalled talking about the large intestine once. No one could tell her she wasn't capable of edgy programming.

"We think of sexual reproduction..." maybe she'd planned to talk about fungus. It was starting to come back to her, the oxygen needs of fungus.

Rose looked more amused than concerned about a Biological Moment Meltdown. "Sexual reproduction?"

Not her original topic, but she'd taught dozens of biology courses. She'd just keep it academic. "We think of sexual reproduction as needing both a female and a male. Many people don't realize even flowers and trees also have female and male designations."

Rose shook her head as if it was definitely news to her.

Hattie wondered if there was actually an audience out there for this kind of information. "But it's possible, evolutionarily speaking, for the male to be completely obsolete." And didn't that sound like the best news ever? She stopped. God, had she said that out loud?

Rose motioned for her to continue. "Uh, and many sexually reproducing organisms have asexual episodes and are quite successful." She was right in the middle of an asexual episode herself, apparently for the past three years, although she hadn't been able to reproduce during her drought. She tried to think of an example of a luckier creature. An octopus? Slipper Limpits... "Aphids." She said it so loudly, the force of her breath blew like a gust of wind across the mic. She cringed, but Rose waved her on. And aphids were such a fine model of how the world could be.

"Aphids are nearly all female during the summer then most of them die off. But those females strong enough to make it through the winter, you know, the ones who've known adversity and sure they may wear a few signs of aging on them, but they still have a great deal to offer..." she stopped. Where had she been going with that? Little boys saying Momma, old aphids...

She had it. "Older female aphids..." she paused for what she hoped was effect, "can reproduce all by themselves. No male required." She felt nearly dizzy at the prospect. "And there are strong females in many other species."

Rose coughed, and Hattie took it as encouragement. "A human female can have a great job and control her own destiny and just because she doesn't, right now, possess the capacity to self-fertilize, and sure, time is running out for her, doesn't mean she needs a man, does it?" A child running toward a momma on a sidewalk. There was no man in that picture.

"We could embrace it." She grabbed the mic and drew it closer as if someone was about to take it away. "We may be on the threshold of an evolutionary leap for human females, and like aphids we could find a really efficient way to reproduce, a Plan B so to speak." She thought of her own Plan A, the Ph.D., the tenure, the home ownership. She'd focused on the profession of biology and maybe ignored her own biology. "Biology and babies."

Rose cleared her throat, pointed to the clock, and Hattie scrambled to complete her usual close. "Uh, this has been Professor Hattie McLean with a Biological Moment. Remember, the biological perspective is an outstanding way to make sense of our world."

Make sense? That was a good one given she'd rambled on about sexual reproduction for her five minutes and completely neglected the oxygen requirements of fungi.

She glanced up at Rose who was raising the volume on the next program, a pre-recorded retrospective of big band music beginning with Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me. She'd certainly put a damper on the monogamous forties with her dirty aphid talk, but maybe no one was listening.

Rose pointed to the studio window, and standing in the hallway, Hattie saw the entire female staff from the building. It was mercifully silent with the soundproof glass between them, but she could feel the vibrations as a couple of them high-fived.

She'd planned to go home. She'd wanted to, but the women who'd mobbed her in the hallway really slowed her down. The university was well-populated with single thirty-somethings who now thought she was some kind of reproductive pioneer. Rose had rescued her and invited her for coffee, so instead of heading home to Queen Anne at the end of a day that had been as irregular as her periods, she wound her way through the U district. It was slow driving past the storefronts of futons and pizzas in the burst of winter rain.

The lights on University Way didn't help either with their timers set to allow the greatest number of students and bikes to cross. She eyed the next block and spotted a miraculous parking space in front of the cafe. Except for the key incident with the little boy and the aphid business, it was her lucky day.

She tried to glide her Subaru wagon into the space but jerked too close to the curb. She heard the familiar grind of the right front hubcap against cement, grateful again that older model car parts, like female aphids, were hearty. She inched forward, cranked the wheel, and reversed in bits until the sound of metal eased. She would have coffee, settle down, and everything would be fine again.

She closed her umbrella and walked through the scarred wooden door, the coffee smell solid as she moved down the black tiled walkway past the oily cases of beans to the steam of the espresso machine. She knew only tourists carried umbrellas in Seattle and that her raincoat made her look frumpy, but she was dry, and just because no one in Seattle ever seemed to notice rain, it didn't mean it didn't come down sometimes in buckets.

She looked around the cafe. No Rose. She debated about taking a booth, but she normally got her coffee to go, and if Rose didn't show, she didn't want to stay. She stopped at the counter to order. "Coffee, please."

The waiter blinked and turned toward the stack of mugs near the coffee pot, and she silently encouraged him. It wasn't as if she'd ordered something complicated, like a double French snickerdoodle skinny iced mochachino. That was a beverage for young aphids.

The waiter rallied and filled a mug for her. "Thank you." She considered adding good job to the thank you, but he'd already wandered off, so she took a tentative sip, testing its heat, and glanced around the dim coffee house that more resembled its 1970's roots than its chrome competition. Along the wall, the booths were lined up like train cars wrapped in paisley, and they were inviting enough she walked over to sit.

From a painting above the table, stared the wildest bird she'd ever seen, painted or otherwise. It looked like it would be right at home perched on a Woodstock-era album cover. Its breast was an electric blue, and the yellows and reds around the bird's face were like feathers and hair and something alive. She took a step closer and realized with disappointment that it was painted on a plastic window shade. Such an extraordinary creature on such a cheap medium.

Rose slid into the booth. "What do you think?"

What did people say about art? "It's interesting." She looked at Rose for some indication that interesting had worked, but Rose just folded her legs up in some kind of yoga position, smoothed her skirt, and waited.

Hattie realized she'd have to say more but found herself distracted by Rose's clothing. Having only seen her once a month seated across a table in the studio, she'd missed how distinctly Rose dressed. Her skirt looked like it might have been a hotel curtain in its former life. It made her wonder, and she looked closer at the painting, noticing the signature. "Did you paint this?"

"Yep." Rose shrugged as if dismissing any connection she had to it.

"What do you call it?" That was a good question. Maybe she could not look like a total biologist for one more minute. She readjusted her bag over her shoulder.

"Beginning Bird."

Beginning Bird. She turned over the possibilities like an academic research question. The bird of creation, first bird, Rose's first bird. She studied the crimson splash of color and absently sipped her coffee.

"Or," Rose shrugged, "Big Bird on Acid."

Hattie snorted, choked, and coughed out a mouth full of coffee. She dropped her bag and slapped a hand over her chin, reaching for a fist full of napkins. Rose began to laugh, and Hattie felt the surprising lightness of having yet another embarrassing biological moment. She straightened and rubbed her palm across her mouth, smiling in spite of herself.

Rose motioned to the seat across from her. "It's been one of those days, huh?"

"Maybe one of those lives." She slid into the booth, dug for a tissue in her raincoat pocket, and dried her face. "I'm always afraid of things like that happening."

The waiter appeared with a cup of coffee, placed it directly in front of Rose and walked backwards toward the bar, smiling at her the whole time. Hattie wondered at his newfound efficiency, but Rose didn't even appear to register the service, just dumped several packets of sugar into the cup and kept talking. "Bad things can be the best."

She tried to figure what that meant, studied Rose, and felt the weight of self-consciousness return like a homing pigeon. She'd never noticed Rose's height before. Was the girl even five feet tall? Next to Rose's curvy compactness, Hattie felt like a six-foot Olive Oyl, and Rose had talent that even a biologist could see. "I don't think I've ever known an artist before." She looked towards the bar and considered her small circle of academic acquaintances.

"Really?" Rose's eyes widened. "You can't swing a dead cat in this place without hitting half a dozen of them."

Hattie glanced around the cafe. There did seem to be a high percentage of people who didn't use hairbrushes regularly. Was that an artist look? Every profession had an appearance, however loose. Was an attorney impossible to spot? A hair stylist? A carpenter? An academic?

"And lots of poets." Rose played with her earrings, a dozen in a bright mass at each earlobe. Hattie was pretty sure at least half of them were shaped like household appliances. There were a couple of irons, a blender, and what looked like a miniature hot mitt. Okay, appliances and kitchen linens.

She touched one of the pearl studs she wore, the ear uniform of women twice her age and not standard for artists or poets. Maybe Rose was both. "Are you a poet also?" Her skin did appear to be almost translucent like a woman who wrote in an attic. Maybe Rose was too well fed to be a poet, but she did look like a woman who might be the object of poetry with her flowing black hair and singular blue eyes. Hattie had always believed her own hazel ones lacked commitment. In a world of blue or brown, her irises were still deciding.

Rose stirred her half-empty coffee cup. "I don't even paint, really."

Hattie pointed to the window shades displayed above every booth. She'd have to study the rest of the pictures when she got her coffee before tomorrow's classes.

"A year ago," Rose shrugged. "I finished those last year, and now I'm kinda stuck, you know?"

Did she? She'd thought she was fine less than twenty-four hours before. She apparently knew nothing.

"The d.j. job's part-time for some money. I'd like to try something new, pottery or watercolors or a new teacher." Rose laughed and shook her head. "I don't know."

"Well, you'll figure it out." Maybe artists just needed encouragement. She could do that. "These..." she admired the vibrant flock of birds, "make me feel something."

"Aphids? What the hell were you thinking?"