Happily Ever After: A Novel (6 page)

Chapter 9

T
he minivan and I cruise along Billsford’s narrow, curvy roads. The trees are lush and green, heady with springtime, and their branches hang low, making it impossible to see around the next bend. The hospital is not far, but getting anywhere in this town takes forever. I experience a pang of nostalgia for sidewalks and subways.

The hospital parking lot is full, and while I feel bad taking a space labeled “Patients Only,” obviously intended for someone who is bleeding to death, I don’t have much choice. Besides, I won’t be here long.

Behind the large reception desk is a nurse wearing a name tag.
BRIDGET
, in all capital letters, like a shout.

“Hi,” I say. I’m aware that my hair is suffering from having been vigorously thumped against a wall not thirty minutes ago. The key is to own it and not blush.

“Can I help you?” asks Bridget.

“I got a call earlier about a . . . man,” I say. “I’m Sadie Fuller.”

Recognition on the part of
BRIDGET
.

“Of course,” she says. “The guy. The good-looking guy.”

“Yes.”

“He’s very attractive,” she says again. She’s young and pretty. I understand where she’s coming from.

“Right,” I say.

She returns to her professional senses, possibly shaking off an image of our subject in a flimsy, untied hospital gown.

“He’s finishing a psych evaluation right now,” Bridget says, glancing at her computer. “If you go up to the third floor, the duty nurse there can assist you.”

I head to the elevator banks.

“He’s really good-looking,” Nurse Bridget yells after me. She’s dying to ask if he’s single and available, but they probably told her in nursing school that hitting on delusional patients was pushing the limits of good taste.

The third floor smells more like a hospital than the lobby did. A combination of antiseptic, bleach, and recycled air masks an underlying odor of sickness and misery. The fluorescent lights cast a greenish glow over everything. I’ve never found hospitals to be the sorts of places that inspire one to go on living.

Cathy is the duty nurse. She wears an old-fashioned nurse’s cap that makes me want to call her Sister and cross myself, just as a precaution.

“You don’t have a badge,” Sister Cathy says immediately, examining my chest.

“No,” I say. “Bridget didn’t give me one.”

Sister Cathy tsk-tsks. A printer whirs to life, and a badge is procured.

“Now,” she says, settling in behind her duty station and adjusting the nun’s cap, “can I help you?”

“I’m here to see if I know the good-looking man,” I say. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s more or less the truth. Nurse Cathy narrows her gaze.

“You guys called
me,
” I say. “I’m trying to help identify a patient.”

“The good-looking one?”

Didn’t I say that already?

“Yes. Do you have a lot of patients here who don’t know their own names?” I ask.

She ignores me. “He’s very . . . charming,” she says. She busies herself on the computer, but there is no denying the faint bloom on her cheeks. She probably hasn’t been this excited since the Pope celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium.

“I’m sure he is.”

“He’s out of his psych evaluation now,” she says brusquely, standing. “I can take you to see him.”

A strange nervousness rises in my chest, a sense of anticipation mixed with dread. The patient is in a private room. Perhaps that is because he’s the only patient up here, or maybe because Nurse Cathy thinks he’s a babe. And charming. Sun floods in from a huge window and backlights him in such a way I think angels might start to sing.

Nurse Cathy sighs. “He’s so . . .”

“I know,” I interrupt. “Charming.”

The man turns at the sound of my voice.

“Sadie,” he says, rushing to me and taking my hands in his. Nurse Cathy watches us carefully. His eyes plead with me. His hands are cold in mine. He squeezes. Please.

“Harry,” I blurt, possibly because I was gazing at Prince Harry on the cover of
People
magazine in the supermarket yesterday. I turn to Nurse Cathy, a big fake smile plastered on my face. “This is Harry . . . Plant. My second cousin once removed.”

I sometimes wonder if anyone other than British royalty can make sense of that “removed” business, but I feel it makes my claim difficult to argue against.

“The rest of the family is across the pond,” I say, warming up to my lie. A look of pure relief spreads across the newly dubbed Harry’s face. I have no idea what I’m doing. Recently I read that helping others is the best way to feel good about yourself. Maybe I’m just taking that idea to an unusual extreme.

I hug Harry. His body is firm and lean. I feel muscles through his shirt.

“How are you feeling, old chap?” I ask. Nurse Cathy rolls her eyes.

“So you can identify this man?”

“Haven’t I just?”

“I’m getting the doctor,” she says, turning on her heel and marching out of the room.

Second cousin Harry sits down on the bed.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “I’m not sure I could have survived another minute in this place.”

It takes my brain a second or two to catch up. Cousin Harry thinks I’m going to spring him.

“Oh,” I say, sitting down beside him. “I’m not sure I can, or that I should, you know, take you out of here. You’re not well.”

He stands abruptly.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m perfect.”

“I know,” I say soothingly. “But you can’t remember who you are, right?”

He sits back down, deflated.

“No,” he says.

I shrug to indicate I can’t take a stranger with memory loss to my house. It just doesn’t make any sense, all good intentions aside. He takes my hands in his again, moving in close to me on the edge of the bed. I experience a sharp moment of déjà vu.

“They served me canned peas,” he says, looking viscerally offended. “And Jell-O. I’ve never seen food like that before in my life. I’m desperate. But they won’t let me go unless someone vouches for me. You know who I am.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, you just pretended you do.”

“Okay,” I say, “let’s say, just hypothetically, I sign you out. Where will you go?”

“I’ll go, well, I’ll just head for . . . maybe I’ll go to . . .”

“I think it’s best if you stay here,” I say. “Safest.”

Cousin Harry slides off the bed and down onto one knee, as if he is going to propose marriage. He smiles. It’s a beautiful smile, and I’m momentarily overwhelmed by its sheer loveliness.

“Please,” he says. “There’s something I must do. For the love of God, please help me.”

“What is it?”

He falters but does not let go of my hand. “I . . . I can’t remember exactly, but it’s urgent. I can feel it. It’s . . . love.”

Well, that seals it. Generally speaking, if an apparently homeless, familyless man who cannot remember his own name starts muttering about love, it’s time to call for a net because he is clearly loony tunes. Nothing against Bugs Bunny, but you know what I mean.

Yet there is something in his face that gives me pause, a radiating anguish that demands I pay attention and really consider his words. Before I can answer, the doctor walks in. He’s young with round glasses and a mop of unruly hair. The black bags beneath his eyes indicate he’s been here for days, perhaps even years, probably eating canned peas down in the cafeteria. He stifles a yawn with his fist. His eyes flutter. He’s going to fall asleep on his feet right in front of me. I make a fast, illogical, and slightly ludicrous decision to get Cousin Harry out of here before this exhausted doc accidentally removes his liver or his right leg below the knee.

“Doctor,” I say. He startles. Behind him, Nurse Cathy glowers.

“Ms. Fuller,” he says, studying his clipboard, trying to remember why he is here. “Nurse Cathy says you know our patient.”

“Might know,” Nurse Cathy corrects.

“Oh,” I say, “I definitely know him. His name is Harry Plant. He’s a second cousin. We practically grew up together.”

Nurse Cathy snorts. “Old enough to be his mother,” she says under her breath. Bitch.

The doctor sighs, and sways on his feet. He wants only to get this guy out of here so he can take five in the break room. And he’s not going to let some batty old nurse derail him. With a wave of his hand, he dismisses Nurse Cathy from the scene.

“Mr. Plant doesn’t appear to have anything wrong with him,” the doctor says. “We fixed up his leg, but his CAT scan was clear. No brain trauma. I suggest you get him to his primary care physician as soon as possible and let them monitor the memory issue. My feeling is it will all return within the day. That’s how these things usually go.”

“I have total confidence in your decision, Doctor,” I say. “I’ll take care of him.”

“It’s great to have family,” the doctor says.

“Isn’t it?” I say, kicking Harry’s shoes and socks in his direction.

“Well, just sign here and you’re all set.”

I don’t bother with the fine print. I sign the release papers. I usher the relieved doctor out of the room and turn back to Harry. What have I just done?

While Harry works on the footwear, I panic. I fish around in my bag for my emergency Xanax, but apparently I’ve taken them all. Harry stands up and puts his arms around me in gratitude. He smells of hospital, which is all wrong. This man should smell like pine trees and money and sex.

“Thank you,” he whispers into my messy hair.

I push him away. I feel tingly, like my whole body is a funny bone that just got whacked on the sharp corner of a table. I’m no better than Nurse Cathy.

“Let’s go,” I say.

I open the minivan side doors from across the parking lot. Cousin Harry freezes in his tracks.

“What is that?” he says.

“My car,” I say.

“It’s a . . . minivan,” he says, making no attempt to disguise his horror.

“And?” My minivan is the same as an annoying relative. I can make fun of it, but you can’t.

“It’s just I’ve never been in one before,” he says. It’s fascinating to watch him attempt to regain his emotional footing.

“So I guess we’ve established that you don’t have kids,” I say. Although I could probably have deduced this same thing from how utterly out of place he looked at Target this morning. If you have kids, you can shop Target blindfolded. The store is an inescapable side effect of parenting.

“No,” he says. I think he shudders. “I don’t believe I do.”

I toss my purse in through the open back door and slide it shut as I pull open the front passenger door. The seat is covered with empty coffee cups, pieces of unopened mail, a scarf, a plastic baggie with what might have been a peanut butter sandwich back in the Jurassic period. I pick the stuff up en masse and toss it into the back. My companion gasps.

“What are you
doing
?” he asks.

“Did you want to sit on all of that?” I ask. “Because I can put it back.”

“No,” he says, gingerly stepping into the minivan, “it’s just that cars are like women. They must be respected, treated as beautiful. All of them.”

It’s the first moment since we’ve met that I think he might actually be crazy.

“It’s a goddamn minivan,” I say. “It doesn’t deserve respect.”

Cousin Harry grimaces.

“I drive a vintage Jaguar and a Maserati,” he says suddenly. “I also have a Bentley, but that comes with a driver.”

We both freeze and stare at each other.

“Where do you keep the cars?” I ask quietly, quickly.

He closes his eyes. “They’re in a warehouse, I think,” he says. “It’s very . . . urban.”

Well, that narrows it down to about twenty-five states.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m not being helpful.”

I pat him on the arm. “It’s great that things are starting to come back to you.”

Confusion clouds his face.

“Check out the giant cup holders,” I say, starting up the engine. “Bet you don’t have room for twelve cups of coffee in your vintage Jag.”

We pull out of the parking lot and I head for home because I have no idea what else to do.

Chapter 10

I
was born to write romantic novels. Even a cursory investigation of my childhood indicates I had no real choice in the matter. I grew up an only child in a small upstate New York town. My parents were older and both literature professors at the local liberal arts college. My mother wore flowing peasant skirts and lots of brightly colored beads. She had wide hips and big hands and a loud voice. Her long hair hung loose and free, and in the summertime, she occasionally tucked a mess of tiny daisies into it because, of course, her name is Daisy. Daisy floated along in life, a big, happy smile perpetually plastered on her face because she had my father, Walter. Tunic-wearing, bald-spot-sporting, Birkenstock-clad Shakespearean Professor Walter Fuller.

Walter loved Daisy more than anything under the sun and does, to this day. He anticipates her every need. He surprises her with shiny baubles, matcha green tea soy lattes, and exotic chocolates (Jalapeño! Cardamom!). Rumor has it Daisy couldn’t handle changing diapers, so Walter managed to wipe my cute little ass every single time so his darling wife would not run the risk of swooning at the sight of baby poop. Walter exists to serve Daisy, and in return, Daisy showers him with love.

Professor Daisy Fuller’s area of expertise is Jane Austen. I was weaned on a world of romance thwarted, only to be dramatically resurrected in the final chapters for a perfect happily ever after. And Daisy’s own life seemed to illustrate this. After all, she met Walter when she was forty-two years old, and look how well that worked out? That love in the last quarter of the game happened only for Ms. Austen’s characters and not for the woman herself did not matter to my mother in the least. She never once mentioned to me that the great romance author died alone and unknown, at age forty-one.

On cold winter nights, the three of us would sit in the small living room, as close to the wood-burning stove as we dared get, reading books. It was common, almost required, that when you got to a good passage, you read it aloud, assuming character voices as necessary. At breakfast, I was peppered with bits of sonnets and passages from
Pride and Prejudice
. My parents constantly quoted great white, dead authors to each other and then disappeared into the bedroom in a fog of lust, leaving me to play solitaire at the dining room table.

When we read
The Great Gatsby
for school my mother made a point of telling me how awful it was.

“But it’s an American classic,” I said. “It says so on the cover!”

“It misses the point entirely,” she shot back.

“What point?” I begged her.

“
The
point,” she said, and would not elaborate. Eventually, I came to understand she did not like sad endings. If the boy and the girl do not end up together, why on earth bother? And I tended to agree with her. After reading
Gatsby,
I walked around with an uncomfortable knot in my stomach. I’d absorbed these poor, wretched creatures into myself, and now I could not get rid of them. They haunted me, and the discomfort was such that at the young age of twelve or so, I decided Daisy’s point was worth heeding. Go for the happy ending or die trying.

So it made perfect sense that I would write about love. If you go to the library and look up Sadie Fuller, you will find a number of fairly well-known contemporary romances. I wrote the kinds of novels that were considered “sweet,” as in no heaving breasts or erect penises or orifices of any sort. I was very good at implying intimacy and leaving the sweaty mechanics to the readers’ imaginations.

I banged out five or six of these books a year. One even reached that pinnacle of measurable success, a made-for-TV Lifetime movie. What constitutes a good story was baked into my bones. I could create a gauzy romantic scene at a NASCAR race, for God’s sake, and that’s an accolade not many can claim. I was making a living, paying my rent, and buying shoes I didn’t need. And I was happy because I
believed
in romance. It was my one true faith. We all deserved flowers and diamonds and a man entirely devoted to our happiness like Walter was to Daisy. We were due our champagne and starry nights and kisses so deep they made us weak in the knees. Weren’t we? I didn’t consider my books fantasy or escapism. They were simply the fictional manifestations of what I knew was waiting for me just around the corner.

And one day I went around that corner and there was Kurt Allen. I remember the first words he uttered as though they were seared onto my brain with a branding iron.

“Excuse me, miss, but you dropped these.”

I was twenty-nine years old, hoofing it downtown for a meeting with my literary agent. Although I was still seven months from hitting the big three-oh, my mother had begun making jokes about how I should get a cat to go with my spinsterhood. We laughed. She hung up. I cried. But now here was a man who could have been the model for Barbie’s Ken, holding my keys and smiling down at me.

I heard angels. I saw stars. I was speechless.

“You dropped them a few blocks back,” he said. “You walk really fast.”

He wore a suit that did not come off any rack and carried a briefcase that seemed very grown-up. His leather shoes reflected the pale winter sunlight, and I had a sudden vision of him sitting at one of those shoeshine stations in Grand Central Terminal.

“Thank you,” I stammered. He followed me! This beautiful man ran after me to make sure I got my keys back!

“My pleasure,” he said. I regretted my black gloves as I reached out to take the keys. I wanted to feel his skin, even just his fingertips. “Are you headed downtown?”

“Yes,” I said. My voice still sounded shaky. I commanded myself to get a grip. This meeting was not mere chance. This was fate. This was destiny! I was already on chapter three of the novelization.

“Can I walk with you?”

It was as if a rose suddenly burst into bloom in my chest.

“Please,” I said. “That would be nice.”

As we made our way down the crowded sidewalk, Kurt Allen gave me his abbreviated biography. He worked for his father’s law firm. He lived an upscale life at an uptown address. He was on his way to meet a friend for lunch but would be willing to reschedule if I could see my way to rearranging my agent meeting.

What do you think I did?

We had a three-hour lunch. We sat in Union Square even though it was cold. He kissed me by the busy dog park. This turned out to be unfortunate because, as you know, the human olfactory bulb resides in a part of the brain closely associated with memory making. But I refused to see it as a sign that everything would eventually go to shit.

I studiously counted up five dates before I would take my clothes off for him, as some book I’d read suggested. When we finally did get naked, I discovered Kurt made love like a frat boy who is anxious to finish before someone kills the keg. I made excuses on his behalf because I already loved him. I saw us together in old age, sitting on the porch of some New England farmhouse, watching our grandchildren, holding hands.

Now Kurt didn’t bring me flowers or chocolates or sparkly, shiny things just because he was bursting with joy at having me in his life. But I told myself I was not living in Jane Austen’s England. I was a modern girl in New York City. I knew Kurt loved me. I could feel it.

After a year, he invited me to move in with him. It was the first time I’d lived in a place with a view of something other than the exterior wall of the building next door. I bloomed in the sunlight. I decorated. I picked out new towels. I hummed love songs. I didn’t bother learning to cook because we went out or ordered in. We were so fabulously New York! Soon we’d be engaged and I could begin obsessing over flowers and a color scheme and what dress would best show off my deep brown eyes. At long last, I was experiencing what I spent so much time writing about. Can you feel me cringing?

So there I was, living my fantasy, busily working on a book about two young, fabulous New Yorkers canoodling at all the landmarks and buying towels together. I devoted my free time to telling everyone how wonderful love was. Finally, I’d been invited to join the club. But there were potholes in the road. Chasm-deep, chassis-bending potholes.

The first hole I fell into was a pair of black lace panties in the laundry that were not mine. It took me more than a minute to register their presence as alien, and when I finally did, I tried to talk myself out of it.

“Kurt doesn’t go in for lacy lingerie,” I said. “And he’s not big on crazy sexual positions either. He likes it missionary. He’s a traditional man.” I mean, he would never consider coming into the bathroom when I was in there, brushing my teeth or taking a pee. There were certain lines he felt should never be crossed. But here I held a pair of black lace panties. I threw them in the trash. Maybe they belonged to Verna the cleaning lady? Sure. They might fit over her left ankle.

But I persevered in my delusion because I could not conceive of love gone bad. This was not
The Great Gatsby
. This was my fabulous life! And then I hit the second pothole, the distinct whiff of expensive perfume on my boyfriend’s rumpled suit jacket. I immediately went to his enormous walk-in closet and threw the doors wide. A million fists of the same scent assaulted my nose. I backed up as if physically pushed. My perfume was far more flowery, girlie. This one was dark and sensual and made my eyes water.

The last pothole on my road to love and marriage, and really the only significant one, was all of my worldly belongings, neatly boxed up and waiting for me in the foyer of the beautiful, sunny apartment I apparently no longer shared with Kurt.

After two years together, Kurt Allen explained it away thus. “I really like you, Sadie, but you’re not the type of girl I can marry. I need someone more serious. And maybe taller. It’s important for my career.” Or something like that. I’d stopped listening about halfway through his oration, the ringing in my ears so loud as to drown out all other sound.

In the following weeks, we met several times at Starbucks, the only place he’d agree to see me. I got the sense he thought a public place would prevent me from making a scene. Had I really become that kind of girl, the one who shrieks and rends her garments?

I tried to convince him he was throwing away something wonderful, but he was having none of it. He just kept repeating that I wasn’t right for him, like a mantra. Our wonderfulness was clearly all manufactured. By me. I was left with several poorly packed boxes and a single question echoing in my head: how could I have been so wrong about Kurt?

Like a cliché, I took to my bed in the studio apartment I’d rented unseen. Drowning in pain and anguish, I had no idea what would come next in my life, nor did I care. I’d been kicked out of the happily ever after club, the only club I’d ever wanted to join.

After I’d spent a few months of concentrated moping and the missing of several important deadlines, my literary agent, Liz Stelow, suggested I expand the definition of romance in my work.

“Throw in a little sex,” Liz said. “It’s hot right now. BDSM. OTK. Visit a fetish shop. Take a class on how to play with needles. I don’t care. Kink sells.”

“OTK?”

“Over the knee.”

I had to get out more.

“But really, Sadie, it’s time to get off your ass,” Liz said. “You’re starting to irritate me.”

I had never considered writing about sex. The mere idea made me blush. After all, I was fairly conservative in the bedroom. Wild was leaving the lights on. Perhaps that’s what drove the love of my life into the arms of black lace panties and sexy perfume?

“Forget it,” I told Liz. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“Come on, Sadie,” she said. “All these love stories you write, you must think through the graphic details you don’t include, you know, late at night? When you’re alone? Or maybe you practiced them with that wretched man you’re so much better off without?”

The mere mention of Kurt set off another round of crying, after which Liz promptly hung up on me. As I wept, I noticed an eventual absence of tears. After ten weeks, I had cried myself dry. I was shriveled up. Done. It was over. I laid my head on my desk in utter defeat.

But then came a voice. It sounded like me but stronger and much more sure of herself.

“Here’s what you need to do,” the voice said. “Put what’s left of your romantic heart in a box. A nice box, maybe Tiffany blue or a soothing peach color, but strong, a container capable of hosting your ticker during its permanent quarantine from love-related endeavors. You are an independent, self-supporting woman. Now, step away from the box, stop irritating your agent, and write about something
else
.”

“Yes,” I said out loud to my empty apartment. “Love is just a genre. It’s not a life sentence.”

Wearing the same plaid pajamas I’d had on for a month, I shuffled to my laptop, blew the dust off the cover, and popped it open. Confronted with an empty document, I almost screamed, a bubble of panic rising in my throat, threatening to strangle me. The truth is, in publishing, if you can’t produce, there are hundreds of others who can. I could feel their collective hot breath on the back of my neck. I placed my fingers on the keyboard. I relaxed my shoulders. Sex is physical. Writing about sex is the same as writing about baseball or martial arts or war. It happens. Describe it, Sadie. Describe the details. Don’t leave anything to the imagination.