The Happiness Thief

by Nicole Bokat

  “No cat or cow either. The animals are dangerous. I’m wondering if it violates some shrink code, though, you being a relative.”

  “Isabel wouldn’t do anything unethical.”

  “What about selling her wares at the group?” Her book and journal and Happiness Doctor mugs in daisy yellow and Aegean Sea-blue. Trying to promote her brand, please her publicist, “play the game.”

  Natalie said, “There’s nothing wrong with that, everyone does it. The Obamas got a zillion dollar advance for their memoirs, and they are the good guys. Sickening, though.”

  “Yep, pretty disgusting. Anyway, sorry. You guys are on the same team.”

  “This isn’t a sport,” she said, thinking of Marc and his team building.

  Jeremy’s face glowed under the pharmacy’s lights. “I do find Dr. Walker’s ideas seductive. We’re in charge of our own destinies. Changing our outlooks can alter our lives.”

  “I’m sensing a ‘but.’”

  “I don’t believe that being an optimist guarantees love, or a living wage, or affordable health insurance. Especially now, in this country, and this city. It just strikes me as smug, the idea that pessimists cause their own diseases and bad fortune.”

  Natalie started walking again, chased by the cold. “That’s not what Isabel believes. But there are plenty of studies on how attitude affects your health.”

  She felt the thrum of her heart.

  “It’s hard to be jubilant when you’re ill and can’t pay for a doctor or medicine or are unemployed or homeless.”

  She heard Hadley’s voice, “White privilege, Mom.”

  “Agree. I’m lucky,” Natalie said. She wasn’t going to reveal that, without Marc’s monthly payments, she’d be living far away from Boston, that once the divorce was finalized, she’d be strapped for money. She thought of the high sticker price for the workshop, which she couldn’t pay, but Jeremy obviously could. Noting his expensive leather getup, the Frye boots and jacket, she said, “You look like you do okay for yourself.”

  “Don’t be deceived,” he said. “I come from a long line of indigent cowboys—Montana cattlemen.”

  “Uh huh. So why did you join the group if you’re so cynical, Mr. Cowboy?”

  “You first.”

  Natalie peered into the pearl-gray sky spotted by snowfall. “It’s been tough since separating from my husband. Then my stepfather died; brought up old things.”

  Accompanying her stepsister to Grand Cayman, which stirred up the misery of many names.

  “Dr. Walker’s father died recently? I’m sorry to hear—”

  “Don’t say a word. I shouldn’t have blurted that out. Anyway, I thought I’d give Isabel’s techniques a try. Up my serotonin levels or whatever levels need upping.”

  He inched closer, slapped his gloves together. “Wouldn’t it be better to see someone more… qualified?”

  “You mean a shrink, that first world luxury?”

  Jeremy’s eyes rested on her for a moment. “Touché. I won’t say another word. Sisters, huh? I don’t see the resemblance.”

  “We’re not technically related.”

  “Right. Stepsister. Gotta remember that.”

  They were standing next to the Copley station entranceway. Natalie hugged her arms tightly, second-guessing herself for confiding in him. “Why’d you drop so much cash on something you think is bullshit?”

  He grinned and his sword of justice fell away. “Just a little personal investigating.”

  Her throat felt constricted. What if the Cayman police had contacted him about the crash? “Are you a detective?”

  He laughed. “Just a working stiff, ma’am. See you next week?”

  “Yes. Goodnight.”

  seven

  —

  “DON’T OVERRE ACT,” SHE QUOTED MARC TO HERSELF.

  Natalie was alone in the kitchen the following morning. Her suspicions about Jeremy seemed farfetched now, the chance he had a connection to bbGodfrey or knowledge about the crash in the Grand Caymans. “Personal investigating,” was a cryptic description. It could mean anything.

  Natalie rinsed out her daughter’s cereal bowl with the puddle of milk and floating flakes, the spoon resting on the side like an oar. Coffee cup and breakfast bar in hand, she sat at the butcher-block table. It had been scarred over the years by knives and pens, and she stared at these marks as if answers were encoded in them. Forget the email for now, the island mishap. What were Ellen and Garrick’s roles in both his wives’ deaths? Maybe Ellen hadn’t sent the envelope out of fear there was something that would incriminate her tucked away inside it.

  Natalie sipped the still burning drink. When she was old enough to wonder, she’d asked her mother about Sigrid, poking around for clues about this mysterious figure that the family never mentioned. Laura answered, “She came here from a place called Bergen, to go to college. In the winter, the sun is out for less than six hours where she grew up. I think that must be very hard. It can make a person feel sad.”

  Natalie had pictured a woman with delicate features like Isabel, with the hair and skin of an albino from living in the dark. “Was she happier here, with more sun?”

  Her mother’s response was sucked up into that void of lost memories.

  About a year before her mom’s accident, Natalie had been lounging on the couch, book in hand. Isabel was next to her, painting her toenails so expertly not a drop of the polish spilled on the fabric. Above Isabel’s head hung a Kandinsky lithograph, all sharp angles and lines in rich colors. If Natalie looked at it too long, it made her dizzy.

  They heard her mother’s voice from another room: “Half a pill! Don’t confuse me with Sigrid.”

  Garrick said, “Shush, the girls can hear you.”

  “What does he mean?” Natalie whispered to Isabel.

  Isabel clasped her arms to her chest and rolled her eyes so that only the whites showed, then shuddered, as if convulsing.

  “Zombies?”

  “Crazy!”

  “Why does your dad think your mom was crazy?”

  Isabel had shrugged. “Better than blaming himself.”

  Natalie typed in “aneurysms” on her phone. High blood pressure could cause them, and severe stress contributed to high blood pressure. Theoretically, Ellen’s relationship with Garrick could have killed Sigrid. Natalie bit into the peanut butter bar with its medicinal after-taste. She’d been patient. She wanted answers now.

  She tried the secretary’s home number and, as usual, it rang unabatedly. Just as she was about to hang up, a young-sounding woman answered, “Alden residence.” This was followed by the sucking sound of a yawn.

  Finally!

  “Is Miss Alden there?”

  “No, uh….” Natalie heard a rustling sound, then a thump. “Hold on. I don’t know how to work this machine. It’s, like, from the Jurassic Age. Okay, I’m turning it off for good. Jesus. She isn’t here.”

  Who was this, then, the housekeeper or dog walker? “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “It’s open-ended.”

  “Would this evening be better?”

  “Uh, try in, like, three months.”

  “Months?” Natalie’s eyes flew to the time indicator in the corner of her computer screen as if it would measure the twelve weeks in minutes.

  “She’s on vacation.”

  “I wouldn’t bother her if it wasn’t important.”

  “Are you from the law school?”

  “Indirectly. I know her through the university.”

  “Uh, huh.” The girl paused, as if considering. “She’s visiting her friend who moved to Costa Rica. She plans a long stay, playing it by ear.”

  A young house sitter then? “I can’t wait that long.”

  “Sorry. She retired, so she’s not obligated to you guys anymore. She deserves this time to chill.”

  “Well, maybe, I could reach Ellen there.” Natalie heard a dog’s triad of barks in the background.

  “They’re
in the Galapagos. The Wi-Fi is non-existent.” The barking increased in intensity. “I gotta take out Malcolm. He’s old, can’t hold it in.”

  “The thing is, I’m looking for something she was supposed to send me. It’s pretty urgent,” Natalie insisted. Maybe if this kid thought it was a legal brief, she’d take her request more seriously. “There aren’t any documents she left at home by mistake, are there?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. Ellen’s really careful about work stuff, super organized and reliable. Which you should know if you’re at the university.”

  “Yes, I just meant, because she was leaving.”

  “That she flaked out?”

  “Of course not. Can you give me the tracking number so I can hunt this down?”

  “I wouldn’t know where she keeps anything like that. Anyway, I promised not to bother her unless there was, like, a major emergency. You need to ask the department. Ugh, gotta go. Malcolm just peed. If Ellen checks in, I’ll tell her you called.”

  After hanging up the phone, Natalie realized the girl hadn’t taken down her name. Or asked for it. She tried back, but the phone rang and rang. Even if she did reach this girl again, it was doubtful she’d pass on her message while Ellen was in the Galapagos.

  An impasse. Damn.

  She dumped her mug into the sink, the wrapper in the garbage.

  Natalie had time before she needed to leave for her studio. What she didn’t want was to ruminate in her apartment, which was so quiet she could hear the ticking of her thoughts. They hurt, as if coming in thrusts, muscular punches. She could listen to Isabel’s Wired Happy app, a massage for the mind. But what she craved was the sound of laughter, a hand covering hers, eyes alight.

  She imagined Cate, her friend since childhood, with her vivid smile, who always smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg from her job managing Brookline’s herb and spice store. By high school the normal chatter and giggles of friendship, the politics of seating in the cafeteria, the exchange of notes and passing of Tic Tacs in class, the choosing a lab partner in Bio, all these interactions had felt unendurable to Natalie. She lacked the swagger and daring of the other girls. But Cate McAllister persisted, inviting her to sleepovers, meals, even holiday parties with boisterous relatives. At the McAllisters’, Natalie never felt like Jane Eyre locked in the red room.

  Cate had moved back to the Boston area after college in the Midwest, married, eventually settled in Brookline, and had three sons. Her home was teeming with neighbors and friends of her boys, her vegetable garden abundant with Crayola red-orange tomatoes and peppers with skin shiny as rain slickers.

  Natalie had avoided reaching out since the conference. She’d retreated into her worries. Egocentric? One characteristic wasn’t enough to doom her. She dialed her friend’s number and heard the lilt and laughter in Cate’s message. She said, “Call me when you get a chance.”

  An hour later at her studio, Natalie was fixing the white balance, highlights, and shadows on the image of a strawberry crêpe, when her phone rang. Normally, she’d ignore the interruption. But Caller ID read: “Spice It Up.”

  Natalie pushed the green button with the image of a receiver on it. “Hey!”

  “Hey, kiddo! Haven’t heard from you in forever. I wanted to give you space after Garrick … you know.”

  You know how you get.

  “I’m sorry. It’s been hectic.”

  “How was your vacation?” Cate gasped, as if she’d rubbed through to a winning number on a lottery ticket. “The island is supposed to be beautiful.”

  “It is,” Natalie said quickly. “You won’t believe what I did. I joined one of Belle’s workshops.”

  “Good for you!” Cate had talked to Isabel at a local reading of Get Happy Now. While signing copies of the book, they’d discussed crystals and herbs, joked about how Cate had gone “all Wiccan.” She hadn’t, of course. But Cate did meditate, journal, and adhere to a vegan diet.

  “Neuroscience of spirituality is all the rage now. It might help,” Cate said. “What else have you been up to?”

  “You mean besides resetting my brain’s neural pathways?” Natalie said.

  “Ha! That would explain why you’ve been so busy,” Cate laughed. “Resetting can be very time consuming.”

  “Yes.” Natalie stared at the vibrant red strawberry slices on the side of the plate, the swirl topping the crêpe, all the effort it took to get the best image. “I’d love to catch up. Are you free to get coffee at Mindy’s Corner after dinner?”

  “Only if you split a dessert.”

  MINDY’S CORNER COFFEE SHOP was in a perpetual state of disrepair. The red vinyl seats on the booths were ripped and patched with gray duct tape. The walls were decorated with landscapes that could only have been found at the bottom of a sales bin at Stop & Shop. Even the waitress, with her puffy eyelids and tight lips painted with candy pink lipstick, looked as if she could use renovation. But the food—home-cooked bread, thick slices of turkey breast, flaky crusted pie—was wonderful.

  Natalie arrived first and chose a booth near the front window so that her friend would see her immediately. The seat’s jagged edge of torn fabric gnawed into her thighs. She tapped her fingers on the table, calibrating how much to divulge, what not to say. Her friend resided in a moral universe populated by decent people not undone by calamities of their own making.

  Cate rushed through the door in her bulky down jacket and distressed leather boots. She wasn’t wearing any pentagram jewelry or black lipstick or a purple, hooded cape. She wasn’t a Wiccan practitioner carrying a satchel of crystals, but an upper-middle class Bostonian mom who used hair gel to keep her long brown curls from frizzing and 100 SPF sunscreen on her freckled face to ward off skin cancer. She was carrying an expensive Frye pocketbook.

  “Sorry,” Cate said. “Had to sign two homework thing-a-ma-jigs at the last minute, then Danny couldn’t find his math book, which only I had the magic power to do, and then Foxy threw up on the rug.” Foxy was the family’s Collie-Husky mix.

  “No problem,” Natalie said with a flutter of longing. How she coveted Cate’s happy, messy family life. How she wanted not to be this person, envious of those she loved. “I just got here.”

  Cate unwound the wool scarf from her neck and ripped off her jacket. “So great to see you.”

  “You, too.”

  The waitress moved quickly on her thick, short legs. “What can I get you ladies?”

  Cate exclaimed, “I’ve gained six pounds cooking for Thanksgiving. But I’m dying for the winter fruit pie. Can I have that and a decaf?”

  “I don’t see why not,” the waitress said. “And you, dear?” she asked Natalie, who ordered chamomile tea.

  When the waitress headed back to the counter, Cate grinned, causing laugh lines and crow’s feet to burgeon. “Thanksgiving weekend was crazy. Matt’s sisters and their families flew in from Seattle, and Richard and his wife and two kids. We had people sleeping everywhere. Tess pulled out her back from the couch—you know the one in our den? It broke! The springs gave out when the poor thing was asleep. She was literally bent over for days.”

  Natalie listened to the escapades of Cate’s holiday with her husband, Matt; his sister, Tess; Cate’s brother, Richard; the eleven children, the tumble and roar of a packed house. She pictured the living room: the battered sofa with kids’ sneakers poking out of the skirted bottom, children’s schoolbooks flung on the coffee table, photographs of the family lining the fireplace mantel along with candles in glass holders. There would be suitcases open to reveal rumpled clothes, sheets and blankets draped on furniture. The home would be fragrant from the meals brewing in Cate’s slow cooker, sage, thyme, leeks, and parsnips.

  Envy was a toxic arrow to the chest. Energy-sapping, bad for wellbeing and relationships. What would Isabel advise?

  “You’re so lucky to have them,” Natalie said.

  “I am, I know. You’re lucky to have Hadley and Belle.”

  Yes! I am!

  The waitre
ss appeared with a slice of the dessert and two mugs. “Here you go, ladies.”

  “Thanks,” Cate said. “Yum. I don’t know how you resist eating this.”

  “Do I look like I resist?” The waitress pinched a roll of skin around her waist.

  “You look great,” Cate touched the woman on her arm.

  Natalie smiled and agreed weakly, “You do.”

  But she was a terrible liar. Really, she meant the compliment for Cate with her clever eyes and mutable face registering every glimmer of emotion.

  “You gals are too kind.” The waitress winked and strutted back to the counter, the nylon pants stretched tight across her butt.

  Cate stuck her fork through the thick helmet of crust. “Enough about me. Tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  “I don’t want to dump on you so much.” Since Marc’s departure, Natalie had been careful not to lean too heavily on her friend, not be that girl again whose skin felt burnt raw and blistering.

  “You know you always can, no matter what—even if I’m so overloaded with relatives they’re hanging off the roof.” Cate slid the plate to Natalie and frowned. “Eat some. You look like you lost weight.”

  She had. The skin around Natalie’s waist felt tight as if sewn to the bone. The narrow pouch of fat that had stretched around her waist since Hadley’s birth, was deflated. “Just a few pounds.” She lifted a bite of the pie onto her fork.

  “I feel like a cow, yet here I am with no willpower. See, that’s something you don’t want, believe me.” Cate patted her stomach, well hidden by one of her usual bulky sweaters. She had a slight paunch from giving birth to three sons weighing in at over eight pounds each. Natalie loved the way her friend looked, but Cate was in awe of Natalie’s extra six inches of height. “Are you all right, I mean with the holidays and Garrick’s death …”

  “I’m fine, even if my life has become a soap opera.”

  “I love soaps! You know I was addicted to The Guiding Light all through high school. What’s going on?”

  Natalie took a sip of her tepid tea. “It wasn’t a big deal at the time, but …” She described the accident, the message, and Isabel’s take on it.