This Is What Happy Looks Like

by Jennifer E. Smith

  It took a moment for Graham to regain himself. He turned to Ellie, grabbing the towel that was slung over her shoulder and whipping it in front of her. When she realized what he was doing, she took it from him, burying her face behind the pattern of seahorses. He put an arm around her shoulders, and though he could feel her resistance, he urged her forward anyway, the two of them tripping over roots and rocks as they made their way up toward the street.

  All three of the photographers were snapping pictures now, and it felt different, seeing them here on a quiet stretch of road with no one else around, ominous and just a little bit threatening. They backed up a few steps as Graham’s feet hit the pavement, and he tucked Ellie closer to him, hurrying them in the opposite direction without a word.

  “C’mon, Graham,” the bald guy said, jogging out in front of him, then backpedaling, his camera bumping against his chest. The other two were flanking them, trotting along the shoulder of the road, and Graham glared at the guy to his left.

  “Just one shot,” he was saying. “One good shot, and we’ll leave you alone.”

  “Get lost,” he said through gritted teeth. The photographer lowered his camera, and for a moment, Graham thought that would be it. But then he darted at Ellie, grabbing the end of her towel to yank it away. She let out a little yelp of surprise just as the flash went off, and before he could think better of it, Graham lunged at him, knocking the camera away. It hit the pavement with a splintering sound, and there was the sharp clatter of metal on asphalt, and then a low string of curses as the photographer scrambled to collect his equipment.

  The rest of them paused, just for a second. Ellie’s towel had fallen to the ground, and seeing an opportunity, one of the other photographers—the bald one—stepped out in front of them. But before he could even raise the camera, Graham was in his face.

  “Put it away,” he said, his voice low, the words gravelly.

  The guy hesitated, but only for a moment, looking around Graham to the third photographer, who held his camera tentatively, the lens pointed at Ellie as she bent to grab the towel.

  There was a beat of stillness, then two, as they all stood there, the cameras raised like weapons in a standoff. But just as Ellie straightened up again, a flash cut through the darkness—bright enough to leave them all blinking—and as if the two things were connected, as if one triggered the other, Graham’s hand became a fist, and he pulled back his arm, and he punched him.

  From: EONeill22@hotmail.com

  Sent: Wednesday, July 3 2013 10:24 PM

  To: GDL824@yahoo.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  You were right. We should’ve just stayed on the beach forever.

  Light couldn’t possibly have moved faster. Running water. A high-speed train. Nothing, it seemed to Ellie, could have beaten the pixilated photo and accompanying story that spilled out across the fathomless pages of the Internet late that same night.

  Sitting on her bed the next morning, the computer propped in her lap, she watched numbly as the articles unspooled across the screen. But she wasn’t thinking about the media’s version of the story, which seemed to hardly resemble what had happened at all. Instead, she was thinking about the moment itself, the way the photographer had reeled after being hit, tipping sideways like a marionette.

  His head had struck the ground with a sound that seemed too heavy to have come from a person, and Ellie had looked on in horror, frozen with shock for a few frightening seconds before he blinked and pushed himself up again. It was Graham who moved first, already shaking his head in apology as he reached out a hand to help him up. But he was stopped cold by a flash, and he turned on one of the other photographers with a menacing glare.

  “You asshole,” the bald man had said, ignoring Graham’s outstretched hand and struggling to his feet on his own. Already, his eye was nothing more than a slit, the skin beneath it puffed up, a crescent of pink that would undoubtedly be turning an angry purple before too long. He pressed two fingers there, wincing, then explored the side of his head where it had hit the pavement. When his eyes focused on Graham again, there was a spark of something so unexpected—smugness, perhaps, or even glee—that Ellie found herself taking a step back.

  “You better get ready,” the man said to Graham. “I’m gonna take you for all you’re worth.”

  But Graham had already grabbed Ellie by the arm, spinning her around and urging her away from the huddle of black-clad men. She’d hurried to follow him, the urgent snap-snap-snap of the cameras trailing after them. But to her relief, she heard no footsteps, and before long, even the flashes had blinked out in their wake.

  “You okay?” he asked when they were a safe distance away.

  Ellie nodded, though her wrist still tingled from where the towel had been yanked so abruptly from her hands, and she realized she’d left it behind. Somehow, in spite of all that had just happened, it was this—the thought of that seahorse towel, which she’d had since she was a kid, lying wilted on the ground in the middle of an empty road—that caused a lump to rise in her throat.

  It was almost fully dark by then, and they’d walked quickly, heads bent and shoulders hunched, propelled by an unsettling mix of anger and fear. Ellie’s teeth were chattering, though she wasn’t cold. Her mind buzzed with questions both big and small, but she stopped herself from giving voice to them. The way those men had circled them like hyenas, the steady chirp of their cameras—she’d never felt so exposed. Even now, she still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being followed, and she kept whipping around to make sure nobody was there.

  As they neared her house, Graham slowed and turned to her. Their eyes met briefly in the darkness, and she could see that his were full of worry. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, looking pained.

  Already, Ellie was doing an inventory of what tomorrow would bring and she knew that he must have been too, cataloging the phone calls to publicists and lawyers, preparing for the conversation with his manager, thinking through the inevitable fallout. There was nothing more interesting to the world than a self-destructive celebrity, nothing more exciting than a public meltdown. It wouldn’t matter that the photographers had been staking them out, or that they’d been overly aggressive. All that would matter was that Graham had punched one of them.

  Ellie glanced toward her house. Even through the trees at the end of the driveway, she could see the lights were on in the kitchen. It felt like it had been days since Mom left her bobbing in the water at the beach, and she was probably wondering where she’d gone. It made Ellie queasy to think of explaining to her what had happened tonight.

  When she turned back to Graham, he was still watching her. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment, and she watched his lips as he formed the words, reminded of their kiss on the beach. They were supposed to be on a picnic right now, she realized, and the idea of it seemed impossibly distant, like it had been planned by two other people entirely.

  Ellie shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”

  “But I made it worse,” Graham said, his voice flat. “It’ll be so much bigger now. The story.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, although she knew it might not be. She’d made the decision to stay away from him in an effort to sidestep this very situation, but then she’d fallen under his spell again, wholeheartedly and perhaps inevitably. And now it didn’t seem fair to have gathered so much momentum only to be pulled up short again, yanked back and forth like the worst kind of yo-yo.

  Their hearts simply weren’t built for this sort of thing.

  “I should probably go,” she said, her eyes drifting to the house. The air between them felt charged, and Graham forced a smile. But it was an actor’s smile—feeble and strained—and it faltered when she took his hand.

  “Hey,” he said, holding on to her for a moment, his face grim. “I’m gonna do everything I can to fix this, okay?”

  She nodded, trying to look convinced, then turned to walk up the driveway, l
eaving him there on the street. It wasn’t until she reached the porch that she slumped against the door, taking a few deep breaths before turning the knob. Inside, she could hear Mom in the kitchen, and she knew somehow that to talk to her would be to break down and cry, and she didn’t feel prepared for that just yet—for the explanations and confessions, the weighty implications of the night—and so she called out a hello, her voice thick, and then hurried up the stairs.

  In her room, she grabbed her computer and sat cross-legged on the bed, searching for Graham’s name. The most recent hits were a picture of him with Olivia in front of the deli from earlier that day and a few articles that speculated about his potential involvement in another movie, but nothing yet about a photographer with a black eye, or a broken camera, or a mysterious girl with red hair whose estranged father may or may not be running for president one day.

  She spent the rest of the night there, telling Mom through the door that she wasn’t hungry, hitting the refresh button on her computer so many times that the words started to swim and blur, just meaningless chains of letters.

  She had no idea what time she fell asleep; she knew only that when she woke up it was still dark out, and it took her a moment to fumble with her phone and see that it was just after five o’clock. The memory of the previous night came back to her in a rush, and she reached for her computer, her head fuzzy with worry.

  This time, it was there. All of it. Her heart sank as she read through the headlines: Graham’s Slam; Larkin Doesn’t Pull Any Punches; Larkin’s Barkin’ Mad. She scrolled through article after article, her stomach churning, wondering if Graham had seen them yet. The first ones had been posted as early as eleven o’clock last night, probably just after Ellie had fallen asleep, and several were accompanied by a photo of Graham just before he struck out, his elbow pulled back like an archer with a bow, his face dark. In the background, Ellie could see the seahorse towel bunched on the street, and behind that, just a sliver of herself: a pale arm and a few strands of reddish hair.

  They hadn’t gotten anything worth using on her, she realized, though every article mentioned an “unidentified female companion.” That seemed to be it, at least for now, but Ellie knew better than to be relieved. She understood the bigness of this, the sheer scope of it, and a worry for Graham pulsed through her like a heartbeat. Some of the articles mentioned a potential lawsuit, while others simply framed him as a sudden and previously unknown menace, as if he were some kind of slumbering beast that had finally awakened. Even if he wasn’t sued, she knew how damaging this could be for his image, his career, his movie, and she wished there were a way to defend him, to explain what had happened, how anyone might have done the same.

  But she knew she couldn’t. And she also knew it wouldn’t be long before someone connected the dots and identified her, some tourist who had seen them together, some local looking to make a buck, some reporter who asked the right questions. It was only a matter of time before the rest would unravel.

  She thought about checking her e-mail to see if there was anything from Graham, but she wasn’t sure she could bear to read what he might have written or, worse, to find out that he hadn’t. Instead, she lifted her hands from the keyboard and looked out the window, where a scrim of light had appeared on the horizon, spliced by the darker shadows of the tree branches.

  It was the Fourth of July, she realized, the day she’d meant to go see her father. But now she wasn’t sure it was such a good idea. What if they found her name between now and then, those anonymous bloggers and journalists? What if she were to show up on his doorstep only to discover that he’d heard the news? And that he was furious with her for reviving a story that had long been put to bed, one that would distract from his message and have a negative impact on his next campaign?

  With a sigh, she hit the refresh button on the computer, and six new stories about Graham Larkin appeared on the list. She swallowed hard and looked out the window again, the sky growing paler at the edges. In the distance, a few seagulls cried out, and down the hall, she heard the groan of the water heater as Mom switched on the shower.

  It would be crazy to do this. She’d have to find a way to borrow the car without telling Mom. She’d have to make sure she wasn’t missed at the town festival. She’d have to figure out exactly where her father was staying and pluck up the courage to ask him for money. She’d have to hope the story didn’t beat her there, and that nothing would fail her when she arrived—not her legs or her voice or her nerve.

  And if she was really going to do this—set out on this ill-advised trip, this one desperate attempt to make things right—then she was going to have to do it now.

  From: GDL824@yahoo.com

  Sent: Thursday, July 3 2013 11:01 PM

  To: EONeill22@hotmail.com

  Subject: Re: (no subject)

  It’s not too late. You bring the crackers. I’ll bring my fake mustache.

  Graham knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. But when he opened the door to his hotel room to find Harry in the armchair beneath the window, his hand still flew to his chest, as if to stop his wildly beating heart.

  “Jeez,” he said, the word coming out in an exhale. Harry only raised a finger to indicate that he was on the phone, throwing him a dark look, and Graham sank down on the end of the bed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  There wasn’t much to be gleaned from Harry’s side of the conversation, and when he finally lowered the phone, they were both quiet. Graham tilted his head to look out across the sea of dirty socks and strewn clothing, pizza boxes and room-service trays, to where his manager was slumped in the chair. His thinning hair was mussed, and he was wearing glasses instead of his usual contacts. There was a laptop perched on the table beside him, and Graham didn’t have to see the screen to know what he’d been searching for, though it was hard to believe the information might have traveled that fast.

  But here was Harry, clearly aware of the situation, which had occurred not even an hour before. And if he already knew, Graham supposed it was possible the rest of the world did too.

  “How’d you even get in here?”

  Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told the front desk you were probably passed out drunk.”

  Graham frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I couldn’t possibly think of another explanation for why you might be out punching photographers,” he said, and though it was clear he was kidding, when his eyes slid over to meet Graham’s across the room, there was a hint of annoyance at what was no doubt coming: a full-blown media storm.

  “Obviously I’m not drunk,” Graham said, then nodded at the computer. “Is it up yet?”

  “Not yet,” Harry said.

  “Then how do you—”

  “I got a call from Mitchell.”

  Graham looked at him blankly.

  “That PA who’s always hanging around with the photographers,” he explained. “It’s gonna move fast.”

  The phone in Harry’s hand rang, and he glanced at the number, then set it aside. In the hallway, they could hear the family next door returning to their room. They’d checked in a few nights ago, and when Graham had passed them in the hall for the first time, they’d all stopped without exactly meaning to. The father was the first to come to his senses, hurrying them along as one of his young daughters cupped a hand over her mouth, the words escaping between her fingers, giddy and disbelieving: “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Even after they’d piled onto the elevator at the end of the hall and the doors had closed behind them, Graham could still hear high-pitched squeals of the two girls, and he hadn’t been able to keep from smiling.

  Now he tried not to imagine what they might think when they saw his picture on the front page of one of the local papers that were always scattered around the lobby. If it didn’t happen tomorrow, it would undoubtedly happen the next day, the photo sure to be dark and grainy, set beneath some kind of silly and melodramatic headline like Lights Out,
Thanks to Larkin.

  “It wasn’t bad enough that you broke his camera?” Harry was saying, and Graham tipped his head back with a groan. “You had to punch the guy too?”

  “I know,” he said. “But he was in my face. They all were. They were basically stalking us.”

  Harry glanced up at the last word. “Us?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Let me guess…”

  “You don’t need to,” Graham said, meeting his gaze.

  Harry’s face was grim, and he reached up to ruffle the back of his hair. Graham could almost see him trying to swallow the words he so desperately wanted to say: I told you so. But it was there anyway, in his eyes, and Graham knew he was right. He should have stayed away from Ellie. But he wasn’t sorry for the same reasons. He didn’t care about bad publicity. He couldn’t even muster up any worry over Mick’s reaction to all this. All he could think about was Ellie. All he wanted was to make this okay for her.

  “So what do we do now?” he asked, sitting forward. “Can we keep this under wraps? Or spin it somehow?”

  “I’m trying,” Harry said. “If it were only the photos…”

  Graham didn’t have to ask what that meant. “You mean if I hadn’t punched him.”

  Harry’s phone began to ring again, and this time, he brought it to his ear. “Yeah,” he said, and then fell silent as he listened. Graham rose to his feet and walked into the bathroom, where he turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on his face, trying to shock away the events of the evening.

  He placed a hand on each side of the sink and rocked forward, angry at himself for going down to the beach at all. But when he’d noticed his drawing framed in the window of her mother’s shop, there amid all the poems, something about the sight of it had seemed to carry him right down to the cove. And he couldn’t for a second regret what had happened there, could still feel it like a stamp across his chest, the place where Ellie had been curled against him.