Life and Other Inconveniences

by Higgins, Kristan

  He floated through six years of undergraduate studies in New Hampshire, changing majors three times, popular by way of his name, wealth and, of course, his mother’s business.

  The college finally expelled him after a drunken episode when he set a fire in the Rauner Special Collections Library. It was funny; they had no sense of humor, those snotty academic assholes. Who really read Shakespeare, anyway? It was the final straw, the dean said. Clark didn’t care. He was bored anyway.

  He returned to Sheerwater for three weeks before Genevieve informed him he had a job and an apartment in Manhattan, where he’d be moving the coming weekend.

  That was fine. He was supposed to be a titan of some kind, and why not? Born to an impressive family, the finest education, blah blah blah. This was what happened to kids like him—they knew people, or their parents did, or they joined certain clubs at certain Ivy League schools, and bam! A seat in the House or Senate, or a job with an impressive title, a huge salary and a corner office, regardless of ability to do the work. Sorry, everyone not born with a pedigree. That’s how real life works. You can be a self-made man, like . . . like Spider-Man or something, or you could do it Clark’s way.

  Career-wise, all Clark had to do was show up. His job was with FHK, the advertising agency that handled his mother’s empire. Vice president of customer relations, whatever that meant. Starting salary, $400K a year. Six weeks’ paid vacation, an office overlooking St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a smokin’-hot secretary fifteen years older than he was who knew more about the accounts than he ever would and made a tenth what he did.

  His apartment was fantastic. His mother had furnished it (of course); an Upper East Side flat on the thirty-second floor, two bedrooms, giant living room, kitchen, three baths, terrace. Leather couches and soft towels, a maid service twice a week, a fully stocked bar, probably expensive artwork on the walls.

  He deserved it, because he was a London, an almost-graduate of Dartmouth College, and he knew his way around sailboats. That was his job, apparently. Taking clients out on the company sailboat. Buying them cocktails at the Standard. Golfing in Westchester County. Treating them for dinner at Peter Luger’s or whatever restaurant had a Michelin star, then out to a high-class strip club, depending on the client’s taste. Clark would sit in a conference room while a minion threw around terms like ROI and attribution and media buys, and he would fantasize about screwing his assistant. That was his birthright. Sorry, suckers.

  He knew he was hated at FHK—by those above him, who’d naively thought he’d bring a little more to the table, being Genevieve’s son, and now found themselves with an employee they couldn’t fire; and by those beneath him, who had to do all the grunt work and know things and have talent. Clark knew it wasn’t fair—he had nothing to offer other than a few choice stories about his mother, or some of his more colorful shenanigans at Dartmouth. He knew he was a shell. That he’d be nothing without his name. He knew his mother wished he’d been kidnapped and/or murdered instead of St. Sheppard. Try living with that legacy. “And this is Clark, the son we wish we’d lost.” The disappointing second. The never-as-good-as-Sheppard son.

  Too fucking bad, Mother.

  One day a couple of years into his employment (so long as Genevieve used FHK, they had to keep him), the firm sent him to Chicago for some reason he wasn’t clear on . . . take some client to dinner and schmooze them, which Clark did, the entire night wondering just what it was that the client made and what FHK was supposed to do for them. Didn’t matter. The client was about his age—James or Jay or Jack—Clark just called him J-Dog.

  They met at a ridiculously overpriced restaurant, Clark taking out his reliable stories. “Yes, that Genevieve London is my mother. Don’t make me tell you about the New Year’s Eve when she rolled naked in the snow with Ruth Bader Ginsburg!” The fact was, if RBG had visited Sheerwater, Clark wouldn’t have known who she was. He knew she was tiny and old and women loved her. Something to do with government.

  When the tab had been paid by the FHK Amex and Clark had glad-handed the Jay or James or Jack to the door, he felt an unexpected loss. J-Dog had liked him. The sommelier had loved him, given that he’d ordered three bottles of wine costing eight hundred bucks each. The waitress also liked him, because she’d gotten a $500 tip. She was pretty and friendly without sucking up to them, and she didn’t interrupt every ten minutes asking how things were.

  But now the night was over, and Clark had nothing left to do. He went back to the table, figuring he’d finish the last of the wine and see if there was a late movie playing somewhere close by.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked when he sat back down. Nice rack. Redheaded, too. He liked redheads.

  “Join me for a drink?” It was closing time, after all. The waitress, who had a month for a name, checked with her boss, then sat down. They ended up talking for another hour. With all the alcohol in his system, Clark felt happy and relaxed and . . . well . . . kind of cool. After all, she didn’t know what he did or didn’t do for work. She didn’t know whose son he was. He was just a wealthy customer, young for an executive, in the city on business.

  “Are you free tomorrow night?” he asked when the manager started turning off lights.

  She was. She took him to a dive bar and, three hours into their date when he called her June, laughed till she cried.

  “You’re two months off,” she said, and when he didn’t get it, she added, “April. My name is April.” She said it nicely, too, not making fun of him.

  She wanted to be a chef, was working at the restaurant to make contacts, was in culinary school part-time, had dreams of owning her own establishment someday.

  He invited her to see his suite at the Drake, where she laughed more and told him it was twice the size of her apartment. She opted not to sleep with him but said if he asked her out again, she’d probably say yes.

  He extended his stay in Chicago for a few days, then a week, then ten days. April was too great to leave. She was happy and energetic and great in bed. She borrowed a bike for him so they could ride through Chicago, which he abruptly loved—Grant Park, the lake, tea at the hotel with all the old ladies, April giggling away.

  On the eleventh day, his boss at FHK told him to get his ass back to New York or lose his job, and by the way, she was about to cancel his company credit card.

  “I quit,” he said unexpectedly. But yes! He didn’t need those ass pains at FHK. He was tired of the thinly veiled contempt, the attitude, the resentment at his Brunello suits, his swanky apartment, his Porsche. They hated him and wished they could be him in the same breath, the hypocrites.

  He would be a novelist, he decided. Why not? Six years at Dartmouth had probably taught him to be a great writer. Besides, with his last name, the publishers would be falling over each other to get to him. It would be a fictionalized memoir of his life—his sad childhood, stories of his horrible, unloving, impressive mother, his adventures with pot and drugs and women, the stupidity of his job in New York, his previously undiscovered genius with words.

  The redheaded April thought it was a great idea. Clark was young, after all. If he wanted to write a novel (he didn’t mention the memoir part, not sure if she would approve), what better time was there? He should go after his dreams.

  She was his dream. Sure she was. He suddenly wanted to be married, to live with her, this happy April, to be normal and loved and have kids and cut the grass, then go into his den, because he would have a den, of course, and write what would clearly be a great American novel, like . . . like . . . like that Hemingway book about fishing. Or Mommy Dearest, because who hadn’t read that one?

  April was his muse. She was vibrant and fun and naive, unlike the Dartmouth girls who’d looked down their perfect noses at him, the New York women who didn’t even pretend they weren’t interested in his money, asking if he owned his apartment, dawdling in front of Tiffany’s, whining a
bout wanting to go to Turks and Caicos. April was different. She loved her really boring but normal, nice parents. She wanted to have kids and own a restaurant and she wasn’t shy about it.

  A chef and a novelist. How cool was that? Wouldn’t they be the best people on the block? Everyone would want to know them, come to their parties, admire how happy they were. They’d summer in Europe and their kids would be really well behaved and maybe there’d be a nanny so April wouldn’t have to take care of them all the time and could still be really hot and beautiful.

  Genevieve was icily furious when he told her he quit, but hey. The Upper East Side apartment was in her name. She could do what she wanted with it.

  Two months after he met April Riley, Clark proposed. He’d been writing furiously, had rented a comfortably furnished town house—it was nice, being like the normal people. He swept April off her feet. It was easy, since he had the trust fund. He could send her flowers, buy her pretty things, ask for her help picking out a car.

  He listened more than he talked, because honestly, he didn’t have too much to say, and it was fun listening to her chatter energetically about work and food and her family. She didn’t really understand who his mother was because she didn’t shop in those circles, and she thought his silence and smiles were because he was smitten. Which he kind of was.

  She said yes. After all, what woman would not love this new Clark, so creative and driven and happy? He’d lost some weight, was better-looking than ever, went with her to the Art Institute and wandered around, making jokes about some of the art, standing in feigned awe at others (they were just pictures . . . some scribbles, some almost as good as photos). It made her happy, and the guy who made April happy had to be a pretty great person.

  Her parents thought they were rushing, but Clark and April didn’t care. They got married at city hall and bought a house in the burbs. When he called Genevieve to tell her the news, there was a long silence.

  “When may I meet my daughter-in-law?” she asked. She flew out the next weekend, and April hugged her and said she hoped they’d be friends.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Genevieve murmured, and April was too naive to realize she’d just been rejected. “Did she sign a prenuptial agreement?” Genevieve asked when April was out of the room.

  “I don’t believe in those,” Clark said, though the truth was, it hadn’t occurred to him. His mother rolled her eyes. Too bad, Mother! You don’t get a say about everything!

  He took great pleasure in showing his mother their house, an ordinary two-story in an ordinary neighborhood in an ordinary town outside Chicago. His trust fund had bought it, and while he could’ve afforded more, he wanted to rub the banality in her face. The neighborhood was everything he hadn’t had as a kid—close-knit and noisy, people’s children riding bikes and playing tag . . . utterly, beautifully ordinary. Clark almost wished he were a kid himself, because the trick-or-treating would be killer around here, and Genevieve had never let him go. It was too common, she’d said. Candy made in a factory somewhere? How garish.

  Marriage was mostly nice. April was in school part-time during the day, worked at night and cooked great meals when she was home. Sex was fantastic. Granted, she irritated him sometimes; she’d ask about how his book was going, or if he’d done the laundry or picked up groceries, and obviously Clark was too busy for that.

  “You’re home a lot more than I am,” she said. “You have to do your share, Clark.” She didn’t want a housekeeper, which was his solution. She said it was silly, there were just two of them, and they should save their money and be self-sufficient. Typical midwesterner.

  So Clark lied about writing, said he had to be out of the house to be productive, said the public library was better, and told her he had meetings with a few agents who were already interested. The library proved to be boring, and writing was harder than it looked.

  My mother always loved my brother best, but he disappeared when he was seven and I was five, and she was never the same after that. If I cried was upset about it, my father would come in my room and cuddle me sit with me. Then my father died, and that really sucked was sad. He was a good dad. Not like my mother, who was a cold woman.

  He didn’t like writing about Sheppard, though his brother’s disappearance was probably the most interesting event of his life. He’d doodle pictures of Genevieve with horns or a penis, then see if the library had any comic books, because his love for them had never died. Sometimes, he took a nap in a worn chair in the stacks.

  He joined a writers’ group that met in the library. Keep at it, they said, those other members. Writing was harder than most people knew! Maybe he needed a break. Refill the well. When two people in the group got published, Clark stopped going. They were irritating, anyway. Thinking about writing was fun, but they were kind of show-offs, talking about page counts and contracts.

  Sometimes, Clark went to the movies; sometimes he went out to eat. Then he joined the Park Ridge Country Club. Didn’t mention his membership to April, because she really wasn’t a country club girl—totally different world from her middle-class upbringing. She didn’t even play tennis. Clark was immediately at home, though. The golf course was fantastic, the tennis courts beautiful.

  There were also a lot of hot women. Tennis moms and college-age daughters, second and third wives wanting to prove they belonged, single women using membership as a way to network.

  So, sure, he had affairs. That was what men did. Chances were his father had cheated on his mother, and who could blame him? Clark bought a sleek condo in Park Ridge so that when he did want to sleep with someone, it was easy. Life was good. Out here, he was out of Genevieve’s shadow at last. His own man. The fact that he lived on the money from his trust fund didn’t matter. Once the book came out, he’d make millions. Once he sold it to Hollywood, more millions. Maybe he’d be a producer. Write the screenplay. How hard could it be?

  When April got pregnant, he wasn’t thrilled. Marriage had kind of lost its shine, frankly. April wasn’t as happy as she used to be. Not as interested in him, either. But hey. A kid would be fine. A son. Maybe he’d name him Sheppard, if only to piss off his mother.

  Sheppard . . . sometimes, a memory stabbed at him while he was dozing . . . the way his heart had lifted when Sheppard asked if he wanted to play. Clark seemed to remember that Shep had helped him brush his teeth at night. But Sheppard hadn’t been perfect, though Mother would stab herself in the heart before admitting it.

  When he and April visited Sheerwater over Christmas, he paused at the pictures of him and his brother. “A handsome boy,” April said, slipping her hand in his.

  “Yeah.”

  “You must miss him so much.”

  “Yup.” He wished his brother hadn’t died. Ditto his father.

  “Let’s not talk of painful subjects, shall we, April?” Genevieve said, frost in her voice. “Clark, do tell me about your . . . book.” She always paused like that, as if she knew he was really fucking tennis moms or falling asleep in movie theaters or playing golf and drinking at eleven a.m.

  “Book’s going great,” he said.

  “It’s going up for auction in Hollywood,” April said, and Clark winced internally. April would buy that kind of lie; Genevieve would not.

  “How very thrilling for you,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, they want a second book,” he said, “plus a proposal for the third, and that’s almost done, so we should know pretty soon.”

  Genevieve lifted an eyebrow, managing to convey that she knew he was lying through his butt. Yes. If the baby was a boy, they’d name it Sheppard, and it would make Genevieve furious. There was only one child named Sheppard in the world, and it was hers.

  The baby was a girl, unfortunately. He floated Sheppard as a girl’s name, but April said no. Her heart was set on the name Emma, so whatever. That was fine. The kid was cute enough. Genevieve visited and pro
nounced her “quite the Riley.” The insinuation was clear . . . Even his kid wasn’t good enough.

  A month after the baby, April’s mother got sick and it was bad, one of those long, wasting diseases with no cure. April was sad, of course, and that got tiring pretty fast. Actually, maybe she was sad before, too. The postpartum depression thing, maybe? It was depressing, that was for sure. No laundry done, the house a mess, smelling like breast milk and sour diapers. Her mother getting sick sure didn’t help. He hired a cleaning service and a private nurse for his mother-in-law, but even that didn’t cheer up his wife.

  When Emma was about four months old and sleeping through the night, Clark told April he had to travel for “research.”

  “You can’t go!” April had wailed. “Are you crazy? I’m barely holding it together, Clark!”

  “I have to,” he snapped. “Who do you think pays the bills around here?”

  “Your family’s money!”

  “You think that covers everything?” he said. “You’re wrong.” Total lie. “I’ve been doing some consulting in the city, and I have to, since you want to stay home with the baby.” Another lie. No one would hire him, for one, because FHK had sued him for breach of contract just to be spiteful. The trust fund could pay for an entire life for the three of them, though, yeah, he’d spent a lot in the past few years. Not that April knew about that.

  They fought. It just made leaving easier.

  God, he’d forgotten how much he loved traveling! Everything was new when you traveled. Every time you saw a street you’d never seen before, where no one knew you, where you could be anyone, where you had no history . . . what was better than that?

  He went to LA, because you never knew who you might meet, especially when you stayed at the coolest hotel in town. Clark dressed the way he thought a writer would—black T-shirt that cost $350, distressed jeans ($900), Converse high-tops (cheap), the $5,000 briefcase his mother had given him when he started at FHK. Monied (i.e., successful), but still cool. He lingered in the hotel lobby, saw Denzel Washington come in with three or four other people, thought about asking for an autograph but then decided to simply pretend he knew him.