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

him that I’m not an attempted murderess, but then decide otherwise. After all, it’s not like I’m going to be seeing him again. I walk toward the door.
    “I’d love to see you again,” the sommelier says, taking my hand.
    “Oh, sure,” I say. “This was fun. Maybe we’ll come back again.”
    “I mean just you and me,” he says. “May I have your telephone number?”
    “Who me?” I say. “Don’t you mean my grandmother?”
    “Why would I mean your grandmother?” he asks, laughing.
    “Oh, right,” I say. We just stand there for a minute, staring at each other. I don’t particularly want to give him my number—the truth is that before my grandmother started in with all of the joking around about my legal situation, I was not having a good time with this man. I found him a bit pedantic. He does have nice hair, especially for his age, whatever that might be. It’s full and wavy with a sprinkling of gray. He’s got wrinkles next to his eyes, but for some reason, on men, that’s always so sexy. But when he told me that my beloved Santa Margherta pinot grigio was overproduced and awful, I wanted to punch him.
    It’s as if we are both waiting for the other one to speak. Technically, since I was the one to speak last, the onus of conversation should be on him. But he stands there, just staring at me with a stupid grin, presumably waiting for me to hand over my phone number.
    Since I don’t know what else to do, I give it to him.

 
    Ten
    My last relationship ended badly.
    When I woke up that morning, I had no idea that by the end of the day my relationship would be over. If I’d known that the ending was so near, I might have made sure that the last kiss we’d shared was more special, or that my hair was more perfect as he watched me leaving his apartment. Instead, I’d overslept and left the apartment in a hurry with my unwashed hair and unmade-up face. I still can’t remember whether or not I even kissed Jaime good-bye.
    It was a few minutes after ten when I got to my office. A few minutes after that when the administrative partner of my firm appeared in my door.
    “Hey, Tim.”
    “Hannah.” He stood, leaning on the frame, his arms and legs crossed neatly over his body. It’s never a good thing when the administrative partner of a law firm comes to see you. It either means that someone has criticized your work or, worse, wants to give you more work.
    “What’s up, Tim?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could muster. I made it a habit never to make small talk with him. When he appeared in my doorway, I generally just wanted him to say what he was going to say and then go.
    “The New York State Attorney General’s Office has an opening,” he said, and looked down at his shoes for an instant.
    When you’re a ninth-year associate at a large Manhattan law firm, that’s not the administrative partner being nice and showing concern over your career—that’s the firm’s gentle way of telling you that you’re not making partner. That you no longer have a career.
    “I’d be happy to make some introductions,” he continued, “and set up some meetings over there for you.”
    All the while he was telling me this, I couldn’t help thinking about what he would be like in bed. In fact, whenever I meet a man, all I can think about at first is whether or not he’d be good in bed. I look at his lips, the way he holds himself, the way he looks when he thinks I’m not looking at him. And I always look at his hands. Not because most women my age look at a man’s hands to see if he’s married or not, but because my mother always told me when I was young to look at a man’s hands so that you can see how hard he has had to work in his life. She was always telling me things like that that were inappropriate for my age.
    I look at a man’s hands and think about what they would feel like on my skin. Tim’s hands were soft and gentle and didn’t have a scratch on them. They had that