Happy Birthday: A Novel

Chapter 9

The morning of Christmas Eve, Valerie went to a memorial service for Marilyn. There had already been a number of them for others who had been less fortunate than she and Jack. It made the events that had happened all too real.

Jack hadn’t been able to attend the service for Norman Waterman, the young production assistant he had liked so much who had also been killed. But he had sent a long and heartfelt letter to his family about what a fine man he had been and how much he admired him and what a huge loss it was for them all.

Valerie was brooding quietly about Marilyn when she got home after the service, thinking about how wonderful Marilyn had been and how much Valerie would miss her. It was hard to believe that people they knew were gone. It cast a pall over her all day.

And much to Valerie’s surprise, Jack did call her when he got out of the hospital. They sent him home that morning, and he called her in the afternoon to wish her a Merry Christmas and thank her for all the meals from April’s. He said his son was home from college, and staying with him, and he also had a nurse to help him. He was still on crutches but said he was getting around okay. He invited her to dinner at April’s the day after Christmas. He asked if there was anyplace else she’d prefer, and they both agreed it was the best food in town, and a nice relaxed atmosphere that suited them both. He told her he’d see her in two days, and would pick her up to go downtown. They discovered that they only lived a few blocks from each other, and he said he’d pick her up at eight. She was delighted when she hung up.

And April was stunned to hear from Mike three hours before her family was due at the restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. They had a lot to celebrate this year!

“This probably sounds crazy, and very rude,” Mike said, sounding embarrassed, “but I get depressed over the holidays. I think I need comfort food.” Spending the day of the terrorist attack together and his support had opened a door of friendship between them. And he didn’t know how to say it to her, but more than comfort food, he wanted to get to know her now as a friend.

“Do you want me to send you something?” April said, smiling at what he said. “What would you like?”

“I was actually thinking about your invitation to have dinner with your family. I’d like to come, if I can have pancakes for dinner.” She laughed at the suggestion, and told him she’d be delighted if he joined them. “I’d like to meet your mother, after spending a whole day with you worrying about her. Do you think they’d mind my being there?”

“Not at all,” she said easily, not wanting to tell him that they were desperate to get a look at the man who had fathered her baby but wasn’t involved with her. It was a crazy situation. She wanted to remind her parents not to say anything embarrassing to him. She thought it was actually brave of him to come, comfort food or not. There was nothing comfortable about meeting the parents of a woman you had gotten pregnant but didn’t love or have a relationship with, or want the child. She was impressed, and curious about why he had really called. “Are you serious about the pancakes?” she inquired, not sure for a minute if he was kidding.

“Totally,” he said. “I usually get in a fetal position on Christmas Eve, and stay that way until New Year’s Day. This is a big break with tradition for me. I don’t want to shock my system too badly by eating Christmas food too. So don’t waste it on me. I’m the original Grinch. Pancakes would be great.”

“Your wish is my command, Mr. Steinman. A stack of my best buttermilk pancakes will be on your plate. No plum pudding for you!”

“Good. What time?”

“Eight.”

“Thanks for letting me crash your family dinner. I guess I’m curious about them. I assume they know about me,” he said cautiously, sounding a little nervous.

She didn’t want to lie to him. It was obvious that they did. “They do. But they’ve been pretty cool about it. No one’s going to give you a hard time.”

“That’s decent of them. I would in their shoes,” he said honestly.

“I guess they just figure we’re a couple of shameless alcoholics who got what we deserved,” she teased him, and he laughed. There was a lot he liked about her, and he liked the night he had spent in bed with her, what he remembered of it. He may have been drunk, but he wasn’t blind or stupid. She was a smart, sexy, beautiful girl, and better than that, she was nice, even if she had gotten pregnant. He hadn’t forgiven her for that yet, or the fates, but it would be good if they could be friends. She didn’t seem to want more than that. And for now, that worked for him, even if nothing else did. He wouldn’t let himself think about the baby yet, and maybe never. That was too much for him to deal with. One thing at a time. First April. Then he’d see about the rest. He was touched by the fact that she wanted nothing from him and was being independent and gutsy about her circumstances. It was one of the things he liked about her, and he was beginning to think that her idea of having comfort food on the menu was not such a bad idea. It was exactly what he wanted now, not dinner at a three-star restaurant. He loved the idea of having pancakes on Christmas Eve, and so did a lot of people for whom the holidays were hard. He had finally gotten her message. Better late than never.

April called both her father and her mother before they arrived, to warn them that Mike would be there, and not to say anything to him about the baby, or their situation. Both her parents thought his coming to dinner was a hopeful sign of some kind of involvement on his part, but neither of them dared to comment. They knew how sensitive April was about it, and they didn’t want to upset her. But they were both anxious to meet him, and see what they thought of him. Pat warned Maddie and the girls on the way to the restaurant to be careful too. They all promised they would be.

Pat and his contingent were the first to arrive, and Valerie a few minutes later. She looked better but still tired after her shocking ordeal. Pat and Maddie hugged her and told her how happy they were to see her, as did their daughters. They could have been having a very different Christmas, if she and the other hostages hadn’t been rescued. There had been services that day for many of those who hadn’t survived it, and there would be all through the coming week. It was sobering to still see it on the news.

The whole group was in great spirits as they sat down at the table, and just as they did Mike arrived, wearing a blazer and tie, and looking very serious and respectable. He had correctly guessed that he needed to show up looking proper for dinner. Valerie was the first to hold her hand out to him with a broad smile.

“Thank you for keeping April company for that awful day.” Mike returned the smile, and was stunned by how beautiful she was and how young she appeared, even more so than on TV. She looked like a real star, and he could easily see the resemblance to April, despite their different styles. He preferred April’s natural look, but her mother was a lovely-looking woman too.

“I’m just glad you’re okay. That was one hell of a day,” Mike said with obvious sympathy, and then shook hands with Pat and Maddie, who greeted him warmly, and he said hi to the girls. April had seated him between herself and Annie. She thought it might be too intense to seat him next to either of her parents, who might not be able to resist asking him pointed questions, in spite of her request. But Mike seemed totally comfortable in their midst. They were kind people and put him at ease.

He talked to Annie about MIT, and Heather about the colleges she had applied to. He got into an interesting discussion with her father about medieval history, which Mike seemed to know a lot about, and he and her mother chatted amiably, and he spoke to Maddie on several topics, and everyone teased him when his pancakes arrived instead of the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding they were all eating. And he liked his pancakes so much that he ordered a second stack and ate them all. And as usual, the wines Jean-Pierre picked out for them were excellent. By the end of dinner, everyone was in high spirits, and Mike decided to have one of her Yule logs and ate all of that as well. He had made a total pig of himself, and thought her family were the nicest people he’d ever met. Her father even scolded him for the bad review he’d given the restaurant, and Mike admitted that he was deeply embarrassed about it.

“I was a total jerk,” he confessed readily. “I just didn’t get what she was doing. I could tell what a great chef she is, and how well trained, from her CV, and I thought she was underachieving. Instead her idea is sheer genius. Look at what I just ate.” He had waved at the crumbs of the pancakes dripping in maple syrup as he said it. It had been all he had craved for dinner, and he admitted that her mashed potatoes and white truffle pasta were the best in the world. “I’ll make it up to her one day,” Mike promised her father, who looked mollified as they drank champagne with dessert. Some of them ate her Yule logs, and the others had plum pudding, delicately lit. And both girls ordered s’mores.

Jean-Pierre offered her father a glass of cognac after dinner, and Mike accepted one too. The two men got along much better than April had expected, and her mother put an arm around her shoulders and hugged her and whispered “I like him,” and April whispered back, “Me too.” And when he went to the bathroom, both of her sisters agreed that he was cute. That didn’t mean that they’d wind up together, but at least her judgment hadn’t been totally off when she’d gone to bed with him, it had just been premature.

The entire group left the restaurant after midnight, and they weren’t the last to leave. Mike thanked them all for allowing him to join them, and he didn’t say it, but it had been the best Christmas Eve of his life. He liked them all. And before Valerie got into a cab, April told her mother that Jack Adams was coming to dinner the day after Christmas, so he must be doing all right.

“I know.” Valerie smiled at her daughter. “I’m having dinner with him here. He called me today. He’s still on crutches, but he says he’s feeling fine. He attributes it to your mashed potatoes and meat loaf.” She laughed, and April looked surprised.

“He invited you to dinner? That’s nice of him.” She didn’t tell her mother that he usually showed up with girls half his age or younger. The two were obviously becoming friends after he rescued her from the terrorists. Once everyone had gotten into cabs, April went back inside. Everything was under control in the kitchen, so she went upstairs.

Mike called her on her cell phone just as she was getting into bed. He sounded relaxed and happy, not like a Grinch at all.

“Thank you for a wonderful evening. And I think your family is great. Everyone was really sweet to me, and they didn’t have to be. They could have been really pissed.”

“They’re not. And they liked you too,” she said honestly. “Heather thinks you’re ‘hot,’ ” she said, and he laughed out loud.

“I think your mom is ‘hot.’ She looks incredible.” He suspected she’d had a little help, but the results were great. She looked fifteen years younger than she was. And he liked Pat and Maddie too. He liked them all. They were intelligent, interesting, loving to one another, and they obviously had a great time together. It was easy to see why April loved them as much as she did, and they just as clearly loved her. And they had warmly welcomed him into their midst. “Would you like to have dinner one of these days?” he asked out of the blue, and April was surprised. “The only problem is that yours has become my favorite restaurant, so I don’t know where we’d go. Do you like Chinese?”

“I love it,” she said, sounding delighted.

“I’ll figure something out. Or maybe Thai. We’ll see. How about next week?”

“Anytime you like.”

“Perfect. Good night, April. Merry Christmas,” he said, and meant it for the first time in years.

“Merry Christmas, Mike.” She smiled as she hung up. It was funny to think about, she was almost four months pregnant with his child, and he had just asked her out for their first date. And she was thrilled.

The day after Christmas, at the appointed hour, Jack showed up at Valerie’s building in a Cadillac Escalade SUV, with a driver. He was sitting in the backseat, and she hopped in beside him. He was wearing a big shearling coat and a turtleneck sweater, and she had dressed casually too. He had warned her that dressing was still difficult for him. They had both worn jeans, and she was wearing a short fur jacket. One of the nice things about April’s restaurant was that you could wear whatever you wanted.

She and Jack chatted easily on the way downtown. He said that he had spent Christmas with his son, who had left to go skiing with friends that morning. He said he was on good terms with his ex-wife, who had remarried shortly after their divorce sixteen years before and had three young boys. Valerie said she was on great terms with her ex too, whose second wife she liked immensely, and they had two daughters.

Jack admitted readily that he hadn’t been a great husband. “In fact,” he said, looking sheepish, “I was awful. Too much temptation. And I was way too young. We were married for ten years, and I have no idea why she stayed as long as she did. It’s heady stuff being a quarterback at the top of your game. I thought I was hot stuff, and I guess back then I was. I had way too much fun, and I have to admit, I have since then too. This last birthday kind of got me thinking. Could be it’s time to get out of the fast lane and slow down. The night before my birthday damn near killed me.”

She smiled at the memory. “You looked pretty bad when I saw you.”

“I thought I was dying. I was in bed for two weeks with that disk. That never happened to me before. I figured it was some kind of message.”

“And what would that be?” she teased him. He looked in good spirits despite his recent injury, and he didn’t look like he was slowing down to her. He was out for dinner less than a week after he’d been shot.

“I’m not sure what the message is,” Jack said, smiling at her. “Get thee to a monastery maybe. Or at least slow down. I’ve been raising hell for a long time. I was thinking about it in the hospital too. We could have all been killed. I think I want to put more thought into how I spend my life, and be a little more selective about who I spend it with.” The models he went out with were beautiful, but essentially he knew better than anyone that they were just a string of one-night stands. He hadn’t had a serious relationship in years. He was beginning to think he was ready for one now. He knew he hadn’t met the “who” yet, but the rest was coming clear, since the terrorists had taken over the network.

They arrived at the restaurant, and when April saw them getting out of the car, she came out to meet them and helped Jack in. She had given him a table with easy access, and was happy to see her mother. Together they settled Jack on a banquette, with his injured leg on a chair. He said it worked, and Valerie sat next to him on the banquette. It was a cozy table, but everyone in the room had recognized him when he walked in. Even on crutches, he was a striking man. He was six four and still weighed 240 pounds. Her mother was a tall woman, but she was dwarfed beside him, as was April. And of course people had recognized Valerie too. They always did.

April had gained a little weight recently, and she was losing her waistline, but in the apron she wore constantly, so far no one had noticed. It would be a while still before the baby showed. She knew she would have a lot to explain then. No one had any idea what was coming.

Jack ordered all his favorites that night for dinner. He had crab salad, and hot, fresh Maine lobster. Her mother had a cheeseburger, which she said she had been craving for days. And they shared a double order of April’s delicious French fries. And after serious debate between a chocolate soufflé and a leftover Yule log, they decided to share a hot fudge sundae instead. Each of them was delighted with what they ate, and spent ten minutes praising April.

“So tell me about your show,” he said to Valerie, as they dove into the hot fudge sundae. And April had left a plate of homemade chocolates on their table for good measure, with truffles and delicate butter cookies she had learned how to make in France. “How did you get to be the authority on everything in the home?”

“God knows. I was a decorator for a few years, and I always had lots of ideas about how to set a beautiful table, and what a home should look like. We didn’t have any money when we started out, and I was always figuring out how to make things pretty on a budget, and making things myself. Friends started asking for advice, and how I could help them. I did a couple of weddings. I wrote some books, wound up on the network, and presto magic, I became the guru for gracious living.” She made it sound a lot simpler than it was. She had put a huge amount of thought into her work over the years, and was always trying out new things and doing careful research even now. And she was willing to work harder and longer than anyone else, and make whatever sacrifice she had to. That had been an important part of her success. She was extremely disciplined about her work.

“Yeah, like I wound up in the Hall of Fame.” He laughed at what she had said. “I kicked a couple of balls around a football field, made a couple of touchdowns, and there I was. Valerie, nobody knows better than I do that it’s not that easy. I worked my ass off in the NFL, and everybody tells me you work like a dog. Just like your daughter, look at her, she hasn’t sat down all night. In the end, I think we both know that hard work wins the prize.” Even as a sportscaster he had worked hard, and the interviews she had seen him do recently were good. The ratings loved him. “Let me ask you something: How many football games have you been to in your life?” She was embarrassed at the question. She knew nothing about sports. “Honestly. Don’t lie,” he warned her with a smile. “I’ll know.”

“Honestly? Two.” And she had never seen him play, although she knew he was a legend.

“Pro or college?”

“College. When I was in college myself.”

“We have to do something about that.” He thought about it for a moment. It was a very different move for him, but why not? They had both just gotten a new lease on life. “How would you like to come to the Super Bowl with me? You can have your own room of course,” he reassured her. “I have to work, but Super Bowl’s about as good as it gets. You might have fun. I’m going to Miami for it in four weeks. I just hope I can get around better by then. But whether I can or not, I have to go. They want me back on deck for that.”

Valerie hesitated for only a fraction of a second and then laughed. “I’d love to. I’ll try to take some kind of crash course before I go.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll explain it to you when we’re there.”

She laughed out loud then. “I’ve been telling people how to do Super Bowl parties for years. You’re going to make me an honest woman.”

“It’s about goddamn time. My son always comes down with me. I hope you don’t mind. He’s a great kid. He probably knows even less about football than you do. He hates sports, probably thanks to me. But he thinks the Super Bowl is fun. He used to come when I played. I guess it was pretty rowdy for him. And it still is. Every time I go, I wish I were still playing. It’s hard to give all that up. I played in four winning Super Bowls. It doesn’t get sweeter than that. I’m glad I retired when I did, but I still miss it sometimes. Who wouldn’t? Being a sportscaster is great, but it’s not like being in the game.”

“Sometimes I feel that way,” she admitted to him, “when I see young women just starting out on their careers. It’s hard to get older.” They both looked at April as they said it. To them, she looked like a child, and in some ways she was.

“I used to tell myself I was still young, but this last birthday kind of brought me up short,” Jack admitted.

“So did mine,” she said, laughing ruefully, “especially when they announced it on the radio. I was ready to kill someone when I saw you in the elevator that day, except I felt so sorry for you, all hunched over.”

He laughed now when he thought of it, his night with Catwoman and the disastrous result. “I think that was my last fling with youth. After that, I figured maybe it was time to grow up. Living through the terrorist takeover at the network was an epiphany for me about what matters and what doesn’t. Some of the things I’ve done were pretty dumb. Basically, I destroyed my marriage in order to show off.” What he said struck a familiar chord for her, she had done some of that herself, although Pat had been nice about it. Her day as a hostage and the lives lost had sparked an epiphany for her too. And she realized now that most of her decisions while she was married to him were about what was good for her and her career, not him or their marriage. She couldn’t help wondering now if she’d been wrong, and regretting some of it.

“I pretty much wrecked my marriage in order to build my career,” she confessed ruefully, but with her usual honesty about herself. “Although I was married to the wrong man. It never really worked. He’s a wonderful person, but we were much too different. He admits now that I scared him to death. He wanted more children, and now I wish I’d had them. But I wanted to build an empire, and I did. You sacrifice a lot for that, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. I love my work, and I still have a good time doing it, but that’s not all there is. It’s taken me this long to figure that out,” Valerie said with a candor and openness that impressed Jack.

“Yeah, me too,” Jack admitted. “Life isn’t just about having fun. Or that’s all you wind up with. A lot of good-time Charlies hanging around to cash in on you, and a lot of very pretty empty-headed girls who’re there for a free ride. That gets old. Maybe I did myself a favor on my birthday when I threw my back out. The two weeks I spent in bed feeling sorry for myself gave me time to think.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot in recent years, but by now I don’t know what else to do,” Valerie said quietly. “My marriage has been over for twenty-three years. April’s all grown up and doesn’t need me. Now all I’ve got left is work, and it’s what I do best.” Jack looked at her thoughtfully as she said it. What she said made sense to him too.

“I think what you need in your life now, Valerie, is football,” he teased her again. “We’ll get you a total immersion course in Miami next month. In exchange, you can teach me how to set a table.” But even though he was being playful with her about it, he had enormous respect for the career she had built. Hers was a name that absolutely everybody knew. She was truly the world authority on gracious living. There wasn’t a girl in America who planned her wedding without one of Valerie’s books. It was easy to pooh-pooh it, but she was an industry unto herself. She was a business, a star, an icon, and a legend all her own, just as he was and had been. In their own way, they were both in the Hall of Fame, but in the end, they had both figured out that as exciting as it could be at times, it just wasn’t enough. Pat had figured that out when they split up and he married Maddie, and went on to have more kids with a woman whose greatest joy in life was their family and marriage. They talked about things the way he and Valerie never had. Most of Valerie’s decisions had been unilateral based on what was good for her career. At the time, it had been heady stuff. It was too late to go back and turn it around, and she wasn’t sorry she’d done it. But some of the sacrifices she’d made, and the choices, no longer made quite as much sense.

Jack Adams was in a similar situation to hers. He had opted for a lifetime of fun, and he didn’t regret it, but at fifty, there was no one important in his life, except his son. And he had never slowed down long enough to marry again and have more children. He had told himself he would one day, and the women he went out with were young enough that he could still marry and have more kids. Lots of men had second families at his age and older, particularly successful ones. But he wished that he had done it when he was younger. When he saw his ex-wife’s three other boys, he knew that somewhere along the line, he had blown it. It was hard to play catch-up at fifty. And even harder at Valerie’s age. One day you woke up and you were alone, and you wondered how it had happened. In Valerie and Jack’s case, they both knew how it had.

“Would you do it differently if you had it to do all over again?” he asked her, and she thought about it before she answered.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I probably should have tried harder to stay married, but Pat and I didn’t want the same things. He wanted an academic life and I didn’t. I didn’t care about medieval history, or his tenure at the university, or his students. I was much too interested in my own career and where it was going. I was on an express train all by myself. I didn’t even notice that no one else was on it, and I probably didn’t care back then, although I do now. I’d like someone on that train with me, and it’s not going quite as fast. It’s going at a good clip, but there’s room for someone else on board. There never was before. Probably what I regret most now is that I didn’t put any time and effort into finding someone else after Pat. I was too busy. But one day you wake up, and you’re all by yourself, and there’s no one in the station wanting to get on the train anymore. You’ve been flying by too fast. I don’t want to end up alone one day, when I’m really old, but it could happen. I didn’t stop at enough stations and let anyone else on board before now. And by the time you figure that out, it’s probably too late to change it. You have a life, a show, a career everyone envies, a history, but if you’re all alone, I’m not sure the accomplishments mean that much.”

“It’s not too late for someone to get on that train with you,” Jack said quietly, and meant it. “You’re a beautiful woman, Valerie. You just have to slow down long enough for someone to get on board.” She nodded, and she could tell that he knew exactly what she meant, and had done the same thing himself, in his own way.

“I’m trying,” she said honestly. “Some people say you can’t have everything, a successful career and a relationship. I always thought you could, although I didn’t put much effort into it myself.”

“I think you can have both. People have said that to me too. I think it’s bullshit. I think people who say that are jealous, and they don’t like the idea that you can have it all. You can, you just have to moderate what you want. I’ve probably been out with every airhead in the country for the last twenty-five years. That’s fine if what you really want is airheads. If you want more than that, at some point you have to get off that train too. I forgot to get off that train. I fell off that train recently, and I’m starting to think that’s a good thing. It woke me up.” She nodded. There was definitely a choice to be made about the kind of women he wanted.

It had been an interesting conversation, as April walked over to them with a smile. She had been on her feet, in and out of the kitchen, and greeting people, all night. Valerie worried about her staying on the career train for too long too. This baby was going to do her good. It was going to put something real and human in her life, not just a restaurant to love, but a person, a child. The one thing in her life Valerie didn’t regret was April. She had been the greatest gift of all.

“How are you two doing?” she asked as she observed the remains of the hot fudge sundae. They had made heavy inroads on the chocolate truffles and butter cookies too. There was only one of each left.

“I’d say we’ve done very well, and had a terrific evening. Your mother is telling me all about how to set a table, and I’ve been explaining about field goals and incomplete passes.” April laughed. They were obviously having a nice time.

“Just don’t let her teach you how to cook.”

“No worries. We have you. The lobster was delicious.” April was pleased to hear it.

Jack paid the check after that, and Valerie could see that he was tired. The leg was probably still hurting more than he wanted to admit, and it had been a little too soon for him to go out. He seemed slower on his crutches when they left, although he claimed that it was all that food weighing him down. But he looked exhausted, and Valerie suspected he was in pain.

She thanked him for dinner when he dropped her off at her building. He said he had had a wonderful time, and so had she.

“I’ll have my secretary call you about Miami. I’ll give you the name of the hotel and the dates. See if they work for you. We don’t need to book a flight, the network will send us down on the company plane.” It was a nice way to travel. He was definitely a star, and the nice thing was that so was she. They were on equal footing. He was going to be a wonderful friend to have.

“Try to rest a little over the holidays,” she reminded him.

“Look who’s talking,” he said, and laughed. “How many days did you take off after the hostage incident? Remind me, was that one or two?” She laughed in answer. He had a point. They had both spent their lives pushing as hard as they could, doing as much as possible, and there were a lot of good things about it. It had gotten them where they were. But at this point in their lives, they were both questioning how high the price had been for that fast ride. And for different reasons, they both wanted to slow down, not totally, but just enough to let someone else on the merry-go-round with them. They had both been honest and open about it that night. It would be interesting to see if they could do it, or if they ever would. She was looking forward to going to the Super Bowl with him, if she had the time. She had never done anything like it. It sounded like fun, and she liked the idea of doing something so different.

Jack kissed her on the cheek as she got out of the car, and she waved as she walked back into the building. She had had a really good time. Who would ever have guessed that they would wind up friends?