Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  “He’s really happy,” Jason says. “He and his partner—”

  “Like business or . . .” Finch says.

  “Both actually,” Jason says. “They run an architecture firm and they just got married a couple years ago.”

  “Sounds cozy.” Finch laughs again and knocks Charlotte’s arm with his hand.

  “Right,” Charlotte says flatly, scooting away from him in her chair.

  “So, as you can see, it’s not like any child of ours wasn’t going to play lacrosse,” Dayna says, steering the conversation back to her family, which is apparently far more interesting. “I remember when we had our first ultrasound . . .” Dayna starts giggling. “Remember, Finchy, how you joked that you saw a little lacrosse stick on the monitor!”

  Jason starts laughing along, as if this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Charlotte steals a peek at her watch. She looks down the lawn to where Tucker and Birdie are sitting with their feet in the pool and wonders what they’re talking about.

  “Just to be sure,” Finch says, reaching across the table for Birdie’s plate and clawing his fingers around her leftover hunk of burger. Charlotte watches, struggling to keep her expression neutral as he drags it through the puddle of ketchup on the plate and pops it into his mouth, the piece protruding out the side of his cheek as he talks. “When Tuck was in preschool we had his body type analyzed to see which sport he’d be most likely to excel at.”

  “Wait, what?” Charlotte says.

  Dayna cocks her head at her like she’s concerned. “You haven’t . . . ? There’s this state-of-the-art facility up in Gaithersburg. Lots of Tucker’s teammates did it. My girlfriend back home, she had all three of her girls tested. And, wow, has it paid off.”

  “Her daughter’s going to the Olympic swim trials next month,” Finch adds. “Butterfly. Though . . .” He dips his chin and lowers his voice. “The poor girl, you should see the size of her back . . .”

  “Not cute,” Dayna says.

  “I mean, why not set your kids up for success, right?” Finch says. “Birdie gonna play tennis in college? What are the best schools? Who has the best team? What’s your plan?”

  Jason sits up in his chair. “Yeah, yeah,” he starts. “Fortunately, like with lax, some of the best schools for tennis are great schools regardless. We’re talking Vanderbilt, Chapel Hill . . .”

  “Scouts started looking at her?” Finch asks.

  “Oh, scouts, well . . .” Jason’s saying. “Not yet, but we feel pretty confident—”

  “It’s her freshman year,” Charlotte interjects, annoyed by how they’re trying to outdo each other. “We just want her to have a good adjustment to high school, first and foremost. If that includes playing on the tennis team, great. If not, great.” She shrugs.

  “Yeah, but . . .” Jason clears his throat. “Of course she’s going to play! We wouldn’t let her not play.”

  “It’s not really a case of letting her or not,” Charlotte says, adding a grin for good measure.

  “You know what I mean,” Jason says, an edge in his voice. “We wouldn’t want her to lose an opportunity.”

  “Of course,” Charlotte says. “But if she changes her mind down the road . . .”

  “She’s a good student, isn’t she?” Dayna says, and for once, Charlotte is happy to hear her interjecting. “Tucker told me she’s super smart!”

  “Yeah,” Jason says. “She’s always liked school.”

  “Tucker, too, but honestly, who gives a shit?” Finch laughs. “You should see the way the kid handles a ball down the field.”

  “Ultimately, we just want our kids to be happy, though, right?” Charlotte says, unable to take any more. “I see how stressed out my Georgetown students are, and they’re all high-performing kids. There’s such immense pressure to perform,” she says, noticing the slight grimace on Jason’s face as she repeats herself slightly. “I just want Birdie to feel satisfied with her choices. Whether it’s tennis or academics, or—”

  “Oh, come on!” Finch groans. “I’m so tired of hearing about kids these days feeling under pressure. I mean, my dad was shipped off to Vietnam when he was eighteen. That’s pressure! What do these kids worry about? How many likes they get on Instagram?”

  “Is Tucker on Instagram?” Charlotte asks, glancing at Jason. As expected, he doesn’t look pleased by her question.

  “Well, they all are, aren’t they?” Dayna says.

  “Not Birdie,” Charlotte says. “We’re just not comfortable with it, given all of the research about social media and self-esteem, especially with girls.”

  “Well,” Finch says, reaching over to grab her arm for the millionth time tonight. “You would know what’s best, Dr. Happiness, wouldn’t you?”

  Charlotte doesn’t love his tone, but she musters a smile. “At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to do the best we can, right?”

  “Jason, you work at the zoo?” Dayna says, changing the subject. “Tell me about that!”

  As he fills her in, Charlotte begins to tune out, not because she’s not interested but because she’s heard these stories a thousand times, about how Jason was obsessed with the National Zoo as a kid and always knew he wanted to work there. She looks out at Birdie and Tucker again.

  Finch knocks her arm with his knuckles. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says, under his breath. “I didn’t mean to offend you just there.” He leans in, his face close to hers.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” she says. “I’m used to—”

  “Really,” he says, and she notices the glassiness in his eyes. “I’m sorry if I . . .” His hand is still on her forearm, and suddenly he takes his finger, tracing a line up her arm, before dropping a hand to her thigh.

  “What are you doing?” she yelps, leaping up from the table.

  “What?” he says, swaying a little in his seat. “I didn’t . . .” He puts his palms up and laughs. “Totally forgot where I was for a minute, man.” He pushes his glass away. “Too much bourbon, I think.” He laughs. “I was thinking you were Dayna. I’m so sorry!”

  Charlotte’s eyes meet Jason’s. She taps her finger against her wrist. “Let’s go.”

  “What happened?” Dayna says. “Did somebody spill—”

  “Your husband, um—” Charlotte begins. “He was . . . I don’t know what he was . . .”

  Dayna starts to giggle. Charlotte’s mouth falls open. She looks at Jason, who is standing now, clearly uncomfortable and not sure what to do.

  “Oh, Finch,” Dayna says, putting an arm around him. “I’m so sorry, you guys. My husband gets a little handsy when he drinks . . .”

  “I really didn’t mean anything,” he says, wincing animatedly, like a clown. “I’m sorry.”

  “Trust me, he didn’t mean anything,” Dayna says, rolling her eyes. “This . . . happens.”

  “Okay, so . . . why don’t we go?” Charlotte says, stepping away from the table. “It’s getting late.”

  “I’m really sorry, man,” Finch says to Jason.

  “It’s fine,” Jason says, forcing a smile. “Really, totally . . .” He slices his hands through the air, crossing them in front of his body. “No worries. But I think we’ll head out.”

  Dayna laughs and pats Charlotte’s shoulder. “Please don’t be offended.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” Charlotte says, laughing it off, quickening her pace. If we could just get out of here.

  “Geez, Finch, I hope they’re not worried that Tuck takes after you!” Dayna says after they’ve rounded up the kids and are heading for the door.

  “What?” Tucker says, turning.

  “Nothing, honey.” Dayna winks at Charlotte.

  “Great to have you,” Finch says, then has the gall to lean in for a hug, but Charlotte turns for the door, her hand on Birdie’s back as they head out.

  When they reach the car, she waits for Birdie to slip inside. “That was awful!” she whispers to Jason.

  “It wasn’t that bad!” he mouths, reaching for hi
s door handle.

  She glares at him. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Just . . .” He presses his lips together like he doesn’t know what to say. “I don’t know, Char. Just let it go.”

  Three

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  Jason looks up from his spot on the conference room floor, where he is working on a new project for one of his animals. He has pushed a table from the center of the room against a wall and is struggling to uncoil a bundle of fire hose that is approximately the size of a small dinghy.

  “Oh, hey,” he says, breathless from his effort. His coworker Jamie is standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of gray cargo pants and the polo shirt with the zoo’s insignia that all of the keepers wear. She absentmindedly knocks her ever-present giant plastic Nalgene of water against the wall. “I got in really early so I thought I’d get to work on this while it’s still quiet.” He stops and rubs his forearm across his forehead. He’s sweating like crazy. “Now I understand why firefighters are so buff. This is so much heavier than it looks.”

  “I think you’re man enough to handle it,” she says with a smirk, stepping into the room.

  “Very funny,” he says. “Thanks for the ego boost.”

  “Is this for the hammock?” She kneels beside him and touches the rope, and he catches a whiff of her coconut shampoo. It’s a smell he’s accustomed to, since she showers in the office locker room each morning after she bikes into work from Bethesda, and her brown curly ponytail is usually wet until lunchtime.

  “Yeah,” he says, rocking back on his heels. “For Niko, the new sloth bear.” When he speaks to groups at the zoo—field trips or camps or the occasional corporate event—they’re always surprised to learn that a big part of a keeper’s job is to find creative ways to keep the animals entertained, mentally stimulated, and able to exercise their natural instincts while under human care. “It’s not like I can go into the giant panda section of Petco,” he usually jokes, a line that always gets a laugh.

  “Oh, he’ll love it!” she says. “So, what, you’re going to weave it together?”

  “Uh-huh. Hopefully. Remember the video I showed you of the one they did out in San Diego?” he says. “I talked to the keeper there a few days ago. Seems pretty simple once you get started. You want to help?”

  She looks at her Ironman watch. “Sure, I can for a few minutes. I need to go check on Lucy before long.”

  “Great,” he says, handing her the printout of the PDF the San Diego keeper had emailed him. “Here’s the general idea.”

  She scrutinizes the instructions as Jason starts cutting the hose with the carpet knife that was recommended, and they fall into the kind of easy silence that comes with working side by side for almost twenty years. They were hired as keepers just six months apart—Jamie was first, she likes to point out—and for years, they were both in the Great Ape House. A few months ago, though, the longtime keeper of the Asia Trail exhibit finally retired and Jason was given the spot on the glowing recommendation of his predecessor.

  He was a shoo-in for the job, which he had openly coveted since the summer he was eleven and saw the giant pandas for the first time at his day camp at the National Zoo. In addition to the pandas, he cares for sloth bears, red pandas, clouded leopards, small-clawed otters, and fishing cats.

  “I can’t believe how well Lucy’s doing,” he says. Lucy is Jamie’s orangutan, who gave birth just last week. All of the orangutans are strong-willed, but Lucy is especially independent, and nobody was sure how she’d take to becoming a mother. Jamie and Jason had worked with her for over a year before they even considered trying for a pregnancy, just to see if she was up to the task.

  “She’s doing beautifully,” she says. “Still no signs of rejection whatsoever.”

  “I’ll swing by later and see her,” he says, the word rejection ringing in his ears. He thinks of Charlotte the other night, how she pushed his hand off her hip.

  “Try to come by three or so, if you can,” Jamie says. “I’m leaving early today for a doctor’s appointment. Lucy will be so excited to see you.”

  “Well, she always preferred me over you.”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever,” she says, then pauses before adding, “Can you finally admit that Bobo did his job?”

  Jason forces a smile. He’d been teasing Jamie throughout Lucy’s pregnancy about Bobo, the stuffed animal orangutan that she’d procured from the zoo’s gift shop to help get Lucy accustomed to caring for an infant and the fact that she would have to give her newborn baby to her handlers on a very frequent basis for checkups and the like, especially right after the birth. Jamie and Jason had spent countless hours teaching Lucy to place Bobo in an open-topped metal box that they had built into one of the Plexiglas walls of her pen so that the zoo’s veterinary staff could access the baby for its assessments.

  “Speaking of Bobo,” he says. “Does the actual baby have a name yet?”

  “Not yet.” She rolls her eyes. Linda, their boss, is notorious for trying to make every event a publicity opportunity and has decided to hold an online vote to name Lucy’s offspring. “Too bad he isn’t a girl. We could have just named her Linda.”

  “That would be an insult.”

  “To the baby.”

  “Exactly.” He laughs. “Though, I don’t know, I think I’d love to have one of the animals named after me.”

  “Hmm, I can see it. Perhaps one of the sloths?”

  “You’re so funny today,” he jokes, starting to weave together pieces of the hose. “All right, so I think if we just take turns passing this back and forth . . .”

  “So you said you came in early?” Jamie says, picking up the PDF again.

  “Just past seven.”

  “Eek, why?” she says.

  He shrugs and turns away from her. “Couldn’t sleep last night. Figured I might as well just get the day started.” The truth is, he’d barely slept since Saturday night, after he and Charlotte got into a huge fight when they got home from the Cunninghams’. She was pissed that he wasn’t more bothered by Finch’s transgression and wanted to know why he didn’t “stand up for her.” But what could he have done? Of course it bothered him. Finch is clearly not the best guy, Jason’s known that forever, but he isn’t dangerous and he had apologized, and given that he was drunk and his wife was right there, Jason really didn’t think he meant anything by it. Charlotte had every right to be angry but she herself was a little drunk and, as usual, she was overreacting.

  “Everything okay?” Jamie says.

  “Yeah, of course,” he says. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “You look a little . . .”

  “I’m fine,” he says, pushing his thoughts away. “Really.”

  Even though Charlotte herself openly calls Jamie his work wife—they’ve worked together longer than he’s been married—he and Jamie don’t really confide in each other in any serious way. There was a time, absolutely, especially in the early years of their marriages, when they would gripe to each other about their spouses, though nothing major. Then, last year, Jamie’s husband, Warren, died. He’d had a heart attack on the GW Parkway, right there in the car, with Jamie in the passenger seat and their twin eleven-year-olds in the back. They were on their way home from seeing Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, a show she’d been so excited to see that months earlier, she’d taken the day off to stand in line for tickets. She hasn’t told Jason about the accident, but he knows that she was able to at least take over the wheel and get them safely to the side of the road. Still, Warren died before the ambulance arrived. It was one of those terrible, senseless things. He was barely forty-five, with a great family, great career, and he was one of those ascetic, ultramarathon-running health nuts who should ostensibly live forever.

  Jason sneaks a glance at Jamie, knowing he could never tell her that the real reason why he arrived at work so early is that he was desperate to get out of the house. He knows she would give anything to have Warren ho
me, no matter that he sometimes forgot to flush the toilet and treated the inside of his car like a dumpster. Jason feels a wave of guilt settle over him. In the moment, his fights with Charlotte feel so urgent and all-encompassing, but afterward, the general malaise of their marriage feels stupid, like a waste of what they could actually have if they could just figure it out. If something happened to her—say, if her plane went down during one of her business trips, or a shooter burst into her classroom, both things he sometimes has flashes of worry about—he would tear himself apart with regret for not cherishing every moment they’d had together.

  He looks at Jamie, biting her thumbnail while she reads over the instructions for the hammock, and thinks back to Warren’s funeral, which was held at a little church by the water in his and Jamie’s hometown on the Eastern Shore. After the service, he and Charlotte stopped at a little roadside place for a late seafood basket-and-beer lunch, and talked about the things you talk about after such a tragic thing happens—how fleeting life is, how important it is to appreciate what you have while you have it—but the next morning, it was business as usual, the two of them alternately bickering or avoiding each other completely.

  After their fight on Saturday night, they’d managed to do the latter all day Sunday, and he’d hoped that everything would just blow over. Charlotte took Birdie to the mall for some new clothes for spring, and he’d gone for a run, and then to his parents’ place to mow their yard and water the plants, since they weren’t due back from the Outer Banks for another month or so. In the evening, Charlotte pulled a lasagna from the freezer, and they’d all had a pretty nice dinner, talking about Birdie’s big match coming up against Marshall, the top-ranked team in the state, and the big conference that Charlotte is speaking at in a couple of weeks at a gajillionaire tech CEO’s ranch in Montana, which he can tell she’s nervous about from the way her face pinches whenever the subject comes up. He told them about the hammock for Niko, and Birdie, who rarely shows as much interest in his job as she did when she was younger (he was unquestionably the star at every career day while she was in elementary school, which had always felt like redemption for the sliver of a paycheck he got compared to the defense contractor dads and corporate attorney moms), actually seemed really into it, and even asked to see the plans that his zookeeper friend had sent over.