The Happiness Thief

by Nicole Bokat

  “I’m sorry, George. I can’t.”

  She heard his sharp intake of air before he hung up without a response.

  I need a distraction, she texted Jeremy.

  He came over with a large box, with a blue ribbon around it, as if awarded first place in competitive gift giving. He grinned when she lifted out the Nikon that was designed to look and handle like an old film camera, and said, “This one is only for your personal work.”

  Natalie clasped her free hand to her chest as if to catch her leaping heart. “This is amazing. But, I don’t have any personal work.”

  “You will.”

  The camera lay in its box.

  Natalie received an email on a rainy May day: Isabel is being released tomorrow, and we’re going away for a long recuperation. I hope when we return, you’ll have gotten a handle on whatever is going on with you. George. He didn’t provide specifics, a place or schedule.

  If only they’d stay away forever.

  For the next week, she felt ill, headachy and nauseous. She slept poorly, Isabel buzzing in her ear, like a fly, waking her every few hours. She trudged through her day, chauffeuring Hadley to and from school, loading the dishwasher, running the dust buster over the fallen crumbs, paying bills, editing her Fourth of July job: red velvet cupcakes with vanilla icing and blue sprinkles, each one stabbed with an American flag toothpick.

  Then, one afternoon, Jeremy came over unannounced, “You need a break from this gloom. Let’s go out to a movie.”

  “No, wait,” she said. “Let’s do something else.”

  The warning in her head—don’t trust yourself to see people clearly, to interpret what you see—quieted as she envisioned her mother in her garage-studio, mounting her Hasselblad on the tripod. “Let me show you what that does,” her mom had said when Natalie touched the shutter release, gingerly. “So someday you can do it yourself. A good photographer can capture someone’s soul.”

  She grabbed the Nikon and said, “Come with me to the studio.”

  Jeremy, it turned out, was a terrible subject. He squirmed and winked and flexed his muscles like a child with attention deficit disorder. Squinting through the eyepiece, she yelled at him, “Co-operate!”

  “It makes me too self-conscious,” he said after a few hours were lost. “What you need is a professional model.”

  “No,” she said. “I want to do something more dynamic.”

  “I can do that!” he exclaimed, extending his arms and swaying backwards. “Baryshnikov in action!”

  She laughed, an idea brewing: something much bigger, darker, conceptual.

  But she developed the ones of Jeremy, pleased with how she caught his comedy in action. “It’s me,” he said, the rims of his eyes reddening, “before Alex died. You found me.”

  Summer arrived without a word from George or Isabel. Over lunch, Cate said, “I was shopping in the Back Bay. There’s a for sale sign on their building. It’s not their place, is it?” Natalie shook her head, not willing to admit to her friend that she had no idea. A few days later, she was studying a new book on Duchamp at the Harvard Bookstore when she caught sight of a woman with straggly gray hair, wearing a cotton, crimson scarf. She was jowly, and the flesh of her arms pinched against her short sleeves. Natalie was shocked to realize it was Ellen. She shut the Duchamp, returned it to the shelves, and strode out of the store.

  Three afternoons a week, she worked on her “project”—the tricky staging—experimenting in Photoshop. Somehow, more than a year had elapsed since Isabel’s accident when Natalie’s imported images in Lightroom gelled. She recognized the scope and intensity of what she’d hoped to achieve. She was nearly there. Natalie mentioned her project to Jessa at the studio they shared, gathering her courage. “I’d love to talk to your friend, Susannah,” a gallery owner on the South End, “when I’m ready.” Studying a couple of the pictures, replicas of the crash scene, Jessa said, “I think you should.”

  “Not yet. I have more to do.”

  One late afternoon, Natalie arranged the photos on her dining room table. Hadley wandered in from her bedroom in her Ugg slippers, now flecked with Reed’s yellow fur. “What are you doing?”

  “I might have an opportunity to show some pieces to a gallery owner.”

  Hadley looked over Natalie’s shoulder and pointed to the lizard perched on the roof of a car at the beach’s shore. “That one. Definitely that one.”

  “Really?” Natalie turned toward her daughter. “You’re not just humoring me?”

  “No. It’s great. I’d love for you to teach me how to set up a scene like that!”

  Natalie felt a tingling in the notch of her neck, running down her chest, at the pleasure of her child’s request. “Anytime, kid, anytime.”

  Nights later, the Easter moon waning in the sky, Jeremy turned to her in bed, “You seem happy. What’s up?”

  “You,” she laughed. “And something else. I didn’t want to jinx it till I knew for sure. I have a show, Baryshnikov.”

  THE EVENING OF her opening, Natalie arrived in the city early. She drove with Hadley to South Boston, nabbing a spot outside Jeremy’s apartment, which was a five-minute walk to the event. It was a warm day in late June, the sky hydrangea blue, the trees flowering, and the slight breeze a caress on the back of her neck. Natalie had settled on a short-sleeve dress with a full shirt. She carried a cardigan over her shoulder in case the air conditioning was turned up inside the venue. Hadley had insisted she buy pumps because “they make you look like a grown-up.”

  Jeremy emerged from the building, clean-shaven with his hair trimmed for the occasion. He gave Hadley’s arm a quick squeeze, and then kissed Natalie, his mouth tasting of cherries. “Ready to roll?” he asked.

  Natalie laughed. “Been ready since dawn.”

  They hurried past the string of brick buildings towards the renovated factory. Even though there was no rush, Natalie couldn’t wait. She wanted to be there before everyone else other than Susannah.

  “How do women walk in heels?” Natalie asked.

  Hadley said, “Mom, I’m wearing two-inch heels. Henry could run in them.”

  “Doubt it. He can barely lift his head.”

  Henry: Elizabeth and Marc’s two-month-old. The last time Natalie dropped off Hadley at their place in Brookline, Marc had opened the door with the infant, slack as a sack of clothes, asleep on his chest. Marc’s eyes were blood-shot and his hair, badly in need of a cut, curled on each side in George Washington-style wings. On the ride home, she thought about what it was like when Hadley was so small, the topsy-turvy sense of time, the zaps of exhaustion, the sour-sweet smell of breast milk and rancid diaper pail. “Glad that’s behind me,” she’d confessed to Jeremy.

  “Fine with me,” he smiled.

  Natalie said to Hadley, “I hope you don’t plan on wearing those stilettos to college interviews.”

  “These are so not stilettos, and they won’t work in the fall,” Hadley said. “Unless I apply to Pomona. We should go tour it, Mom! They have good financial aid, great weather.”

  “Don’t even joke about that. You’re not going to school in California.”

  “You’re going to have to let go sometime.”

  Jeremy said, “Beautiful place, Pomona. Everyone jokes that they put Prozac in the water. Loads of mindful meditation.”

  “Really?” Hadley scrunched up her face. “Ugh.”

  “Might be too earnest for a hardened East Coaster like you.”

  “Totally.”

  Natalie squeezed Jeremy’s hand. “Glad to hear you’re sticking around,” she said to her daughter.

  Jeremy shimmied up to Natalie and whispered in her ear, “We should move in together.”

  A powerful sense of relief arose in Natalie, as if she’d been traveling for hours and, finally, home was in her purview. “I’d love that.”

  “What?” Hadley asked and waved her hand. “Enough with the secrets. Remember I’m here?”

  “Always,” Natalie sai
d.

  “Way to go, Mom,” she imagined her daughter’s response to Jeremy’s invitation. She’d be reassured that Natalie wouldn’t be alone, pining for her, that she could step into college, independence, and then the world, without carrying the burden of her mother’s loneliness with her. But this news was a discussion for another day. This day was momentous enough.

  A few minutes later they had arrived. The huge windows showcased the gallery on the first floor.

  “Wow, Mom, so cool!” Hadley cried out.

  Natalie paused before ascending the wide, wrought iron stairs, painted a fierce red. She zeroed in on the first section of the staging, the black and white car crash series. As Jeremy pulled open the heavy glass door, Natalie pressed her fist to her mouth: this is happening.

  The space was well lit with polished wood floors and white walls. Her work hung in its clockwise progression: the collision sequences, the color shots of the Cayman Islands, and the de-saturated ones of Isabel. Susannah was at the front table, arranging the brochures in neat piles. Everything, more or less, was in order.

  “Good to see you,” Susannah said. She was streamlined and tasteful in her pencil skirt and silky blouse with diamond studs glinting in her ears. To Hadley, she said, “Ah, the passenger.”

  It was a reference to the title of a print: Hadley, suspended in the sky, holding a flashlight superimposed above a dark deserted street. Natalie had wanted to hire a college kid, but her daughter insisted she let her try first.

  Natalie hadn’t discussed the subtext of the photograph with Hadley. She’d claimed they were all surreal interpretations of what she’d lost.

  Natalie said to Susannah, “And this is Jeremy Sonnenberg.”

  “Mr. Wreckage,” the gallery owner said, the nickname she’d adopted for him.

  “That’s me,” he said.

  To capture the original image—which acted as the backdrop for the pictures of her mother—Natalie had spent weeks racing to accident scenes. This was thanks to Jeremy’s information via his friend, a metro reporter at the Globe who covered news and local stories. Of the crashes she’d captured, the one she decided to use was of a Toyota whose front had crumpled, the fender hanging open like a lip exposing a mouth full of sores.

  “Go look around,” Susannah said. Her sharp, foxlike eyes peered at Natalie.

  She couldn’t bear further inspection of what she’d created. But Natalie glanced at her name in stark black letters on the far wall. She experienced a burst of adrenaline, a quiver of delight. This was her show, her effort—dare she think it—her art? This wasn’t some bohemian venue in an iffy area, peeling paint outside and rickety floors underfoot. This was legitimate, grown up, Natalie’s story hanging in pieces, her history and her rage exposed. But, also, there was pressure to sell.

  “Come on,” Jeremy urged.

  The prints were hung from left to right. Jeremy stopped to examine a shot of Isabel. She appeared frozen, her face masked by a gradated shadow so that only her eyes were in focus. Natalie had blended the image into the background of the police report and blurred everything but the statements: “Driver deceased,” and “Signs of another motorist at the scene.” The small label under the photo read: Crash Narrative.

  “This is great,” Jeremy said.

  “You’re just saying that because you like me.”

  “I do have excellent taste.”

  Jeremy touched Natalie’s wrist, then moved onto the next picture.

  “Seeing them here in public makes it so real,” Hadley said. “Mom, it’s so weird and good.”

  “Thanks, kid.”

  Her daughter rushed to observe the photo titled The Rebuttal. It was a composite of Laura and Isabel’s faces, side-by-side, a black mask superimposed onto Isabel’s. The word happy floated above Laura, the letters piled up against each other, with the H smashed into Laura’s skull.

  Hadley said, “Someday you’re going to have to tell me what went on between you and Aunt Isabel.”

  It wasn’t the “what” that tripped Natalie up, but the “why,” a question that would haunt her if she let it, would render her like a child trying to construct an ontological theory of the world. She had to fight against pondering that mystery.

  Jeremy sidled up to them. “Jessa is here.”

  Natalie turned to see her friend, sleek and leggy in a black pantsuit, her russet hair slick down her back. With her was a slender man in a faded denim shirt and distressed lace-up boots.

  “So good to see you.”

  Jessa hugged her. “Well done!” She pointed to her husband, “This is the elusive Michael.”

  “Just busy chasing tenure.” He offered Natalie a flimsy handshake.

  She could see that women would find Michael attractive, with his runner’s build and cheekbones and blond stubble. Natalie guessed that he carefully curated his crumpled look. “Extra thanks then.”

  Jessa led her husband closer to the pieces, all of which she’d already seen. As it turned out, she was canny enough not to question Natalie about the narrative. A couple of times they’d discussed technique but nothing more. Never mind what the collection “meant.” For that, Natalie was grateful.

  Even Susannah hadn’t pried, not really, when she witnessed the final products. She’d scratched her neck with hers painted fingernails and said, “Interesting. Some scandalous betrayal.”

  Natalie had nodded. “That’s what I was going for.”

  The room was filling up. Most of the people were strangers, Susannah’s colleagues in the art world, a handful of Jeremy’s co-workers at the Globe, random students and curious folks off the street. Natalie’s circle made up the smallest contingent. Cate was there with her assistant from Spice It Up, another mom from town. When her friend kissed her, Natalie could smell her woodsy shampoo.

  “This is so exciting! I can’t wait to look at everything,” Cate said. “Your mom would be so proud of you.”

  Natalie’s eyes stung. “Oh, thank you for saying that.”

  “I’ll never forget how she hung up your report card.” Cate’s silver bell earrings chimed when she shook her head. “And, those times I went to the rink with you guys, your mom was so excited when you did a double axel. She was the best.”

  “I’m so lucky to have you,” Natalie said.

  The only person in the room who knew my mother.

  Natalie hadn’t relayed to Cate the details of her falling out with her stepsister, worried that Cate would respond badly to the photos. She hadn’t wanted to risk disclosure about her damaged family with her friend, the bellwether of decency. Now, Natalie felt the flicker of regret, the urge to explain. But Susannah’s hand was on her shoulder, directing her away. Next to her dealer stood a young-looking man with a slight paunch and a slighter beard.

  “This is Marty Silverman,” Susannah said. “He’s a professor at MassArts, his work’s shown everywhere. And a book out from Aperture last year.”

  “Not everywhere, Susie,” Marty corrected with a little laugh. “Don’t embarrass me. And it’s only assistant professor.” He stroked his goatee.

  The discussion would be about Marty Silverman then. Which would be okay, Natalie thought, a diversion from the high stakes. But while they conversed, requiring little more from her than a murmur or two of recognition, Natalie’s attention wandered.

  She caught Hadley gesturing to a man nearby. Her daughter mouthed: “Oh my God. He’s gonna buy the iguana.” That was the picture of the car at the beach with the reptile atop and the woman in the driver’s seat, whose only identifying feature was the black diamond on her ring finger. The title: Simon in Love. When her daughter had asked “Who’s Simon?” Natalie said, “Just a man we met in the Caribbean, one of Aunt Belle’s crazy fans.”

  She winked at Hadley and thought of the new pieces she was working on, her different approach: close-ups in a naturalistic, straightforward style, one after the other of the same subject. She wasn’t certain yet what she hoped to capture but for now was excited by the
nuances in the smallest changes of the model’s expression, that microcosm of the human experience.

  Through a gap in the crowd, she caught a glimpse of the frozen Isabel picture in the black frame. She couldn’t look at it anymore; it was just a photograph. And a good one. But she would do other fine ones that didn’t demand such a steep price from her. She moved deeper into the crowd, toward the window to get a breather. And that’s when she saw her.

  Just beyond, standing on the street outside the gallery, as if she’d been summoned, was her stepsister: those fine bones, and delicate features, the nearly translucent skin, and bluish green vein in her forehead, the flash of yellow hair. The corner of her mouth drooped as if pulled down by a fishhook. It was a Dalí reinterpretation, a grim transformation that caused Natalie to recoil. A look of bemusement quickly passed over Isabel’s eyes. Her weight rested on an ebony cane with a silver knob.

  How was that possible? Natalie tilted her head to gauge the light. Had it dimmed?

  She said, “Excuse me one second.”

  “What inspired the first series?” a young man asked, tapping her on the elbow. “It’s so intriguing.”

  “Thanks. That means so much to me. I’ll be right back.”

  Natalie raced towards the windows, now blocked by a couple of college-age kids holding plastic flutes of champagne. When she reached the front, all she saw was a red Volkswagen Beetle. It was polished, nearly gleaming with perfection, other than the grayish-white bird poop splattered on the glass. There was no sign of her stepsister.

  Natalie stared out into the stillness, trying to revive her vision. What was real? What had she imagined?

  She felt the tightly threaded muscles in her neck, the pulse of her blood. But she would not allow herself to cower before danger.

  Slowly, she turned around to the guests holding their drinks, some chatting with each other, some studying the photographs. She saw Jeremy holding up two glasses, one meant for her. She saw Hadley talking with Cate.