The Pursuit of Happiness (2001)

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘They do value me. They just have difficulty expressing such things.’

  ‘They undervalue you. They shouldn’t.’

  He looked at me with amazement. ‘Do you really think that, Sara?’

  I ran my index finger down along his face. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I really do think that.’

  I sneaked out of his room just before daybreak. I fell into bed for around an hour, but couldn’t sleep. So I had a bath. Then I dressed and went downstairs, deciding to head out for a walk. En route to the front door, I passed by the dining room, and heard a voice: ‘You must have slept badly, Miss Smythe.’

  I stopped and saw Mrs Grey seated at the end of the dining table. She was already dressed and coiffed for the day, a cup of coffee in front of her.

  ‘Not that badly.’

  She gave me a look of ironic disdain. ‘If you say so. Is George still asleep?’

  I tried to fight off a blush. I don’t think I succeeded as she arched her eyebrows.

  ‘I wouldn’t really know,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t. Coffee?’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you …’

  ‘If you were disturbing me, I wouldn’t ask you to join me in a cup of coffee, now would I?’

  ‘Coffee would be lovely,’ I said, sitting down. She got up and went over to a banquette, on which sat a sterling silver coffee pot and the appropriate china. She poured me a cup, returned to the table and set it in front of me.

  ‘I’m certain the coffee will be most welcome after your restive night,’ she said.

  Oh God … I lifted the coffee cup up to my lips and took a quick sip. Then I set it down again. In the space of that simple movement, I’d decided to ignore her last comment. Instead I asked: ‘Did you yourself sleep badly?’

  ‘I always sleep badly. And you’re dodging my question.’

  I met her gaze. ‘Had you asked me a question, Mrs Grey, I would have promptly answered it. Because it would have been impolite otherwise. But you didn’t ask me a question. You simply made an observation.’

  Another of her tight smiles. ‘I can see now why you are a writer. Your powers of observation are formidable.’

  ‘I’m not a writer.’

  ‘You’re not?’ she said. ‘Then what about that story in Saturday Night/Sunday Morning?’

  ‘One published story doesn’t make someone a writer.’

  ‘Such modesty … especially given the immodesty of the story. Were you in love with that Navy boy?’

  ‘It was a story, Mrs Grey, not a personal remembrance.’

  ‘Of course it was, dear. Twenty-four-year-old women writers always invent stories about the love of their life.’

  ‘There is something called imagination …’

  ‘Not when it comes to a story like yours. It’s a common enough genre: romantic confessional box; the sort of thing one usually finds in the Ladies’ Home Companion …’

  ‘If you are trying to insult me, Mrs Grey …’

  ‘Hardly, dear. But do answer me this … and note that I am phrasing this as a question: did you actually spend the night with your sailor in a cheap hotel?’

  I narrowed her in my sights. ‘No, he actually spent the night at my apartment. And he wasn’t a sailor. He was in the Army.’

  There was a pause, during which she raised her coffee cup and took a sip. ‘Thank you for clarifying matters.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘And if you think I am going to tell George about this, you are mistaken.’

  ‘I sense George already knows.’

  ‘Don’t be so certain of that. When it comes to women, men only hear what they want to hear. It’s one of the many failures of their sex.’

  ‘You think your son George is a failure, don’t you?’

  ‘George is a well-meaning boy. Not one of life’s natural leaders, but modest and humane. For the life of me, I don’t know what a smart girl like you sees in him. Your marriage will fail. Because, eventually, he will bore you.’

  ‘Who says we will marry?’

  ‘Trust me: you will. C’est le moment juste. It’s how it happens. But it will be a ghastly mistake.’

  ‘May I ask you a question, Mrs Grey?’

  ‘Of course, dear.’

  ‘Did your son’s death transform you into a misanthrope, or were you always so bitter and joyless?’

  She pursed her lips, and considered her reflection in the black sheen surface of her coffee. After a moment, she looked back up at me. ‘I’ve enjoyed our conversation enormously, dear. It has been most enlightening.’

  ‘For me as well.’

  ‘I’m so glad. And I must say I’ll come away from our little talk with a splendid realization … what I think you writers call an epiphany.’

  ‘Which is what, Mrs Grey?’

  ‘We are never going to like each other.’

  Later that morning, I boarded a train back to Manhattan with George. We sat in the Club Car. He insisted on buying us a bottle of champagne (which turned out to be New York State sparkling wine). He insisted on holding my hand all the way to Grand Central Station. He could not take his adoring eyes off me. He looked love-sick - that same morning-after glow which I must have radiated on that Thanksgiving morning eighteen months ago.

  Somewhere south of Port Chester, he said, ‘Marry me.’

  I heard myself reply, ‘All right.’

  He appeared stunned. ‘What?’

  ‘All right, I’ll marry you.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  ‘Yes. I mean it.’

  His stunned expression quickly gave way to elation. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.

  ‘Believe it,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll have to call my parents as soon as we get to Manhattan. They’ll be so thrilled. My mother especially.’

  ‘Of course they will,’ I said quietly.

  I didn’t say a word to George about the little chat that his mother and I had had over breakfast that morning. Nor did I relate its contents to Eric. Because I knew that - had I described the conversation with Mrs Grey, or told him about the extraordinary stiffness of the family into which I was marrying - he would have tried to talk me out of the engagement.

  So I said nothing - except that I was happy as hell, and knew I was making the right decision. He met George for that drink at the Astor Hotel. He found him benignly pleasant. Afterwards, when George asked me if he’d made a reasonable impression on my brother, I said, ‘He thought you were great.’

  Just like your mother thought I was wonderful. Oh, the lies we tell each other to dodge everything we don’t want to face.

  Of course, immediately after accepting George’s proposal, a doubting voice began to amplify inside my head. More troubling was the discovery that, the more time I spent with George, the louder that voice became. Eventually - after a few weeks - it was so omnipresent that I started to think: I must bail out. Quickly.

  But then, a day or so later, I woke up to discover myself violently ill. For the remainder of the week, my morning would begin with a manic dash to the bathroom. Certain that I had been felled with some amoebic bug, I made an appointment to see Dr Ballensweig. He ran a few tests. When he gave me the results, I felt as if I had been hit by a car.

  As soon as I got home, I phoned George at the bank.

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ he said.

  ‘We need to talk,’ I said.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said, suddenly worried.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Is it something terrible?’

  ‘That depends on how you look at it.’

  ‘Tell me, darling. Tell me.’

  Another deep breath. Then I said, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Seven

  A FEW TERRIBLE days later, I went over to Eric’s apartment and told him my news. He flinched, then fell silent. Finally, he asked me a question. ‘Are you happy about this?’

  That’s when I burst into tears, burying my head in my brother’s s
houlder. He held me and rocked me. ‘You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to,’ he whispered.

  I pulled my head off his shoulder. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m just saying: if you want out, I can probably help you.’

  ‘Medically, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘An actress friend knows of this doctor …’

  I held up my hand. ‘I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I was only offering …’

  ‘I know, I know - and I appreciate …’

  I broke off and buried my head in his shoulder again. ‘I really don’t know what the hell to do,’ I said.

  ‘Let me ask you this: do you really want to marry this guy?’

  ‘No. It’s a mistake. His mother even said that to me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After that night I spent at their house in Greenwich.’

  ‘Was that the night you and George … ?’

  I nodded. And blushed. ‘Somehow she knew.’

  ‘She was probably standing outside the door, listening in. Anyway, if she says it’s a mistake, then she wouldn’t be too shocked if you decided not to go through with the wedding.’

  ‘You cannot be serious. George knows I’m pregnant. His parents know I’m pregnant. There is absolutely no way that I am going to be allowed out of this.’

  ‘This is not a feudal state - despite the best efforts of the Republican Party. You are not chattel. You can do whatever the hell you want.’

  ‘You mean, raise this child on my own?’

  ‘Yes. In fact, we could do it together.’

  It took a moment or two for this to register. ‘I’m touched. Deeply touched. But it’s an insane idea. And you know it. I couldn’t raise this child on my own.’

  ‘I would be there.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m talking about.’

  ‘You’re worried about what other people would think.’

  ‘I’m worried about being completely marginalized. You’ve said it over and over: at heart, we’re a puritan country. We ostracize anyone who commits a sexual transgression. And having a child out of wedlock - then raising it on your own - is considered a very big sin.’

  ‘So being in a terrible marriage is a better alternative?’

  ‘I’m sure I can make it work. George is not a bad man.’

  ‘Not a bad man. That’s one hell of an endorsement, S.’

  ‘I know, I know. But … what can I do?’

  ‘Make the tough call. Tell him you’ll have the kid, but you won’t have him.’

  ‘I’m not that brave, Eric. I’m too damn conventional.’

  ‘Well, by the time Georgie-boy and his parents are finished with you, you’re going to feel like a character in an Ibsen play.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘How did they take the news?’

  I considered this question, and finally answered, ‘They took it reflectively.’

  ‘Reflectively?What the hell do you mean by that?’

  ‘They had a measured response to the news.’

  ‘They’re WASPs, for God’s sake, not Italians Of course they’d be measured. But I bet they were a bit glacial as well.’

  I said nothing. Because glacial was the right word. Though George had informed his parents of our engagement on the afternoon I accepted his proposal, it was agreed that we’d wait at least a month or two before deciding on a date for the wedding.

  Then I got the news from Dr Ballensweig, and had to pass it on to George. He took it pretty well, telling me how much he wanted children with me. I did point out that a child might put a strain on a new marriage - especially one where the two people involved had only known each other for a month before getting engaged. But George reassured me that all would be fine.

  ‘We’re going to be just hunky-dory,’ he said. ‘Because when we’re as much in love as we are, all problems are easily solvable.’

  Hunky-dory. Wonderful.

  ‘Naturally,’ he said, ‘Mother and Father might be a tad concerned about the fact that the wedding will now have to be brought a little forward.’

  ‘You’ll break the news to them, won’t you?’

  There was a long silence on the phone. When he spoke again, he sounded like a man who had just been ‘volunteered’ into leading the advance party into Injun Country.

  ‘Of course I’ll tell them,’ he said, his nervousness so apparent. ‘And I know they are going to be thrilled to be grandparents.’

  He went up to Connecticut the following night. Early the next morning, the phone rang at my office. It was my future mother-in-law.

  ‘Julia Grey here,’ she said crisply.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said, sounding seriously thrown.

  ‘I am planning to be in the city tomorrow. It is important that we meet. Say four p.m. in the Palm Court of the Plaza. All right?’

  Before I had time to reply, she had put down the receiver - making it very clear that she didn’t care whether or not that time was suitable for me. I was being summoned. I would be there.

  Instantly I picked up the phone and called George at his office.

  ‘Darling, I was just about to call you,’ he said.

  ‘Your mother pre-empted you.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘And from her brusque tone, it’s pretty clear how she took the news.’

  He cleared his throat. Loudly. Then said, ‘Naturally, it came as a surprise to them. But after the initial… uh …’

  ‘Shock?’

  ‘Yes, well, uh, they were, truth be told, quite shocked. But that only lasted a moment or two. After which they became …’

  ‘Furious?’

  ‘Reflective.’

  ‘Now they really hate me.’

  ‘Darling, they don’t hate you at all. On the contrary …’

  ‘They think what? That I am a great social catch? The perfect banker’s wife?’

  I could almost hear him squirming at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Darling, everything will be fine. Just fine. Trust me.’

  ‘I have no choice, do I?’

  ‘And don’t worry about Mother’s brusqueness. It’s just …’

  ‘Her style, I suppose?’