Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  He misses that part of her. And he wonders if she does, too. When he picks up the book she wrote, as he sometimes does, opening to any old page, he finds the woman he fell in love with, the one who says in the TED talk that started it all, “Life, when it comes right down to it, is not something you should grit your teeth through. It’s meant to be cherished. You are meant to be happy.”

  Promoting all these ideas, in her big, big way, has cost them a lot: time, connection, energy for the things that should matter, like just being together, just hanging out. He knows that she is stressed about the conference in Montana, but she hasn’t even mentioned it to him. She doesn’t acknowledge the part he plays in this machine she’s created. He feels like they’re circling a drain.

  He looks up at the sky, feeling helpless, then down at his phone. His brother answers on the second ring.

  “To what do I owe the honor?” Tate says.

  “I’m just out for a walk,” Jason says. “Thought I would call my dear brother to say hello.”

  “How nice,” Tate says. “I’m actually walking, too. Headed to meet Paul for dinner but I’m exhausted. And we have to be up early to drive to the coast.”

  “Vacation?” Jason says.

  “No, I wish,” Tate says. “Seeing about a project for work.”

  “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “What?”

  “Work with your spouse.”

  “Ugh, that word,” Tate jokes.

  “Work, or . . . ?” Jason jokes back.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Actually,” he says. “Speaking of that . . .”

  “What?”

  “I need your help,” Jason says, knowing it very well may be the first time he’s ever said the words to his brother. He worries he’s called the wrong person. Tate doesn’t believe in marriage, and only married his partner, Paul, a few summers ago because he was given an ultimatum.

  There is silence for a moment. “Is it Mom? Dad?” he says, and Jason thinks back to that day, when he was fifteen and Tate was eighteen, when his brother came out to his parents. Jason knew. He’d suspected first and then Tate had told him on the back patio under the bug zapper, late at night after they’d both been out drinking with their individual groups of friends. He wonders, still, how his parents had been so surprised when Tate told them, because they must have known on some level, even if they didn’t want to. They had come around. It had taken time (their father’s exact words were “This will take some time to get used to”) but Jason knows that there is still a strain there. Tate will probably always resent their parents a little bit (and how could he not?) for not completely accepting him as he is. It’s not surprising that he chose to live all the way across the country.

  “No, it’s not them,” he says. “It’s Charlotte.” He fills his brother in, telling him what it’s been like. “She doesn’t seem intent on changing anything, even though I can see how unhappy she is. And she’s drinking a lot.”

  Tate laughs. “She’s always liked a drink,” he says. “That’s one of the things I love about her. When we’re at the beach house, I always know I can count on Char to join me in a breakfast margarita.”

  “Perfect,” Jason says. “Thanks, Tate.”

  “Oh, come on. So, what? Is she day-drinking? Getting drunk every night? What?”

  “No, not day-drinking but maybe . . . I think she had three glasses tonight.”

  “That really doesn’t sound like a lot,” Tate says.

  “And maybe it wouldn’t be, if the two of us were hanging out and having drinks or something. But it’s like she’s desperate to jump into the bottle the minute she gets home. It doesn’t look so much like she’s enjoying it as needing it. Does that make sense? I know she’s doing it because she’s unhappy. It’s like she’s trying to numb herself or something.”

  “Well, I never would have known that from her Instagram feed.”

  “Yes, well, all part of the act,” Jason says.

  “And you’ve tried everything?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Are you having sex?”

  “No,” Jason admits, rubbing his brow. “Not really.”

  “Mm,” Tate says. “You know they say that when that goes, it’s all downhill.”

  “Thanks, Tate.”

  “Why don’t you take a break? I know you can’t Eat Pray Love it because of your responsibilities with work and Birdie, but maybe a little absence to make the heart grow fonder might help?”

  Jason thinks of Jamie, who suggested the same thing. “You can’t really take a break from your marriage.”

  “Tell me about it,” Tate says. “Honestly, though, you’d be surprised. We have a coworker here who did it and it worked like a charm. After their kids went off to college, he and his wife got separate apartments. They’d meet for dinner a few times a week, like they were dating again. And now they’re fully back together, though they do keep the separate places. Maybe you could do something like that?”

  “You’d think, with the amount that she travels, that we wouldn’t need to do that. I don’t know, Tate. It seems weird. And Birdie, she’d freak out. I just don’t like how it sounds.”

  “For someone who’s supposed to be a typical straight dude, you’re far more sensitive than your gay brother.” Tate laughs. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  “I guess.”

  “Take a break, Jason.”

  “I don’t know if Charlotte . . .”

  “Well, exactly my point,” Tate says. “Maybe you should focus less on what she’s doing and more on you. What is it that she says? Action first? Follow your instincts? See if that does the trick.”

  “Yeah,” Jason says. “I could. I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  “Well, there you go,” Tate says, sounding pleased with himself. “I’ll send the bill later. Listen, though, I do need to run. I just got to the restaurant and Paul’s already seated. He just did that annoying pointing to his watch thing.” He lowers his voice. “He’s so fucking impatient.”

  They hang up. Jason knows he should head home soon, he can’t walk forever, but he thinks of his brother’s advice.

  What would make me feel better?

  He stands there for a moment, with Sylvie looking up at him, and then he looks down at his phone. Fuck it, he thinks, putting it to his ear. He doesn’t think she’s going to answer, but then, just as he’s about to give up, she does.

  “Hi!” she says in a loud whisper. There’s music in the background, the clattering of dishes.

  “Where are you?” he says.

  “On a date!” Jamie says. “A horrible, awful date!” She laughs. “The picture the guy posted on his profile must be twenty years old! I feel like my eyes are going to be permanently damaged from staring at the glare bouncing off his bald head.”

  “Oh my God,” he says, chuckling, though he feels a yearning, too. Envy, he realizes, picturing this guy, whoever he is, who’s out with her right now.

  “Do you think I could escape from here? I’m in the bathroom now. I could just climb out the window.”

  “Oh, that’s so mean,” he says. “You can’t do that. Not unless it’s really bad.”

  She groans. “I guess you’re right. He’s not awful. Just boring as hell! Don’t you want to come rescue me?”

  “Yes,” he says, blurting it out. “Actually.”

  They’re both silent for a moment, his words settling over them. “Well,” she says. “Me, too.”

  He shuffles his feet, kicking a piece of gravel on the sidewalk. “Well,” he says.

  She makes a funny sound, somewhere between humming and clearing her throat. “He’s in a band,” she says.

  “That’s cool.”

  “No, no. It’s a dad band,” she says. “He plays the ukulele.”

  “Ohh.”

  “Sexy, right?”

  “So he has kids?”

  “Three. He’s divorced.”

  “Mm.” Ja
son feels a knot in his stomach. “Do you know why?”

  “No,” she says. “But I’ll find out.”

  “I should let you go,” he says.

  “Wait, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” he says, continuing to walk. “Just called to say hi.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  “Me, too,” he says, closing his eyes when Sylvie looks up at him. If the dog’s making him feel guilty, he definitely shouldn’t be doing this. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He gets to the curb and sees how far he’s gone, much farther than he anticipated. He should turn around and go home, but he sees a street sign up ahead and his adrenaline kicks in as he realizes where he is. He should go home, he knows this, but he hears his brother’s voice in his head—follow your instincts—so he keeps walking.

  * * *

  Jason has been gone for over an hour. His usual walks never last more than twenty minutes, maybe thirty if he gets lost in a good podcast, and Charlotte is starting to worry. Maybe he’s been hit by a distracted driver, she thinks, sitting up on the couch in the family room, or some asshole on one of those motorized scooters that have popped up on every corner like swarms of locusts. Charlotte pictures him splayed out on the ground at the awful pedestrian walkway on George Mason where nobody ever stops, Sylvie panting hopelessly next to him.

  And then she has another thought: Could he be with Jamie? Maybe he’d used the dog walk as an excuse to go meet her somewhere . . . but no, that couldn’t be. Jamie lives all the way in Bethesda. Of course, she could have driven over here . . . but . . . no, she thinks. With two kids, no one else to help her . . . They’d been to her house years ago for a cookout when all of the kids were small. It had been blazingly hot, a Sunday afternoon, and at one point, Charlotte retrieved a bottle of Coppertone baby sunscreen from her diaper bag and started applying it to Birdie’s cheeks. She sensed Jamie watching her with a kind of pensive bewilderment. Hesitatingly, Jamie walked over, pulled a little tube of something from her back pocket, and asked if Charlotte would like to try it because it was “natural” and “less scary,” she said, pointing to Charlotte’s brand-name sunscreen. Charlotte had waved her off with a laugh, saying they’d take their chances, and that had been the end of it, but later in the car on the way home, she was pissed, though Jason insisted that Jamie couldn’t have possibly meant anything by it because she was quote “so laid-back.” Thinking it over, she remembers how Jason has used that phrase lots of times when referring to his coworker, whether it’s describing her way with the animals at work or how she is at home. What did that imply? That she, by contrast, is not?

  She pictures him somewhere nearby—on his phone, most likely, she decides—talking to Jamie about what’s transpired in their house tonight. Talking about her and her apparent drinking problem. She pictures him, standing the way he does when he’s on the phone, his free hand crooked into the fold of his other elbow, pacing casually, laughing about her, bitching about her.

  She hears Tabatha’s voice in her head. You seem like the type who needs attention. Why does everyone around her—her husband, her boss—have an opinion on who she is, on what she should do? Isn’t she doing enough?

  She looks down at her phone, where, a little while ago, she Instagrammed a photo of a book, placed artfully on top of a pretty woven throw blanket she keeps folded over one of the armchairs in the living room. Taking time for me at the end of a long day, her caption reads. What do you do to fill your tank? No matter that the book, The Poisonwood Bible, is Birdie’s, and that Charlotte slid it out from under her daughter’s arms when she went to check on her and found her asleep on top of her covers. She saw that Birdie’s nails were painted light blue and felt a guilty pang for not noticing it until now. What else have I missed recently, big or small? She looked around Birdie’s messy room, thinking of the panic Jason must have felt in discovering that pamphlet, and her heart aches, knowing that despite everything she feels about him right now, watching Birdie grow up is hard for him in a different way than it is for her. She ran her hand over Birdie’s head, kissed her on the forehead, and as she walked downstairs, she had the sensation that her daughter had slipped away from them, become an autonomous person, so separate from them in her daily life. Maybe this is something I could write about for the book, it occurs to her now, and as soon as it does, the thought repulses her. This is the thought that she has about her daughter? That it’s fodder for the next bestseller? Then again, maybe . . . she thinks, pulling down at her phone’s screen, watching the likes rack up like points on an arcade game, maybe it might actually help things if I write this book? It could help us all.

  I fill my tank with CHARDONNAY! a commenter’s written, which has led to a slew of replies with little wineglass emojis, two champagne flutes clinking “cheers.” See? she thinks, feeling redeemed. She goes to the kitchen. One more, she tells herself, ignoring the guilt that comes as she empties the rest of the bottle she bought just a few hours ago into her glass. She knows she’s drunk. It was awful, when she slurred earlier, handed Birdie that glass by accident. But it’s been a really long awful day, she tells herself, sinking back into the couch. She shoots off a reply text to her brother, who messaged earlier about their mother’s idea for a wedding-like send-off on the Savannah River, with everyone holding sparklers and bidding the couple farewell. Couldn’t we just toss them both in the river? she types, and then opens another window on the phone to check in with Stephanie, whom she hasn’t spoken to in a week. People with close social connections are happiest, she hears in her head, thinking of how, at the start of each semester, she makes her students commit to logging at least five face-to-face interactions with friends each week.

  Hey, she types. Taking a poll. How much do you drink during the week?

  Oh, God, don’t tell me that I’m not allowed to drink wine anymore, Stephanie writes back. Don’t tell me that it’s bad for my happiness, please, I don’t want to know. She types three wineglass emojis. This is what I’ve had tonight. More than usual, but it’s not UNusual, know what I mean?

  Charlotte nods to herself.

  Hey, it’s either this or Valium, Stephanie adds, along with a laughing-through-tears emoji.

  Exactly, Charlotte types. Her fingers hover over the screen. She could tell Stephanie about Dayna’s message to her today—she wants to—but then she’d have to confess what she said to Tucker.

  Why do you ask? Stephanie says.

  Just a thing for a lecture, she types, then goes back to Instagram.

  Now she has 42,619 likes. Not bad for an average weekday night, she thinks, sipping from her glass. She looks at the time and tells herself that if Jason’s not back in ten minutes, she’ll call him. Suddenly, a DM notification pops in the corner of her screen.

  Ahhh. She smiles, seeing the username. @KGPartyof5 is back.

  I hated that book, she’s typed. Poisonwood Bible?

  Why does that not surprise me? Charlotte responds. You’re a tough critic.

  You sound like my daughter, she writes.

  How is she doing? Charlotte types. I’ve been thinking of her.

  Better, she says. Much better. Tho Im afraid it’s because of her new boyfriend, who Im not real fond of.

  Charlotte sits up and reaches for her wine. Oh? she types. Why not?

  Kid seems like a loser, the woman responds.

  Sounds familiar, Charlotte writes.

  Really? says the response.

  I can’t stand the kid my daughter is dating, Charlotte writes. She hesitates for a moment, knowing how stupid it is to vent to a complete stranger, but she does it anyway. The kid is such a prick, from this ostentatious family. The mom actually texted me to accuse me of threatening him.

  No way! The text comes back, along with a couple of siren emojis. You? Little Miss Sunshine? I’d love to see that! Did you actually threaten the kid?

  Charlotte bites her lip. Well . . . she types.

  The response is instan
t: I love it! Who would’ve guessed?

  Action first, feelings later, I guess, Charlotte types. I wasn’t thinking. And you shouldn’t mess with mama bear.

  I like this side of you! the woman writes.

  Well, don’t believe everything you see online, Charlotte adds. There’s more to me than you know.

  What are you saying? KGPartyof5 replies. You don’t wake up every day and piss rainbows, bluebirds hovering around you?

  Ha! But gotta keep up the image, you know? Charlotte writes. Being happy is the brand. Gotta do what you gotta do.

  I love it! So are you actually reading that book you posted, or . . . ?

  Charlotte swipes along her phone’s keyboard, taps out a wineglass emoji. Yes, I’m lounging. No, I’m not relaxing, she types. Actually waiting on my husband to get home. No idea where he is.

  Whoa! The response comes back instantly. That doesn’t sound good!

  Charlotte frowns. No, it doesn’t, does it? she adds.

  She hears the door opening, the sound of Sylvie’s tags jangling on her collar. Gotta go, she types and, leaping up from her seat, she finishes her glass, then hurries to the kitchen to put it in the sink.

  An hour and twenty-five minutes after Jason left, Charlotte enters the family room just as he’s sitting down on the couch, the collar of his T-shirt wet with perspiration. He tosses his phone down on the coffee table, making the screen come to life. His wallpaper is a photo of Birdie from last fall, sitting in the backyard in an old Georgetown sweatshirt of Charlotte’s, her cheeks flushed from the cold. They’d been raking leaves together. Charlotte had made a pot of chili and her father’s famous cornbread, flecked with bacon and jalapeños. It had been a good day.

  She sits down in the chair across from him.