Perfect Life Read online

  Perfect Life

  ALSO BY JESSICA SHATTUCK

  The Hazards of Good Breeding

  Perfect Life

  A NOVEL

  Jessica Shattuck

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

  NEW YORK • LONDON

  Copyright © 2009 by Jessica Shattuck

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,

  write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.,

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shattuck, Jessica.

  Perfect life: a novel / Jessica Shattuck.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN :978-0-393-07150-4

  1. Fertility, Human—Fiction. 2. Parenthood—Fiction. I.Title.

  PS3619.H3575P47 2009

  813’.6—dc22

  2009015080

  W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company Ltd.

  Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London WIT 3Q

  To Helen & Tilde

  Perfect Life

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  LATER, AFTER EVERYTHING, after Neil had come and gone again from their day-to-day lives, Laura had a memory of that other time, a million years ago it seemed, when they had all been college students, living in that cushy, all-American holding pen for almost-adults, reading books and being cooked for, drinking five nights a week, and worrying over nothing more than term papers and social gaffes.

  The memory was of one of those gray November-in-New-England days with the heat banging and ticking in the radiators and wind rattling the windowpanes. Laura and her roommates had spent the day entirely in their suite, taking refuge in the insufficient comfort of smoking cigarettes and listening to melancholy CDs.

  Their rooms were at once slovenly and decorous—full of glossy prints of Victorian paintings, Indian tapestries, and once-decent furniture inherited from Laura’s great-grandmother, now strewn with discarded shoes, full ashtrays, half-empty beer bottles, and crusty plastic dining room dishes. No one ever cleaned. There was a general atmosphere of simulation. They were all aware of those four years as a kind of oblique practice for Real Life.

  It was Laura herself who had brought up the subject. Children—the idea had been so vague, so hazy as to seem almost make-believe. Children—those loud, exotic, intimidating creatures who existed in an altogether different universe. They never saw them. Later, when Laura was pregnant for the first time, she would suddenly be aware of them all around her—mothers and babies, pregnant women, toddlers—a ubiquitous presence that her eyes had up until then simply dismissed.

  But at the time of this memory they were still invisible, theoretical at best.

  How many children do you want to have? she had asked, the question arising from—what, some article she had been reading? Boredom? Elise and Neil had looked at her blankly from where they sat on the sofa, engrossed in a game of hearts.

  Jenny, the former high school debater and prom queen, had a certain and immediate answer: Two. A boy and a girl.

  Not two-point-three? Neil had asked, raising his eyebrows. At that time, he was Jenny’s boyfriend, if the casual, friends-turned-lovers nature of their relationship could be labeled in those terms.

  But Jenny had disappeared into her bedroom to get ready for something, a meeting or a summer job interview, maybe—Jenny was always getting ready for something, even then.

  And you? Laura had turned back to Elise and Neil.

  I don’t know. Elise had been disinterested—of the three girls, she was both the brainiest and the most abstracted. I’ve never thought about it.

  I can see you having an only child, Laura had pronounced. It was the kind of thing she liked to do back then—make things up and see her own imaginings as premonitions. A sweet little boy who gets really into something unusual like…fencing. Or ping-pong.

  Hm. Elise had shrugged. Okay.

  What about you? Laura had poked Neil with her toe.

  None.

  Why not? Even in Laura’s twenty-year-old mind, the idea of having children, however theoretical, was a given. Of course she would have children. Of course someday she would be a mother—it was already a part of who she was.

  Why would I?

  Because—I don’t know—isn’t that the whole idea?

  What—like some giant hall of mirrors? Have children to have children to have children…

  At that moment Jenny had come back out of her room, having exchanged her T-shirt and sweatpants for a snug black sweater and skirt.

  Well, I guess you two won’t be starting a family, Elise had pronounced, with her usual foot-in-mouth frankness.

  Jenny had not missed a beat. Guess not. She’d smiled glibly, shrugging on her jacket.

  There had been a lag in Neil’s response. This was what stuck out in Laura’s mind now, so many years later. In that momentary pause, she had glimpsed on his usually imperturbable face a look of…what was it—hurt? Or something more complicated—a kind of recognition that despite the unique brand of cool he so effortlessly, even accidentally embodied, despite the air of promise, talent, and exceptionality that surrounded him, for Jenny, he was still someone to be summarily dismissed.

  Well, he had said, I guess that settles it.

  Part One

  1

  IT WAS DURING THE HOMILY that Laura caught sight of Neil.

  She was sitting toward the back of the church—a calculated move, given the ticking time bomb of her two-year-old daughter, Miranda, and her own dislike of churches, which always made her think of death, of futile human striving, of everything in life that was sad. All those grim carvings of saints and the ubiquitous gory specter of the crucifixion—as if she did not think of her own mortality—her children’s mortality!—enough.

  But the service at St. Bernard’s this morning had been unavoidable: it included the christening of her college roommate, Jenny Callahan’s, baby. And it was important to Jenny—the societal ritual of it, the fact that it was taking place in this tony suburban church. Laura leaned against the hard back of the pew and tried to focus her eyes on the world outside the window, on the tiny buds of leaves, the heads of crocuses, the yellow forsythia. Surely this would bring her closer to God than the melancholy drone of the priest’s voice.

  It was considering this that she saw him. Not God, but Neil Banks. The sight of him gave Laura something like an electric shock.

  He was not supposed to be there. That was obvious. Not because the christening was small or intimate (quite the opposite: big and public was how Je
nny lived her life these days) but because of the arrangement, which very specifically precluded any such casual dropping by on Neil’s part.

  He was standing outside the last window on the right, affecting the look of a casual passerby and wearing a beaten leather jacket despite the warmth of the day. He looked skinny and his hair had turned from sandy blond to a premature sandy gray.

  Laura glanced at her husband, Mac, who was surreptitiously checking his BlackBerry as Miranda attempted to climb onto his shoulder, panting slightly with the effort to work quiet mischief. Beside them, their six-year-old daughter, Genevieve, sat coloring, her head bent in concentration.

  “Be right back,” Laura murmured, almost hoping Mac wouldn’t hear her, and slid out into the aisle. She ducked her head as if somehow this would render her less visible and kept her eyes on the carpeting with a vague, hopefully respectful, expression plastered on her face.

  Once through the heavy oak doors and in the cool stone foyer, she felt a quickening of excitement and a breath of relief. Outside it was spring. Unseasonably warm, even muggy. An apple tree beside the church was blossoming, fallen petals frilling daintily over the damp black earth beneath. Everywhere there was the faint stench of winter rot—crumpled apples and defrosting dog shit, mud and unearthed metal. Laura filled her lungs with it and felt suddenly free—free of her husband and children and even her “spirited” dog, Cocoa, who was usually at her side when the children weren’t. Free of her obligation to be an enthusiastic friend, to coo over the baby and make chitchat with far-flung family members and acquaintances. It was as if, for a moment, she could be a college girl again—a bright and lucky twenty-one-year-old, skipping class.

  Was it the weather or seeing Neil that brought this feeling back?

  She traversed the soggy grass on tiptoe, careful to keep the pointy heels of her new shoes from sinking in. Around the corner of the church she could see him, still hovering at the window, looking up toward the knave. He had lit a cigarette and the tarry, indoor smell of it muted the springiness of the air. From behind, like this, he looked unchanged—a boy, really, rather than a man.

  Laura hesitated for a moment, aware suddenly of her own altered form: baby belly she still hadn’t lost hidden under the blousy top she had bought to conceal it, boring hair, the beginnings of lines between her eyebrows and at the edges of her eyes. But she was still pretty, wasn’t she? This was something that she took for granted—that somewhere between adolescence and adulthood she had developed a confidence in (possibly mistakenly, she sometimes thought, looking at photographs of herself in her glasses, or her dingy bathrobe, or with her children in the unflattering overhead light of the playroom they seemed always to be photographed in, but it was a confidence nonetheless).

  She drew a breath. “Neil.”

  The figure at the window whirled around and for a moment the look on his face was so hostile, so defensive—like an unfriendly, startled dog—that Laura stepped backward, sinking one heel into the mud and teetering wildly off balance.

  Then a softer, sheepish look came over Neil’s face.

  “Jesus. Laura,” he said, throwing his cigarette down and grinding it under his heel. He cast an eye around as if maybe there were other, more menacing figures waiting in the wings to apprehend him. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “I know.” Laura was struggling to assimilate this Neil—an older (now that he was facing her she could see this), more downtrodden Neil—with the one she had been thinking of as she stepped out of the church.

  “How are you?” He stepped forward and hugged her, and in the quick, slightly rigid embrace, he became himself again, the Neil she knew. The Neil she and Jenny had pulled months’ worth of all-nighters with in college, drifting in and out of parties, downing drinks in divey bars. The Neil who had, for instance, shown up years ago at her father’s house on the Vineyard with a trampy sixteen-year-old, coke-addled girlfriend, looking for a place to stay.

  “Good,” she said breathlessly. “I’m good. God—it’s been such a long time!”

  “We’re old and gray,” Neil said, grinning.

  “Don’t say that!”

  “No, but you look great, Lo.” He struck a match and lit up another cigarette.

  They were silent for a moment and, inside, the organ struck up a new hymn. The groan and snap of the congregation rising was audible.

  “What are you doing here?” Laura asked, reminded suddenly of the weirdness of his presence.

  “Ha!” Neil took a drag on his cigarette. “That’s funny.”

  “No, I mean, of course—but I thought you weren’t supposed to—All the agreements and papers and legal stuff Jenny had you sign…”

  Neil glanced over his shoulder back through the window. “What’s he like?”

  Laura put a hand to her throat—a habitual gesture of nervousness. It was only now that it occurred to her that finding him out here was not just surprising, but bad. And that she was now enmeshed in it—guilty by association. Would she have to tell Jenny she had seen him? Or somehow take responsibility for hustling him away? Neil was not really someone she could imagine herself hustling anywhere.

  “Cute? Healthy? As smart and charming and funny as his daddy?”

  “I wouldn’t call Jeremy so charming or funny,” Laura said firmly.

  “Yeah. Right.” Neil’s eyes stayed on Laura’s face. “You’re a loyal friend, Lo Lo. You always were.”

  Laura thought of her husband and children for the first time since stepping outside. Mac would be wondering what on earth had happened to her. And Miranda might be making a scene—from inside the church she could hear crying.

  “No, you’re right, though.” Neil hunched his shoulders forward. “I shouldn’t be here. I was just in town and I ran into Nelly McCormack and she mentioned it…Stupid, though. I’m an asshole.”

  Laura looked directly into his eyes. “No, you’re not.”

  Neil met her gaze and his eyes looked tired.

  “I should get back…” she said. “My kids…”

  “Right—of course.” Neil shook his head. “What is it—two of them?”

  “Two girls.” Laura smiled weakly.

  “Wow.”

  The weird disjuncture of time seemed to wash over them both. “Really, you look great, Lo. I’m glad you came out.”

  “Are you around for a while? Or just the weekend?” she said. “It would be nice to catch up—”

  “Nope, not allowed—I think I signed something about that too.”

  “What?” Laura exclaimed.

  “No—I’m just kidding. I’m sorry. Look—call me. Here.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a beaten wallet, fished around to procure a card, which he handed to her. Neil Banks, game reviewer, the card read. Los Angeles. “It’s my cell number.”

  “Neil Banks has a business card,” Laura said, raising her eyebrows.

  He smiled. “Times change.”

  Laura pushed her way back through the crowd that was now exiting the church, smiling faintly, trying not to appear flustered.

  Once inside, she could see Miranda’s curly head bouncing up and down beside Mac, who was scanning the doorway with a frown.

  “Mommy, Mommy, the baby got a bath from the mister! The baby got a bath from the mister!” Miranda shouted as Laura approached. Genevieve’s dark eyes looked predictably concerned.

  “What happened to you?” Mac asked reprimandingly, his big, handsome face wearing an agitated scowl.

  “Where were you?” Genevieve asked.

  “Where you?” Miranda echoed giddily, bobbing against the back of the pew.

  “I was just…” Laura put her hand to her throat. “I had to get some air.” There it was. She had not really decided, but now it was clear that she was going to keep Neil’s presence to herself.

  “Are you sick?” Genevieve asked.

  “No, no, no—I’m fine,” Laura said, scooping Miranda up off the pew and starting down the aisle, hiding her face in
her daughter’s warm, child-smelling neck.

  “Can we get out of here now?” Mac trailed behind her with Genevieve in tow. “Do we really need to go to this lunch?”

  “Mac.” Laura shot a glance over her shoulder at him. “Of course we have to.”

  “Let’s see if we can find Jenny, shall we?” she whispered into Miranda’s ear.

  “No.” Miranda shook her head. “No, no, no.” But Laura plowed ahead, sweeping her agitation under the convenient charade of social purpose.

  When Jenny had first told Laura of her plan, Laura had been absolutely dumbstruck. Jenny wanted to use Neil’s sperm to have a baby? It was like the Pope wanting to have the Dalai Lama’s love child.

  “Why Neil?” Laura had asked, gape-mouthed.

  “What do you mean, why Neil?” was Jenny’s response. “You know Neil is brilliant.”

  “But you don’t even know where he is now. And he drove you crazy!”

  “I’m not asking him to be my boyfriend,” Jenny had said testily.

  Of course, being Jenny, she had a plan. A very specific, very bold plan. Neil would sign away all rights to the child—there would be contracts and lawyers, and she was working with a top-notch fertility clinic that had navigated every which kind of arrangement before. And Jeremy, poor Jeremy, as Laura and Elise, their other college roommate, always referred to him on account of Jenny’s bossiness, would adopt the baby upon birth. They would never tell the child that Jeremy was not his biological father. The proposal was improbably absolute.