“Birdie’s had a poster of Serena on her bedroom wall since she was in third or fourth grade,” Charlotte says. “She actually has a similar style, that’s what her coaches always say. Powerful.”
“How fast did you say your serve was the other day?” Tucker says.
Birdie grins, seeming more like herself now, and reaches for a slice of Brie. “Ninety-two.”
“Ninety-two miles per hour!” Dayna exclaims, shaking her head. “Wow.” She looks at Charlotte. “I mean, wow! I don’t even know if my Lexus goes that fast!”
Birdie kicks Charlotte again under the table. “Trust me,” Charlotte says. “She doesn’t get it from me.”
Tucker stands. “We’re gonna go outside, okay?”
“Had enough of us, lovebirds?” Dayna says.
“Mo-om,” he singsongs, and they split for the backyard, practically sprinting.
“Gosh, she’s adorable!” Dayna says, watching them as they go. “She gets those highlights from you? Or do you take her somewhere?”
“What?” Charlotte says, her eyes still on the kids. Their heads are dipped together like they’re in on a secret, and she feels a nervous flutter, trying to imagine what it might be. “Oh,” she says. “No, that’s natural.”
“Well, to the happy couple.” Dayna raises her glass and then Charlotte does the same, taking a big swig, pushing the wine past the lump in her throat. Happy couple. This isn’t an engagement party, for God’s sake. She’s fourteen.
“I’ve never seen Tucker like this with a girl before,” Dayna says, reaching toward the overflowing veggie tray and picking up a tiny perfect carrot stick, the green fronds still attached like something out of Beatrix Potter. “He is head over heels! Normally, he doesn’t say a thing about the girls at school, but ever since school started last fall, it’s been Birdie-this and Birdie-that.”
Normally? Charlotte thinks, plastering a big smile on her face. “Has Tucker had a girlfriend before, or . . . ?”
“Oh, well . . .” Dayna shrugs. “Nothing serious. Last year, he took a girl to the homecoming dance, and then I took them to the movies a couple of times after that before it fizzled out. That alone surprised me. You know kids these days, it seems like they’re far more interested in just hanging out in one big group.”
“Exactly,” Charlotte says. “Jason and I talk about that all the time.”
“But then I found out a little bit more about the girl, and I started to understand why Tuck wanted to be alone with her in a dark movie theater.”
Charlotte feels her breath catch in her throat. “I’m sorry?” she says, fighting to keep the cheer in her voice.
Dayna gives her a conspiratorial look. “Elizabeth Stephenson,” she whispers, as if there’s anyone else in the room.
“I don’t—” Charlotte shakes her head, her mind still stuck on the dark movie theater.
“Oh, you know the Stephensons. You must!”
“I don’t.”
“Really? Eric and Susie?” she says, in a way that feels so juvenile and judgmental that Charlotte’s reminded of something Stephanie says, about how living in North Arlington can sometimes feel like being back in high school, where every parent is a former class president or prom king or star athlete, and intends for their children to be the same.
“Anyway, the Stephensons, they’re a big Washington Golf family.” Dayna takes a step toward Charlotte, looking back over her shoulder at the kids outside as she does. “And I know for a fact that Elizabeth’s mom has enjoyed a few extracurriculars besides tennis and golf in the ladies’ lounge . . .” She pauses, eyes widening. “You know there’s a group of parents who do coke in the bathrooms there.”
“Oh, I never believed that old rumor,” Charlotte says, enjoying it when Dayna’s expression predictably crumples. She surely expected Charlotte to be wowed by this bit of blue-chip gossip.
“Anyway,” Dayna says. “I was happy when that little relationship ended. When I used to pick them up from the movies, both kids’ faces looked like they’d been rubbed raw. As if I couldn’t tell what they’d been up to.” She laughs but immediately stops when she sees the way Charlotte’s flushing despite her best efforts. “I’m sorry!” she says, reaching out to grasp Charlotte’s arm. “I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sure it’s so different, having a girl.”
“Well, it is,” Charlotte says breezily, trying to play it off. “It seems like just yesterday that Birdie was playing Legos and poring through the American Girl catalog. This boyfriend stuff is all a little new for us.”
“Well, not to worry. Tucker is a total gentleman. A really, really great kid.” Dayna smiles then, her tongue visible between her teeth, and Charlotte can’t deny it, something about the pointedness in her voice feels aggressive, like she’s challenging her to think otherwise. “You have nothing to worry about, Charlotte,” she says. “Honestly . . .” She puts her hand to her chest in faux modesty. “Forgive me for saying it but you kind of hit the jackpot.”
Charlotte finishes her last sip of wine. She knows that the condescension in Dayna’s remark isn’t a mistake. This is an offensive move; she’s establishing a pecking order, just like Jason’s animals at the zoo. “The feeling’s mutual,” she says, putting down her glass. “Anyway, they’re so young . . . I’m just happy they’re having fun.”
“And so great about them both being only children, right?” Dayna says. “I bet that’s part of their connection. Were you like me? One kid’s enough? Or was it not by choice that you had just one?”
Charlotte’s so stunned by Dayna’s gall that it takes a few beats to find her words. “Um,” she says. “No, it wasn’t by choice, I guess, but we’re more than grateful for Bird—”
Dayna cuts her off. “I’d say we’re better off, don’t you think? Did you do fertility treatments? I didn’t even bother. The number it can do on your body!”
Heat prickles behind Charlotte’s ears. Who talks like this to someone they barely know? “Dayna, I don’t—”
“Never mind,” she says, lifting her glass. “None of my business. Though I will say, I think it’s better for the kids, not having to share us, you know? And it’s probably good for our marriages, too. Finch already says I devote too much time to Tuck. You want a tour of the house?”
“Sure,” Charlotte says, dizzied by the exchange. “Sure.”
Dayna leads her around for the next fifteen minutes, past paintings of Tucker she’s commissioned, through the his and hers offices crammed with leather-bound books that have probably never been cracked open, and Charlotte thinks to herself that she hopes Birdie will just get this first relationship out of her system. She wants her to keep her options open, to put boys last on her list of interests, not to get too attached.
Maybe she’s focused on Birdie keeping independent because she herself didn’t. It was different, of course, but ever since Birdie first mentioned Tucker, she keeps thinking of Reese, the one and only boyfriend she had before Jason, and the person who haunts nearly all of her memories of her pre-DC life. She and Reese met in preschool, dated all through high school and college and most of graduate school, the two of them choosing to stay at Emory, where they’d both gone to undergrad, so that they could be together. He proposed just weeks before she defended her dissertation, on the dock behind her childhood home. Even though it feels like an entire lifetime since their relationship ended, like she’s an entirely different person than the one she would have been had she stayed in Georgia, she still feels a little burn deep down in her chest when she thinks of Reese, remembering how he’d ruined everything they’d planned, how they’d been engaged barely a month when she found out he’d been cheating. And not just cheating but brazenly dating another woman for almost a year before he proposed, living an entirely different existence apart from hers, with dinner dates when she thought he was studying for the boards and romantic weekends away when he said he was roadtripping with buddies to football games. She had just come home from a run when the woman—a fellow medical s
tudent studying pediatrics named Tricia—knocked on the door of her apartment and tearfully confessed their relationship, the morose disappointment all over her face as she took in the ring on Charlotte’s finger. She told Charlotte that they’d had a fight, and Reese had finally come clean about everything, confessing that Charlotte wasn’t, in fact, an old flame who couldn’t get over him and still called him sometimes. She also told Charlotte that Reese would never think she’d have it in her to come tell Charlotte about the two of them, and sure enough, that evening, when Reese came over expecting takeout and a movie, he actually tried to deny it at first.
For the longest time after she left him, the thing that bothered Charlotte the most was not that she’d been duped but that the person who’d done it had been someone she thought she knew so completely. She realized that it didn’t actually matter how long you knew someone. People change. Sometimes not for the better.
“Where does Birdie’s name come from anyway?” Dayna says as they return to the kitchen and she pulls another bottle from the wine fridge under the counter.
“It’s a nickname. Her full name is Beatrice, after my grandmother.”
“Oh.” Dayna nods, a vacant expression on her face like she hasn’t heard the answer or doesn’t really care. “Cute. Well, let’s go outside,” she says. “See what kind of trouble the boys have gotten themselves into.”
Dinner is served at a round wooden table under a trellis on the Cunninghams’ patio. Birdie sits across from Charlotte between her father and Tucker, and Charlotte takes the lucky middle seat between Dayna and Finch, who wipes his glistening forehead with the inside of his wrist just after he rests a massive porcelain tray heaped with burgers, grilled chicken, and hot dogs in the middle of the table.
“So!” Dayna says, placing a napkin on her lap. “I’ve bought your book, Charlotte, but I confess, I haven’t gotten to it yet. I love to read but there’s just never any time!” She looks around the table, her eyes wide like she’s searching for confirmation. Birdie nods politely at her. “Anyway, it’s on my nightstand! I can’t wait to dive in.”
“So are you just happy all the time?” Finch says, clamping a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, do people constantly ask you that?” he says, leaning in so close that Charlotte can see a speck of pepper between his teeth.
“They do,” Birdie says, taking a bite of her burger.
Charlotte winks at her, happy that her daughter finally seems relaxed. “It’s true,” she says, gearing up to give her usual explanation.
“So you just, what, never have a bad day?” Dayna says, her palms to the sky. “I mean, it seems that way!”
“Seriously!” Finch says, gesturing toward Charlotte. “You just look like a happy person!”
“So cute!” Dayna says. “Like a sweet little doll!”
Jason laughs. “Looks can be deceiving!” he jokes, the tone in his voice so lighthearted that the bite behind it doesn’t register to anyone but his wife, who narrows her eyes at him ever so slightly to communicate her displeasure. “Trust me, she’s not happy all the time!”
“Oh, well, that’s a relief!” Finch laughs, clapping his hands together. “So you are normal!”
Charlotte clears her throat, giving Jason a pointed look, and delivers the answer she must give at least twice a week. “Of course I’m not happy all the time. Nobody is. But what we know from the research is that while everyone has a very clear . . . the psychology community calls it a ‘happiness set point’ . . . there are a lot of simple things we can do in our daily lives to bump up our overall satisfaction. That’s what I’m focused on—the concrete, easy, achievable strategies that fit into our lives.”
“Does drinking wine count for one of those strategies?” Dayna laughs, raising her glass.
“Absolutely!” Charlotte says, raising her own.
“But you must have a high set point!” Finch says, pinching her arm.
Charlotte shifts in her seat. She wonders if Finch is a little drunk or if he’s just like this all the time.
“Wait! I want the husband’s perspective,” Finch says, pointing his fork at Jason. “What’s she really like at home? Does the mask come off?”
“Happy wife, happy life!” Dayna says, to everyone and no one.
Charlotte’s chest tightens, but she pushes past it, hoping that the actual tension between her and Jason isn’t obvious to the others—most of all, to Birdie. “Nobody should be happy all the time,” she says. “That’s not the goal. The goal is feeling like you’re ultimately headed in the right direction.” She looks at Jason, realizing, as the words are coming out of her mouth, that that’s exactly the problem. She’s not sure she feels like they’re headed in the same direction anymore . . . Their eyes linger on each other, and she knows he’s heard her the same way, as clearly as if she’d just come out and said it.
He sits up in his seat, breaking the spell. “Charlotte’s actually spent her entire career studying this stuff,” Jason says, giving her a weak smile. She can’t remember the last time he said something nice about her job, and she feels a warmth flood over her.
“I thought it would be more fun to study happiness than the alternative,” Charlotte says, using another one of her frequent lines.
“Well, from what I’ve seen, it certainly seems to have paid off!” Finch says. “I see your book everywhere.”
“Oh my God!” Dayna suddenly exclaims, clapping excitedly, like the cheerleader she must have been. “I just remembered something! I saw you on the Today show once! Last year, I think? I remember talking about it with some moms later. You’re, like, famous!”
“No, I’m—” Charlotte starts.
“She was on the Today show again last week,” Birdie interrupts, and looks at Charlotte and smiles.
“No way!” Dayna says, her eyes wide. “No way! With who? Savannah? Hoda?”
“It was the third hour,” Charlotte says, downplaying it. “With Craig Melvin.”
“Oh, him!” Dayna says. “Oh my God, he’s so hot!”
Charlotte laughs and looks again at Birdie, smiling softly at her.
“That’s incredible!” Dayna says. “Just incredible!”
“And she’s speaking at Grey Browning’s annual summit this month,” Jason adds.
“You’re kidding,” Finch says. “At his ranch in Montana? That’s amazing.”
Charlotte glances at Jason. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m actually pretty nervous—”
Finch interrupts her. “Have you read your mom’s book?” he says, pointing his fork at Birdie.
“Yeah,” she says, wiping her mouth with a corner of her napkin. “I have. It’s really cool.”
“Has some of her advice rubbed off on you?” Dayna presses. She’s still studying Charlotte—the Today show appearance apparently impressed her—and it pleases Charlotte, she has to admit, that this status-obsessed nitwit seems a little bit awed by her.
“Oh,” she says. “Sure.” Charlotte watches her daughter tuck a lock of hair behind her ear and remembers how Birdie kept a gratitude journal for a while after the book came out. She was in seventh grade then, and Charlotte used to sneak peeks at what she had written in the little rainbow-patterned notebook she kept in her nightstand: Dad bought me a pack of Sour Patch Kids at CVS, an entry would say. Hannah liked the picture I drew for her birthday. Back then, all three of them made a concerted effort to go on walks together after dinner (“Exercise! Time in nature! Quality time!” Charlotte would extol, joking around, as they set off down the trail near their house), but the habit had somehow fallen off. Probably because they got too busy.
“I guess now,” Dayna says to Birdie, looking back and forth between her and Tucker, “you have something new to make you happy!”
“Mom, God!” he says, squirming in his seat, and Charlotte studies him again, looking for signs of trouble. She looks over at Jason, who raises his eyebrow ever so slightly, and she wonders if he’s doing the same.
As dinner winds do
wn, the kids flee, walking down to the pool holding brownies from the tray that Dayna brought out with a lame joke as she set it down about how she worked so hard to buy them. The conversation circles back, once again, to lacrosse. It’s become clear, given how much they’ve already talked about it tonight, that the sport is the gear that drives their family.
“With all of the money we’ve spent on this fucking sport,” Dayna says, a slight slur in her voice. Charlotte eyes her own glass, which Dayna and Finch have taken turns refilling all evening. Somehow, she still feels mostly sober, though she knows she must be pretty buzzed. “I’ll go ballistic if he doesn’t have a scholarship secured by this summer.”
“When did he start playing again?” Jason asks.
He was four, Charlotte thinks, annoyed that he’s encouraging them. We covered this earlier. She’s tired and ready to go home.
“You know, the Cunninghams are lacrosse legends around here,” Jason says to Charlotte. “All four of the brothers!” He turns to Finch. “Your brother, man! No offense—you were awesome, too—but Thomas . . .” He shakes his head in disbelief, as if seeing Finch’s brother play would be like seeing the moon landing.
Suck-up, Charlotte thinks, smiling as she lifts her glass. The wine is warm now. Too acidic on the back of her throat. She eyes Jason’s beer, still nearly full. He’ll drive home, she thinks, remembering that he said as much on the drive over as she reaches for the bottle chilling in the middle of the table and pours a little in her glass. Just a splash, she thinks, to get through this.
“Speaking of brothers,” Finch says. “How’s yours?”
“Oh, Tate,” Jason says. “He’s doing really well. Lives out in Portland.”
“Seems like the right place for him,” Finch says, laughing. Charlotte’s eyes fly to Jason, wondering if he’ll call Finch out on this, which is so blatantly mean-spirited. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to discern that Jason’s gay brother and Finch Cunningham might not have been best buds in high school.
Perfect Happiness Page 4