Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

'Package for you, Miss Malone', he said, handing me a large bulky manila envelope.

'When did this arrive?' I asked.

'Around half-an-hour ago. It was delivered by hand'.

I silently groaned.

'A little old lady in a taxi?' I asked.

'How'd you guess?'

'You don't want to know'.

I thanked Teddy and went upstairs. I took off my coat. I sat down at the dining table. I opened the envelope. Reaching inside, I pulled out a card. The same greyish-blue stationery. Oh God, here we go again...

346 West 77th Street

Apt. 2B

New York, New York 10024

(212) 555.0745

Dear Kate,

I really think you should call me, don't you?

Sara

I reached back into the envelope. I withdrew a large rectangular book. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a photo album. I opened the cover and found myself staring at a set of black-and-white baby photos, carefully displayed behind transparent sheeting. The photos were pure fifties - as the newborn infant was shown asleep in one of those huge old-fashioned strollers that were popular back then. I turned the page. Here, the infant was being held in the arms of her dad - a real 1950s dad, with a herringbone suit, a rep tie, a crew cut, big white teeth. The sort of dad who, just eight years earlier, was probably dodging enemy fire in some German town.

Like my dad.

I stared back at the photos. I suddenly felt ill.

That was my dad.

And that was me in his arms.

I turned the page. There were pictures of me at the age of two, three, five. There were pictures of me at my first day of school. There were pictures of me as a Brownie. There were pictures of me as a Girl Scout. There were pictures of me with Charlie in front of Rockefeller Center, circa 1963. Wasn't that the afternoon when Meg and Mom brought us to the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall?

I began to turn the pages with manic rapidity. Me in a school play at Brearley. Me at summer camp in Maine. Me at my first dance. Me on Todd's Point Beach in Connecticut, during summer vacation. Me with Meg at my high school graduation.

It was an entire photographic history of my life - including pictures of me in college, at my wedding, and with Ethan, right after he was born. The remaining pages of the album were taken up with newspaper clippings. Clippings of stories I wrote for the Smith College newspaper. Clippings from the same newspaper, showing me in a college play (Murder in the Cathedral). Clippings of my assorted print ad campaigns. There was the New York Times announcement of my wedding to Matt. And the New York Times announcement of Ethan's birth...

I continued flicking wildly through the album. By the time I reached the penultimate page, my head was reeling. I flipped over the final page. And there was...

No, this was unbelievable.

There was a clipping from the Allan-Stevenson newspaper, showing Ethan in gym clothes, running a relay race at the school gymkhana last spring.

I slammed the album shut. I shoved it under my arm. I grabbed my coat. I raced out the door, raced straight into an elevator, raced through the downstairs lobby, raced into the backseat of a cab. I told the driver, 'West Seventy-Seventh Street'.

Four

SHE LIVED IN a brownstone. I paid off the cab and went charging up the front steps, taking them two at a time. Her name was on the bottom bell. I held it down for a good ten seconds. Then her voice came over the intercom.

'Yes?' she said hesitantly.

'It's Kate Malone. Open up'.

There was a brief pause, then she buzzed me in.

Her apartment was on the first floor. She was standing in the doorway, awaiting me. She was dressed in grey flannel pants and a grey crew-neck sweater that accented her long, delicate neck. Her grey hair was perfectly coiffed in a tight bun. Up close, her skin appeared even more translucent and smooth - with only a few crow's feet hinting at her true age. Her posture was perfect, emphasizing her elegant stature, her total poise. As always, her eyes were sharply focused - and alive with pleasure at seeing me... something I found instantly unsettling.

'How dare you', I said, brandishing the photo album.

'Good afternoon, Kate', she said, her voice controlled and untroubled by my outburst. 'I'm glad you came'.

'Who the hell are you? And what the hell is this?' I said, again holding up the photo album as if it was the smoking gun in a murder trial.

'Why don't you come inside?'

'I don't want to come inside', I said, now sounding very loud. She remained calm.

'We really can't talk here', she said. 'Please...'

She motioned for me to cross the threshold. After a moment's nervous hesitation I said, 'Don't think I'm going to stay long...'

'Fine', she said.

I followed her inside. We entered a small foyer. On one wall was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, heaving with hardcover volumes. There was a closet next to the shelf. She opened it, asking, 'Can I take your coat?'

I handed it to her. As she hung it up, I turned around, and suddenly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. Because there - on the opposite side of the foyer - were a half-dozen framed photos of myself and of my father. There was that picture of my dad in his Army uniform. There was an enlargement of that photo of Dad cradling me when I was a newborn baby. There was a picture of me at college, and holding Ethan when he was just a year old. There were two black-and-white photos showing Dad in a variety of poses with a younger Sara Smythe. The first was an 'at home' shot: Dad with his arms around her, standing near a Christmas tree. The remaining shot was of the happy couple in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. From the age of the photos and the style of clothes they were wearing, I guessed they were taken in the early 1950s. I spun around and stared at Sara Smythe, wide-eyed.

'I don't understand...' I said.

'I'm not surprised'.

'You've got some explaining to do', I said, suddenly angry.

'Yes', she said quietly. 'I do'

She touched my elbow, leading me into the living room.

'Come sit down. Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?'

'Stronger', I said.

'Red wine? Bourbon? Harvey's Bristol Cream? That's about it, I'm afraid'.

'Bourbon'.

'On the rocks? With water?'

'Neat'.

She allowed herself a little smile. 'Just like your dad', she said.

She motioned for me to sit in an oversized armchair. It was upholstered in a dark tan linen fabric. The same fabric covered a large sofa. There was a Swedish modern coffee table, on top of which were neat stacks of art books and high-end periodicals (The New Yorker, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books). The living room was small, but immaculate. Bleached wood floors, white walls, more shelves filled with books, a substantial collection of classical CDs, a large window with southerly exposure, overlooking a small back patio. Directly off this room was an alcove which had been cleverly fitted out as a small home office, with a stripped pine table on which sat a computer, a fax machine and a pile of papers. Opposite this alcove was a bedroom with a queen-sized bed (bleached headboard, a quilted old Americana bedspread), and a Shaker-style dresser. Like everything else in the apartment, the bedroom exuded style and subdued good taste. You could tell immediately that Sara Smythe was refusing to embrace the muted dilapidation of senior citizenship - and live out the final part of her life in an apartment that was, stylistically speaking, two decades out of date, and reeking of shabby gentility. Her home hinted at a quiet, but ferocious sense of pride.

Sara emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray. On it was a bottle of Hiram Walker bourbon, a bottle of Bristol Cream, a sherry glass, a whiskey glass. She set it down on the coffee table, then poured us each a drink.