Danielle Steel: Happy Birthday: A Novel

Debbie had married one of the team doctors within a year of their divorce, and was happy and had had three more kids, all boys. And she and Jack had a son who was twenty-one, a senior at Boston University, and he had absolutely no interest in football, except to admire what his father had accomplished. Basketball was his sport, since he was tall too, but he was a better student than Jack had ever been and wanted to go to law school. He had no interest whatsoever in pro sports. He didn’t even watch football on TV.

Jack hobbled across the lobby when he got to the network, almost crawled into the elevator, and stood doubled over after pressing the button for his floor. He couldn’t stand up straight, and didn’t see the face of the woman who got into the elevator after him. All he saw were high-heeled black shoes, a red coat, and good legs. But he didn’t want to think about that now. A monastery maybe for his golden years.

The woman in the red coat and black shoes pressed the button for her floor and stood near him. “Are you all right?” she asked with concern.

“Not really, but I’ll live,” he said, and tried to look up at her and winced. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember who she was, and then it hit him. She was the gracious lifestyle guru of the world, and he was hunched over like Quasimodo, in gym clothes, flip-flops, uncombed hair, in need of a shave. He was in so much pain he almost didn’t care. He had always thought she looked a little too perfect on TV, but there was a sympathetic look in her eyes now, which confirmed to him just how bad he looked. It was pathetic. And as he looked at her, he noticed a tiny pinprick of blood on either side of her mouth, barely noticeable, but it caught his eye. “I herniated a disk,” he explained, “and I think you cut yourself shaving,” he added. She looked startled and touched her face.

“It’s nothing,” she said vaguely about the pinpricks, as they stopped at his floor. That didn’t always happen, but it had today. She had gone to get her Botox shots after seeing the psychic, and before work. She had no intention of explaining it to him, and wondered if he knew anyway. She knew who he was too, and had seen him around the network, looking handsome. He was a mess today, and seemed very sick or badly injured.

“Do you need help getting out?” She seemed sorry for him. It was obvious just how much he was hurting.

“If you could just keep the door open till I get out. If I get hit with it, I’ll probably be a quadriplegic. I had a little too much Halloween last night,” he said as he shuffled through the elevator door. He had been hoping to have a little too much birthday celebration too, but that was clearly no longer in the cards for him, and maybe never would be again, he thought mournfully, as he thanked her, and the doors closed behind him.

He could hardly move by the time he got to his office and collapsed on the couch and lay down with a loud moan. His favorite production assistant, Norman Waterman, came in and stared at him in amazement. Norman had worshipped him as a kid and knew all the statistics on him better than Jack did himself. He still had all his football cards, and Jack had signed every one of them for him.

“Holy shit, Jack! What happened to you? You look like you got hit by a train.”

“Yeah, I did. I had an accident last night. Herniated disk. Is George here? I have to see him about the show tomorrow.”

“I’ll get him. Hey, happy birthday by the way!”

“How do you know?” Jack looked at him, distressed.

“Are you kidding? You’re a legend, man. I’ve always known your birthday, and they announced it on the news this morning.”

“My birthday or my age?” Jack asked, looking panicked.

“Both, of course. People know anyway. Anyone who ever followed football knows how old you are. You’re NFL history.”

“That’s all I need. I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, and now they’re reminding everyone of how old I am. Terrific.” He told most of the girls he went out with that he was thirty-nine, and they weren’t old enough to have followed his career or care. A lot of them believed him, and they were all excited to go out with Jack Adams. Announcing on the news that he was fifty was not going to help his dating career, but neither had Ms. Catwoman, who had reduced him to rubble in one night. He felt like crap. “What are you doing to celebrate tonight?” Norman asked innocently as Jack groaned.

“Suicide probably. Just get George, will you?”

“Sure, Jack … and happy birthday again.” He said it with feeling as Jack closed his eyes, lying on the couch in agony, and didn’t answer. Norman’s admiration of him was touching, but all he wanted for this birthday was to be out of pain and to have his life back again. A life of sex and women.* * *

At her desk several floors above, Valerie was going through a stack of fabric samples she wanted to use on a show about redoing your living room, and others for a segment on decorating for Christmas. Some of them were pretty good. There were stacks of samples and photographs all over her desk. Everything was in meticulous order, and she had her shows organized well in advance. She had a busy week ahead. She had checked in the mirror when she got in, to look for the spots of blood Jack had mentioned. They were tiny specks, and she washed them off, thinking that it was rude of him to mention it, particularly given the way he looked. He had always seemed very cocky to her when she saw him, and he always looked to be right off the cover of Sports Illustrated or GQ . Now in sharp contrast, he appeared as though he had been living in a cave somewhere or washed up on a beach after a shipwreck, but he’d been visibly in a lot of pain. And then she forgot about him, as she made notes for her upcoming shows. She had only two hours to work before she met her daughter for their birthday lunch at La Grenouille. Lunch at the elaborate French restaurant was an annual tradition for them, and it was the only birthday celebration Valerie would have today.

It was not good news to Valerie when her impeccably efficient secretary Marilyn had told her that her birthday had been announced on television that morning, and more than once. So not only everyone who listened to the radio now knew her age, but anyone who watched morning news too. The cat was certainly out of the bag. And it did nothing to console her when Marilyn told her that it was Jack Adams’s, the retired quarterback and sportscaster’s, birthday too. Valerie didn’t bother to tell her she’d just seen him in the elevator doubled over in pain. Valerie didn’t give a damn if it was his birthday or how old he was, it was bad enough that she had turned sixty and the whole goddamn world now knew it. How much worse could it get? The entire planet now knew that she was an old woman, and even Alan Starr’s predictions for love and success in the coming year were no consolation for that, and who knew if they would happen anyway. The reality of her age was depressing beyond belief. Sixty felt like the new ninety to her.

Chapter 2

April Wyatt rolled out of bed without even remembering what day it was for the first few minutes. The alarm went off, and she was up and on her feet, and shuffled off to the bathroom. It was just after four A.M. She wanted to be at the fish market in the South Bronx by five, and at the produce market by six. She had a lot to buy for her restaurant. She was halfway through brushing her teeth when she remembered that it was her birthday. Normally, she didn’t really care, but she was upset about it this year. She was turning thirty and had been dreading it. She hated “landmark birthdays.” They made you measure yourself against everyone else’s yardstick, and by traditional standards she didn’t measure up. By thirty you were supposed to be married, have children and/or a successful job, and maybe even own a house. April had a restaurant, didn’t have a husband or even a boyfriend, and was light-years away from having kids or even thinking about it. She was in debt up to her ears to her mother for the building she had put up the money for so April could open the restaurant that had been her dream and was now the joy of her life. It was doing well, but she was still paying back the debt to her mother. She never pressed her about it, but April wanted to pay it off. She figured that in another five years, maybe she would, if the restaurant kept making money the way it was. The building, with the apartment above it where she lived and had an office, was in the meat-packing district of New York. It had been a slum years before, and the building had needed a lot of renovation to bring it up to code, which April had done, spending as little on it as she could. She had put everything she could into the restaurant itself. Her apartment was a dump.