Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  “Oh,” he says, squeezing his paper sandwich wrapper into a tight ball between his palms. “Great! What site are you on? Tinder or Match or . . . eharmony? Do people still do eharmony?” He taps his feet against the pavement, looking down at the space between them.

  “Bumble.” Jamie laughs. “You sure know a lot of them for a married person.” She leans over and elbows him, and he notices that after she does it, she doesn’t scoot back to where she was. She stays close, not touching him exactly, but she might as well be.

  “Commercials,” he says. “Radio commercials when I’m driving in the morning. What’s Bumble?”

  “It’s the one where the women have to write the guys first; at least, you know, when it’s hetero.”

  “Ohh,” he says, wondering to himself what kinds of guys she’d reach out to.

  “Here, I’ll show you. I did Tinder for a while,” she says, swiping around on her phone’s screen. “But I felt like I was twenty years older than everyone else on it. At least. And it seems like it’s just mainly for sex.” She pauses. “Not that that’s a bad thing.” She glances at him for a second, and he feels himself flush. “Sometimes an itch needs to be scratched, know what I mean?”

  He clears his throat. “Uh-huh,” he says, straightening up in his seat and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “Sure.”

  “Sorry,” she says, laughing low. “Don’t mean to . . . I guess that’s oversharing. Okay,” she says. “Here.”

  She nudges closer to him, so close this time that their thighs touch, and hands him her phone. She’s leaning over his shoulder, so close that he can smell the garlic on her breath from the hummus she was eating earlier. “Tell me what you think of my profile,” she says.

  He should move away but he doesn’t. “Where is that photo from?” he asks, squinting at the tiny image of her on the screen, feeling her leg against his own.

  “Oh,” she says. “I’ll show you.”

  She taps on the circle surrounding a head shot, and a larger screen opens, revealing the full image. Jamie is sitting on the edge of a rock, in a cream-colored tank top that shows off the delicate line of her collarbone. She’s wearing khaki shorts, rolled up to almost the tops of her thighs, and he realizes that he’s never seen her legs before (she always wears pants to work, with a carabiner or two attached and lots of pockets), and she has great ones, strong and lean from all of that biking. She has a coiled bandanna tied loosely around her neck, sunglasses. Behind her is an expanse of green and blue, hills rolling out behind her.

  “Where was this taken? The scenery is beautiful,” he says, though his focus has pulled, after just a second or two, back to her. He can almost feel the sun shining on her in the photo, the way she must have felt, healthy and happy.

  “Hiking outside of La Jolla,” she says. “It’s from a couple years ago, a business trip of Warren’s. Do you remember? He had a conference out there once a year and I usually tagged along. That’s in Torrey Pines.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Okay, okay, but what about me?” she jokes. “What do you think of the photo? If you were on the market, would you swipe right?”

  “Yeah,” he says, feeling his voice break. “Of course. You look great.”

  “Great like a mom in her mid-forties or great like you’d like to fuck me?”

  “Jamie!” He hurries the phone back into her hands like it’s a hot potato.

  “Sorry!” She puts her hand to her mouth, giggling behind it.

  “It’s okay.” He laughs but his heart is pounding like he’s just been sprinting. He takes a napkin from his pocket and wipes his forehead.

  “But . . . seriously,” she says, her eyes meeting his. “I actually want your opinion. Would you?”

  “Yeah,” he says, letting their eyes lock for a few seconds longer than they probably should. “Definitely.”

  She bites her lip like she’s mulling something over, then looks away, breaking the moment.

  “Is it weird that the photo I put on my dating profile is one that my dead husband took while we were on a romantic vacation together?” she says, gazing off into the distance.

  “No,” he says. “No. I’m sure Warren would be—”

  “He’d want me to be happy.” She hands him the phone back. “Here,” she says. “Scroll down and read my profile. Tell me if there’s anything that would give you pause.”

  He takes the phone and reads:

  Jamie, 44.

  Zoologist who loves the outdoors, cycling, hiking, pizza and red wine, old dogs, prefers Adam Sandler to artsy films. Raised on the coast, now living in the city. Widowed mother of two. Looking for fun, friendship, or something more.

  He looks up at her, a stirring in his stomach that he doesn’t expect. “It’s perfect,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. It really is.” It really is.

  “You would be psyched if I got in touch with you?”

  “Um . . .” he says. She’s smiling at him in a way that feels like innuendo, like she means more than she’s saying. “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, if I was single.”

  “Of course.” She rolls her eyes. “Obviously. Don’t get weird, Jason.”

  “I’m not—”

  “What part did you like?” she asks, cutting him off.

  “All of it,” he says. “Really.”

  “But . . .” She leans in again, quite close, and he glances around. To any casual observer, he’s sure that they look like a couple, and to be honest, he thinks, glancing over at her, feeling the warmth of her radiating next to him, if it wasn’t a coworker who saw them, just one of the field trip leaders, say, or a group of tourists, he actually wouldn’t mind. “Was there anything in particular that stood out?”

  “No,” he says. “It’s perfectly you. It’s honest. It’s attractive. I mean, it’s really . . . It’s really, really great.”

  She looks at him and smiles, and the twisting inside of him gets more intense, pleasantly so. “Thanks,” she says, taking the phone from his hands. “Now I just have to find someone to go out with me,” she says, her eyes meeting his. “I’m just going to keep an open mind, you know? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the past year, it’s that anything can happen.”

  “Yeah,” he says, and looks away before she can say more. “Well, I don’t think you’ll have any problem,” he says. “You deserve someone great, Jamie.”

  She stands and holds out her hand for him, and he takes it, letting her pull him up. They’re practically eye to eye, and they stand there for just a moment longer than they should, their hands still clasped together.

  “So do you, Jason,” she says, and then her hand leaves his. “Come on,” she says, as casually as any regular day, which this clearly isn’t. “I’ll come back to the panda yard with you for a few minutes, see if we can get that boy to eat some bamboo.”

  “Okay,” he says, his legs wobbly. He follows behind her, watching her, looking at her, her words—anything can happen—ringing in his ears.

  * * *

  The door slams, then Jason hears the sound of Charlotte’s heels coming down the hall, the dull thrum of her roller bag dragging behind her.

  He shakes the water out of the colander full of pasta, then dumps the noodles back into the pot, drizzling them with olive oil. He hears her keys clatter into the bowl on the table in the hallway. Her motions sound deliberate, sharp, signaling her mood, and he braces for the worst.

  “Hi,” she says coming into the kitchen. She’s wearing the yellow dress she wore on Easter Sunday last year. It feels like a lifetime ago, the three of them sitting around in the family room, golf on the TV in the background, eating the candy out of Birdie’s basket together after brunch at his parents’ house. It had been one of their better days in recent memory.

  Charlotte kicks off her shoes, pushing them against the wall and out of the way with her foot, and leans down to say hello to Sylvie, who’s wagging her tail eagerly. “Where is she?” she
asks.

  “Upstairs,” he says.

  “Did you—?”

  “We had a big fight this morning when I confronted her. Ran out of the house. Then charged up the stairs when she got home.”

  “You didn’t follow her up there?” she asks.

  He pauses, eyes boring into hers. “No, Charlotte. I didn’t. I wanted to wait for you.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Would have been nice to hear from you today,” she says. “Did you forget to call me?”

  “No,” he says. “I texted you. I figured you were getting ready for your talk.”

  She shakes her head. “I never got a text, Jason.”

  “I sent you a . . .” He puts down the wooden spoon he’s holding and fishes his phone out of his pants pocket. Fuck. “Okay, sorry,” he says. “It looks like I never sent it. But I meant to.” He holds his phone out, screen facing her, presenting the draft as evidence.

  She shakes her head a second time, then goes to the refrigerator. “All right, well,” she says. “Let’s get this over with.” She pulls the wine bottle from the slot in the refrigerator door. “And I’m about to have a glass of wine,” she says sarcastically. “Apologies if that bothers you.”

  “Do you really have to act like that?” he says, picking up a block of parmesan to grate over the pasta.

  “You’re the one who told me I have an alcohol problem.”

  “I didn’t tell you—I don’t think you have a problem, Charlotte, I just think you could slow down a little. And I’ve noticed that we always fight when you drink.”

  “We always fight, period,” she says.

  It sounds so matter-of-fact, the way she says it, like it’s as set in stone as their blood types. He thinks of Jamie earlier today, and he feels a wave of guilt. And then he thinks of what Jamie’s actually going through this year, how scared and alone she must feel.

  He doesn’t want that.

  “Charlotte,” he says, walking across the kitchen to her before he can talk himself out of it. He puts his palm on her back, and then he puts his hands on her shoulders. He notices immediately how she tenses up, and the next thing he knows, she’s pulled away from him and walked out of the room. “Birdie!” she yells. “Birdie, come down here!”

  Jason leads them, like the grand marshal in a parade, into the family room. He puts his arm out, allowing Birdie to go first, and she skulks past him. She takes the couch across from them, her arms wrapped defiantly across her middle, her body sunk so low against the cushions that her chin touches her chest, and he and Charlotte take the armchairs opposite her.

  “You’re grounded,” Charlotte says, and Jason cringes. What kind of opener is that?

  “I thought I was already grounded,” Birdie spits back.

  “You are,” Charlotte says. “But now it’s going to be much worse. You owe us an explanation.”

  Birdie purses her lips into a thin, tight line.

  “Birdie!” he says. “Answer your mother.”

  She stays quiet, the expression on her face miserable, like they’ve done something to her. It’s unbelievable to him, how quickly she’s changed. How easy it seems to be for her to behave this way. “Birdie, skipping practice is unacceptable,” he says. “And so unlike you, especially on a week when you have this big match coming up. What’s going on?”

  She looks back at him with a sharpness that reminds him of Charlotte. “Maybe I don’t want to play tennis anymore,” she says, in a way that feels like it’s meant to hurt him, which it does. He can just picture it now, Birdie sitting on a barstool when she’s twenty-five, a tattoo on the back of her neck, her eyes bloodshot, trying to convince the idiot regulars around her that she used to be an athlete.

  “Are you kidding me?” Charlotte says, her volume rising. “You love tennis! You’ve always loved tennis!”

  “People change,” she says.

  “Oh, come on,” Jason says. “Don’t be silly.”

  She bursts into tears. “I’m not being silly!” she wails. “Just maybe you guys don’t understand what kind of pressure it is! To be the best one on the team when you’re only a freshman! I mean, it’s not like other sports, where the team works together. These older girls, the juniors and seniors, they are out to get me! You don’t have any idea!”

  “Well, how could we have?” Charlotte says, sounding more like her old self.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he says.

  Birdie wipes her nose with the sleeve of her shirt. “I don’t know.”

  “So is that why you skipped practice?” he says. “You didn’t want to deal with the other girls?”

  She nods.

  Jason and Charlotte exchange a glance. This morning, he kept waiting for Birdie to admit she was with Tucker. It doesn’t appear she’s going to do it now either.

  “Where did you go?” Charlotte asks.

  Birdie bites her lip. “I just hung around school for a little while,” she finally says. “I did some homework in the library, but then I didn’t want to run into anyone so I came home.”

  Charlotte sits forward in her chair, her wineglass balanced between her two hands. He notices that she’s nearly drained it in the few minutes they’ve been sitting there.

  “Are you sure, Bird?” she says.

  “Yeah.” Her eyes widen.

  “Birdie, tell us the truth,” Jason says, squeezing his armrest.

  “Last chance,” Charlotte says.

  Five seconds pass, then ten.

  “Birdie,” Charlotte says, the warning in her voice unmistakable. “Let’s go. Tell us.”

  Her lip starts to quiver. “I was at Tucker’s, okay?”

  “Well, of course you were!” Charlotte stands. “I can’t believe you’d sit here and try to lie to us! Who are you, Birdie? What has happened? I just don’t understand these decisions you’re making! You never would have done this before you met him!”

  “What the fuck?” Birdie suddenly wails, looking at the ceiling. “This has nothing to do with him!”

  “Birdie!” Jason says, stunned by her language. Outside of the occasional slip or when she’s singing along to a song lyric in the car, he’s never heard her curse like this. Not like she means it.

  “I asked Tucker if we could hang out, okay? It was all me, Mom! Why do you blame everything on—”

  “I don’t want you to see him anymore,” Charlotte says, wagging her finger like a teacher in an old cartoon. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with that boy!”

  “Mom!” Birdie continues to wail. “Mom, stop it! You can’t do that! I’m too old for you to tell me—”

  Charlotte laughs. “You are fourteen,” she says. “Barely a teenager. If you think for a minute that—”

  “He makes me happy, Mom! Isn’t that enough for you? Or are you too busy with your stupid fans to notice?”

  “Birdie!” Jason says. “Don’t talk to your moth—”

  “What mother?” she screams, standing, and his heart lurches. “I hardly remember my mother!” Birdie’s eyes are wild. “My mother used to spend time with me! This woman—” She flings her hand toward Charlotte. “This woman is never around anymore, and even when she is, she’s not really here, is she, Dad? Isn’t that what you said a few days ago, or last week, or during one of the zillion fights you guys don’t think I hear? It isn’t really a fucking picnic around here, so excuse me if I’d rather spend time with the one person besides Hannah who makes me feel good.”

  Jason’s mouth drops open. “Birdie . . .”

  “Go to your room,” Charlotte says, her voice shaking. When he looks over at her, she has her head lowered, her hand to her forehead like she’s shielding her eyes from the sun.

  “Gladly!” Birdie says.

  They’re both silent as they listen to her footsteps up the stairs, her door slamming.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “No,” she says, and then she hoists herself out of her chair and leaves the room, taking her glass with her.

&nb
sp; Nine

  To say that you have changed my life is nothing short of an understatement, the email begins. I watched your TED talk last month, and something just clicked! I realized that the only person who’s been holding me back is ME! I stopped making excuses. I stopped—as you would say—waiting for happiness to find me. I put the mantra on my bathroom mirror—Action first, feelings later—and it’s worked! In the past two months, I’ve quit my crappy job and got a new one that is so much better, cleared my house of clutter, and ran my first 10K! Just wanted you to know that there’s a forty-something in Houston, Texas, who considers you her guardian angel! I don’t know where I’d be without you!!

  Charlotte rubs her hand against her mouth, scanning the email a second time. Guardian angel, she huffs under her breath. Please. She used to save all of these messages in an Outlook folder labeled “Feedback” and sometimes, on a shitty day, she’d visit it like she was dipping into a box of chocolates, the praise a balm for her pride. But somewhere along the way, the messages started having the opposite effect. She felt envy at her own expense, like she’d loaned a dress to a friend and discovered that it looks much, much better on her. 10K . . . new job . . . She puffs her cheeks out like she’s about to vomit and deletes the message.

  Ms. McGanley, the next one starts. I can’t help but write to express my concern about the misguided, and possibly even life-threatening, assumptions you espouse in your book. I am a psychologist with thirty-seven years of experience, and I am surprised that you, a PhD with a position at a fine school, would choose to cash in by dumbing down our work for profit.

  Delete. Charlotte puts her phone facedown on the white tablecloth. It is nearly a week since the blowout with Birdie. She is sitting in the window of a quaint bistro on Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, waiting on Wendy, her agent, who is in town for the day from New York, and she does not have the bandwidth for criticism. She glances at the phone, tempted to google this so-called experienced expert, but she stops herself. For a bunch of people supposedly devoted to mental wellness, no group is more neurotic than the psych community. She thinks back to the time a year ago when a coworker invited her to join an online chat to weigh in on some new research about the whole “actions before emotions” theory she’d based her book on, and a professor from Indiana used it as an opportunity to call her a sellout, a moron, and so on. When she looked up his bio, she discovered that his research specialty was, of all things, empathy.