Douglas Kennedy: The Pursuit of Happiness

'Hello?'

... but my voice was so thick with groggy sleep that I must have sounded semi-comatose. There was a long pause on the other end. Then I heard a woman's voice.

'Sorry, wrong number'.

The line went dead. I put the receiver down. I turned off the light. I pulled the covers over my head. And called an end to this fucking awful day.

Three

I WOKE AT six. For about ten seconds, I felt curiously elated. Because, for the first time in around five months, I had actually slept for eight unbroken hours. But then everything else flooded in. And I found myself wondering: what deranged, grief-stricken despondency made me want to stay in Mom's bed overnight?

I got to my feet, careened into the bathroom, took one look at myself in the bathroom mirror, and decided not to make that mistake again. I peed, baptized my face with cold water, and gargled with Lavoris: three basic ablutions that enabled me to leave the apartment without feeling like a total fire sale.

My suit stank of vomit. As I dressed, I tried to ignore the smell and paid no notice to its trashed condition. Then I made the bed, grabbed my coat, turned out all the lights, and slammed the door behind me. Meg was right: I really was a glutton for punishment. I decided: the next time I see this apartment again is the time I pack it up.

The early hour meant that I didn't run into any of Mom's neighbors in the elevator or the lobby. This was a relief, as I don't think I could have handled another heartfelt expression of condolence (I was also worried that people might think I was auditioning for a female remake of The Lost Weekend). The night doorman - slumped in an armchair by the lobby's fake electric fireplace - didn't even seem to notice me walking briskly by. There must have been two dozen empty cabs cruising West End Avenue. I hailed one, gave the driver my address, and collapsed across the back seat.

Even to a jaundiced native like myself, there is still something wondrous about Manhattan at dawn. Maybe it's the emptiness of the streets. Or the commingling of street-lamp light and the emerging sunrise. Everything's so tentative, so hushed. The city's manic rhythms are momentarily stilled. There's a sense of equivocation and expectation. At dawn, nothing seems certain... yet everything appears possible.

But then night drops away. Manhattan begins to shout at the top of its lungs. Reality truly bites. Because in the harsh light of day, possibilities vanish.

I live on 74th Street between Second and Third Avenues. It's an ugly, squat, white brick apartment building - of the sort favored by developers in the 1960s, and which now grimly define that bland Upper East Side cityscape between Third and the River. Being a West Side girl (born and bred!), I always considered this part of town to be the urban equivalent of vanilla ice cream: dull, insipid, devoid of edge. Before I got married, I lived for years on 106th Street and Broadway - which was anything but monotonous. I loved the exuberant grime of the neighborhood - the Haitian grocery stores, the Puerto Rican bodegas, the old Jewish delis, the good bookshops near Columbia University, the no cover/no minimum jazz at the West End Cafe. But my apartment - though insanely cheap - was tiny. And Matt had this rent-controlled two-bedroom place on East 74th Street, which had been in the family for years (he'd taken it over after his grandfather died). It was a steal at $1600 a month, not to mention a hell of a lot more spacious than my single cell up in Jungleland.

But we both hated the apartment. Especially Matt - who was seriously embarrassed about living at such an unhip address, and kept telling me we'd move to the Flatiron District or Gramercy Park as soon as he left lowly paid PBS and got his senior producer gig at NBC.

Well, he got the big NBC job. He also got the big Flatiron pad - with that cropped-blonde talking head, Blair Bentley. And I ended up with the much-hated rent-controlled apartment on 74th Street - which I now cannot leave, because it is such a bargain (I have friends with kids who can't even find a two-bed place in Astoria for $1600 a month).

Constantine, the morning doorman, was on duty when I got out of the cab. He was around sixty; a first-generation Greek immigrant, who still lived with his mom in Astoria, and who really didn't like the idea of divorced women with children... especially those vulgar harpies who actually have to go out and earn a living. He also had the proclivities of a village stoolie - always checking up on people, always asking the sort of leading questions which made you understand that he was keeping tabs on you. My stomach sank when he opened the door of the taxi. I could see that he was interested in my trashy state.

'Late night, Miss Malone?' he asked.

'No - early morning'.

'How's the little guy?'

'Fine'.

'Upstairs asleep?'

Yeah, that's right. He's been home alone all night, playing with my collection of hunting knives, while working his way through my extensive library of S&M videos.

'No - he's staying with his dad tonight'.

'Say hi to Matt for me, Miss Malone'.

Oh, thank you. And yeah, I did catch the way you stressed Miss.

There goes your Christmas tip, malacca (the only Greek profanity I know).

I took the elevator to the fourth floor. I unlocked the three deadbolts on my door. The apartment was appallingly silent. I went straight into Ethan's room. I sat on his bed. I stroked his Power Rangers pillow case (okay, I think the Power Rangers are totally dumb - but try having a discussion about aesthetics with a seven-year-old boy). I looked at all the guilt gifts Matt had recently bought him (an iMac computer, dozens of CD-Roms, top-of-the-line roller blades). I looked at all the guilt gifts I had recently bought him (a walking Godzilla, a complete set of Power Ranger action figures, two dozen jigsaw puzzles). I felt a stab of sadness. All this booty, all this crap - all given in an attempt to ease parental remorse. The same remorse I feel when - two or three times a week - I have to stay late at the office or go out to some business dinner, and am therefore forced to get Claire (the part-time Australian nanny who picks up Ethan from school and looks after him until I come home) to stay on. Though Ethan rarely chides me for these evening absences, I always feel lousy about them... a mega-guilt fear that, if Ethan turns out to be a sociopath (or develops a taste for crack at the age of sixteen), it will be due to all those nights I was out working late. Working, I might add, to pay the rent, to meet my half of his tuition, to meet the bills... and (I also might add) to give my own life some definition and purpose. I tell you, women like me can't win these days. You have all these post-feminist 'family values' creeps playing the 'kids need stay-at-home moms' card. Then you have the depressing example of certain members of my generation who have decided to do the Soccer Mom thing in the 'burbs, and are silently going ga-ga.

When you're a divorced working mom, you have stereophonic guilt... because not only are you not at home when your son comes back from school, but you also feel partially to blame for undermining your child's sense of security. I can still see Ethan's wide-eyed confusion, his terrified bewilderment, when, five years ago, I tried to explain to him that his daddy would now be living elsewhere.

I glanced at my watch. Six forty-eight. I was tempted to jump a cab downtown to Matt's place. But then I saw myself loitering like a deranged stalker outside of Matt's building, waiting for them to emerge. I also feared running into Her, and maybe losing my much-heralded cool (ha!). Anyway, Ethan might be rattled to see me outside his dad's building - and might think (as he has intimated recently on several occasions) that Mommy and Daddy were getting back together. Which is not going to happen. Ever.