The Happiness Thief

by Nicole Bokat

  two

  —

  NATALIE JOLTED AWAKE, UNSURE OF HER SURROUNDINGS. SHE blinked at the sight of the bright furniture, saffron yellow curtains and apple-green chair. This wasn’t her bedroom.

  She scurried to the window to push back the drapes. Outside the two-bedroom suite was the balcony and the first morning views of the Caribbean Sea that unfurled indefinitely. The sky was blanketed with pink and white clouds. The ocean glittered like rock candy.

  The living space was a burst of colors: cobalt blue couch and gold and red rug. The curtains were open, as was Isabel’s bedroom door. There wasn’t a hush of noise; Natalie opened the door gently, so as not to wake her stepsister. Isabel had been going non-stop since arriving at the conference—a good distraction, everyone agreed, as her dad had died merely days before this long weekend. One heart attack had landed Garrick in the hospital, the second one had killed him as he lay in Intensive Care. She must be exhausted. Yet, inside, the sheets were turned down, and the puff of silk nightgown lay on the pillow. Isabel was gone.

  A note on the kitchenette’s counter read: “Work breakfast with Ole downstairs. He’s staying at the Cove; has an early flight back to Denmark. Hope you’re feeling better. XO, Belle.”

  The car key with its plastic THRIFTY tag lay next to the note, like a provocation. Natalie grabbed a mug out of the cabinet and opened the refrigerator door. Next to the half and half were a tub of butter, three water bottles, and a plastic container of sliced watermelons. She noticed now that the coffee pot was two-thirds full. Not a meal, but she was willing to wait. The digital clock above the microwave read 6:37; most likely there wouldn’t be many people on the road, not at this more secluded end of the island so early in the day. No commuters here. She could check now if there were signs of an injured animal and be back before Isabel returned, sympathy in her eyes. You were that worried? I shouldn’t have gone with Ole. Natalie would forgo a shower and rush down the back stairs with her camera.

  Nerves humming, she was vigilant but not afraid, not yet. When she got to the car, the bumper was clean. She peered closer, as if the drops of blood were hiding from view. Nothing. She touched the plastic, already warm from the dawning sun.

  She drove slowly, as she had no street name, no GPS to guide her. The trees stood steady and strong, like warriors in fancy headgear. The agaves’ green tentacles waved above their trunks, shredded wood that resembled skirts. She made a turn, then another, noticing the curve sign, certain she’d found the correct place. She stopped near the shrubs on the right side and got out.

  Natalie walked up and down the road, studying the ground, the dirt and pebbles, the grass leading into the bushes. She knew from experience behind the lens that what the naked eye saw wasn’t always all that was there. She stopped when she discovered a patch of dried blood no bigger than a quarter. Then she lifted her Nikon and took a burst of shots. She imagined more proof elsewhere, a splattering, a trail through the bushes. She scoped out the foliage. In the leaves nearby, there were specks of reddish brown; Natalie tore off a leaf and held it to her nose, not sure what she expected to smell. She stumbled among the twigs and white flowers, looking for paw prints but found none.

  After twenty minutes, she decided to buy a local paper, with a bag of nuts and raisins, at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel. She felt a whoosh of relief. Maybe she’d overreacted—which made sense given her history. There was no news of car accidents, much less injuries, in the Cayman Tribune.

  ISABEL WAS STILL not back in their suite. Natalie decided to head for the beach, Nikon around her neck. She bypassed the empty pastel lounge chairs under the canopies, billowing lazily like sails. The warm water lapped over her toes as she snapped shot after shot. By midday, the sun would press down on her shoulders with an incessant grip that would leave a mark. But at this hour it was a balm.

  Hand up in a salute to block the light, she turned to see a man a few feet down the beach. There was something so glossy and richly colored about his appearance, as if he were shot through a gold filter. She had to lift her head up to recognize that he was the man they’d encountered on the road the previous night.

  Natalie walked towards him. Up close, his face was slightly lined around the eyes and mouth, his sandy hair streaked with blond. He was dressed in cotton slacks that fanned up at his calves, a starched shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. He was holding polished loafers in one hand.

  “Hi,” she said. “Remember me, the animal lover?”

  He smiled. “Of course. I’m Simon Drouin. Feeling better?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Good. You look lovely this morning.”

  “Thanks,” she said, glancing down at the white sand. She knew the compliment was a lie, that she had thumbprint smudges under her eyes, that the angles of her cheeks and collarbones were sharpened to a point from weight loss. “Funny meeting you here, I mean … the same beach.”

  “I’m staying at the hotel.”

  “Right,” she nodded. “You mentioned that.”

  “And your charming companion, sleeping in?”

  It was like a line out of a Victorian novel. Natalie wanted to blurt out, “She’s married to a wonderful guy. Don’t bother.”

  “Having breakfast with a colleague,” she said, “about a TED Talk on Flourishing.”

  “Oh, dear. That last bit eludes me.”

  “I thought you were here for the conference.”

  “Lord, no. Are you part of this whole … production?”

  “Along for the ride. I’m here with my stepsister, Isabel. The ‘charming companion.’” He laughed. “She’s a speaker.”

  Simon pointed to the camera. “You’re not the official photographer?”

  She shook her head. If only…. But she’d long ago given up on the flow and movement, the animation of human life.

  When he bent towards her, Natalie felt a flush of excitement. The last time she and her almost-ex-husband, Marc, had made love was a year ago in April, the magnolias in full bloom. Her entire adult life she’d been yoked to one man. She’d been married for seventeen years, had just turned forty-one.

  Natalie said, “I am a professional photographer, actually. But not for this event.”

  “The Happiness industry seems to be booming. And for good reason, the world being what it is. I confess, I did sneak a peak of a brochure at the front desk. The hotel has a pile of them. Your sister is prominently featured.”

  Of course, he’d noticed that.

  “She’s a leader in the field.”

  “Impressive, I suppose. Just can’t imagine this whole business works on Brits. We’re lacking in your natural optimism.”

  “Don’t be fooled by our reputation. Anyway, there are people from all over the world for this. What about you? Do you live in London?”

  “New York now.”

  “So, you must have picked up our ‘can-do spirit,’” she said. “I’m from Boston. Natalie, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you, Natalie. I travel up to Boston sometimes for work. I wonder where I might have seen your pictures.”

  “There’s a platter of truffles in October’s Boston Magazine.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Mushrooms?”

  “Chocolate. But I’ve shot those too. I specialize in food.”

  “Really?” He patted his stomach. “If it were me, I’d put on twenty pounds.”

  She nodded. “Common misconception. I’m more like a food mortician. I know what it takes to get my subject looking good. It’s not pretty.”

  The spray bottle filled with water and corn syrup, the browning agents to enhance color, the glycerin to make the food shimmer, the brushes to create an artificial luster: the presentation of nourishment rendered inedible.

  Simon laughed. “I like that: mortician. It’s rather perverse.”

  “That’s me,” she said.

  Not the way you mean.

  “Good to know,” he grinned. “Do you sell to private clients?�
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  “I have a nice mutton you might like to hang over your bed.”

  “Ah, dear, no. Do you ever take other things, landscapes or portraits?”

  She had a few of Marc and Hadley. That was all. When she was first learning, she loved shooting people, but after her mother died, she stopped, as if she couldn’t really see them anymore.

  “Not professionally. You can check my website if you’re interested. It’s my name, Natalie Greene with an ‘e,’ then dot com.”

  “I am interested. A little perversion never hurt anyone. Would you like to have dinner tonight? Alas, I don’t think we’ll find any mutton here.”

  “I would,” she said.

  It had been a year, two months, and three days since Marc had moved in with Elizabeth, a colleague he’d met in a team building event. When Isabel nudged her to start dating, Natalie had found the suggestion ludicrous. “How can I trust anyone again?” she’d asked. But one meal with sexy Simon, with his rakish boasts—so different from her Holier-Than-Thou turned cheater ex—might lift her mood. “Only we’re leaving later this afternoon.”

  “Ah, that’s right. My loss.”

  They exchanged a look, his eyes holding hers.

  “It was nice meeting you, Simon.”

  He extended his hand. “Until we meet again.”

  Meet again? Was that a line or a promise?

  “In case, you’re ever in New York, my personal email is easy to remember,” he said. “SDrouin@hotmail.com.”

  Hotmail indeed.

  Natalie climbed the steep back steps, raising her camera to her eye. From the palm tree craning towards the second floor, the bearded, bejeweled Iguana stared out at her. Its skin was wrinkled and ill-fitting, like the wrong-sized coat. As she zoomed in on the creature in the tree, she felt a shot of pleasure as if it was she who was being observed.

  Her suite was the first one on the right, and she imagined Simon watching her enter it. It was cool, and the central room was alight with color. Natalie placed her Nikon and sunglasses on the dining table, then stepped onto the balcony. The day was a quilt of blues, the patchwork of ocean stitched to the sky.

  She felt alive, the world before her.

  Natalie surveyed the guests on the patio below. A young mother walked behind her toddling child to the shallow end of the pool. She observed another whose cadence—the lightness of her walk, the swing of her sarong at the back of her calves—reminded her of someone. The woman’s hair was long and whispery. Thin but curvy, she had a small waist and long legs.

  Natalie could smell her mom’s citrus and mint perfume. She saw the woman turn towards her and mouth the words: What did you do to me?

  Natalie grasped the balcony’s railing, bending her knees to ground her. Once she reached the glass doors, she squatted on the carpet, waiting for the spell to pass. Her throat wasn’t working correctly, wasn’t swallowing. She crept to the kitchen where her pocketbook lay on the counter and spilled the contents of her bag: wallet, small tub of concealer, and bottle of Xanax. With the tranquilizer floating on her tongue, she slunk to the fridge for a water bottle. It took several gulps for the pill to slide down. Once on the couch, she charted the neon numbers on the hotel clock. Five minutes passed. Then ten. She heard her first psychiatrist say:

  “Survivor’s guilt.”

  She’d seen Dr. Davidson for a year after the symptoms from her concussion had abated. He’d begun each session with, “Anything new to report?” He had a lazy eye that made him appear to be both asleep and awake at the same time.

  Only once did he ask her to elaborate on what she recalled about the accident.

  “My mom got spooked, and she shouted at me. I did something wrong. Not sure what … but I know it’s true.”

  He’d leaned forward in his chair, his one good eye, under a crepey lid, focused on her. “You survived.”

  Natalie had stared at her yellow sneakers. She was just a kid in a batik blouse and ripped jeans, but she’d felt that wasn’t the right explanation. Something was amiss, literally missing, a gap in time in which answers were trapped.

  Natalie unclenched her jaw, unlocked the muscles in her shoulders. The tranquilizer had kicked in. A few minutes later, she pulled out her cell phone from her canvas pocketbook and texted Isabel: Lunch? The Wild Orchid.

  Her sister’s words glowed green: Yep! See you at noon!

  FRESHLY SHOWERED AND in a sundress, she met Isabel on the patio of the hotel’s restaurant. They sat on wicker chairs, each with a beach view, sipping their mineral water and waiting for their meals to be served.

  Isabel bent towards her. “You look glazed over, sweetie.”

  “Damn.” Natalie squeaked a laugh. “It must be the heroin.”

  “You’d be blushing, and your pupils dilated. Xanax?”

  “Minor attack.”

  “I was afraid that might happen.”

  “This is going to sound crazy.” Natalie’s throat hurt, as if a fish bone had grazed it. “From the balcony, I thought I saw my mom.”

  “Oh, god,” Isabel said. “Last night must have triggered this.”

  “I keep thinking of Marc, how he insisted I brought these episodes on, indulged myself.”

  Marc, who found it increasingly hard to tolerate her inability to break free of her broken childhood, who hated her periods of rumination, the obsessive inward gaze. “Distract yourself,” he’d say. “Your life is good.”

  “Fuck him.” Isabel squeezed the lime wedge into her glass until it was depleted of juice, the rind curled. “Telling you to grin and bear your pain, then screws someone else.”

  Natalie scratched a dry patch on her arm. “The thing about my mom … in the vision, I mean. She asked what I’d done to her.”

  Isabel made a clucking sound. “I’m sorry it’s back, the misery of many names.”

  Natalie’s moniker for her shape-shifting ailment, labeled at various times, by various specialists, as PTSD, Postpartum Depression, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety.

  “Me too. What you said in your lecture about set points and how 40 percent of our happiness is within our control. I don’t think that’s true for me. Probably genetic.”

  Natalie had no idea if this were the case. Her mother had been shy, quiet, with a flute-y lightness to her. Only with her Leica hanging like a grand jewel on her chest did she acquire a quiet confidence, a sense of inclusion in the larger world. Natalie had no memories of her father, who’d died a few weeks before her second birthday.

  Isabel asked, “Can I make a suggestion that you’ll immediately rebuff?”

  “Sure. I love a good rebuff-able suggestion.”

  Isabel laughed. “Come to my workshop. I have one starting up when we get home.”

  “We’ve been over this. I’m not a group person.”

  “You can try it once, and if you hate it, not come back. No charge.”

  The waiter arrived with Isabel’s fish tacos, Natalie’s duck salad, and two seltzers. Isabel popped a piece of grilled Mahi-Mahi covered with cheese into her mouth.

  “So, a man tried to pick me up on the beach.”

  “Of course, he did!” Isabel whooped. “You’re a catch.”

  “Somehow I keep forgetting that. The guy lives in New York.”

  “Still, it’s good. Baby steps. Was he palatable?”

  “Better. He was the man from the road last night.”

  “Definitely eye candy—from what I could see.” Isabel took a sip of her bubbly water. “Maybe not the best choice, though. Association with a car accident, your mom.”

  “I hadn’t planned to run off with him. Anyway, he seemed more interested in you.”

  “Don’t do that thing you do.”

  “What thing?”

  Isabel shot her a wry smile. “Devaluing yourself. He asked you out.”

  “He did.”

  “Promise me you’ll come to just one meeting of my group. I swear, it will help you conquer ‘the beast.’”

  “Okay, Doc.�
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  Natalie watched as a small green lizard crawled under a neighboring table. She felt a hint of cold, even as the sun branded her where her shoulder and calf missed the umbrella’s protection.

  three

  —

  OUTSIDE LOGAN, THE AIR WAS AN INSULT OF COLD. “THANK YOU so much,” Natalie said, embracing her stepsister.

  “My pleasure.” Isabel hugged her back. “See you Tuesday?”

  The workshop.

  “Yep,” Natalie said and slid into the backseat of the Uber.

  Her mind was already on her daughter whom she longed to call. But what if Elizabeth was in earshot? Once she’d overheard Marc and his girlfriend in the background while she was speaking to Hadley. Elizabeth had laughed loudly. There was a sense of entitlement in that laugh.

  In the morning, Marc would drop their teenager back home and Natalie would get to spend the day with her. She texted Hadley: I’m back. Can’t wait to see you. Love and miss you.

  While dragging her suitcase up the stairs to her brownstone, Natalie heard the hum deep in her backpack. She stood at the front door, reading the words on the screen: At the movies with Dad and E. Can Dad drop me at Sophie’s tomorrow? Love you, too.

  She glanced down at the stone pot on the first step, which was empty of flowers. The dirt looked dry, a cigarette butt sticking out. She reached for it and tossed it in the bushes. Which tenant in the building would wish to make their shared home ugly?

  Sorrow tickled the back of Natalie’s throat. There were moments like this when everything seemed to be falling away. Once, she’d asked Marc if their teenage daughter’s desire to spend more time with her friends than with them ever left him bereft. He’d shaken his head. “It’s natural, better than her clinging to us.” She’d felt chastised.