Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel (7 page)

“What can I help you with, Detective?” I asked as I showed him to a chair in my kitchen.

“Where were you at four-thirty p.m. today?” he asked, taking out a pad and a pen.

“What?” I said. I was struck by how
Law and Order
it all was. Detective Moretti looked up and waited for my answer, pen poised at his pad. “Taking my boyfriend to the hospital for an allergic reaction to nuts,” I said. “I was in an ambulance. Why?”

“You’re being investigated for the attempted murder of Jaime Castillo,” he said, looking up at me again. I assumed he was gauging my reaction to this news.

“What?” I said, thanking the gods above that Detective Moretti said “attempted murder” and not “murder.” “That’s ridiculous!”

“With all due respect, Ms. Goodman, you had a motive,” the detective said. “He was going to break up with you.” I never understood the expression “with all due respect.” Clearly he did not respect me—he was accusing me of assaulting a man with my deadly lips.

“You can call me Hannah. And who told you that he was going to break up with me?” I asked.

“Jaime’s mother,” he said, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“Well, that is a total surprise to me,” I said, speaking very quickly. “I had
no idea
that we were breaking up.” I tried to remember something valuable from criminal law class. “And even if I
did
know, trying to kill him would not exactly be the best way to get Jaime to stay together with me, now would it?”

I spoke very quickly, saying anything that came to my head while I tried to remember my first year of law school. I got an A in criminal law; surely something should have stuck. Finally, I remembered something valuable: always lawyer up.

“I think I’d like to see my lawyer,” I said, and Detective Moretti stopped scribbling and put down his pen.

“This is only questioning, Ms. Goodman. Do you really think you need a lawyer?”

“I’m sorry, Detective Moretti,” I said, “I really think that I do.”

*   *   *

The next morning, I went downtown with Priya, who was acting as my attorney even though she actually practiced tax law. As we got closer to the Eighteenth Precinct, I was beginning to doubt my very juvenile plan to get out of this mess. I was counting on the fact that Detective Moretti would be awestruck by Priya’s beauty and let me out of the whole thing. Because if anyone could get you out of a mess just by being herself, it would be Priya.

Three years of law school and the best strategy I could come up with was to throw the detective off guard with a gorgeous tax attorney? No wonder my firm didn’t want to make me partner.

Priya pulled her tiny Mini Cooper up to the precinct and parked it right in front. Her father is a diplomat, which means that she can park anywhere she wants in the city, a fact she takes full advantage of. Priya touched up her pout—a quintessential part of our defense strategy—and we were off to face the detective.

We waited for about fifteen minutes in what I could only guess was an interrogation room from its similarity to one I had seen on an episode of
CSI:NY.
Two cups of decaf later, the detective strolled in. Try as he did to focus on the investigation, he couldn’t take his eyes off Priya. My plan was working perfectly. He and Priya made flirty chitchat as she crossed and uncrossed her legs in a very PG-13
Basic Instinct
fashion. The swoosh of her nylons seemed to have the intended effect: Detective Moretti was awestruck.

“Sorry I’m late,” the assistant DA said as he flew into the room. “Hi, I’m Nate—”

“Sugarman,” I finished.

“Hannah,” he said, with a look on his face that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“You two know each other?” the detective asked.

“Yeah,” Nate said, smoothing back his hair and setting his briefcase on the table, “we went to law school together. I never thought we’d be adversaries in court, though. I didn’t even know that you did criminal law.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m the defendant.” Nate shot a perplexed look in the detective’s direction.

“You haven’t been charged with anything,” Priya piped in. “You’re just in for questioning on these totally baseless and defamatory allegations.” I was too shocked to see Nate to actually register that Priya was being a very good lawyer for someone who didn’t even litigate for a living.

“I think there may be some kind of conflict of interest here,” Nate said, motioning for the detective to leave the room with him.

“If he’s an ex-boyfriend,” Priya said as soon as the door slammed shut, “I’m recusing myself.”

“You can’t recuse yourself,” I said through gritted teeth. “You’re not really my lawyer, you’re my friend.”

“You’re not paying me for this?”

“Anyway, he’s not an ex-boyfriend, I never would have dated him. We hated each other in law school,” I said, putting my head in my hands.

“Why?” she asked. “He’s cute.”

“He’s not cute,” I said back through gritted teeth. “He’s the epitome of everything I hate about the kids I grew up with in the city. Rich, entitled brats. The types who think they hit a home run when they were born on third base.”

“Is that what you think of
me
?” she asked.

“No,” I said, as I caught a glimpse of her diamond pendant, a sixteenth-birthday gift from her father. “We work hard. We don’t rely on trust funds.”

“He works for a living,” she said. “He’s the DA assigned to your case.”

“That’s not the point,” I said.

“Isn’t that exactly the point?” she asked.

“I can’t believe I’m about to get arrested.”

“I know,” Priya said. “This is going to be really embarrassing.”

I picked my head up to shoot her a dirty look just as Nate walked back into the room with Detective Moretti. I folded my hands primly and tried not to look like an attempted murderess.

“I think there has been a huge misunderstanding here,” Nate said. “You’re free to go, Hannah.” Priya and I sat still for a minute, unsure of what to say or do.

“Of course there has been,” Priya said as she stood up and adjusted her suit. She grabbed me by the arm and led me out of the interrogation room. “Bye, Detective,” she added with a flirty smile.

As we walked to Priya’s car, she said, “So, I guess he didn’t hate you all that much.”

Eleven

“It’s all about figuring out what someone wants and giving it to them,” my grandmother says.

“You sound like a con man,” I say.

“I sound like a good conversationalist.”

“I’m still detecting notes of con man.”

“When you meet these men today, focus on the one who is most enchanted by you. A relationship works best when the man wants the woman more than she wants the man.”

“What if they all want me desperately?” I ask.

“Then you date all of them,” my grandmother says, matter-of-factly. She’s completely missed my joke. Or maybe she’s just pretending she didn’t hear it. “It’s important to have lots of men hanging around. That way, you can never get too caught up in any one of them.”

I see her point. When you just have one romantic prospect, you tend to put everything into that one. Maybe if you have three or four going at the same time, you take a good hard look at each of them.

What I normally do is put all of my eggs into one basket, become obsessed with that basket, and then wonder why I end up brokenhearted and alone. Never a contingency plan, never a thought as to what I’ll do if things don’t work out. The last time things didn’t work out, with
him,
I never fully recovered.

Maybe my grandmother is on to something. She has a different date for each day of the week and she’s happy. She’s having fun and not getting hurt. Eventually, I suppose, one will step up to the plate and she’ll marry him, but until then, she can just enjoy her summer. Maybe I should be more like my grandmother.

“Should I be playing the bad-girl angle?” I ask. We are on a one-hundred-fifty-foot yacht in Sag Harbor with another one of my grandmother’s gentleman callers. This one has—count ’em!—three grandsons, so I want to figure out the game plan before I get caught off balance again.

“You should—” she begins, but gets cut off.

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding,” our host says as he joins us. Here, on the top level of the yacht, there is a hot tub that seats eight with bench seating around the perimeter.

“We’re not hiding,” my grandmother responds with her eyes sparkling. Even through sunglasses, her eyes sparkle. “We’re just having some girl time.”

“Well, maybe it’s time for some coed time,” he says with a big puppy-dog grin. “We missed you two.”

Harold is really quite nice. He’s wearing a hat with the name of his boat on it,
Zelda May,
along with a polo shirt with the same insignia. I’ve noticed the towels are embossed with the boat’s name, as well, so I’ve made it my goal today to see how many things are monogrammed with this namesake. His yacht is named for his wife, dead four years now, and he refuses to change it. Refuses to apologize for it. I like Harold. So does my grandmother.

“We’ve missed you, too, darling,” my grandmother says as we make our way down to the main level. From the top level, where we were, down to the second floor, you need to walk down a tiny spiral staircase. All I could think as I walked up was: I hope no one is staring up my cover-up. It would not be a flattering view. And now, I see that, indeed, I have an audience on my way down: all three of Harold’s grandsons are waiting for us just under the staircase.

I try to emulate the way my grandmother walks down the stairs—with her legs completely closed, sliding against each other as she takes each step. I’m reminded of her teaching me to sit like a lady, over tea at the Plaza Hotel when I was six years old. Knees together, ankles crossed, letting your legs fall lazily to one side.

It’s an enormous living room space. It doesn’t look like a boat at all. It’s nicer than most people’s homes. Beautiful mahogany cabinetry; soft, supple carpet; elegant custom-made couches arranged in a comfortable design that really encourages conversation; and a playful card table with mismatched antique chairs. And, of course, a sixty-inch flat-screen television that looks like a mirror, but reveals itself at the simple touch of a button.

I wonder for a moment how all of these heavy materials can float. Harold makes the introductions and his eldest grandson offers to show me around the yacht.

“Let’s go to the bow first,” he says, and opens the cabin door for me with the push of a button. All of the doors are automatic sliding doors due to the high winds out on the water. I walk out to the side of the boat but then realize I don’t know where the bow is.

“You lead the way,” I say.

“The bow is the front,” he says, smiling. “I see we have a boating virgin here.”

I have no response to that. But that’s okay, since Trey continues: “Starboard is the right side, the left side is called port.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier to say right and left?”

He laughs. “Yes, I suppose it would.

“The stern is the back of the boat,” he says. “So, let’s go to the bow. These close quarters are starting to get to me. Let’s get away from everyone for a second.”

When my grandmother and I first boarded the yacht, before the grandsons were back from town, Harold showed us around the lower part of the boat, where all the bedrooms are. This boat has four bedrooms, each equipped with its own en suite bathroom. And that’s not including the servant’s quarters, which are under the hull (not a part of the tour) and house a staff of eight.

Close quarters? The bedrooms on this yacht are bigger than the bedroom in my Manhattan apartment. Still, I humor him, since that’s what I imagine my grandmother would do in this situation.

“Have you been out here all summer?” I ask as we approach the bow. We’re pulling out of the harbor, so it’s fun to be at the front of the boat. It’s set up with two lounge chairs (outfitted with towels monogrammed with
Zelda May
and neck rolls that simply have a
Z
), so we each lie down on a chair.

“We started the summer in Cape Cod,” he says. “And then we docked in Nantucket for a bit before coming down here. In a week or so, we’re going to double back to hit the Vineyard and then Newport. We like to be in Newport at the end of the summer to hit the boating show.”

I’m dying to know if these guys work—I assume Harold is retired—but I can’t seem to formulate a way to ask that doesn’t sound judgmental. Probably because I want to know so that I can judge them.

“That’s amazing, you and your brothers can get so much time off,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “when you work for yourself, you can set your own schedule. You must know what I mean, right?”

Of course he assumes that I know what he means. We’re out on a yacht on a Wednesday. And now we are out on the open sea, without a care in the world.

“Actually, I’m a lawyer. I don’t work for myself. I work for a firm in Manhattan.”

I’m not sure why I’m so intent on explaining that I work for a living, emphasizing why we are different.

After all, I do work as a lawyer, but I have the luxury of living debt-free due to my grandmother’s largesse: she paid for all of my schooling from Pearce straight through to law school. Technically, I’m not a trust-fund baby since my mother refused to ever let my grandmother set up a trust fund for me, but what’s the difference? She’s paid vast sums of money over the years to make sure I could live debt-free. She even made the down payment on my apartment.

But still, it feels different.

“My grandfather said you were staying out here all summer,” he asks, clearly confused.

“I am.”

“So you’re not working right now,” he says.

“It’s complicated.”

“My life is
complicated,
too,” he says, giving me a wink. “My brothers and I don’t actually work for ourselves, per se. We live off our trust funds.”

I furrow my brow. Clearly, he thinks that I’m a trust-fund baby, too.

“Oh, no, it’s not like that,” he says, allaying my fears. I breathe out a sigh of relief. “We’re not blowing through them like some of the morons you see out here. No, we just live off the dividends.”