How to Look Happy

by Stacey Wiedower

  I try not to let that rattle me, or at least I try not to show it. “And what did you learn?” I ask.

  “I learned I have commitment issues.” He looks completely guileless as he says this.

  “Well, we were babies back then,” I say, not sure why I’m defending him, especially when we’re discussing the girl he dumped me for.

  “Nah, she’s right,” he says, and I feel amazed anew at the intensity of this conversation. I’m not sure what I expected from tonight, but this wasn’t it.

  “It’s not like I was the saint in my relationship with Michelle,” he says. “It took me three years to propose, even though I knew she was waiting for a ring for at least two of them. And I…” He clears his throat and squares his shoulders, as if he has to steel himself to continue. “And I cheated on her first.”

  So the ex-fiancée has a name, I think first. Michelle. And then, Wow. He really is a jerk. So why do I feel like placing my hand over his and telling him everything’s going to be all right?

  I’m nothing if not self-destructive.

  We go on talking and eating through three more small plates, and Brandon orders one more plus two more glasses of wine. I learn that he moved to Boston for grad school before getting his job in Chicago and that Michelle is from a prominent Connecticut family—her mother is a news anchor for ABC.

  As we’re parting ways outside the restaurant, Brandon says, “I wasn’t planning on doing this, since I’m kind of on a mission and want some time to myself.” He studies me for a long moment on the sidewalk, just steps from my car, which is parked at an after-hours meter. As we’re standing there staring at each other, a group of loud, drunk college students walks past jostling one another, forcing Brandon to move closer to me. Unexpectedly, he slides his arm behind my back and pulls me so I’m almost pressed up against him. My heart is pounding about a jillion beats per minute, though I don’t know what to think about this situation. All I know is that old crushes die hard.

  He leans down and brushes his lips against my cheek before releasing my waist and stepping back again. I resist the urge to reach up and touch my face where he kissed me.

  “Do you want to go out again sometime?” he says.

  I lick my lips involuntarily. “Um, sure. I guess,” I say in a tentative voice. So much for reclaiming my fire. “Just…text me sometime.”

  “Will do,” he says.

  I turn away from him, round my car, and get in. When I pull away from the curb, he’s still standing there, watching me leave.

  I’m almost all the way home before I realize that even though we spent more than two hours talking, he didn’t ask a single question about me.

  * * *

  When Monday rolls around, I’m almost convinced my night with Brandon didn’t happen—that I dreamed the whole thing. He hasn’t texted me as he promised, not that I expected him to. I’m sure when the buzz of the evening and the heat of the moment wore off, he gave himself a proverbial kick for even suggesting it.

  Why should he turn backward, when he’s clearly looking to move forward?

  I could say the same thing to myself.

  I’m sitting at my desk, midmorning, at a rare moment when every member of our office is present. I’ve just sent an email confirming this week’s appointment with my new client when three things happen all at once.

  One, I check my inbox and see that I have a new email from Marc Rasmutin, probably about my proposal for the bicycle-factory condo project. Two, my cell phone rings, and I see that it’s Brewster’s number on my phone’s screen—I’m not sure he’s ever called me direct before, and my head swirls with the possibilities of what he might want. And three and most significantly, Candace steps into the doorway of her office and calls out, “Jennifer, darling, can you please come to my office for a minute?”

  I must look like a character in a stop-motion animated film, my head bobbing from one frame, to the next, to the next. I prioritize things quickly in my head. The email can obviously wait. But who do I answer first, Brewster or Candace?

  This feels a little unfair. It would help me in either situation to know what each one wants before I speak to the other. But since Candace is the one staring at me—and since she is not a patient woman—I let Brewster’s call go to voicemail and give her a brisk nod before pushing back in my chair. She disappears into her office as quickly as she appeared.

  As I stand and start to walk away from my desk, I give my phone a wistful glance. Brewster had better be leaving me a voicemail, and I wish I could check it before I stumble into Candace’s presence. But the voicemail chime hasn’t gone off, which means that either he isn’t leaving me a message, or he’s leaving me one hell of a long one.

  Oh, how I want to know what he wants!

  I’ve gone numb inside as I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. The way I feel, I might as well be walking onto the guillotine stand or into the path of a firing range. I can sense every pair of eyes at Greenlee Designs on me as I take this walk of shame, though I truly don’t know what I have left to be ashamed of at this point. Candace is the one who should be ashamed of her behavior, not me.

  That thought makes me feel a bit stronger, though I still refuse to look right or left at my ogling coworkers, not even at Ellie Kate, who I know has my back and my best interests at heart.

  I walk into Candace’s office and close the door behind me, even though she doesn’t ask me to. As uncertain as I feel as to what’s about to happen, I don’t want accidental spectators, though I do wonder if Quinn is brash enough to stand with her ear to the door.

  Hell yeah, she’s brash enough. The thought makes me almost smile in spite of myself.

  “What’s up, Candace?” I ask, wary. The last time we had a conversation of any length was the day she tried to make me an assistant on my own project. I still seethe at the thought of it, which is why I’ve been avoiding it so hard, I guess. My thoughts turn again to the call from Brewster.

  She gestures for me to sit, and of course I comply. Rather than sinking back into the bowed and tufted white leather chair, I sit with my back rod straight, ready to jump up and bolt at any second, which is what I feel like doing.

  “I need you to take over the Emory Brewster project,” Candace says without preamble, her hands prim and still in front of her as she gazes at me from across her uncluttered desk.

  I can’t help myself. I scoff out loud. “Take it over?” I say. “It was my project to begin with.” I can’t believe these words have just escaped my lips, but now that they’re out there, I might as well keep going. Somewhere in the back of my brain, my promise to “get my fire back” is playing on repeat.

  Candace looks scandalized, but she doesn’t say anything. So I press on.

  “Why?” I ask, my eyes narrowing at her. “What happened? Lover’s quarrel?”

  I had no idea when I woke up today that I was on a mission to get fired.

  She purses her collagen-stuffed lips, and with her eyes bugged out by my brash response, it gives her the effect of a pale, smooth-skinned fish. She looks like this glass Christmas ornament my mom bought on a family trip to Cape Cod one summer—it’s gaudy, with a glitter-striped body, an anchor painted on a jaunty hat that’s perched above its head, and huge, pink, glittery lips. Thinking of her this way, I can’t take any of what I’m saying seriously. It’s as if I’m having an out-of-body experience.

  “I can understand why you’re upset with me,” she says in a voice that doesn’t sound contrite. Still, I can’t believe she’s accepting any responsibility for our current situation. Up to this point, she hasn’t so much as acknowledged the fact that Brewster was my client. “But no,” she says in a quiet voice. “It’s the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Emory and I have become…close, and I’d like to take a step back from our professional relationship. I suggested handing the project over to my team, and he’s requested to work with you.”

  Her lips are pursed again, which makes me think she isn’t hap
py with this particular request.

  It also makes me wonder if, of her own accord, Candace would have pawned the project off on Rachael, her new protégé. This ticks me off all over again, and I blurt out, “What about Dan?”

  I have no idea where all of this nerve is coming from. Carrie would be so proud.

  Candace breathes a deep, shuddery sigh. “Jennifer,” she says as if she’s about to admonish me, and then she’s quiet for a long moment and seems to be contemplating what to say. When she looks up at me, there’s steel in her eyes, which has the effect of making me wish I’d shut up while I was ahead.

  “Dan and I are…separated.”

  She doesn’t elaborate, so after another long pause I just say, “Oh.”

  We both sit there in uncomfortable silence, and finally she begins shuffling items around on her desk, pulling a file from her inbox, opening it, and noisily stacking a sheaf of papers. I can tell she won’t say anything more on the subject, so I stand.

  “Is there anything else?” I ask.

  She doesn’t look up at me. “Emory will be giving you a call,” she says. “If you have questions about anything that’s already on order, you can talk to me or Rachael.”

  Rachael?? I think, broiling internally as I wonder which parts of my project my traitor mentee has been working on behind my back.

  But I don’t say another word.

  As I open the office door and step into the open studio and the curious stares of four sets of eyes, I’m thinking, At least I got Brewster back.

  * * *

  I’m still in the office at 8:15 that night. Between prepping for my appointment with my new clients, going on a site visit to the bicycle factory—which I found out today I won the bid for, at least halfway—and making a last-minute pit stop by the bakery to oversee the lighting installation, I’m officially swamped.

  Plus, I’ve got the Brewster project back.

  When I checked my voicemail after leaving Candace’s office, Emory had left me a rambling message filled with instructions about connecting with Aubrey and making sure I’m in the house while the carpenter installs custom shelving that wouldn’t have made any sense at all if I hadn’t talked to Candace before listening to it.

  I’m picking back up with the project as if I’d never left it, apparently. Only I have no idea what I’m walking into, since I wasn’t involved in the final selections. Candace dropped the project file on my desk while I was out this afternoon, but I haven’t had a chance to look over it yet.

  I push back in my desk chair, rubbing my eyes. I’ve been staring at floor plans for the bakery for the past half hour, trying to work out a problem with the table arrangement in a front room that Chick, the owner, is calling “the study room.” There aren’t enough outlets in the old building, which used to be a private residence, to support the technology needed for the room to function the way she wants it to, so it’s up to me to figure out the most cost-effective way to retrofit the space and get a plan to the electrician. I’ve just finished drawing up a rough, and now I’m dying for a glass of wine, my DVR, and the squishy afghan on my living room sofa.

  I’ve been so tense these past few weeks that I can’t remember the last time I was able to relax. With all my newfound work, it doesn’t appear that I’ll be doing it anytime soon.

  I lean back in my chair and gaze unseeingly at the black-painted industrial pipes that crisscross the ceiling of our studio. After my Facebook gaffe, I thought I’d be losing my job. That’s why I created my action plan. I certainly didn’t expect it to work this well. I didn’t expect to be busier than ever with new work at a time when I thought I’d be sending out résumés and living off my meager savings.

  With a jolt, I remember that I have another potential project in the works, one that could dwarf the others in terms of importance. I’m dying to text Amelia and ask how things went with the house inspection, which, if I’m remembering right, took place this morning. Or maybe it’s tomorrow morning.

  I’ll wait for her to tell me. I don’t want to bug her to death, and if she wants me to design her prospective new house, she’ll let me know when she’s ready. But if there’s even a chance that a project that big is coming my way, I need to work as hard and fast as I can to clear some of this other work off of my plate.

  Even though I’d been about to pack up and go home, I push back up to my desk and open the Brewster file, thinking wistfully of that glass of wine and comfy spot in front of my TV.

  If I’m going to reclaim my former success at Greenlee Designs, I can’t slack off, not even for one night.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ups & Downs

  By Wednesday, I’m frazzled but in a good way, still riding the high of being busy and feeling like a competent professional who’s good at my job. It once was a familiar feeling, but the past two months still have me unsettled, like the train of my good fortune might jump the track at any minute. To compensate, I’m working harder and faster than usual, which is saying something.

  I’m practically manic.

  The consultation with the doctor and her husband, who it turns out is also a doctor, happened this morning, and the project is bigger in scope than I realized over the phone. The house is almost completed, which means they didn’t hire me in time to help select finishes and fixtures, but the husband wants to start from scratch with furnishings despite the wife’s insistence that they have some family pieces they can use. I can already tell that I’ll have to be their mediator and their referee. Sometimes interior design is as much psychology as art.

  They’re moving from a two-bedroom apartment on Mud Island, down by the river, where they’d lived while Nestor, the husband, completed his residency at the VA hospital downtown. Chelsea, the wife, is an allergist at a clinic way out East, near the new house. Since they’ve spent the past three years in an eight-hundred-square-foot apartment, their old furniture will fit almost entirely inside one upstairs room—meaning their new five-thousand-square-foot space is a blank canvas. Chelsea seems overwhelmed by that fact, but Nestor’s eyes sparkled with excitement throughout our meeting.

  I’ve seen it before with professional clients—after years of living frugally to get through school, it’s a heady feeling to suddenly start earning a real salary and be able to afford to buy nice things. I know it myself on a much humbler scale.

  I’m thrilled and terrified at once about this project because I just went from super-super busy to astronomically busy. As soon as I left the Santiagos’ house, my binder stuffed with measurements and notes, I had to move on to the next appointment. I’m now speeding to a meeting with Chick Emerson about the bakery furniture installation.

  The electrical work is complete, and as of yesterday the pastry cases at the main register area are installed. I brought in a kitchen designer to help with the big, industrial kitchen that takes up what used to be three rooms in the 1920s house—it will serve as the main pastry kitchen for all three of the bakery’s locations. The kitchen, almost clinical in its liberal use of stainless steel against white walls, is nearly finished, and pretty soon the customer-facing spaces where I’m working will be done as well.

  Once inside, I get right down to business, pulling open my laptop and talking Chick through the renderings to get her final okay on the seating plan.

  “Can we put the big sign here?” She points with one long, slender finger to a spot behind the counter where I’ve already planned to hang the hand-painted sign with the bakery’s confectionary logo. Her nails are rose colored with yellow dots, and this week her hair is the green of mint chocolate chip ice cream. She’s like a walking advertisement for her shops.

  I smile at her. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” From the get-go, Chick and I have been in sync with design decisions. The project has been a piece of cake, no pun intended.

  I pace off the lines of booths and tables on the painted hardwood floor, and she okays my fabric suggestions for the study room and for the outdoor seating. Metal bistro tables
and chairs dot the covered terrace at the back of the restaurant, which is served through a walk-up window I had installed in the rear wall.

  We plan the final furniture installation for a week from Thursday, two days after the benches are scheduled to arrive in our warehouse. The outdoor furniture and wood chairs and tables are already there. I’m feeling the light at the end of this tunnel, and the timing is welcome.

  “Now, I want to discuss art in the study room,” I say. “I know you’re using your original Chick’s signage in here.” I gesture around the main room. “And I know we’re moving over some of the folk art from your store on Monroe. But you have a lot of wall space in the front room, and for that I was thinking we could let it double as a gallery. I have an artist in mind whose color palette and themes would work great with the bakery’s aesthetic. I think she’d be excited to form a partnership with you.”

  “O-M-G, I love it,” Chick says, bobbing her head up and down. “I was wondering what you’d want to do with that big, blank wall. So what, we’ll just have price tags next to the pieces on the wall? And we’d work out some kind of consignment deal?”

  I’m nodding. “Yes, and I was thinking, depending on her stock of available work, that we could rotate pieces pretty often and maybe mix another artist in here or there. And I thought maybe, when you do your grand opening, that you could extend your marketing reach and do a combined bakery and art opening, like a gallery show.” I pause. “Maybe even a fund-raiser? I’ve done some work with Gwyn Evanston at the Youth Art League, and I was thinking they might be interested in getting involved.”

  Chick flings her arms toward me and pulls me in for a hug. She’s wearing a vintage green gingham dress with short, puffed sleeves, and one of the sleeves is stiff against my cheek.

  “That’s a freaking awesome idea,” she says.

  I figured she’d feel that way, since Chick is known around town for raising money for various causes. Plus, this artist I’m thinking of is emerging—she’s a recent grad of the local art college, and I found her work at a juried exhibition during the school’s holiday bazaar. I loved her use of color, and I stored that knowledge up for future use. I knew the right project for her work would come along someday. Plus, I assume she could use the exposure, which means this could be a win-win for everybody involved.