How to Look Happy

by Stacey Wiedower

  “I know, I know,” I interrupt her. “I don’t plan to date him for real, and I definitely don’t see myself falling for him again. Or anybody, for that matter. It’s too soon…” My voice trails off as my mind wanders to Jeremy and to the box of his stuff I still haven’t figured out how to get to him.

  “But it’s not too soon to have a little fun.” Carrie waggles her eyebrows at me, and the expression is so exaggerated I can tell she’s just trying to get me to stop going down the thinking-about-Jeremy path.

  “Ugh. Not with Brandon,” I say, dragging out his name a little bit, though my stomach takes a roller-coaster plunge just thinking about “having fun” with Brandon. “Been there, done that.”

  “But you didn’t buy the T-shirt,” she adds, winking at me, and I swat her on the shoulder.

  “There’s probably a reason,” I say. “If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.”

  “Did his shoe not fit? Is there something you’re not telling me?” She’s giving me a speculating look that makes me think the question isn’t rhetorical.

  “O-M-G,” I say, laughing. “Third base, with a little extra something for him,” I add. “That’s as far as it went. And as far as I can remember, his shoe was a standard size.” I give her a fake scowl. “And now enough with the innuendos.” My cheeks are burning and would be even without the strawberry basil martini I just consumed. Carrie’s laughing so hard that her face is as red as mine.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Carrie and I jump at the same moment. We’ve been so wrapped up in our conversation that neither of us noticed Amelia and Katie come through the door, even though we’re sitting just inside the doorway at the long, wooden bar. We all squeal at the same moment, eliciting a wry smile from Nathaniel, our favorite bartender. He puts his hands in the air and waggles his fingers in cheerleader spirit-hands fashion, his mouth open in a silent, mocking scream. I wink at him just as Amelia leans in for a hug.

  “Oh my God,” I say, my voice intentionally an octave too high. “Amelia Wright, live and in the flesh. Hold on…” I pull my purse from the back of my barstool and fish around in it until I find my phone. I pull it out and pretend to hold it up. “Can I get a picture?”

  She sticks her tongue out at me as she pulls out the barstool next to Carrie. “Hush, you bee-atch,” she says, her eyes sparkling good-naturedly. All of us are ogling her protruding belly, which hits the bar once she’s sitting in her chair.

  “Wow, you’ve really popped out in the last three weeks,” I say. “Has it really only been that long?”

  Amelia is rubbing her stomach with one hand, and she smiles a little dreamily. “I swear it did this overnight,” she says. “Like, I went to bed on a Tuesday, and I woke up Wednesday morning five inches thicker in the waist. None of my clothes fit.”

  She’s officially the cutest pregnant woman I’ve ever seen, and I’m trying really, really hard not to feel jealous. Amelia is an easy person to feel jealousy toward though. A few years ago she wrote a series of bestselling novels that are still being made into movies. For a while she was dating the leading man of her own movies—who also happens to be one of the most famous men in Hollywood—and cameras followed her everywhere. Then she jilted him for her high school sweetheart and became even more of a fixture in the tabloids.

  Now that she’s married to said high school sweetheart, Noah Bradley, her face is not quite as prevalent in celebrity gossip magazines—meaning that instead of being in every issue, she’s only in every third issue or so. It drives her crazy.

  I imagine that the cuteness of her baby bump is giving her a resurgence, hence the “bee-atch” comment. She absolutely hates it when people stare at her or make a big deal over her in public, though she’d never let them know it.

  I grin at her. “When’s your due date again?”

  “September twelfth,” she says. “Which means we have roughly one month to find a house and sign a contract to be sure we have time to close before the baby comes.”

  “I’m so excited you’re moving back,” Carrie says, and Katie, who’s sitting on the other side of me, nods her head in agreement.

  “Well, part time, anyway,” Amelia says, sheepishly, and I figure it’s because she’s embarrassed to highlight the fact that she and Noah can easily afford to maintain homes in two cities. From what I understand, she’s now overseeing the brand new Dallas office of Anderson Public Relations, but I’m guessing, based on the amount of time she spends traveling to promote her books and movies, that she’s fairly hands-off. “I want to have the baby here though,” she continues. “It’s closer for Reese and my mom to come down—within driving distance.”

  Her mother and her best friend live in Illinois, where Amelia and Noah grew up.

  “Ooh, how is Reese?” Carrie asks. “I miss her!”

  “I miss her too,” Amelia says, sticking out her lower lip a little. “She’s doing great. Ainsley’s…um, four months now, I think.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen her since she was less than a week old. I wish I could get back home more often.”

  “Ah, the life of an international celebrity,” Katie deadpans, and Amelia sticks her tongue out again. “I feel so sorry for you.”

  We all laugh, and just then a very tall, very thin girl with long, straight brown hair that emphasizes her plethora of vertical lines approaches us shyly. “Um,” she says, moving her neck forward in a way that resembles a swan swimming, or a pigeon walking. “Um, do you mind if I, um, get a picture with you?” she asks Amelia, and I struggle to hold in a snicker, placing my fingers over my lips. Beside me, Carrie has the same expression on her face.

  “Sure.” Amelia puts on her public smile, slides out of her seat, and moves to stand next to the girl, who hands her phone to me. I jump up and snap two shots on the count of three.

  “Thank you!” The girl, who’s pretty despite her gawky demeanor, is beaming at us. “It’s so nice to meet you.” This she directs to Amelia, even though the meeting was one-sided. Amelia smiles back again and quickly slides back onto her chair.

  A few seconds later, Nathaniel comes over to us and plops a pair of oversized Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and a frayed St. Louis Cardinals cap on the bar in front of Amelia. “Collected from the staff,” he says. “To help you hold your fans at bay.” He’s leaning on the bar as he says this, a lazy grin on his face. Nathaniel has this way of making you feel like you’re the only customers in his bar, even when the place is busy as hell.

  “You guys are such smart-asses,” Amelia says, laughing. She pushes the items back toward him, wrinkling her nose. “As if I’d ever wear a Cardinals hat.” Amelia and Noah are legendary Cubs fans.

  “Just trying to help.” He shoots us another sexy grin, swipes the sunglasses and hat off the bar, and saunters off.

  “I swear, if it wouldn’t make me a cougar…” I mutter, watching him walk away, and Carrie bursts out laughing. We’ve spent many an hour at the bar discussing Nathaniel’s adorableness. But I happen to know he’s twenty-three, which makes him eight years younger than me. That might not be a problem on my end, but it does put him clearly out of my league.

  “This is weird,” Katie says, and we all look at her. “Non-Jeremy Jen, that is. How’s the dating thing going? Are you back in the saddle yet?”

  I make a face. “No, not yet. I’ve got a sour taste in my mouth still.” I smack my lips a couple of times. “Yep. Tastes like bitterness.” We’re all silent for a couple of seconds.

  “She’s got a date though,” Carrie says, and I glower at her.

  “It’s not really a date. It’s dinner with an old friend.”

  “An old boyfriend. And I’m not convinced that’s all it is. You should see this guy,” she adds, looking at Amelia and Katie in turn.

  “Looks aren’t everything,” I say.

  Amelia nods in agreement. “That’s definitely true.”

  “Says the girl who had two extremely hot men groveling at her feet in front of the entire count
ry,” adds Katie, laughing. “What was it? Two marriage proposals in one night? Isn’t that what happened?”

  A cloud crosses Amelia’s features at those words, and I remember how that story came out—in a tabloid report that turned out to be true. One of her mother’s friends apparently made a boatload of cash selling the story to the press.

  Katie must remember this at the same time because her expression looks as if she’s just stepped in a steaming pile on the sidewalk.

  Ever the diplomatist, Carrie promptly changes the subject. “So, have you started house hunting yet?” she asks, and Amelia launches into a discussion of real estate agents and open houses. All three of us bought our first houses around the same time and in the same area, a reaction to historically low interest rates and federal first-time buyer incentives. Like me, Carrie still has her original bungalow, but Amelia sold hers after she moved to Texas to live with Noah.

  Carrie and David have been talking about moving in together, and she’s mentioned to me that she’s thinking about selling her house and looking with him for something bigger. I can’t believe we’re at the stage of our lives where we’re moving up into real, grown-up houses. As if homeownership itself isn’t enough to make us grown-ups.

  I don’t feel like a grown-up though. More like a too-tall kid who’s magically filled out my mother’s high heels.

  I feel myself starting to wallow again, so to keep from visualizing Jeremy setting up house with Brianna in a way he never did with me, I zone back in on the conversation taking place around me.

  “…real estate agent just sent me this one in Central Gardens,” Amelia is saying, and I speak up.

  “Central Gardens—I love that neighborhood. It’s my favorite part of Midtown,” I say. Two years ago I helped a client restore a century-old house in the historic district, which isn’t far from the area where I live now but from a tax bracket standpoint might as well be a different zip code.

  The houses are stately and laid back at the same time—so Memphis—with manicured gardens and architectural significance. The area suits Amelia perfectly, and I start to feel excited for her. But that doesn’t touch the level of excitement I feel when she says, “Hey—can you help me design my new house?”

  I stare at her for approximately eight-tenths of a second before squeaking, “Um, yeah! Are you kidding me?”

  Wow, wow, wow! I can’t help it—my brain immediately goes to the fact that designing a house for Amelia Wright, also known by her pseudonym, Mel Henry, is a much bigger coup than designing for Emory Brewster. The whole city might know who Emory Brewster is, but the whole world knows who Mel Henry is. I mean, yeah, she’s my friend, so I shouldn’t feel so shocked that she’s asking me, but…

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Why wouldn’t Noah design your house?” Noah is an architect, and he’s well-known in his field for being the lead designer of a chain of high-end boutique hotels. Surely when she thinks this through she’s going to rescind the offer.

  But Amelia is shaking her head. “He doesn’t do much with interiors. He usually partners with interior designers. Besides, he doesn’t have the time,” she adds. “He’s gone so much right now with the Seattle project, and soon they’re breaking ground in London.” Her bottom lip pokes out as she says this, and she looks so dejected that Carrie and I lean in at the same time for a hug—a friend cocoon.

  “Can’t you go to London with him?” Carrie asks, and instead of answering, Amelia leans back in her chair, circling her belly with her palm.

  “By the time he has to go over I’ll be in my third trimester,” she says. “No air travel, especially international travel.”

  “He won’t be gone around your due date, will he?” asks Katie, echoing my thoughts.

  “He’d better not,” Amelia says. And then, looking down at her belly, she smiles a small, mysterious smile, as if she’s told herself an inside joke. “He’ll be here,” she says, sounding like she’s willing it to be true. She looks up and locks eyes with Katie. “He told Carl that if they made him miss the birth of his son, he’d quit. Carl’s terrified of losing him as it is.” She pauses, and her voice is quieter when she repeats, “He’ll be here.”

  “I don’t know how y’all do it,” Carrie says. “International freaking power couple.” She grins as Amelia smirks at her. Amelia gets all embarrassed when you talk about her fame. “Have you been anywhere interesting lately for the movies?”

  She starts telling us about the newest movie, Wrecked, which is in postproduction and slated to release this fall. It’s the third movie based on Amelia’s book series, which is a post-apocalyptic love story called Shattered. Even though the series has four books, it’s being made into five movies, which means Amelia will be involved in this project for at least another three years. It’s so freaking exciting that I can’t believe I’m sitting here and hearing this. When we’re talking about Amelia’s work life it feels almost detached, like we’re discussing an article in US Weekly. Like, how weird is it that my friend Mel is an international celebrity? She’s so normal.

  She would absolutely kill me if she knew what I was thinking. I smile to myself and continue listening.

  “They’ve already started shooting Salvaged,” she’s saying. “They’re combining the production for parts one and two since they’re using the same director. Plus, Colin’s not getting any younger.” She laughs, and Katie practically spits sangria through her nose.

  “So I take it you two still aren’t on speaking terms?” Katie asks, and I’m glad she’s bold enough to say it—because I know we all want to. Colin Marks is a touchy subject with Amelia, and we don’t bring him up unless she does it first.

  Amelia waves her hand in front of her face. “Oh, gosh, yeah. We’re fine,” she says. “Water under the bridge.” She wrinkles her nose up. “We kind of have no choice.”

  Colin is the lead actor in the movies based on Amelia’s books. When she met him, he was a rising star in his second season of a hit series on HBO. After landing the role in Shattered, his fame skyrocketed, and now he’s one of Hollywood’s biggest tickets—and a notorious playboy. The big question is whether or not he played around on Amelia. She dated him for about a year and a half before she reunited with Noah. During that time Colin was rumored to be involved with two different co-stars, but Amelia doesn’t believe the rumors were true.

  I have my doubts, and so does Carrie. We’ve discussed this at length, although we’d never say that to Amelia. But I’m glad that when Colin proposed to her, she said yes to Noah instead. Noah worships the ground she walks on, and she deserves that.

  Amelia is forced into close contact with Colin whenever there’s a major press push around the movies. When they were dating, they were accosted by photographers everywhere they went. Even now, two and a half years after their breakup and with Mel’s belly swelling with another man’s baby, paparazzi practically break their necks trying to snag shots of “Colinmel,” their old press-generated nickname, together. Anything for a scandal.

  Katie looks like she wants to ask more, but Amelia promptly changes the subject. She turns to me. “So, this house was built in 1910,” she says. “It has these beautiful carved handrails on the main staircase and three stained glass windows that the real estate agent swears were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s atelier in Chicago.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know about that, but they’re period, at the very least.”

  Amelia doesn’t have a design background, but she’s really into homes and antiques. She’s also a talented artist, though if you ask her she’ll deny it.

  “You sound pretty serious about this one,” I say.

  “We’re planning to make an offer this week,” she says. “Noah wants to walk through it with an inspector first, but as long as that goes OK, I think this might be the one.”

  She and I squee at each other, eliciting another round of spirit hands from Nathaniel, who’s just walked up to give Carrie another beer. Apparently she’s gone totally over to the dark s
ide.

  I roll my eyes at Nathaniel, order another glass of wine, and then turn to Amelia and say, “I can’t wait to see it.”

  Amelia crosses her middle fingers over her index fingers. “Let’s hope we get it.”

  I cross my fingers too and hold them up in front of the bar. Now that she’s dangled the idea of designing this house in front of me, I don’t know what I’ll do if the inspection doesn’t go well. I feel a swell of optimism that I haven’t felt in weeks, at least as far as my career is concerned. This could be the break that finally pulls me out of my slump.

  It’d also give me automatic progress on numbers one, two, and six on my Comeback Plan.

  * * *

  Friday morning at work, I can barely concentrate because I can’t stop thinking about the fact that tonight I’m going out with Brandon Royer. Of all the things that have happened to me in recent weeks, this is the one I’d have been least likely to predict six months ago.

  I’m sitting at our community worktable with one hand on top of a stack of fabric and the other hand under my chin, staring up at the copper pendant lights.

  “Can’t decide?” Ellie Kate asks. I jump and see that she’s about three steps away—she’s now in that half-walk, half-waddle point in her pregnancy, and she has one hand on her lower back. She slides out a rolling chair and then eases herself into it.

  I glance down at the stack, which contains commercial-grade fabrics in a variety of Easter-egg colors—upholstery options for a row of booths that line one side of the bakery. The place is going to look wacky, and I love it. Luckily, so does Chick, the owner. I’m glad that if I have to have a career slump, at least my main client adds a little levity to the situation. I imagine things would look even more dire if my most exciting project on tap were, say, a dentist’s exam room.