Life and Other Inconveniences(53)

Too fucking bad, Mother.

One day a couple of years into his employment (so long as Genevieve used FHK, they had to keep him), the firm sent him to Chicago for some reason he wasn’t clear on . . . take some client to dinner and schmooze them, which Clark did, the entire night wondering just what it was that the client made and what FHK was supposed to do for them. Didn’t matter. The client was about his age—James or Jay or Jack—Clark just called him J-Dog.

They met at a ridiculously overpriced restaurant, Clark taking out his reliable stories. “Yes, that Genevieve London is my mother. Don’t make me tell you about the New Year’s Eve when she rolled naked in the snow with Ruth Bader Ginsburg!” The fact was, if RBG had visited Sheerwater, Clark wouldn’t have known who she was. He knew she was tiny and old and women loved her. Something to do with government.

When the tab had been paid by the FHK Amex and Clark had glad-handed the Jay or James or Jack to the door, he felt an unexpected loss. J-Dog had liked him. The sommelier had loved him, given that he’d ordered three bottles of wine costing eight hundred bucks each. The waitress also liked him, because she’d gotten a $500 tip. She was pretty and friendly without sucking up to them, and she didn’t interrupt every ten minutes asking how things were.

But now the night was over, and Clark had nothing left to do. He went back to the table, figuring he’d finish the last of the wine and see if there was a late movie playing somewhere close by.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked when he sat back down. Nice rack. Redheaded, too. He liked redheads.

“Join me for a drink?” It was closing time, after all. The waitress, who had a month for a name, checked with her boss, then sat down. They ended up talking for another hour. With all the alcohol in his system, Clark felt happy and relaxed and . . . well . . . kind of cool. After all, she didn’t know what he did or didn’t do for work. She didn’t know whose son he was. He was just a wealthy customer, young for an executive, in the city on business.

“Are you free tomorrow night?” he asked when the manager started turning off lights.

She was. She took him to a dive bar and, three hours into their date when he called her June, laughed till she cried.

“You’re two months off,” she said, and when he didn’t get it, she added, “April. My name is April.” She said it nicely, too, not making fun of him.

She wanted to be a chef, was working at the restaurant to make contacts, was in culinary school part-time, had dreams of owning her own establishment someday.

He invited her to see his suite at the Drake, where she laughed more and told him it was twice the size of her apartment. She opted not to sleep with him but said if he asked her out again, she’d probably say yes.

He extended his stay in Chicago for a few days, then a week, then ten days. April was too great to leave. She was happy and energetic and great in bed. She borrowed a bike for him so they could ride through Chicago, which he abruptly loved—Grant Park, the lake, tea at the hotel with all the old ladies, April giggling away.

On the eleventh day, his boss at FHK told him to get his ass back to New York or lose his job, and by the way, she was about to cancel his company credit card.

“I quit,” he said unexpectedly. But yes! He didn’t need those ass pains at FHK. He was tired of the thinly veiled contempt, the attitude, the resentment at his Brunello suits, his swanky apartment, his Porsche. They hated him and wished they could be him in the same breath, the hypocrites.

He would be a novelist, he decided. Why not? Six years at Dartmouth had probably taught him to be a great writer. Besides, with his last name, the publishers would be falling over each other to get to him. It would be a fictionalized memoir of his life—his sad childhood, stories of his horrible, unloving, impressive mother, his adventures with pot and drugs and women, the stupidity of his job in New York, his previously undiscovered genius with words.

The redheaded April thought it was a great idea. Clark was young, after all. If he wanted to write a novel (he didn’t mention the memoir part, not sure if she would approve), what better time was there? He should go after his dreams.

She was his dream. Sure she was. He suddenly wanted to be married, to live with her, this happy April, to be normal and loved and have kids and cut the grass, then go into his den, because he would have a den, of course, and write what would clearly be a great American novel, like . . . like . . . like that Hemingway book about fishing. Or Mommy Dearest, because who hadn’t read that one?

April was his muse. She was vibrant and fun and naive, unlike the Dartmouth girls who’d looked down their perfect noses at him, the New York women who didn’t even pretend they weren’t interested in his money, asking if he owned his apartment, dawdling in front of Tiffany’s, whining about wanting to go to Turks and Caicos. April was different. She loved her really boring but normal, nice parents. She wanted to have kids and own a restaurant and she wasn’t shy about it.

A chef and a novelist. How cool was that? Wouldn’t they be the best people on the block? Everyone would want to know them, come to their parties, admire how happy they were. They’d summer in Europe and their kids would be really well behaved and maybe there’d be a nanny so April wouldn’t have to take care of them all the time and could still be really hot and beautiful.

Genevieve was icily furious when he told her he quit, but hey. The Upper East Side apartment was in her name. She could do what she wanted with it.