Happy Birthday: A Novel

Chapter 19

After the initial shock of the fire at April’s restaurant, and being reassured that they weren’t needed at home, Jack and Valerie had a fantastic time in Paris. They both loved staying at the Ritz and had stayed there before. They enjoyed the same restaurants, although Valerie introduced him to some new ones, and April told them about others that were intimate and unknown. Paparazzi took their photographs occasionally as they went in and out of the hotel. Neither of them was major news in Europe, but they were both well-known. And they loved being with each other.

Jack was astonishingly generous with her, and bought her a gold bracelet, and a fur jacket she saw and fell in love with. He surprised her with it at the hotel, after saying he had to go out and get some air. Life with him was a constant series of thoughtful, loving gestures, and Valerie was discovering a side of herself she had never known existed. For once in her life, she wasn’t thinking about work, but only her man.

They played “what if” games that Jack invented sometimes at dinner. If the network asked her to choose between him and her job, just how much did she love him, and what would she do?

“That’s easy,” she teased him. “I’d keep my show, and meet you on the sly in cheap motels in New Jersey.” And what if he had to give up sportscasting for her, or his place in the Hall of Fame, would he do it?

“Sportscasting, yes. Hall of Fame, not so easy. I worked my ass off to be in it in the first place,” he said sensibly. And there were times when they both talked seriously about what they wanted to do about their jobs as they got older. They were in an industry that prized youth.

“Barbara Walters has always been my role model,” Valerie said to him. “She has stayed on top for her entire career, and never slipped for a minute. She had to compete with men, her peers, younger women, and she’s still the best and the biggest in the business, and what’s more I really like her.”

“Is that what you want? To stay in the business forever? It’s a hell of a fight to stay on top the way she has, and I’m not so sure it’s worth it,” Jack said, as they finished dinner in a cozy restaurant on the Left Bank that April had recommended. Their joint favorite was still the Voltaire, on the quais along the Seine, but that night they hadn’t been able to get a table. Everyone in Paris wanted to go there, and only the cream of “le tout Paris” got in.

“I used to think so,” Valerie said in answer to his question about staying in the business. “What else is there?” And then she corrected herself, “Or what else was there before you? April is all grown up and has her own life, now more so than ever, with a restaurant, a husband, and a baby. What am I supposed to do with the next thirty years, if I’m that lucky? Or even the next ten? I always thought work was the answer. But I thought that when I was thirty too. I guess I’m just a workhorse. But I have to admit, sometimes now I’m not so sure.” She was happy with him, happier than she ever had been, but she also couldn’t give up a career for him, nor would she want to. What if either of them decided to move on, or things didn’t work out for them? It could always happen. Sometimes things changed, even in the best of relationships, and this was just the beginning. She wasn’t willing to put her career on the line for him, and he knew it. She had worked too hard to get there to risk it for any man, and she didn’t think she should. But she was willing to accommodate him to the best of her ability, within the framework of how she worked and lived.

He asked her a surprise question then. It had crossed her mind once or twice, but she didn’t have the answer to that either. “Do you suppose we should think about getting married eventually?” They were both old enough to know what they wanted, and who. She had always thought she wanted to get married again, but now she wasn’t as sure. She loved him, without question, but did they need the papers to go with it? They weren’t going to have children. They both had interesting careers. They loved each other. But just how much did they need to prove? And to whom?

“I don’t know. What do you think?” she said, smiling shyly at him. It was a big subject, and there was still the factor, and always would be, that she was older than he. What if he fell in love with a younger woman one day? She didn’t want the heartbreak of divorce again, especially at her age. Losing him would have devastated her. “I’m of two minds about it. Basically, I believe in the institution and what it stands for. I always did. But at this point in our lives, sometimes I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Do we really need the paperwork to tell others what we feel? And it’s like any other contract, the day one of you wants to get out of it, there’s nothing you can do to keep them there. People who want to get out, do, and then it’s a giant mess.” He didn’t disagree.

“I’d get married if it was important to you,” he said generously, and maybe one day it would be, but it wasn’t yet, and she made that clear. “I’m open to it. But I don’t need it myself. And I agree with you about divorce. Mine was pretty nasty. But we’re good friends now. At the time it was a huge battle, over visitation with Greg, the property we had to split up since I had already hit the big time and was making a lot of money by then, and I was really pissed that she wanted out to marry someone else, and had cheated on me with the team doctor. And she was pissed about all the girls I’d cheated on her with. It was a pretty ugly time, and I’m surprised we wound up friends.”

“It was easier for me and Pat,” Valerie admitted. “Neither of us had any money, we were more than willing to share April, and he hadn’t met Maddie yet. He was pretty devastated. He wanted to stay married, mostly because he didn’t want to admit that our marriage was a failure, and I wanted out. I knew it was the wrong situation for me. His academic life and everything that went with it bored me to death. What made sense eight years before that, or we thought so anyway, no longer did. I grew into someone entirely different from the woman he had married. As the Brits say, we were like chalk and cheese. I felt like he was holding me back in my career plans, and he felt like I was dragging him behind the horse by his teeth. We were miserable.” She couldn’t imagine that happening to her and Jack now, they were both grown-ups and had established careers. If anything, they were both slowing down slightly, or said they were willing to, but she wasn’t sure that was true either. They had both been on the fast track for a long time and were used to it. Modifying anything in their public lives wasn’t going to be easy, and for now they didn’t need to. They had no conflicts about each other’s work.

“Maybe we just need to keep things the way they are for now,” Jack said reasonably. “There’s no pressure on us to get married. There’s no statute of limitations on it. We can always do it later, if we want to, as long as you’re not in any kind of hurry. I’m not. We don’t want to have kids.” He smiled at her. Everything about their current relationship worked for both of them, even the difference in their ages, which Valerie had almost stopped worrying about, and had never been a problem for him. The difference between fifty and sixty seemed negligible now to both of them, and everyone else. Who cared? They felt like equals in every way. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke,” he said, smiling at her. And she liked the fact that he was open to marriage, but didn’t need it, and neither did she. And their kids didn’t seem to care either way. The press had spotted them together several times, but no one seemed upset or excited or even shocked about what might be happening between them. They were reasonable options for each other, they worked for the same network, they were both important in their field, and they had a fabulous time together. What more did they need? “What about living together?” Jack asked as long as they were on the subject of future arrangements. “Is that something you’d ever want to do?” For the past many months they had been together every night, going back and forth between each other’s apartments, but neither of them really wanted to give their own place up, and they agreed that it was much too soon to make that decision. It was just nice to think about where they were going, and what they wanted to do, to discover what was off limits, and what might be a good plan for the future. He loved his apartment, and she loved hers. He wouldn’t have minded her moving in with him, and would have liked it, but he didn’t want to give up his place, and for now, neither did she. She didn’t want to be that dependent on him, and maybe never would.

“I don’t know,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I’m not in love with my apartment, but it works for me. I suppose I could sell it one day.” But in the meantime, she liked staying with him, and they stayed at hers several times a week when it was more convenient for her. They were both surprisingly willing to adapt to each other, and reasonable people. “Maybe if something comes up in your building, I could buy it and sell mine, and add it to yours. It might give us what we need.” He liked that idea. There seemed to be solutions for everything. They hadn’t faced any major challenges or roadblocks yet, and their trip had been absolutely perfect, and continued to be. Nothing was pressing them, neither of them was pushing, they had no arguments or disagreements. They had enough space to move around in. And for now anyway, they enhanced each other’s lives and lost nothing in the bargain. It seemed ideal. She was meticulously neat around the house, and he was messy, but other than that, there were no problems, and she didn’t mind picking up after him in order to keep things neat. It embarrassed him at times, but he said he was constitutionally unable to be neat, it just wasn’t in his genes. So she picked up his clothes at night and hung them up, put his laundry where it belonged, and constantly tidied up his papers. It didn’t bother her and he didn’t care. It made him feel loved and taken care of.

They walked along the Seine in Paris, went to an art exhibit at the Grand Palais, had tea at the Plaza Athénée, and stuck their noses into every antique shop on the Left Bank. They had coffee at the Deux Magots in St. Germain des Prés, and walked all over Paris arm in arm, and stopped to kiss every chance they got. It was a city where you constantly saw people kissing. Public displays of affection in Paris were never frowned on, they were encouraged. It was the most romantic week Valerie had ever spent with any man, and they both hated to leave for London.

They spent five days there going to the theater, and an antique show. He took her shopping on New Bond Street and bought her a pair of silver lovebirds at Asprey. And once there, Valerie called Dawn and got started organizing April’s wedding. Dawn was excited to help her do it. April insisted she only wanted the staff from the restaurant, Ellen and Larry, and Mike thought he should invite his editor, his friend Jim and his wife, and another writer April didn’t know. And of course Pat and Maddie and Annie and Heather would come. At most, even including Ellen’s three boys, it came to fewer than forty people. It would be easy for Valerie to do at her apartment, although Jack had generously offered his, but she didn’t want him to have the inconvenience.

Valerie told Dawn she wanted the best caterer she could find, so April didn’t complain about the food, and had Dawn call a judge she knew, and the florist she always used. Valerie wanted five round tables of eight set up in her living room, and chamber music and no dancing, since April said they wanted a lunchtime wedding, with guests arriving at noon. It was embarrassingly simple. They even managed to have invitations made, which would be hand-delivered two weeks before the wedding. By the time she and Jack left for Venice, the whole thing had been arranged. And Jack insisted he wanted to give a big party for them later, maybe after she’d reopened the restaurant, and had the baby, when it would seem more festive. Valerie and April were both touched by his offer. But for now the simple ceremony and lunch at her mother’s apartment were all April wanted, and probably all Mike could handle. He was already nervous about it, although insistent that it was what he wanted to do too. And April was ecstatic. She joked to Ellen during one of her acupuncture appointments that as it turned out, she would be married, have a baby, and a successful business at thirty, just as she had always believed she should. But this wasn’t about “should,” it was about being totally in love with the man she was marrying, and excited now to have his baby. Ellen was delighted for them.

The days Jack and Valerie shared in Venice were the best of the trip. The light was beautiful there in May, the weather was perfect, and the food was much too good. Valerie said she’d have to starve when she went home. They took gondola rides and went to churches, kissed under bridges, and wandered everywhere on foot. They went across the lagoon to the Hotel Cipriani for lunch one day, and went to see the glass factory in Murano the day after. They bought a chandelier together for his kitchen. Valerie insisted it would look great with the Ellsworth Kellys and convinced him.

They had their last lunch at Harry’s Bar, took a final gondola ride under the Bridge of Sighs, and spent their last night at the Gritti Palace in bed making love, and then walked out on their balcony to look out over Venice in the moonlight.

“Could anything be more perfect?” he asked, as he put an arm around Valerie and held her close to him. It had been the perfect trip. “I think this was our honeymoon,” he said, smiling at her, and she nodded. They didn’t need to get married, they already had everything, and best of all, they both knew, they had each other.