Happyland

by J. Robert Lennon

  And so the seeds of doubt and suspicion that were planted that morning in her office—the weeping Janet, the robe-wrapped Jims—had taken root and sprung to life with uncommon vehemence, and it did not take her long to spit on her hands, grab the handle of her axe, and start hacking away at the house of lies.

  She started with Jims’s credit card statement—the credit card he didn’t know she knew about—which, with the help of her IT man back in New Jersey, she was quickly able to access over the internet. Jim’s record of purchases was never easy to unravel; he bought so many people so many meals, in so many places, in the space of a month that he might well have been sleeping with fifty women. She printed out a month of records and took a red pen to the restaurants and bars, and what was left was a series of department stores, jewelry studios, and clothing boutiques that ought to have corresponded to his gifts to her. To be honest, she didn’t care much for his gifts; anything she wanted she bought herself; and so she had been forced, on a morning when Janet wasn’t poking her nosy little head around the place, to go rummaging through the closets and drawers in an effort to remember what he’d bought her. There were dresses (when was the last time, she wondered, he had seen her wear a dress?) and earrings and pendants and shoes, and she laid them all on the bed and wrote up an inventory detailing what they were and where they might have come from. And she cross-referenced this list with the remaining purchases on the credit card bill, and was left with a scant few un-accounted-for names: a dress shop, a jeweler, a hotel.

  From there, it was easy. Of course the clerk remembered selling the black dress, it was one of a kind, and she certainly hoped that her niece was enjoying it, a beautiful girl, such pretty eyes. And the earrings, yes of course, white gold certainly did look lovely against that young woman’s black hair, and if this is she, then perhaps, madam, you would like to come in and examine a new line of bracelets that we’ve just received directly from the artist? No, no thank you, sir. And the hotel—well, the hotel staff had obviously been carefully trained, but after several calls in several days she was able to find a novice clerk who confirmed that no, Ms. Ping, no wristwatch was found in your room by our housekeeping service, terribly sorry about that.

  But this was not enough. For there was no direct evidence, was there, that this meeting, though quite secret, had been consummated. Perhaps the girl resisted Jims’s advances, perhaps this was the cause of her anxiety, and if this was the case, then Happy would leave it be, she would pretend not to have found out, and only reveal what she’d learned when Jims was most vulnerable and needed to be reminded who was the more powerful partner in the marriage. And so she closely monitored Jims’s travel plans, and when a discrepancy arose between his stated and actual destinations (Kinshasa, Vail), she called up her own travel agent, made her own arrangements, and dispatched Kevin Russell to find out what was going on.

  It was, if anything, too easy. She knew when they were arriving, where they were staying, and that he had rented them skis and a ski instructor. Kevin didn’t have to stay more than twelve hours. He caught the first flight out once he had his answer. She sent a car to get him in Syracuse and he walked into the house (through the back door, of course) at eleven-thirty the night after he left and met her in the kitchen, where she was standing in her pajamas and fixing herself a glass of warm milk, and he said, without preamble, “He’s fucking her.”

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to believe it—indeed, there was a part of her that did, as she had been plotting for days, ever since she first suspected, how to turn this bit of bad news to her advantage. She had just wanted to be sure. She said, “Did you actually see th—”

  “He’s fucking her,” Kevin repeated, and held up Happy’s digital camera, which she had given him before he left. He set it on the counter.

  She nodded, and opened up the cabinet above the stove. From the sugar bowl came five hundreds. She handed them to Kevin.

  “I thought she swung the other way.”

  He accepted the money and shrugged. Something about the shrug—the way it displayed, in its utter dismissal of irrelevant information, an absolute, flawless efficiency—warmed her in the pit of her stomach, as if her milk were already done, and she’d already drunk it. Actually, maybe the warmth was a little lower than that. A wry looseness at the corner of his mouth seemed to indicate that he had noticed. He pocketed the dough and went to the kitchen door.

  “At your service,” he said, and disappeared into the cold night.

  And so today, for Thanksgiving, she had taken the unusual step of inviting both her husband and assistant over for dinner, and Silas and Sheila along with them. The Klams were an unfortunate complication, but they were staying with Happy during the early phases of the Inn’s construction, and they could hardly be asked to remain in the guest room while she hatched her plot. Well, it would be good for them to see what she was capable of, she supposed.

  Poor Janet—Happy felt bad for the girl, in spite of everything. She had confessed that her parents—a couple of midwesterners—were disappointed that she wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, and that she felt guilty about letting them down. Janet Ping! Complaining to Happy of her guilt! How ironic! The parents, Happy assured her, would get over it, though what she really thought was that Janet ought by now to have gotten over her parents. This is what dolls were for, after all: usurping mother, rendering her obsolete. No, parents only got in your way—if Happy’s had lived, she would never have become so strong. Rather, she would be kind and respectful and devoted—to a relationship without a reason for being. Their death had created her imagination, had given her something to achieve. It had made her ruthless. Every child should be so lucky.

  They gathered around the mahogany table, alternately staring at one another in glorious discomfort and burying their faces in plates of neotraditional food. The turkey, crisp with whiskey-molasses glaze, snuggled up to a pile of organic Yukon Golds mashed with parsnip and Jerusalem artichoke, and flavored with sea salt and white pepper. The cranberries had been folded into a marmalade and decanted into individual stylishly-mismatched china bowls, and the yams were candied with maple syrup drawn from local trees, and honey appropriated from local bees. It was a deeply distracting meal, but it didn’t distract quite enough for Jims’s comfort, and he squirmed and shot Happy appraising looks, as if she might betray her master plan in a careless glance. It was clear, at any rate, that she had one—this much she allowed her face to tell. And even Janet, whose appetite clearly trumped all paranoia, nevertheless indicated with her upturned eyes that she knew something was going on.

  The meal was nearly finished before Happy sprung the trap. Janet had risen to go and pee, and when she returned Happy saw that she walked with a slight limp which she was trying, unsuccessfully, to conceal. Jims noticed Happy noticing. He took a sudden and impolitely loud swallow of wine. Only when Janet had seated herself—unsteadily, for the girl was more than a little bit drunk—did Happy say, “Poor dear, I see you have a limp.” Adrenalin flooded her veins, and the wounds on her face, beneath their bandages, throbbed with a good, warm pain.

  Janet’s stricken expression was marvelous. She said, “Limp?”

  “Yes, you’re limping. Did you have a fall?”

  “No,” she mumbled into her wineglass.

  “I had a terrible fall once,” Happy said. “I hurt myself skiing. Do you remember that, Jims?”

  “No,” he said, his face drained of color, his fingers curled over the edge of the table as he if was trying to break a piece off. Of course Happy had never skied in her life. Recreation was not her bag.

  “We were in Vail, I believe—Janet, have you ever been to Vail?”

  “No,” Janet squeaked.

  “We stayed at this cute little lodge, I think it was called Valleyview, it had its own little private slope and an old-fashioned chair lift—very romantic. Anyway, I was slaloming down, and slipped on one of those—what do you call it?”

  “Moguls,” Silas Klam offer
ed. He and Sheila had seemed to notice that something was afoot, and they looked on with devilish interest. They were, by far, Happy’s favorite people in the room, possibly her favorite in the world.

  “Ironically, yes!” Happy said with a laugh. “A mogul slipping on a mogul!”

  “Heh!” giggled Janet. But Jims’s face was grave.

  “Janet, dear, I know you just sat down, but would you mind going up to the office and getting something for me?”

  Her chair jerked back and she stood at attention, her face pathetically registering hope that a reprieve was in the offing. Sorry, kid. “It’s an envelope on the desk? Bring it down here, please, there’s something we all need to take a look at.”

  The girl moved to the stairs with her even, stiff-legged walk, like a finishing school dropout. They all watched her go. When she had disappeared around the bend of the stair, Jims leveled an accusing gaze at her and stage-whispered, “Don’t do this to her.”

  “I am awfully eager to know what you think I’m doing, darling.”

  His blush did not deter him. “This is between you and me. Leave her out of it.”

  “Ah, but if only you’d stayed out of her, we wouldn’t have a problem!”

  The Klams were avid, their pale faces alert, their utensiled hands frozen above their plates. It was they who turned most eagerly toward the stairs when Janet came slowly down them, bearing before her a sealed manila envelope and a doomed expression. For clearly she had figured out that nothing good could be inside.

  She came slowly around the table and handed the envelope to Happy. Happy, however, didn’t take it. “No, no, you’ll have the honor, dear—please, sit down, let’s see what’s in it.” And so Janet trudged back to her seat. Her eyes fell to the pile of bones and scraps of flesh scattered on her plate. She seemed to choke back a small sob.

  “No?” Happy asked, after a suitably unbearable interval. “How about you, Jims darling—would you like to open the envelope?”

  But all he offered in response was an icy glare.

  “Well then, give it here please, Janet. I’ll have to break the seal myself.” And she reached across the table and plucked the envelope from Janet’s trembling hands.

  She used her sterling butter knife to slit the envelope open, and pulled out the stack of photographs, the ones she had printed out fresh this morning. Eight-by-ten, in color, they were a far cry from the grainy surveillance shots of yore; their clarity and resolution rendered them eligible for pornographic publication. They depicted, of course, Janet and Jims in a compromising position—several, in fact, which she recognized as corresponding to Jims’s particular taste. Indeed, Janet was shown, in one of the photos, getting an intimate impression of Jims’s particular taste.

  She was a lovely girl, no doubt about it—lithe and unblemished as a shoot of bamboo. Jim’s flabby, hairy manliness appeared distinctly less appealing by comparison. But this could simply have been Happy’s state of mind. Less susceptible to her mood, however, was the expression evident on Janet’s face, which looked even nakeder than the rest of her. The expression was one of patient endurance—not especially dissimilar from the one she wore right now.

  “Yes,” Happy said, turning the photos in her hands, “I think this is something that should give us all a little food for thought. Who wants a look?”

  Nobody volunteered.

  “Come now! Silas?”

  The pallid limey shook his head and took to studying his leftovers. Beside him, Sheila frowned, displeased; although it was unclear whether this displeasure was for Happy’s tactics or for her husband shrinking before them. At any rate, she knew what to do to move the evening along. She extended a willowy hand and said, “Give ‘em here.”

  Wordlessly, Happy handed her the photos.

  Sometimes Happy had wondered, privately, if there was anyone on earth who could conceivably take her place as the CEO of Happy Girls, Inc. The answer, of course, had always been no, but Sheila Klam had long resided on the short list of possibilities. Now, as she flipped with cruel efficiency through the pictures, glancing periodically at Jims and Janet for comparison, Sheila rose in Happy’s esteem, at last taking her rightful place as secret company understudy. I will have, thought Happy, to change my will.

  “She looks like Wei Ling, the Emperor’s Girl,” Sheila said flatly, passing the photos to a docile Silas. “Remember that doll?”

  “Oh, yes!” Happy said, rewarding her designer with a hard smile. “I remember that she was a favorite of my husband’s.”

  “Some things never change,” Sheila growled, while beside her Silas gazed at each photograph gloomily, like a low-level torturer on trial at The Hague. He said, “Enough for me,” and got up from the table. He disappeared into the kitchen and presumably the liquor cabinet.

  This forced Happy to rise from her seat, pick up the photos, and lay them before her husband. She set them right on the food scraps, as if they themselves were the remains of something that had long since been devoured. Almost as an afterthought, she removed half the pile and set these in front of Janet.

  “It’s funny, Janet,” she said, returning to her seat. “You don’t look all that pleased, for a girl who’s been flown to Colorado to get laid. In fact, you look like you’re made of stone. More Happy Girl than happy girl, I’d say.”

  Janet’s head remained hung. Jims’s face had crusted over with anger and disgust, and his eyes were focused on a spot over Happy’s shoulder.

  “Didn’t you find my husband a suitable partner? Was his attention less than stimulating? Answer me, dear, I’m dying to know.”

  The faintest patter, as a tear, and then another, dropped onto the top photograph of Janet’s pile, which showed the poor thing taking it from behind. Well, at least she hadn’t had to look into his eyes.

  “Stop it,” Jims growled.

  “Defending her honor? So soon after taking it from her? For shame, husband!”

  Sheila Klam watched with her head cocked, like an unusually intelligent dog.

  “Speak to me, Janet—why the long face? Not right now, I mean—in the pictures!”

  And then, Janet raised her head: effortfully, as if it were tethered to a great weight. Her hair fell onto each cheek and stuck there, leaving a two-inch stripe of miserable blanched face peering out from behind. And the mouth, chapped and crooked, its border of lipstick smeared and worn away by dinner and unhappiness, began to move, to form words, that were too quiet to hear.

  Too quiet, at least, for Happy to hear. Jims, on the other hand, grew paler and even more rigid, which Happy would not have thought possible. “Beg your pardon, dear, what was that?”

  Now Janet straightened her shoulders as well, and her hands came up from her lap and pulled the black cowl of hair aside. And, to Happy’s surprise, conviction was revealed there, conviction and courage and anger. The girl was at last coming to life, perhaps for the first time since Happy had met her. Her eyes were wet, but a strength was burning the tears away, and the girl leaned forward and repeated what she had said, clearly and loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “Because,” Janet said, “it was you I wanted.”

  The words hung over the table for a moment, perfect abstract ornaments, their meaning not yet certain. A smile began to stretch across Sheila Klam’s narrow face.

  “What?” Happy demanded, and she was embarrassed to hear the uncertainty, the fear, concealed in the word.

  “It was you I wanted,” Janet said. “I loved you. I love you.”

  Oh, said a voice inside Happy. But her real voice had no rejoinder. This, finally, had taken her by surprise. She felt her tightly coiled emotions unravel, and struggled to take a breath.

  And Janet continued to stare. Why was she doing that? This, Happy understood now, was something of her own making, her creation run amok. A doll come to life. She stared back, or rather felt powerless to turn away, as if mesmerized, and indeed it was as though Janet had cast a spell—or rather something had taken hold of Janet that
was now taking hold of Happy as well. And then Happy saw it, in the blackness of Janet’s eyes, the thing that had seized them both. It came with the force of a vital clue, long overlooked, at last uncovered. It was Happy’s mother—not her face, or her voice, or her scent, but the look of love: the horrible, desperate force of love, that had been conveyed over the seat of the car, and into the crib, and across the dinner table, and through the window into the yard, and had been stopped too soon, and forever. Terrible love, its claws and teeth, its destructive force: Happy slumped in her chair, and tears sprang to her face, and a sob was wrenched from her body. From the corner of her eye she saw Jims and Sheila both jump, but they were no longer real to her—only Janet was here, Janet and the memory of Mother, resurrected, folding Happy into her strong arms.

  A motion at the room’s edge—a figure approaching. Happy managed two words, barely audible, but Janet heard them: “I’m sorry.” And then Louisa was upon them, reaching over their shoulders for the dirty dishes. She stopped behind Jims, her hand before his face, and her eyes fell upon the photographs…and then she withdrew as swiftly as a roach, and was gone.

  And so was Thanksgiving. Happy, impossibly, got up and, with a scrape of the chair and a clatter of feet, left the room in tears.

  * * *

  It was to the prototype room that she fled: that cradle of personal history, the soul of her home. And it was here that she collapsed in a heap on the Persian rug before the stunned faces of her creations; her palms, rank with sweat, burned like coals against her bruised eyes. Her head throbbed, her nose ran, and sobs wracked her body, gripping every nerve and muscle and shaking them like the wind-torn branches of a leafless tree. Reduced to this! Here, in the womb of her empire! Crowded into the last defended outpost of her mind, her chilliest self marveled at the blubbering child the rest of her had become, and she waited for the moment to pass.