Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel (21 page)

We sit on the bench for a while. I’m not sure how long, since I don’t have a watch on. But it’s long enough for our ice cream to melt completely, long enough for the shops to close for the day, long enough for me to feel just the tiniest bit better.

Thirty-two

“So, how are you holding up?” my grandmother asks the following morning.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I say, and my grandmother lets me off the hook. I’m not fine, not at all, but I have the feeling that this situation is only going to get harder as we go along, so I think it’s important to try to be fine now.

“Well, that’s good,” she says, a pained smile on her lips. “I’m fine, too.”

We’re alone at the breakfast table, just the two of us, but it seems different from all the other mornings. Before, we were alone and it was just us. Now, we’re alone, and it’s not just us. We have a full house with my mother, her nurses, and our respective boyfriends. We’re alone, but not alone. I can practically feel the other people through the walls.

“It’s going to be another beautiful day,” she says.

“Great,” I say, stirring some milk into my coffee. “Do you think Gray would be up for a walk on the beach today?”

“I think the sun might be a little too much for her.”

“Well, we do have those floppy hats,” I say, smiling as I take a sip of my coffee.

“Indeed we do,” my grandmother says, eating a piece of fruit. “So, then, let’s do it. When everyone comes downstairs, I’ll announce that today we take a walk after breakfast.”

“Maybe it should just be the three of us,” I say.

“What a lovely idea.”

We smile at each other, but it’s like two different people have taken over our bodies and are speaking for us. The conversation is stilted. The air around us feels heavy.

We sit like that for a while, smiling at each other, eating fruit, and drinking coffee. I’m mindful not to touch my hair at the table, and my grandmother plays the role of old-fashioned grandma, asking me how I slept and how my breakfast is. I half expect her to start baking oatmeal cookies from scratch.

After what seems like an eternity, I say to my grandmother: “I’m scared.”

She barely waits for me to get the words out of my mouth before she says: “I’m scared, too.”

*   *   *

Later that afternoon, Nate is finally ready to leave me alone. For the first time since Tuesday, he leaves my grandmother’s house, off to play a round of golf with his parents, who have just come out for the weekend.

Before I have a moment to enjoy any time to myself, my mother insists that I go see a doctor for a full workup, since apparently pancreatic cancer runs in families. I’m able to get an early appointment, and so I’m back before eleven.

As I walk into the house, I think about what I should do with my time alone—take a swim, go for a walk on the beach, read a paperback by the pool—but Hunter’s got other things in mind. When I get inside, he’s sitting in the living room with my mother.

“Your mother is going to teach me to shoot,” Hunter announces.

“How lovely,” I say, sitting down next to him. I have a strange urge to pull him and hold him close to me. To protect him from my mother. But he seems perfectly all right. Happy, even, to be in her presence.

“How did it go with the doctor?” my mother asks.

“Fine,” I say. “He thinks that everything is just fine.”

“And the nausea you’ve had?” she asks.

“That was just bad chicken salad,” I say. And then, turning to Hunter, “So, you want to be a photographer?”

“Maybe I should go to the doctor, too,” Hunter says. “Good idea, Hannah.”

“It was my idea,” my mother says. “It’s always a good idea to go to the doctor to get checked out.”

I resist the temptation to point out that my mother never went to the doctor before she got sick, that maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be so sick right now.

“Why would you need to go to the doctor?” I ask Hunter.

“You know,” he says, sitting up a bit straighter on the couch. “I’m in a new relationship now. I should get checked out for SDTs and stuff.”

“STDs, you mean,” I say. Surely the fact that he doesn’t know his SDTs from his STDs is a sign that he’s too young to be checked out for them, altogether.

“Before Skylar and I do the deed,” he whispers conspiratorially.

“Oh, my god,” I cry out. “Don’t you dare do the deed. Any deed that you may be referring to. Just don’t do it.”

My mother catches my eye. I can practically see the wheels turning in her head. I look back at her, challenging her, and just wait for her condemnation. Don’t tell him what to do. Let him find his own way, Hannah.

“Relax, Hannah,” Hunter says. “Isn’t that why you went?”

My mother lets out a huge belly laugh.

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “That is not why I went.”

“Well,” he says matter-of-factly, “Sugar has been around the block once or twice, if you know what I mean, so maybe he should get checked out, too.”

My mother laughs even harder. I shoot her the evil eye, but she cannot stop laughing. Tears form at the sides of her eyes as she continues laughing out loud, and she bends over and holds her stomach. It devolves into a cough, so she runs off to the kitchen to get a mug of tea. I want to help her in the kitchen, get the tea for her, but I know that she won’t let me.

“Anyway,” I say to Hunter, “I’m thirty-four. You’re fourteen.”

“You don’t understand,” he says. “Skylar and I have known each other our whole lives. We had this whole thing going on in elementary school and in sixth grade, she was the first girl I kissed. Ever, I mean, not just the first one I kissed in the sixth grade.”

“Okay, just the fact that you can remember what happened in elementary school shows that you are not ready to have sex,” I explain. “You’re too young.”

“I know, I know. I’ve heard this speech before. You were going to say: but, if we’re going to do it,” he says, “we should at least be responsible, right?”

“That is not what I was going to say. I was going to say: just don’t do it. You’re too young.”

“How old were you the first time you had sex?”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” I say. “And, more to the point, it’s none of your business.”

“Then why shouldn’t we have sex?” he says. He’s pouting like a little kid and I want to put a mirror to his little fourteen-year-old face and show it to him, since that’s the crux of my argument.

Instead, I say: “If Skylar gets pregnant right now, it will ruin your life.”

“She’s not going to get pregnant,” he says.

“That’s what everyone says!” I say. “And look at how many people get pregnant!”

“Well, we’re in love,” he says, and folds his arms across his chest.

“You’re fourteen.”

“You can still be in love even if you’re fourteen,” he says, turning to look at me.

“Yes,” I explain. “But that’s puppy love. You have no idea what real love is.”

And it dawns on me that maybe he does know what love is. Who knows what love is, after all? He’s suffered a profound loss at such a young age, does that intensify your feelings? Does that make you feel more? Less? Or maybe he just wants to have sex so he can feel close to someone again.

“Skylar knew my mom,” he says. Without thinking, I grab him into a huge hug and hold him tight. I feel him take a deep breath and let it out. I kiss him on the top of his head and squeeze him tighter.

“Okay, that’s enough,” he says, pulling away. “Skylar’s going to think I’m cheating on her.”

“With her?” my mother says as she walks back into the living room, and laughs out loud again. She’s careful not to spill her mug of tea.

I’m about to say something that I now realize is ridiculous—something about how it’s perfectly reasonable for Skylar to think that Hunter might be cheating with me—when I’m interrupted by my grandmother.

“You three ready for lunch?” my grandmother asks.

“Yes, Mrs. Morganfelder,” Hunter says, and jumps up and heads out to the patio. I excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room.

In minutes, I’m outside and I see Rhett and my mother already at the table. From the look on her face, I can tell he’s been trying to bend her ear, and already exhausted her patience for the day.

“We’re surrounded by such beauty, aren’t we, Monsieur Kensington?” Rhett says to Hunter as I make my way to the table.

“Yup,” Hunter says, and pops a roll into his mouth.

My grandmother looks at Hunter and smiles.

“So, tell us more about your movie ideas,” my mother says to Hunter. It’s obvious how much she enjoys Hunter’s company, and as I see him talking to my mother (“Actually, my lawyer has advised me not to talk about my films anymore. You know, for trademark and copyright reasons.”), I can see why. He’s the only one at the table who doesn’t treat her like she’s sick. While the rest of us fall over one another in an effort to get my mother everything she needs and make sure she’s comfortable, Hunter just sits back and acts like today is any other day.

My mother announces that she’s going to teach Hunter what she knows about photography, which will undoubtedly help him with his future film career.

“How lovely,” my grandmother says.

“I can’t wait,” Hunter says, beaming.

“It’s a shame Peg isn’t here,” my mother says, thinking out loud, “because we could really use an assistant.”

“Oh, Hannah will do it,” Hunter says.

“Then it’s settled,” my mother says.

It happens so fast that I don’t have a moment to object, but when I have a second to think about it I realize that at least it will enable me to help my mother get her tea.

The whole thing makes me think of something that my mother’s assistant said to me, just as she was leaving the house. She said: “You must feel so lucky to have such a brilliant mother.” At the time, all I could think to say back was: “As a matter of fact, I do not,” so instead, I just smiled at her and nodded my head.

My whole life, people have told me that I was lucky to be Gray Goodman’s daughter. But I never saw it that way. To the outsider, it looks like a glamorous life filled with public accolades, world travel, and proximity to an accomplished public figure. But on the inside, you know the truth. You see what it takes to be a woman like Gray Goodman—the sacrifice, the way you have to live your life. The way your daughter has to live hers. I didn’t feel lucky when I missed my eighth-grade graduation dance, the only one that a boy ever asked me to, because we had to travel to Indonesia for a story. I didn’t feel lucky at the award ceremony when she won the Pulitzer, where I was mostly ignored for the evening. I didn’t feel lucky when she missed the third-grade spelling bee where, after months of studying, I took first place. And I don’t feel lucky now.

I wish I could see my mother through her assistant’s eyes. Just see her for the brilliant photographer that she is, and not dwell on the mechanics of how much sacrifice it took for her to get the career she’s got. How much I missed out on because of her life choices. I bet that her assistant would think that I was lucky to have so many stamps in my passport. That I was lucky just to be Gray Goodman’s daughter.

“Hannah doesn’t understand that at all,” I overhear my mother say, and it breaks my train of thought. I don’t even think to ask what it is that I don’t understand. I’m realizing that when it comes to the things that I don’t understand, the list is as long as it is varied.

Thirty-three

Nate and I spend another blissful weekend together: Saturday lunch with his family, Saturday night barbecuing with Hunter and his new girlfriend at Hunter’s father’s house, a lazy Sunday with my grandmother and Rhett by the pool. By Monday, it’s just my grandmother and me again.

I find myself back at my grandmother’s trunk, intent on spending the day with her, organizing her photos, when my mother marches in. My grandmother smiles and nods her head toward my mom, my signal to go with her. To leave my grandmother and spend the day with my mother. She doesn’t have to say a word; I know exactly what she’s telling me.

I walk out of the room and my mother tells me it’s time to begin the photography lessons. Only, she doesn’t say it that way. She could never say something normal like “I want to teach you photography.” Instead, Gray Goodman says: “I’d like to teach you to find beauty.”

Hunter seems to have no problem finding beauty. As I walk downstairs, I find him on the couch in the living room, arms intertwined with Skylar’s. I knew I liked her immediately when I met her at that bonfire on the beach. My feelings were confirmed this past Saturday night, when Nate and I spent the evening with her and Hunter. When we arrived at Hunter’s house, she pulled me aside and said: “I hope that this is all okay for you. That this isn’t weird or anything.” She seemed so genuine, so concerned with hurting my feelings, that I couldn’t help but be charmed. I told her that I would be all right, and she seemed relieved.

“Are you ready to learn photography?” I ask them.

“We’re going to find beauty,” Hunter parrots back to me.

“I’m sure we will,” I say as my mother walks into the room.

“The best way to learn something is to just do it,” she lectures. “So let’s go outside and begin shooting. Then, we’ll go back to the dark room, develop our film, and talk about composition.”

“Doesn’t everyone just use digital these days?” Hunter asks.

I hold my breath as I wait for Gray to jump all over Hunter for questioning her. But she doesn’t.

“Yes,” she says, smiling. I can see in her face that she’s glad that Hunter is thinking, questioning her assumptions. “They do. In fact, I do, myself, quite often when I’m on assignment. It’s the direction the world has moved in and you do need to keep up with the times. No one would hire me if I refused to use digital. But if I’m going to teach you about photography, I want to teach you every aspect of photography, so I think it’s important to learn about film.”

“Makes sense,” Hunter says, and shrugs.

“So why do you have a dark room out here?” Skylar asks.

“Because when I’m shooting for myself, I like to use film. It’s more real, it’s grittier. It’s not perfect like digital film, but those imperfections are what make it beautiful.”