Read Online Recipe for a Happy Life: A Novel by Brenda Janowitz - Free Book Online Page A

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