Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel (33 page)

Still, it’s strange when she tells me that it’s just the two of us. Somehow, that doesn’t feel completely right anymore. I never felt it before, but now I feel my mother’s absence, a weight hanging between us.

The teakettle screams and my grandmother insists on being the one to get up and take it off the stove. She sets out two teacups and pours.

“So, what is there left to do?” she asks me. “I need to be busy.”

She said something similar to me when I first came out to visit her for the summer. Something about a project, and then the next thing I knew, I was locked into Georges Mandel for five hours, trying on swimsuits and dresses. I’m really not up for being my grandmother’s project again, so I need to think quickly on my feet.

“Well,” I say, “you could act out your daughter’s dying wish.”

And there are those pursed lips again.

Fifty-six

Priya wasn’t exactly mad at me for skipping out on the first day of shiva, but she wasn’t exactly happy about it either. It’s just that you’re not allowed to really yell at a friend right after her mother’s died. So she comes to the second day of shiva with a huge box of Tate’s cookies. A delicacy she knows I cannot refuse. And it works—as long as she’s holding the box of cookies, I’m seated right next to her, nibbling away.

Priya’s out here with her parents for the weekend. Her mother has parked us at one of the couches in a central location in the living room, since she says that the immediate family must be accessible so that everyone can offer their condolences. Priya’s mother has a strong sense of family honor, and I don’t have the heart to argue otherwise. She stands near us, and refuses to sit down, so that she may direct guests toward me, the mourning daughter.

“I didn’t know that a shiva call was a ‘plus one’ kind of event,” I say to Priya in between bites, as we sit side by side on the couch. The crowd is considerably thinner than it was yesterday, so we’re able to see through all the people to the dining room, where Detective Moretti is helping himself to the buffet.

“Didn’t you bring Nate?” Priya teases back.

“Oh, that’s different. I can’t get rid of him,” I explain. “He refuses to leave.”

“I knew I liked him from the moment I met him.”

I’m about to say “me too,” but that isn’t entirely true, and Priya knows it, so I don’t say anything at all.

“You know,” Priya says, looking around, “this is the nicest shiva I’ve ever been to.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I think my mom would have really liked it.”

“Really? I think she would have thought it was a disgusting display of wealth and excess, and completely inappropriate to the occasion.”

“True,” I say, nodding my head in agreement. “But I hear the salmon’s really good.”

“It is,” Priya says. “If Vince and I get married, will your grandmother plan our wedding for us?”

“You and Detective Moretti are getting married?”

“I said if.
Shhhh,
” Priya stage whispers, just as Detective Moretti—I’m supposed to call him Vince now, but I just can’t stop calling him Detective Moretti—walks toward us. He brings back a huge plate of food and I’m glad that someone is taking advantage of the enormous spread that my grandmother’s party planner has laid out for today’s guests. There are no cold cut platters or heroes in the Hamptons, just filet mignon, antipasto, and an entire poached salmon with the head still attached.

“Priya told me that you liked artichokes,” Detective Moretti tells me as he sits down next to me and then thrusts the heaping plate into my lap. It’s filled with a sampling of everything from the buffet, along with a ton of artichokes.

“I’m not really hungry,” I tell him, “but thank you.”

He ignores me and puts a linen napkin into my lap and then holds out a fork and a knife for me. We regard each other for a moment. There’s no way I’m giving up my chocolate chip cookies. Then he says, “I can’t help it. I’m Italian. I just want to feed you until you feel better.”

He eventually wins, and I take the fork and knife and pick at the artichokes.

“So, I hear you’re going back to your law firm,” Detective Moretti says. “Good for you.”

“Thank you,” I say. “But believe it or not, I’m thinking about taking a position with the State Attorney General.”

“You are?” Priya asks, practically dropping the bag of cookies as she turns to face me.

“Counselor Sugarman is rubbing off on you,” Detective Moretti says with a smile.

“I’m thinking about it very seriously,” I say, turning toward Priya. “I was chatting with Tim yesterday and he’s going to set up an informational meeting with them for me in a few weeks.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to abandon me at the firm,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Well, it will certainly be better hours, I hope,” Priya says.

“I think so,” I say. “It won’t be the money I’d be getting at the firm, but it will be a good income, and hopefully more free time to spend with the baby.”

“And your new grandfather,” Priya says, nudging me in the arm so that I can see Adan approaching. He comes over to the couch, and Detective Moretti insists on giving up his seat so Adan can sit down with us.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

“Okay, I guess,” I say. “How about you?”

“This is incredibly difficult,” he says, “but I’m trying to focus on the good—that I got to spend so much time with your mother this summer. Not the fact that I’ve lost her.”

“Easier said than done,” I say. I’ve tried out the very same rationalization often over the past few days, with mixed results. It’s easy to tell your head that you’re happy for the little time you had with Gray—getting your heart to believe it is the real challenge.

“True,” Adan says. “But now I have you in my life. And whoever’s in your belly. So, it’s the beginning of lots of wonderful things for our family.”

Our family.

“Yes,” I say. “It is.”

Fifty-seven

“There’s a short exam and then a sonogram today,” the nurse tells me. She leads the way back to the exam room, and as I walk back with my grandmother, I realize how much has changed since my first appointment with the doctor. For my first appointment, I was with my grandmother and I was the only pregnant woman at the office without a partner. Today, I’m with my grandmother, again, but I don’t feel quite so alone anymore. The doctor is pleased with my progress in the exam, so we head down the hall for the sonogram. The technician squirts some gel onto my belly and begins.

“Do you want to know what you’re having?” the technician asks me, interrupting my train of thought.

“Yes,” I say, without giving it a second thought. I look to my grandmother and she is nodding her head yes along with me.

“I’m just going to ask you to move a little to your side,” she says. “I want to get a really good picture here.”

“This family is big on good pictures,” my grandmother says, taking my hand and smiling.

The technician looks confused for a minute and then catches on.

“Goodman,” she says, looking at my chart and then at me. “You’re Gray Goodman’s daughter, aren’t you?”

For the first time in my life, I don’t hesitate. I just say yes. I am Gray Goodman’s daughter. And it feels good to say it out loud.

“I was really sorry to hear about your mom,” she says. “But I’m hoping I’ve got some news here that will make you really happy. You’re having a girl.”

My eyes well up with tears and I can’t control it.

“A girl,” my grandmother repeats. She leans down and kisses me on the cheek.

“What did you think you were having, Hannah?” the technician asks.

“I didn’t know,” I say. “But I’m so happy that it’s a girl. I have the perfect name for her. Grace.”

“Well, here’s a little picture of her,” she says as she hands me a printout of the sonogram. It’s hard to see her, but when I squint I can just make out a tiny head and a tiny body.

“A baby girl,” my grandmother says. “That’s just perfect, isn’t it?”

I want to tell my grandmother that I don’t deal in perfect anymore. But I understand that this is a moment my grandmother and I will remember for a very long while. This is a time when we can burst out of ourselves, get away from the pain we’ve been feeling for so long after the death of my mother. So instead I say, “Yes. It really is.”

Fifty-eight

It’s only been a few days since shiva officially ended, and my grandmother and I really don’t know what to do with ourselves. She decides to host a cocktail hour on Friday night to get everyone together before we all scatter for the weekend. I think she just can’t bear to have an empty house.

All of the people I’ve come to know and love over the course of this summer turn up: Hunter and Sklyar, Adan, and of course, Nate. Always Nate.

All the usual suspects.

“I would like to show you all,” my grandmother says, “for the first time, my great-grandchild.”

She holds up the sonogram picture with a flourish, and everyone gathers around.

“Do you know what you’re having?” Skylar asks.

“A baby, silly,” Hunter says, and grabs her side.

“I know that,” she says, wiggling out from his grip. “But a girl or a boy?”

“Yes,” I say, looking directly at Nate. I wonder if I was supposed to have asked his opinion on the matter, but he’s smiling from ear to ear, so it seems as if we’re on the same page. “It’s a girl.”

My eyes well up with tears and I can’t control it. Nate swoops over and kisses me right on the mouth. When he pulls away, I can see that he’s tearing up, too.

“We’re having a girl,” he says, which only makes my tears flow even faster.

“It’s a girl!” my grandmother repeats. She grabs for Adan’s hand and he hugs her tightly.

“Pay up,” Skylar says to Hunter.

“Oh, man,” Hunter says. “I had good money on the fact that you were having a boy,” Hunter says to me, taking out his wallet. “Are we sure it’s a girl?”

My grandmother walks over and hands Hunter the picture.

“I’m not sure what Gray would think of the composition of this picture,” Hunter says, and we all laugh. “I mean, what’s the story you were trying to tell?”

“Actually, I think the composition is good,” Skylar continues, “but why’d you decide to go with black-and-white, not color?”

“Color costs you more,” I say with a smile as Hunter hands the picture back to me.

I look at the little picture of my growing baby and then look around the room. Everyone’s smiling, happy. And I have to admit that in spite of myself, I’m happy, too. With all these people, do I have a choice? They force happiness on you, whether you want it or not.

Is this what family’s all about? I never really gave it much thought, being an only child. Having a mother who was an only child. There weren’t a ton of people around me as I grew up, no siblings to play with every day, no cousins to see at holidays. It feels strange to have this many people around me for an important moment in my life. But I’ve always had my grandmother. The one true constant in my life. And now, it seems, I’ve got a few more constants.

*   *   *

A month has passed and things are starting to go back to normal. Not normal, really, but it’s just that after about a month, people stop asking how you’re feeling and expect you to live your regular life again. It’s one of the things that struck me most about Adam’s death, and it’s something that I’ve been discussing a lot with my new therapist.

Nate managed to find me a therapist who splits her time between Manhattan and Southampton, so I can continue seeing her once summer is over and we’ve moved back into the city. Where we’ll be moving in together.

I’m nervous and excited and about a million other emotions about taking this huge step with Nate, especially since he lives on the Upper West Side and I abhor the Upper West Side, but Hunter says that everyone on the Upper West has a baby, so I’ll fit right in. And he’s especially happy that Nate and I will be living just a hop across the park from him and Skylar, both of whom live on the Upper East Side, so we’ll get to see them all the time.

But for now, we’re all still here. In the Hamptons. Summer has a few weeks left in it still.

“It’s a wonder he isn’t worried about marrying my grandmother,” I tell Nate. We’re out at my grandmother’s pool, and from our chaise longues, we can see my grandmother and Adan on the porch with my grandmother’s wedding planner. “It’s like she didn’t do him in the first time, so now he’s back for more.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Nate says, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. He has the tiniest smile playing on his lips.

“That’s what you secretly love about me,” I say, and his smile broadens.

My grandmother’s planning the wedding for next summer. Yes, she’s taking an entire year to plan, as if she were twenty years old and a blushing bride. She intends on inviting over six hundred people and wearing an enormous white ball gown. One of her famous simple garden parties just won’t do for an event like this. No word yet on whether or not she’ll expect a bridal shower and bachelorette party, but I hope so because I never did find that strip club out in the Hamptons.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nate’s family arrive at the house for lunch. I didn’t realize it was even close to noon yet, but I’ve learned that in the Hamptons, when you’re lazing around the pool all morning, time tends to fly.

Even though it’s Saturday, and Saturday lunch is sacred to the Sugarmans, Nate’s mother was delighted to accept my grandmother’s invitation. Nate’s sister is in attendance, as is his brother, wife and kids in tow.

As we walk over to the patio to greet the Sugarmans, I hear my grandmother tell Nate’s mom that she’s so thrilled that they are all there, that the Mattress King’s estate is simply meant to host lots of people.

After lots of hugging and kissing, we all sit down just in time for Hunter, Skylar, and Hunter’s dad to show up, so everyone gets back up and the hugging and kissing starts all over again.

The chef doesn’t get lunch under way until well after one o’clock, and I’m starving. Luckily, my grandmother’s chef never disappoints, and today is no exception. A three-course meal is prepared—with a summer salad and gazpacho to start, followed by steaks fresh off the barbecue, along with corn, barbecued in their husks. Dessert is usual Hamptons fare: fresh fruit accompanied by homemade sorbet. Today’s flavor is mango.