Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel (10 page)

BOOK: Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel
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Nate and I met at a mixer on the first day of law school. His reputation had proceeded him. The girls all whispered about his looks and his family money, the guys all talked about his father, the chairman of his family’s multimillion-dollar corporation, whose name was often bandied about when discussing possible candidates for New York City mayor.

“Law is just a first step for me,” he told me the first time we met. “After practicing for a few years, I’d like to make a bid for a judgeship at some point or a move into politics.”

“That’s great,” I said. But I didn’t think it was great. It just reinforced what I already hated about him: of course he can try for a judgeship or a move into politics. For others, that would be a pipe dream. But when you have the Upper West Side Sugarmans backing you, anything is possible.

Our second year of law school, we were matched up against each other in the Moot Court Competition. It was a semester-long competition that entailed massive amounts of research, the drafting of a twenty-page brief, and culminated in an hour-long oral argument against your adversary.

What I recall most about it was how Nate and his friends didn’t take it at all seriously—they didn’t take most of law school seriously either, but this was the one thing I felt was important. It was a chance to actually test out our lawyering skills in a mock setting, before we had a real client and stood before an impatient judge. But Nate and his minions did subpar research, and adjusted the margins on their briefs so they could write less but make it appear as if they’d completed the assignment properly. All throughout prep, I told myself that it was great that Nate didn’t take this exercise seriously. I could beat him with my eyes closed.

But then, the day of our argument, he threw me for a loop. We arrived at oral argument, both of us in our navy blue lawyer suits, ready to go. His hair was slicked back, and I had mine in a bun. We looked just like real lawyers.

“Best of luck, Goodman,” he said to me, hand outstretched to shake as we made our way toward the bench.

“Best of luck to you, too,” I said, confident that I was going to win.

And then I saw them. Beneath that tailored blue suit was something that just didn’t belong.

Sneakers. Nate Sugarman was wearing sneakers.

I just couldn’t get over his footwear and I told him so. I told him that Moot Court was to be taken seriously. He laughed and told me that no one could see his feet as he stood behind the bar, but that wasn’t the point. I could see them. Our classmates could see them. It was as if the rules didn’t apply to Nate Sugarman. We all had to dress up in our uncomfortable lawyer shoes, but not Nate. Nate could just glide by in life in a pair of tennis shoes.

In hindsight, I tell myself that the shoes are what annoy me most about that day. Not the fact that Nate won our oral argument.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that Nate Sugarman is the one member of my graduating class who knows I was recently accused of murder. Ahem, attempted murder. Not exactly fodder for pleasant cocktail hour conversation.

“Oh, hi,” I say, remembering that the host of the party, Joseph, is standing next to me. “This is Joey.”

Now I’m stuck. I don’t want to be with Joseph, or his cigar, but I certainly don’t want to ditch him and get stuck with Nate Sugarman. My only true play here is to pretend I’m on a date with Joseph. He may be slightly slimy, but he is the party’s host, and Nate’s at this party, so who is he to judge?

“Do you want a cigar?” Joseph asks Nate.

“Oh, thanks, man,” Nate says. “But I don’t smoke.”

Joseph nods his head and resumes staring at my chest. A woman with much larger breasts walks by, and Joseph excuses himself.

“Well, I’ll just let the two of you reconnect,” Joseph says, and makes a hasty exit.

“Do you need a drink?” Nate asks me. I hold up my glass to show him that I don’t.

“So, are you still with your firm?” Nate asks. I know he’s just trying to make small talk, but this seemingly innocuous question is the crux of what’s wrong with my life; the reason why I’m out here in the first place.

“Yes,” I fib. It’s not really a lie. It’s more of a half-truth. “Are you still with the DA?”

“Yup,” he says. “I love it.”

“Great,” I say, feeling a surge of anger as I realize that Nate’s life plan, as laid out for me on our first day of law school, is going off without a hitch. Today, the DA’s office. Tomorrow, a bid for a judgeship or a move into politics. The Oval Office awaits. Why does his life get to move along perfectly as mine continues to fall apart? My eyes dart around for an exit strategy. “Would you please excuse me?”

I turn on my heel and make a beeline for the house. I tell my grandmother that I’m going to the bathroom and breeze by her before she has a chance to say a word.

There’s a long line for the guest bathroom. But waiting on a long line is much better than the alternative—mingling at the party—so I lean against the wall and wait my turn.

Twenty-five minutes later, I walk out of the bathroom, ready to face the party.

“What are you doing?” my grandmother asks. I’m not even five feet from the bathroom when she accosts me.

“Using the ladies room,” I say. We walk together down the hallway. I try to adopt the dance-walk move I saw my grandmother doing earlier, but on me, it just looks silly.

“You were talking to two different young men,” she says, “and you rejected both of them within ten minutes.”

“Oh,” I said. “I already know the tall one from law school. And I hate him.”

“Well, he doesn’t seem to hate you,” she says. “Not at all. Why didn’t you dance with him?”

“Because I don’t want to dance,” I say.

“You don’t want to dance. You don’t want to make new friends. What, exactly, do you want to do?”

“Have a frosty beverage,” I say as I sail out of the house and toward the bar.

I make my way through the crowd on the deck, determined not to look back to see what my grandmother is doing. My plan is this: I will order and then down one of those delicious-looking high-calorie cocktails, then I will tell my grandmother I have a headache, and make my way home. I look down to check the time (
You should never leave a party in less than ninety minutes—it’s simply rude to the host,
my grandmother would say), but then remember that my grandmother wouldn’t let me wear my watch.
Why do you need to constantly check your watch if you’re out having fun?
And, owing to the tiny size of my sarong, there was nowhere to put a cell phone.

As I sip my strawberry daiquiri, I do a mental calculation: it must have taken about half an hour to walk into the party, meet the host and his father, and then bump into Nate. Then, I was on the bathroom line for another half hour, so if I drink this daiquiri slowly, I can leave this party when I’m done without provoking the ire of my grandmother.

Thinking about all of this, I can’t help but laugh to myself. Some people have grandmothers who stay at home and bake all day. I have a grandmother who goes out all day to party, and gets angry if I don’t do the same. Double if I don’t flirt with every eligible man I see.

“What’s so funny?” Nate Sugarman again.

“Oh, nothing,” I say. “I was just thinking about something my grandmother said.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh,” he says. And then, to the bartender: “I’ll have what she’s having.”

I can tell by the look on his face as he waits for his drink that Nate Sugarman is not used to awkward silences. I bet he’s also not used to girls who aren’t charmed by him either. But I specialize in awkward silences, awkward silences actually make me feel comfortable, and I am not charmed by Nate Sugarman.

“Sweet,” he says. I turn to face him and I can see his mouth trying to fight off a wince. He’s talking about the strawberry daiquiri. So maybe he’s a little charming.

I suppose he’s attractive in a certain way. Today he’s wearing a pink polo shirt and matching patchwork shorts, and it shows off how tall and lean he is. I say lean, because lean is different from skinny. Lean is something you become by having a standing tennis date or a set tee time. Skinny is something you become by being a starving musician living on the Lower East Side, unsure if you’ll have enough money to buy yourself dinner that night. My ex, the musician, was skinny.

As I stand next to him at the bar, I notice that Nate Sugarman has a lot of freckles. And I mean a lot. They dot his nose and part of his cheeks and cover his arms. He is fair, but you can tell his skin would still tan easily, and he has very, very dark brown hair. Almost black. And it’s straight, not like my unruly mane.

“Do you want to dance?” he says.

“Oh, no thank you,” I say, because that’s what I always say when someone asks me to dance.

“C’mon,” he says, grabbing my arm. “It will be fun.”

I generally don’t hang out with men who ask me to dance, or would grab my arm to get me to dance. Or have fun of any variety, really. It wouldn’t seem cool. But Nate, as it turns out, is hard to say no to.

So we dance. And it’s not half bad. I can’t remember the last time I surrendered to a moment like this. Danced, smiled. Enjoyed myself without thinking about it.

Everyone on the deck is bouncing around unself-consciously, and people are genuinely having a great time. Nate and I are still holding our big frosty glasses and the iced glass feels good in my hand. Nate takes his and puts it to the back of his neck, then waves his hand in front of his face to denote: it’s hot out here. It makes me laugh.

The song changes over to another pop song, one of those songs the radio stations play on overdrive during the summer. Nate points to the speakers, as if to acknowledge that this is
that
song. He’s probably the type who has a favorite summer song each summer.

I feel a presence beside me, and I look to my right. It’s my grandmother cutting a rug with Walter. And they seem to be having a great time. I smile and turn to face them. My grandmother grabs my glass and I think she’s about to put it down on a nearby table. Instead, she takes a sip of my strawberry daiquiri.

“Too sweet,” she yells, over the blaring music, and makes a mild grimace.

“I agree,” Nate says, also yelling. He puts his drink down on the table next to where my grandmother has deposited mine.

“This is Nate,” I say. And then, to Nate: “This is my grandmother and her friend Walter.”

“Good to see you again, Mrs. Morganfelder,” Nate says. “Hi, Walter.”

I’m impressed. I thought my grandmother knew every single man out here who was over sixty, but it appears that she has not discriminated. She knows every single man out here, period. It is only later that I’ll realize that I mentioned Nate by name when I told her the story about being questioned by the DA and then wonder why she didn’t mention to me at the time that she knew him.

The song changes again, but this one has a Latin beat to it, and somehow, all of the party guests take this as their cue to grab their partners for the merengue.

My grandmother and Walter are dancing, twirling, and then Nate grabs my hand. He puts his other hand around my waist, and then, just like that, we, too, are doing the merengue. At least I learned something from my Cuban ex, even if our relationship did end in attempted homicide. I think about asking Nate how he knows how to do this dance, but then I do something else. Something I never do.

I let Nate lead. He pulls me close and I can smell the sunscreen on his skin. He puts his cheek to mine and it feels rough, like he didn’t shave this morning. When he twirls me just so, I enjoy the view out to the beach. I look over and smile when I see my grandmother enjoying herself. And then, as much as I hate to admit, I begin enjoying myself, too.

 

Fourteen

My grandmother’s party is days away. I know this because Eleanor is running around the house like a chicken without its head. Even though my grandmother has hired a party planner—the best on the East End, of course—Eleanor’s job is to oversee her work. Eleanor takes her job very seriously. Especially when it comes to bossing other people around.

“She wants to use paper napkins for the cocktail hour,” Eleanor tells us, as my grandmother and I sit by the pool. “Paper!”

“What’s wrong with paper?” I ask.

Eleanor looks at me with horror. The party planner walks over to my grandmother’s chaise longue.

“I just thought it would be fun to create a monogram and then use that throughout the party. Like a theme. A signature. It would appear on the paper napkins for the cocktail hour and the paper guest towels in the bathroom.”

“You want to use paper in the bathrooms as well?” Eleanor asks.

I can’t help but suppress a giggle. I have a vision of Eleanor stripping the bathrooms of toilet paper and having everyone use linen to wipe their behinds.

“This is not funny,” Eleanor says. “The party is in a few days.”

“I think what Eleanor is trying to say,” my grandmother explains, “is that we prefer to use linen napkins for the cocktail hour, as well as linen guest towels in the bathrooms. We had discussed a rental. Can we still make that happen?”

“Of course,” the party planner says. “I have a hold for linens, let me just call to let them know it’s a go.” She gets on her cell phone.

“Does anyone ever say no to you?” I ask my grandmother.

“There have been one or two along the way who have been immune to my charms,” she says with a smile.

The loud beeping of a truck backing up tells us the tent rental is here. Eleanor rushes off—thrilled to have another group of people to boss around—and my grandmother and I sit back in our lounge chairs and look out toward the ocean.

“Are you excited for the party?” my grandmother asks me.

“I guess so.” I’m not sure what she’s fishing for, so I figure that noncommittal is my best bet.

“Well, I couldn’t let an occasion like you coming to visit me for the entire summer pass me by.”

“Heaven forbid,” I say. I take a sip of my iced tea and my grandmother does the same.

“It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?” she asks.

“It’s perfect,” I say. Because it is. “The umbrellas give just the right amount of shade and the breeze coming off the ocean is amazing.”

BOOK: Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel
12.76Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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