Douglas Kennedy - The Pursuit of Happiness

'If I'd known you were coming, I'd have bought champagne'.

You always know when you have true rapport with someone. When you're in each other's presence, you find you can't stop talking to each other. Or, at least that's how it was with us during those three days. We never left the apartment. We barricaded ourselves from the world. I didn't answer the phone. I didn't answer the door - except when I had arranged for a delivery of supplies. Groceries arrived from Gristedes. I called my local liquor store, and had them send over some wine and bourbon and beer. And Gitlitz's Delicatessen were willing to dispatch anything from their menu at short notice.

We locked ourselves away. We talked. We made love. We slept. We woke up. We started talking again. We actually knew so damn little about each other. We were both greedy for information. I wanted to learn everything - to pick up where we left off four years ago, and hear more about his childhood in Brooklyn, his tough-guy father, and his mother - who died when he was thirteen.

'It was the damnedest thing', he told me. 'I was in the seventh grade. It was Easter Sunday nineteen thirty-five. We'd all just come back from Mass - Mom, Dad, Meg and me. I got out of my suit, and went out with a couple of pals in the neighborhood to play stickball in the next street. My mom told me to be back within an hour tops, as we had a bunch of relatives coming over for lunch. Anyway, there I was, playing with my pals, and Meg came charging down the street, tears running down her face... she was all of eleven at the time... screaming, "Mom's real sick." All I remember after that was running like hell back towards our house. When we got there, an ambulance was out in front, along with the cops. And then, suddenly, these two guys came out of our front door, carrying a stretcher, with a body on it covered by a sheet. My dad was behind the stretcher, being supported by his brother Al. My dad never cried, but here he was sobbing like a kid. That's when I knew...

'An embolism is what caused it. Some artery to her heart got blocked, and... She was only thirty-five. No history of heart trouble. Nothing. Hell, Mom never got sick. She was too busy looking after all of us to even think of getting sick. But there she now was on that stretcher. Gone.

'I felt as if the bottom of my world had just been snatched from under me. That's what my mom's death taught me. You go out to play stickball, thinking your life is secure. You come back, and discover it's been permanently maimed'.

I ran my hand through his hair. 'You're right', I said. 'Nothing's ever secure. And I don't think anyone gets through life without being dealt some truly bad cards'.

He touched my face. 'And the occasional four aces'.

I kissed him. Then said, 'You mean, I'm not a royal flush?'

'You're the best hand imaginable'.

Much later that night - after feasting on two of Gitlitz's famous corned beef on rye sandwiches, and a few bottles of Budweiser - he got talking about his work in public relations.

'Naturally, I saw myself leaving Stars and Stripes and landing a big job on the Journal-American or even the New York Times. But when I found out I was about to be a dad, I decided to opt for something a little more lucrative than the usual sixty-dollar-a-week starting salary at one of the big papers... if, that is, they were even willing to take me on. More to the point, the London bureau chief on Stars and Stripes - Hank Dyer - had been working at Steele and Sherwood before the war, so I had a pretty easy entree into a job. And I kind of like it - since most of the time, it's about three-martini lunches with journalists, and schmoozing the client. At first, I was doing all Manhattan-based stuff, but our business has really started to expand and we're now handling a lot of corporate accounts. So, for the moment, I'm the liaison with a string of insurance companies up and down the eastern seaboard. It's not as much fun as the early days, when I was looking after a fight promoter and a couple of mid-level Broadway producers. But they've upped my salary by seventy dollars a week, and the traveling expenses are good...'

'You should be well compensated for having to go to Albany and Harrisburg'.

'Believe me, I'm only going to keep with the insurance boys for another two years max. Then, if I can, I'm leaving PR and getting back into newspapers. My sis Meg tells me she expects me to win a Pulitzer by the time I'm thirty-five. I told her, "Only if you're editor-in-chief of McGraw-Hill by then." Mind you, she might just get there. McGraw-Hill have just made her a fully fledged editor... and she's only twenty-five'.

'Is she married yet?'

'No way. She thinks all men are bums', he said.

'She's dead right'.

Jack looked at me warily. 'Do you really mean that?'

'Absolutely', I said with a smile.

'Was your ex-husband a bum?'

'No - just a banker'.

'Something bad happened during the marriage, didn't it?'

'What makes you think that?'

'The way you've dodged telling me anything about him'.

'Like I said before, marrying George was a major error of judgment. But, at the time, I thought I had no choice. I got pregnant'.

Now I told him everything. The grim shotgun wedding. The appalling honeymoon. My circumscribed life in Old Greenwich. My nightmare of a mother-in-law. Losing the baby. Losing my ability to have children. When I was finished, Jack reached over across my kitchen table and took both my hands.

'Oh, sweetheart', he said. 'How do you deal with it?'

'The way you deal with any loss: you just do. There's no other option, except excessive booze, alcohol, pills, nervous breakdowns, depression, or any of those other self-pitying options. But do you know what I sometimes wonder? Especially late at night, when I can't sleep. Was I to blame? Did I somehow will the miscarriage myself? Because, at the time, I kept thinking: if only I would miscarry, I'd be free of George...'

'That was a perfectly legitimate way to think, given that your wimp of a husband and his goddamn mother were making your life hell. Anyway, we all think dark stuff when we're scared or trapped...'

'The thing is: I got my wish. The miscarriage happened. And I also destroyed my chance to ever have children...'

'Will you listen to yourself. You didn't destroy anything. It was... I don't know... rotten goddamn luck. We think we have command over so much stuff. We don't. Sure, there are the really rare moments when we have to make a ethical call. But, by and large, we're victims to things over which we have little control. You had no control over this. None'.

I swallowed hard. I looked at him with care. His vehemence had surprised - and pleased - me.

'Thank you', I finally said.

'For nothing'.

'I needed to hear that'.

'Then I needed to tell you that'.

'Stand up', I said.

He did as ordered. I pulled him towards me. I kissed him deeply.

'Come back to bed', I said.

Around nine p.m. on our second night together, he got up out of bed, and said he had to make a phone call. Pulling on his trousers and fastening a cigarette between his lips, he excused himself and walked into the kitchen. I heard him dial a number. He spoke in a pleasant, low voice for around ten minutes. I went into the bathroom, and tried to distract myself by having a shower. When I emerged ten minutes later - swathed in a robe - he was back sitting on the edge of my bed, lighting up a fresh cigarette. I smiled tightly, wondering if my sense of guilt and rivalry was apparent.

'Everything okay at home?' I asked mildly.

'Yeah, fine. Charlie's got a touch of flu, which means Dorothy had a bad night last night...'

'Poor Dorothy'.

He looked at me carefully. 'You're really not jealous?'

'Of course I'm goddamn jealous. I want you. I want to be with you day and night. But because you're married to Dorothy, that can't be. So, yes, I am jealous of the fact that Dorothy is your wife. But that doesn't mean I hate Dorothy. I'm just totally envious of her - which shows my bad taste, writ large. And you do love her, don't you?'