Kennedy Douglas - The Pursuit of Happiness

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A LSO BY D OUGLAS K ENNEDY

F ICTION

Leaving the World

The Woman in the Fifth

Temptation

State of the Union

A Special Relationship

The Job

The Big Picture

The Dead Heart

N ONFICTION

Chasing Mammon

In Gods Country

Beyond the Pyramids

ATRIA PAPERBACK

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2001 by Douglas Kennedy

Originally published in Great Britain in 2001 by Hutchinson

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Atria Paperback edition October 2010

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kennedy, Douglas, date.

The pursuit of happiness : a novel / by Douglas Kennedy. 1st Atria paperback ed.

p. cm.

1. JournalistsFiction. 2. Manhattan (New York, N.Y.)History20th centuryFiction. 3. Anti-communist movementsNew York (State)New YorkFiction. 4. United StatesPolitics and government19451953Fiction. 5. United StatesSocial life and customs19451970Fiction. I. Title.

PR6061.E5956P87 2010

823.914dc22 2010030965

ISBN 978-1-4391-9912-1

ISBN 978-1-4391-9914-5 (eBook)

We do not what we ought;

What we ought not, we do;

And lean upon the thought

That chance will bring us through.

M ATTHEW A RNOLD

I FIRST SAW HER standing near my mothers coffin. She was in her seventiesa tall, angular woman, with fine gray hair gathered in a compact bun at the back of her neck. She looked the way I hope to look if I ever make it to her birthday. She stood very erect, her spine refusing to hunch over with age. Her bone structure was flawless. Her skin had stayed smooth. Whatever wrinkles she had didnt cleave her face. Rather, they lent it character, gravitas . She was still handsomein a subdued, patrician way. You could tell that, once upon a recent time, men probably found her beautiful.

But it was her eyes that really caught my attention. Blue-gray. Sharply focused, taking everything in. Critical, watchful eyes, with just the slightest hint of melancholy. But who isnt melancholic at a funeral? Who doesnt stare at a coffin and picture themselves laid out inside of it? They say funerals are for the living. Too damn true. Because we dont just weep for the departed. We also weep for ourselves. For the brutal brevity of life. For its ever-accumulating insignificance. For the way we stumble through it, like foreigners without a map, making mistakes at every curve of the road.

When I looked at the woman directly, she averted her gaze in embarrassmentas if I had caught her in the act of studying me. Granted, the bereaved child at a funeral is always the subject of everybodys attention. As the person closest to the departed, they want you to set the emotional tone for the occasion. If youre hysterical, they wont be frightened of letting rip. If youre sobbing, theyll just sob too. If youre emotionally buttoned up, theyll also remain controlled, disciplined, correct.

I was being very controlled, very correctand so too were the twenty or so mourners who had accompanied my mother on her final journeyto borrow the words of the funeral director who dropped that phrase into the conversation when he was telling me the price of transporting her from his chapel of rest on 75th and Amsterdam to this, her eternal resting place... right under the LaGuardia Airport flight path in Flushing Meadow, Queens.

After the woman turned away, I heard the reverse throttle of jet engines and glanced up into the cold blue winter sky. No doubt several members of the assembled graveside congregation thought that I was contemplating the heavensand wondering about my mothers place in its celestial vastness. But actually all I was doing was checking out the name of the descending jet. US Air. One of those old 727s they still use for short hauls. Probably the Boston shuttle. Or maybe the Washington run...

It is amazing the trivial junk that floats through your head at the most momentous moments of your life.

Mommy, Mommy.

My seven-year-old son, Ethan, was tugging at my coat. His voice cut across that of the Episcopalian minister, who was standing at the back of the coffin, solemnly intoning a passage from Revelations:

God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;

And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow

Nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain;

For the former things are passed away.

I swallowed hard. No sorrow. No crying. No pain. That was not the story of my mothers life.

Mommy, Mommy...

Ethan was still tugging on my sleeve, demanding attention. I put a finger to my lips and simultaneously stroked his mop of dirty blond hair.

Not now, darling, I whispered.

I need to wee.

I fought a smile.

Daddy will take you, I said, looking up and catching the eye of my ex-husband, Matt. He was standing on the opposite side of the coffin, keeping to the back of the small crowd. I had been just a tad surprised when he showed up at the funeral chapel this morning. Since he left Ethan and me five years ago, our dealings with each other had been, at best, businesslikewhatever words spoken between us having been limited to our son, and the usual dreary financial matters that force even acrimoniously divorced couples to answer each others phone calls. Even when hes attempted to be conciliatory, Ive cut him off at the pass. For some strange reason, Ive never really forgiven him for walking right out of our front door and into the arms of Her Ms. Talking Head News-Channel-4-New-York media babe. And Ethan was just twenty-five months old at the time.

Still, one must take these little setbacks on the chin, right? Especially as Matt so conformed to male clich. But there is one thing I can say in my ex-husbands favor: he has turned out to be an attentive, loving father. And Ethan adores himsomething that everyone at the graveside noticed, as he dashed in front of his grandmothers coffin and straight into his fathers arms. Matt lifted him off the ground and I saw Ethan whisper his urination request. With a quick nod to me, Matt carried him off, draped across one shoulder, in search of the nearest toilet.