Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  Charlotte knows she shouldn’t engage—the woman is obviously taking her frustration out on her, using her as a punching bag for problems that may or may not actually exist—but something in her wants to set this straight: I have plenty of problems, I’ve never claimed otherwise, she writes. That’s part of my whole deal, to plow through them, to do the right things in spite of what’s holding you back. She hits the little paper airplane send icon, feeling a rush of satisfaction, and then she types some more: Also, I have a teenager, too. I know it’s not easy.

  Oh yeah? Congrats, the message comes back. Let me guess: Honor roll student, star athlete, never misses curfew?

  Heat rises up Charlotte’s neck. The woman isn’t far off the mark, it’s true, but Birdie— Her problems are nothing like what this person’s dealing with, assuming she’s being truthful.

  Hardly, she writes back. So what did you say to her?

  I didn’t know what to say, the response says, when it comes a few seconds later. I was terrified. All I could think of was to hug her. I didn’t say it, but I would have stayed like that forever, all through the night and into next week, if it would make her feel better.

  I know, Charlotte types back, tears springing to her eyes. I know just what you mean.

  Do you, though? the woman types.

  Charlotte’s tempted to give her proof. To tell her about what her life actually looks like inside the walls of her house. She thinks of Jason and Birdie and takes another sip of wine. Just trust me, she types.

  She waits for a response to come but nothing shows up. Eventually, she scoots herself under the covers and turns out the light, checking her phone one more time in the dark. One last time, and then another, replaying Birdie’s laugh, over and over again.

  * * *

  Nearly twelve hours later, Charlotte puts down her laser pointer, applause erupting around her as the lights go up in the auditorium. Attempting to be discreet, she glances down at the phone resting on the podium next to her notes. Nothing from Jason or Birdie regarding her missed practice. How could he not have called her by now or at least answered one of the zillion texts she’d sent first thing this morning? She’d called and texted Birdie, too, and also received no response. She smooths her hands against her yellow dress and sweeps her eyes across the room, surveying the mostly female crowd. They look pleased, like always.

  “I’d love to take any questions you may have,” she says, her voice as bright as she can get it.

  They ask different versions of the same question: Is Charlotte happy all the time? (No, she answers, giving them the same answer she gave Finch last weekend at dinner.) What does she do to be happy? (Spend time with friends and family, she chokes out. Make sure I get time to myself each night, to have a glass of wine and relax, she says, relieved when several women laugh and nod.) Charlotte smiles her way through it, trying to sound enthusiastic, but the truth is that she’s said these things so many times, it feels robotic and meaningless, like the words coming out of her mouth are just sounds. She’s wondered if this is what it must feel like to be a singer having to belt out the same hit over and over and over again, relentlessly, for years—Dolly Parton and “Nine to Five,” Billy Joel and “Piano Man.”

  After the Q & A wraps up, a slope-shouldered volunteer in a pale green linen jacket escorts her to a banquet table just offstage.

  “A wonderful talk!” the woman says. She seems to be in her sixties, and Charlotte can tell she’s nervous. Not about her, exactly, but, it seems, about doing her job correctly. Her hands shake as she pushes a bottle of water across the table, and she keeps eyeing the crowd lining up just beyond the X that somebody’s placed on the floor with duct tape.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte says.

  “I really liked what you said about the definition of a happy life,” the woman says, her eyes scanning the space around them, nervously checking the details like a party host just before the first guest arrives. She straightens the row of Sharpies on the table and puts her arm out, inviting Charlotte to sit. “About how finding your happiness doesn’t have to be this big philosophical question . . . that it can be just . . . a series of happy moments. That it’s the little things you do, every day, that add up.” The woman leans in and whispers. “I lost my husband six months ago. Before that, he lived ten years with dementia.”

  “I’m so sorry!” Charlotte says, leaping up to give the woman a hug.

  “No, no.” She pats Charlotte’s arm. “It’s okay. He’s in a better place now. We both are. I have you, in part, to thank for that.”

  “Me?” Charlotte says, putting a hand to her chest. “No!” It isn’t the first time somebody’s told her that her book got them through the death of a loved one, not by a long shot, but it’s always tricky to figure out how to respond.

  “My neighbor gave me your book just after Hank died. It really helped me, just going through the motions, doing those little things you talk about. I’d go to a water aerobics class in the morning and the exercise and the sense of community really helped. I’d talk to my daughter every afternoon. She lives in Seattle.”

  “Ah,” Charlotte says, thinking to herself that it’s been weeks since she’s gone for a run, and that she wishes she could make a joke with the woman about how those mother-daughter chats aren’t always everything they’re cracked up to be. “Well, I’m so glad it helped.”

  The volunteer nods. “Do you have children?”

  “A daughter.”

  The woman puts her hand to her chest. “We’re lucky, aren’t we? My daughter is my best friend! What I’d give to have her here locally with me.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Charlotte says, thinking of her mother the night before, holding court at the dinner table. “My mother says the same thing.”

  “How old is your girl?”

  “Fourteen.”

  The woman clasps her hands together. “Wonderful!” she says. “So exciting. Well, I know I don’t have to tell you this, but treasure every moment with her. She’ll be out of the house in a blink, and then it will just be you and your husband. That’s fun, too, of course. Just different.”

  “Just different,” Charlotte repeats. “Right.”

  “Anyway,” the woman says, pointing a finger toward the line, which is now twenty or thirty people deep. “I didn’t mean to take up your time. Your family must be so proud of you! It must feel so good, spreading the message you do!”

  Charlotte lunges for the water bottle across the table. “I’m sorry,” she says, taking a deep gulp. “My throat is dry from all that talking!”

  “Well,” the woman says, her smile pleasant. “Your fans await!”

  “Yes,” Charlotte says, downing one last gulp. “Okay.” She stretches her arms out, grinning, then raises her voice to the crowd. “Well, hello! Let’s do this!”

  The first woman in line clutches the book in two hands, the pages decorated with a fan of Post-it notes. Readers often reference the book when they meet her, even open the cover and finger through it to show her the passages that helped them the most. It should be gratifying, but the truth is that it feels awful, hearing their incredibly sad stories. The best friend who died in a freak accident. The house fire that destroyed everything. It’s easy for Charlotte to accept the validity of her work with her students—that job is to spell out the research, to tell them in very clear terms what science says about emotion. But to meet these real people out in the world, with their jowly chins, their burnished gold wedding bands, their windbreakers with pockets stuffed with tissue—who is she to be their guru? What qualifies her?

  She twists off the top of her water bottle and takes a long glug. It’s true that her throat is dry from all of the talking, but she’s also fighting a dull ache at the front of her forehead and a queasy stomach from last night’s wine. After ten or fifteen people, all of them start to run together. As she guessed, most of them are women in the retiree bracket, people who have time to tour a convention center on a weekday morning to hear about b
ooks and antiaging strategies and natural menopause remedies.

  She closes the cover on a book, sliding it across the table to the woman in a floral-patterned T-shirt, who thanks her again and steps aside for the next guest.

  She looks up, and the pen falls out of her hand.

  He takes a step forward. She hasn’t seen him in twenty years.

  “Charlotte,” Reese says, holding her book.

  “Oh my—”

  “I didn’t mean to shock you,” he says. “I knew you wouldn’t expect me, but . . .”

  He is just as she remembers him. Older, of course, but still with his same crooked smile. The same . . . He’s the same. Maybe better, she thinks, noticing the salt-and-pepper hair above his temples, the way his gangly, boyish frame has filled out.

  “You’re at the Southern Women’s Show,” she says.

  “Uh-huh.” He nods and laughs. “I am.”

  He’s still wearing his wedding ring, she notices.

  “Yeah,” he says, holding his hand up. “Haven’t taken it— I assume you heard?”

  “You know my mother.”

  He smiles. “That I do.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “It must be hard.”

  He shrugs. “But now I have this.” He holds up the book.

  “Oh, God,” she says, waving a hand at him. “Don’t—”

  “What? Charlotte, it’s great. I read it the day it came out, cover to cover. And”—he leans toward her—“I had a full roster of patients that day.”

  “Thank you,” she says, studying his face. His same, stupid, handsome face. He hurt her so much.

  “I’m so happy for you,” he says. “Not that I’m surprised. Maybe more than anyone else I know, you’re doing exactly what you should be doing. You found your calling. And you were always going places.”

  There’s a forlornness in the way he says it, and she wonders if he means it the way she’s heard it; meaning she was going to all the places he wasn’t. Her mind zips back to the letters he sent, begging her to come home to him.

  She closes her eyes for a moment, trying to refocus. “Well, the bad news is all I do now is go places. If you ever need frequent-flier miles . . .” she says, grimacing at her own bad joke.

  “Will you sign my book?” he says, placing it on the table between them, and she notices that it indeed looks read. “I hope you don’t mind that I showed up like this. I just . . . I saw an advertisement for the conference on the bulletin board in the office.” He shoves his hand in his pocket and jingles his keys, just like he used to, and the familiarity of the gesture floods her with a feeling that makes her dizzy. “I just had to come see you,” he’s saying. “I hope you don’t—”

  “I don’t mind,” she says, fumbling to open to the title page. What the hell am I supposed to write? Her heart is beating in her ears, so strongly it seems like the entire convention center can hear it.

  To . . . she starts. She looks up at him, and he immediately looks away, understanding that she’s self-conscious. To my old friend, she writes, pleased that she came up with it on the spot.

  She scrawls her name, like she’s done thousands of times without a thought over the past two years, and when she looks up, Reese is staring at her in a longing, far-off way. She knows the reason why they never married is because she couldn’t forgive him. They both know that.

  “I’ve taken up too much of your time,” he says, gesturing back to the crowd gathered behind them. “But, uh . . .” He pulls a business card out of his back pocket and flings it on the table like an afterthought.

  She stands, taking it, and holds a finger up to the crowd, smiling contritely. “So sorry!” she mouths. “Just one more second!” She walks around the table, offering her arms out for a hug, and he pulls her in, just like he used to. He always hugged her like he meant it.

  She closes her eyes, taking in the moment. She’d thought, if she ever saw him again, that the anger would overtake her, and in the early years, when she’d come home to Savannah and they’d be out somewhere, she’d search the faces around her just in case, wanting to avoid him. Later, when she didn’t run into him, she thought that if she ever saw him again she’d still feel angry, but also vindicated. She could gloat about the great life she’d built without him. But she doesn’t feel that way at all. She’s not angry or vengeful. Regardless of what happened, he is her history, and a big part of it at that. She feels a wonderful sense of peace, seeing this part of her past laid to rest.

  “Thanks for coming,” she says, sensing the crowd behind them as she lets go. She takes a step back.

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” he says, holding up the book. “Doin’ good, Charlotte!” And then, just like that, he disappears into the crowd, and he’s gone.

  Eight

  Jason and Jamie are sitting on a bench outside the Asia Trail exhibit, eating sandwiches from the cafeteria.

  “So I spent the morning guiding a group of fund-raisers around my exhibit trying to charm them into a big donation,” Jamie says. “How’s your day been?”

  “Eh,” he says. “Better than yours, it sounds. I spent the past hour doling out bamboo to the red pandas. Ace hasn’t been eating well.” He watches a field trip walking by, a single file of preschool-aged kids in matching bright blue T-shirts. Their little chubby hands grip a red rope, the front end of which is being held by two teachers. The kids remind him of Birdie once upon a time. He can almost feel the clammy stickiness of their skin, watching them, and his stomach clenches, thinking of the blowup fight he had with Birdie this morning, how she left for school in tears, her face blotchy and red.

  “Not eating?” Jamie says. “Not even the bamboo?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know,” he says. “We’ll keep an eye on him. Anyway.” He leans back on his bench.

  “I wanted to check in . . . How are things with Charlotte?” she asks.

  “She’s in Savannah,” he says. “Well, she comes home today.”

  “Visiting her family?”

  “And giving a speech.”

  “Mm,” Jamie says. “Sounds like Charlotte.”

  He smarts a little, even though it’s just a tiny dig. It’s one thing for him to bitch about her, but another thing for somebody else to; still, he lets it go. “It’s annoying, having her gone so much, but lately, it’s just easier. And it’s not bad having the bed to myself, or having full control of the remote. I’m kind of enjoying being alone, to be honest.”

  “Then you should try widowhood!”

  “Oh, God.” Jason slaps a palm to his face. “Jamie, I’m so sorry.” He angles his body toward her. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “No, no.” She laughs and pops an apple slice into her mouth. They’ve always joked that her food preferences resemble those of a lot of the animals in their care. “I was the one making the joke. I get it. It’s nice having the place to yourself. I used to feel that way when Warren worked late.”

  “I remember that, how his hours were long.”

  “Yeah,” she says, an uncharacteristic whine in her voice. She looks off into the distance.

  “What?”

  “I never shared this with you when he was alive, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.” She glances at him for a moment. “Warren had a pretty serious problem with depression.”

  “What?” Jason drops his hand to his lap. “You’re kidding.”

  “Yup,” she says. “It sort of waxed and waned. When it was bad, he’d spend days in bed, just staring up at the ceiling.”

  “Whoa,” he says. “Jamie . . .”

  “I know,” she says, crunching down on another piece of apple. “You never would have guessed it given how successful he was at work, and all of the working out. The ultramarathon stuff was actually a good way for him to cope. It sort of focused him.”

  “How long had it been going on?”

  “He’d always had—” She hesitates. “I don’t want to say moody, that seems too light a word, but it was always there, in t
he background, and then it got worse over the years. There were times when he could manage it well, and times when he couldn’t. So, anyway, yes, when he was working late, it was actually a bit of a relief, because it meant that he was on an upswing. He was at his best when he was wrapped up in a project, whether that was work or training for a race.”

  “Jamie, that’s a lot to deal with. It must have been hard on you.”

  “I’m okay,” she says. “Like I’ve told you, lots of good therapy. I’ve decided that the healthiest thing for me is to choose to remember my favorite version of him, when he was feeling good.”

  “Yeah,” Jason says, taking a sip of his soda. “I totally get that.” He thinks about his favorite version of Charlotte. Like when Sylvie was a puppy, and they’d walk for hours around DC with no particular destination in mind. Or when Birdie was a baby and they were always sleep-deprived, and they went through a fun, stupid stage where they made bloody marys and giant brunches for themselves during her morning naps on the weekends, eating their omelets in bed while they watched House Hunters International marathons. She used to tuck her feet around his as they slept, their ankles crossed over each other’s. She’d leave him little notes on his nightstand.

  He looks at Jamie, her attention on a couple who’ve just dropped a giant bag of popcorn all over the walkway, and thinks to himself that those memories of how he and Charlotte used to be are so distant that she may as well be as dead as Warren. But then—Jesus, Jason, he thinks—what the fuck? How can you be so melodramatic?

  Jamie turns back to him. “You know what?” she says, wiping her nose with a napkin.

  “Huh?”

  “The loneliness actually sucks.”

  “Yeah.” I know, he thinks.

  “I’m, um . . .” She makes a face like she’s not sure she wants to continue.

  “What?”

  “I’ve started online dating.” She raises an eyebrow.

  “Nuh-uh!” he says. “Really?”

  She nods, her eyes widening. “Yup.”