Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

'I don't think executions are really my sort of thing, Mr McGuire'.

'Leland! You really were raised far too well, Sara. Another Manhattan?'

'One's my limit at lunch, I'm afraid'.

'Then you really shouldn't go to the Mirror. Or maybe you should because after a month there, you'll know how to drink three Manhattans at lunchtime, and still function'.

'I really am very happy at Life. And I am learning a lot'.

'So you don't want to be some hard-as-nails Barbara Stanwyck lady reporter?'

'I want to write fiction, Mr McGuire... sorry, Leland'.

'Oh, brother...'

'Have I said something wrong?'

'Nah. Fiction's fine. Fiction's great. If you can cut it'.

'I am certainly going to try'.

'And then, I suppose, it's a hubby and kids and a nice house in Tarrytown'.

'That's not really high on my list of priorities'.

He drained his martini. 'I've heard that one before'.

'I'm certain you have. But, in my case, it's the truth'.

'Sure it is. Until you meet some guy and decide you're tired of the daily nine-to-five grind, and want to settle down and have someone else pay the bills, and figure this nice Ivy League type is a suitable candidate for entrapment, and...'

I suddenly heard myself sounding rather cross. 'Thank you for reducing me to the level of female cliche'.

He was taken aback by my tone. 'Hell, I was just talking out of the side of my mouth'.

'Of course you were'.

'I didn't mean to offend you'.

'No offence taken, Mr McGuire'.

'Sounds like you're pretty damn angry to me'.

'Not angry. I just don't like to be pigeonholed as some predatory female'.

'But you are one tough cookie'.

'Aren't cookies meant to be tough?' I said lightly, shooting him a sarcastically sweet smile.

'Your brand certainly comes that way. Remind me never to ask you out for a night on the town'.

'I don't date married men'.

'You don't take any prisoners either. Your boyfriend must have a fireproof brain'.

'I don't have a boyfriend'.

'Surprise, surprise'.

The reason I didn't have a boyfriend was a simple one: at that juncture in my life, I was simply too busy. I had my job. I had my first apartment: a small studio, on a beautiful leafy corner of Greenwich Village called Bedford Street. Most of all, I had New York - and that was the best romance imaginable. Though I'd visited it regularly over the years, living there was another matter altogether - and there were times when I literally thought I had landed in a playground for adults. To someone raised within the sedate, conservative, meddlesome confines of Hartford, Connecticut, Manhattan was a heady revelation. To begin with, it was so amazingly anonymous. You could become quite invisible, and never feel as if anyone was looking over your shoulder in disapproving judgment (a favorite Hartford pastime). You could stay out all night. Or spend half a Saturday losing yourself in the eight miles' worth of books at the Strand Bookshop. Or hear Ezio Pinza sing the title role of Don Giovanni at the Met for fifty cents (if you were willing to stand). Or grab dinner at Lindy's at three a.m. Or get up at dawn on a Sunday, stroll over to the Lower East Side, buy fresh pickles from the barrel on Delancey Street, then fall into Katz's deli for the sort of pastramion-rye that bordered on a religious experience.

Or you could just walk - which I did endlessly, obsessively. Huge walks - from my apartment on Bedford Street all the way north to Columbia University. Or across the Manhattan Bridge and up Flatbush Avenue to Park Slope. What I discovered during these walks was that New York was like a massive Victorian novel which forced you to work your way through its broad canvas and complicated sub-plots. Being an impatient sort of reader I found myself compulsively caught up in its narrative, wondering where it would bring me next.

The sense of freedom was extraordinary. I was no longer under parental supervision. I was paying my own way in life. I answered to nobody. And thanks to my brother Eric I had a direct entree into Manhattan's more esoteric underside. He seemed to know every arcane resident of the city. Czech translators of medieval poetry. All-night jazz disc jockeys. Emigre German sculptors. Would-be composers who were writing atonal operas about Gawain... in short, the sort of people you would never meet in Hartford, Connecticut. There were also a lot of political types... most of whom were either teaching at assorted colleges around town, or writing for small left-wing journals, or running little charities that supplied clothes and food to 'our fraternal Soviet comrades, valiantly fighting the forces of fascism'... or words to that effect.

Naturally, Eric tried to get me interested in his brand of left-wing politics. But I simply wasn't interested. Do understand - I did respect Eric's passion for his cause. Just as I also respected (and agreed with) his hatred of social injustice, and economic inequality. But what I didn't agree with was the way his political friends treated their beliefs as a sort of lay religion - of which they were the high priests. Thank God he left the Party in '41. I'd met a few of his 'comrades' when I'd visited him in Manhattan during college - and, my God, talk about dogmatic people! They really thought that theirs was the true way, the only way... and they would not broach any dissenting views. Which is one of the many reasons why Eric got fed up with them and left.

At least none of his political friends ever asked me out... which was something of a relief. Because, by and large, they were such a grim, glum bunch.

'Don't you know any funny Communists?' I asked him one Sunday over a late lunch at Katz's deli.

'A "funny Communist" is an oxymoron', he said,

'You're a funny Communist'.

'Keep your voice down', he whispered.

'I really don't think J. Edgar Hoover has agents stationed in Katz's'.

'You never know. Anyway, I am an ex-Communist'.

'But you're still pretty hard left'.

'Left of center. A Henry Wallace Democrat'.

'Well, I promise you this: I'd never go out with a Communist'.

'On patriotic grounds?'

'No - on the grounds that he wouldn't be able to make me laugh'.

'Did Horace Cowett make you laugh?'

'Sometimes, yes'.

'How could anyone with the name of Horace Cowett make anybody laugh?'

Eric had a point - though, at least, Horace didn't look as preposterous as his name. He was tall and gangly, with thick black hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He favored tweed jackets and knit ties. At twenty he already resembled a tenured professor. He was quiet, bordering on shy, but intensely bright, and a terrific talker once he was comfortable with you. We met at a Haverford/Bryn Mawr mixer, and went out for all my senior year. My parents really thought he was a splendid catch - I had my doubts, although Horace had his virtues, especially when it came to talking about novels by Henry James or portraits by John Singer Sargent (his favorite writer, his favorite painter). Though he didn't exactly exude joie de vivre, I did like him... though not enough to let him take me to bed. Then again, Horace never tried very hard on that front. We'd both been brought up far too well.

But he still proposed marriage a month before graduation. When I broke it off with him a week later, he said,

'I hope you're not ending it because you simply don't want to commit to marriage now. Maybe, in a year or so, you'll change your mind'.

'I do know how I will feel about this matter a year from now. The same way I am feeling now. Because, quite simply, I don't want to marry you'.

He pursed his lips, and tried not to look wounded. He didn't succeed.

'I'm sorry', I finally said.

'No need'.

'I didn't want to be so blunt'.

'You weren't'.