Happy Again

by Jennifer E. Smith

  Ellie smiled. This is where most guys she knew would stop, concluding the story with an eye roll. But not Graham. She knew what it meant to him, these kinds of mundane gestures, and how hard earned they were.

  “And Wilbur loves having them around,” he said, leaning back against the bench, more relaxed now. “My mom even knitted him a sweater last Christmas.”

  Ellie laughed. “Pig in a blanket?”

  “Don’t even joke,” Graham said, giving her a stern look.

  “I’m happy for you,” she said, swiveling so that they were facing each other again. “That all sounds really…normal.”

  “I’m trying,” he said, pulling off his cap and ruffling his hair. “I mean…things are okay. I can’t really complain, obviously. But happy? I don’t know about that. I think maybe the last time I was truly happy was last summer.”

  Ellie turned to look out at the pond. The water rippled just slightly in the breeze, and she thought again of that last night she and Graham had spent together back in Henley. Everything had felt so big then: the rough stretch of beach and the churning water and the endless night sky. And now here they were again, on a smaller stage, hemmed in on all sides by trees and bushes, buildings and people, everything stifling and somehow much too close.

  What had Graham said? That it felt like suffocating, like it was hard to get enough air.

  “Me too,” she said finally, and he flinched at the words.

  “You’re supposed to be happier without me,” he said, looking pained. “Otherwise, what was the point of all this?”

  “All what?”

  “The last year,” he said, kicking at the ground with his heel. “Not talking for so long. I mean…why else did you stop writing?”

  “Because you did.”

  “That’s not true,” he said, jerking forward, suddenly tense. “I wrote you a bunch of times last winter, and you never wrote back.”

  “Come on,” Ellie said, annoyed. “You were basically just talking about the weather at that point. It was starting to seem like a chore for you. And I didn’t want to be that. I mean…you had all these exciting things going on, and reading about my stupid high school drama while you’re busy meeting the prime minister of France—”

  “It was the president, actually.”

  “I just figured you’d moved on,” she said, ignoring this.

  He shook his head. “You were the one who was pulling away. You stopped talking about anything that mattered. You stopped daydreaming with me about college, or telling me about the letters you were writing to your dad. You stopped sending me poems.”

  “That’s because they were all about you,” she said, her face burning. “And it was embarrassing, okay? I was supposed to be over you by then.”

  “Who says?”

  “Well, you,” she said, glaring at him. “I had to see pictures of you with other girls pretty much every single day, while I was stuck in Henley, writing poems about you like a complete idiot.”

  “Were they at least better than Wordsworth?” he asked with a smile. “That guy was a total hack.”

  She laughed. “He was okay.”

  “Hey,” Graham said, sliding a little bit closer to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Honestly, it felt like you were the one who was over it. I thought you were moving on. I thought I was boring you.”

  “How could you—”

  “All I was doing was working,” he said with a shrug. “You were actually having a life.”

  “Do you have any idea how boring Henley is?” she asked, then shook her head. “It wasn’t so bad before you showed up. But once you left…”

  “Trust me, it wasn’t boring to me. There have been so many times I wished…” He trailed off, giving her a long, searching look. “I haven’t been sleeping lately, so I got this noise machine that plays ocean sounds. Now I fall asleep every night thinking of that beach, wishing I was back there again. I just didn’t know how to tell you that.”

  “I wish you had.”

  “It hurt too much,” he said, his eyes on the ground. “Writing to you.”

  She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “There was so much I was trying not to say. I guess it was easier to talk about nothing than about how much I missed you.”

  “I missed you too,” she said, her heart tumbling around in her chest at the thought of all that lost time. They’d both been trying to protect themselves, and in doing so, had managed to push each other away. And now it was too late.

  “And besides,” Graham was saying, “I figured you were better off without me and all my craziness.”

  Ellie sighed. “I happen to like you and your craziness.”

  They both fell silent, looking out at the trees and the pond and the silhouettes of the people walking over the footbridge on the far side of it.

  “Maybe we peaked last summer,” he said after a moment. “Maybe we’ll never be that happy again.”

  In spite of herself, Ellie laughed. “There’s a cheerful thought.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You know how I always think of my life in terms of before and after—”

  “The first movie?”

  “Yeah. But lately I’ve been thinking about you too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like…before and after you.”

  Ellie blinked at him, suddenly annoyed again. “Then you should’ve tried harder. You should’ve come to visit. Or said something sooner. You should’ve done something.”

  A couple in dark jackets walked past, but they didn’t look over. This was clearly a city used to minding its own business, and the anonymity of the place gave Ellie a little thrill. Even without his hat, it was too dark now to see Graham clearly. They were just another couple having an argument in the park tonight.

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked, standing abruptly.

  “My life got split too,” she said, rising to her feet as well. “That was the old me. That’s not…that’s not me anymore. At least I don’t want it to be.”

  He looked confused. “So who are you now, then?”

  “I’m not someone who falls for movie stars,” she said, giving him a stubborn look. “And I’m not someone who waits around for them to write back. I don’t want to go to premieres, and I don’t want to be reading gossip blogs or those stupid magazines at the grocery store. I don’t want to care about any of this stuff.”

  Graham looked at her evenly. “You mean you don’t want to care about me.”

  “It makes no sense,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “You and me.”

  “I know that,” he said, reaching out and taking her hand, and the feel of his skin on hers nearly knocked the breath right out of her. “Sort of. But sometimes I think…”

  “What?”

  “That maybe it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Ellie glanced down at their hands, which were swaying between them, and below that, to Graham’s shoes, shiny even in the dark. Around them, there was the rustle of leaves, and beyond that the muffled hum of the rest of the city, punctuated by the occasional honk of a car horn. Across the pond, another couple was perched on the bridge, but otherwise it was just the two of them here in this quiet oasis, where Ellie could hear her own heart beating, could feel the pulse in Graham’s hand, could picture what would happen if she were to tip her head back right now to look up at him.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, she cleared her throat. “Look, I know it’s not fair to you—”

  “Ellie…”

  “It’s not who you are, all that craziness. I get it. But it is your life,” she continued, her head still bowed. “And the hardest part isn’t the travel or the cameras or the press, you know? It’s the rest of it. The waiting and worrying and wondering. I don’t want that, and I know it’s ridiculous for someone like me to be saying that to someone like you, but I’m just not sure I could—”

  “Ellie,” he said again, and this time
, he stooped so that she was forced to look at him, and something in his eyes stopped her short. “I’m not asking you for anything.”

  She stiffened. “I know.”

  “I know how hard that would be,” he said. “How unrealistic.”

  “This isn’t a movie,” she reminded him—reminded herself—and he gave her a weak smile.

  “I know that too,” he said. “I just wanted to…”

  “What?”

  He gave her hand a squeeze, just the smallest bit of pressure in the center of her palm, but Ellie felt it travel up her arm like an electric current. She hadn’t realized how cold she was, but now she started to shake, and Graham dropped her hand, taking off his jacket and swinging it over her shoulders.

  When she pulled her arms through, the sleeves were much too long, and without saying anything, he began to roll them up for her, one at a time, which for some reason made her feel like crying.

  “It was real,” she said, her voice thick. “Wasn’t it?”

  He looked up at her. “What was?”

  “Us,” she said. “Last summer.”

  “Yeah,” he said, stepping back again. “It was.”

  Ellie had spent so much time trying to convince herself that it wasn’t, that he was just a movie star who came to town and that she was just the sucker who fell for him. But standing here now, his coat hanging from her shoulders, her hands poking out of the carefully rolled sleeves, she knew for sure that she’d been wrong.

  “I want to be happy again,” she said quietly. “I want that for both of us.”

  Graham smiled. “I do too.”

  “And I want…”

  He raised his eyebrows, waiting.

  “I want you to be more careful when you drive.”

  “I told you, I am careful—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “And there are so many things I always wish I could tell you. I want to be able to write to you and not worry about what it means. I just want to know you’re out there.”

  Graham nodded. “I’d like that.”

  “I want to feel the way I did last summer,” Ellie said, tipping her head back to look at the purple sky. “And I want to be big and brave and bold.”

  He laughed. “You already are. You’re the boldest person I know.”

  “I’m not,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Remember when we stole the boat?”

  “That was your idea. I never would’ve done it alone.”

  “Yeah, but it was because you wanted to find your dad. That was your idea. And that was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.”

  Ellie sat back down on the bench, feeling suddenly drained. “Not that it did much good.”

  “What about the letters?” Graham said, joining her there, sitting closer this time, so that their arms brushed against each other. “Did you ever send them?”

  “No,” Ellie said miserably.

  “Not any?”

  “There’s a whole stack of them in my sock drawer,” she said, and he bumped his knee against hers.

  “You’ll get there.”

  “I hope so,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder without even thinking about it. Above them, a helicopter was moving across the sky, and they could hear the distant thrum. “I want to take more chances,” she said. “And not be so afraid.”

  “I want that too,” he said. “I want to remember why I love what I do, and what makes me happy, and try to forget about all the other stuff.”

  “What else?”

  “I want to know you’re out there too.”

  She nodded into his shoulder. “I’m right here.”

  “I want to be challenged. And I want to speak up more. And I want to learn to say no to wearing pants that are way too tight.”

  Ellie laughed. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”

  “And I want to spend more time at home.”

  “I want to be able to stand in front of a room full of people and actually be able to say the thing I want to say,” she told him.

  “And I want to be able to stand in front of just one person and say the thing I want to say.”

  She lifted her head. “Graham…”

  But he only slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him again. “Your turn.”

  “I want,” she said, “to be the kind of person who says yes more often.”

  “That’s a good one.”

  “And I want us to be happy again.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but I figure it’s worth repeating.”

  “Well, it must be working,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “I don’t know about you, but I feel about a million times happier already.”

  Fourteen

  Not long after that, they emerged from the park. Ellie’s arm was linked through Graham’s, and they were leaning into each other like the two sides of a pup tent. She was still wearing his jacket, and he’d put the Yankees cap on again, and when they spilled out onto Fifty-Ninth Street, they became just two more in a sea of people, falling into step alongside the tourists with cameras and the men in suits and the women hailing taxis, blending in with the lights and the traffic and the noise.

  “I wish we didn’t have to go back,” Graham muttered as they crossed the street, and she knew he was talking about more than just the premiere. She’d been thinking the exact same thing, but she tilted her head up to look at him with an overly cheerful expression.

  “Game face,” she said with a little grin.

  He laughed. “I’ve created a monster.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I still need a little practice.”

  Graham stopped abruptly. They were standing in front of the Plaza Hotel, beside a huge fountain with several tiers and a metal sculpture of a woman perched on top. Nearby, a man was playing a song on the guitar that Ellie didn’t recognize, a jangly tune that rose and fell in the purple dark.

  “You’re right,” he said, his eyes roving the little square. “You want to be bolder, right?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, not sure where this was heading. “Yeah.”

  “So let’s see it.”

  “What?”

  “Your game face.”

  “Here?”

  He nodded. “This is as good a place as any, right?”

  “I’m not doing that—”

  “Bigger, braver, bolder,” he reminded her. “Remember, it’s not about the face. It’s just about getting psyched up to do something.”

  She stared at him, suddenly nervous. “Well, what am I supposed to do?”

  “Anything,” he said, turning to hop up onto the stone ledge of the fountain. He stood there, grinning down at her in his shirtsleeves and too-tight pants, and Ellie couldn’t help laughing.

  “You’re crazy.”

  He reached out to her, and Ellie shrugged the sleeves of his jacket back to take his hand, stepping up there with him. Behind them, the water burbled in the fountain and the lights of the Plaza were moonlike and glowing. On the sidewalk, people continued to hurry down Fifth Avenue, paying no attention to the couple on the ledge. With a little frown, Ellie turned to face Graham.

  “What now?” she asked, and he shrugged.

  “You could tap-dance,” he suggested, doing a little jig right there on the fountain.

  She shook her head.

  “Sing?” he asked, pointing to the guy with the guitar.

  “You must be joking.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Shout?”

  “This is stupid—”

  “It’s not,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “You said you wanted to take more chances. Well, now’s the time to get started.”

  “Everyone will look.”

  “This is Manhattan,” he said. “Nobody cares. Trust me.”

  Ellie took a deep breath, turning to face the street. She hated that her heart was pounding even now, when this was nothing more than a silly game, when it didn’t mea
n anything. Nobody’s looking, she reminded herself. Nobody cares.

  Except Graham.

  She glanced at him sideways. “What would I even say?”

  “Say ‘I heart NY,’” he suggested, and she rolled her eyes. He shrugged, then spread his arms wide. “Fine, then…‘I’m the king of the world!’”

  He yelled this last part, and she burst out laughing as an elderly man on a nearby bench looked over at them with a frown.

  Graham’s cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were dancing. “Too much movie fluff?”

  “Just a little.”

  “Okay,” he said, thinking. “Then how about ‘I love Graham Larkin!’”

  He half shouted this himself, and a group of girls who were cutting across the plaza glanced at him briefly before continuing on their way.

  But Ellie just stared at him.

  She knew how he meant it.

  He meant it the way most people love him: like a fan, like a guy on a movie poster, like the figure on the red carpet.

  He meant it as a joke.

  But something about the words—even spoken as they were, full of humor and self-awareness and a little bit of scorn—tugged at something inside Ellie.

  She was suddenly aware of how close they were, of the rush of water just behind them, a sound like the waves that night in Henley, when they’d huddled together above the wild and foamy ocean, and Graham had looked at her the same way he was looking at her now, his eyes burning a hole right through her.

  “I love Graham Larkin,” she said quietly, her voice full of emotion, and there was a flicker of surprise on his face, and then his expression softened.

  “You’re supposed to shout it,” he said, smiling as she tugged on the brim of the cap, forcing him to lower his face, bringing him closer and closer until their lips met. And even though they were in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, lost in a sea of concrete and wood and metal, she could almost swear he tasted like the ocean.

  Fifteen

  As they approached the theater, Ellie dropped Graham’s hand.

  They were greeted by an enormous poster for the movie, which was propped on an easel just inside the entrance. She’d missed it earlier because of the crowds, but now it stared down at them, huge and shiny and jarring: a nearly life-size picture of Graham, his mouth only inches away from Olivia’s.