Charlotte feels a thrum in her chest, her heartbeat pulsing. A book about family, she thinks. And I’m the expert.
Wendy continues her pitch, which begins to feel more and more like a demand. “You could do it however you want,” she’s saying. “The stages of family life, different types of families, geared toward moms, dads, single-sex parents, parents of special-needs kids . . . there are a million different directions you can go in, Char.”
“I assume, like last time, they’ll want anecdotes from my own life?” she asks, trying to sound casual.
“Well, yes,” Wendy says, finally taking a sip of champagne. “But that should be easy for you. Gorgeous husband, gem of a kid. And you’re the spark, my dear.” She reaches and clinks her glass against Charlotte’s. “Is there any reason this wouldn’t work?”
Charlotte glances out the window. “And what if my family life isn’t perfect?” she says. “Perfectly happy?”
“Even better!” Wendy says. “Books are built on the backs of dysfunction!” Charlotte can see the searching question behind her agent’s eyes. “But you’re an expert, so you could balance it out. People don’t just want their own shitty lives reflected back at them.” She puts her hands out. “Not that your life is shitty, you know what I mean, but your shitty is different because you project a certain authority. You have a brand, and if you confess that your home life isn’t all Leave It to Beaver and Donna Reed, people are just going to love you more for it. A year ago, everything was about authenticity, but now, vulnerability’s the thing.”
Charlotte nods.
Wendy narrows her eyes. “I thought for sure this would be a home run. I assumed I’d be calling your publisher on the way to the airport, that we’d have a deal by the time I touched down at LaGuardia.”
Charlotte puts her hand to her chest. “It’s not that I’m not grateful,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate their enthusiasm. I guess I’m just daunted by the idea of taking on the next thing, and if it’s going to talk about my family, you know, Birdie is in such a precarious stage of life. I wouldn’t want to embarrass her. I’d need to talk to Jason, too.” Her eyes slide toward the window again.
Wendy twists in her seat and pulls a folder out of her bag. “I had my assistant print this out.” She pushes the piece of paper across the table. Charlotte sees that it’s an email from her editor.
We’ve spoken as a team about PH: Family. We think it’s exactly where we should go, and the sooner the better. We’d love to have a finished manuscript within the next six months or so. Is Charlotte amenable? We can offer $750,000.
Charlotte’s eyes widen. The numbers swim on the page.
“That’s what you’re worth to them,” Wendy says. “That’s how special you are, Charlotte.”
Charlotte takes a deep breath, rereading the text. $750,000?
Wendy leans across the table. “And listen,” she says, stabbing a finger onto the page. “Given how long your book’s been a bestseller, I can probably get you more. Not to speak out of turn, but if you’re worried about Birdie, that’s college tuition right there.”
“It’s a lot more than . . .” Charlotte’s voice drifts off, the reality sinking in. Wendy’s right. She’d be a fool to turn this down.
“The bottom line is that they’re not going to wait forever, and you need to do something before this train loses steam or leaves the station.” She cackles. “You know what I mean! But, come on, Charlotte, why wouldn’t you say yes?”
Images flash before Charlotte’s eyes. Jason, his barely perceptible goodbye mumbled as he races out the door in the morning in a way that feels like an escape. Birdie, hysterical, essentially screaming that she’s a terrible mother. Jason, laughing with Jamie on the street in a way that Charlotte can’t remember him doing with her in years. She looks up and finds Wendy staring at her.
“This is the thing that people work their whole lives for,” Wendy says, holding up her champagne. “You’ve earned this, Charlotte. It’s the brass ring. Take it.”
Charlotte inhales deeply and snatches her own glass from the table. “Okay,” she says, tossing back the glass as Wendy yelps. She closes her eyes, feeling a tingling in her nose like she might cry, and she wills the tears to stay back. When she looks at Wendy, she tries to match the excitement in her expression, but she feels out of body, like she’s some other person looking down at herself, asking what the hell she is doing. She looks again at the figure on the page, and wonders if it is enough, if anything could be.
Back in her office, Charlotte’s not sure what to do with herself. She fingers the leaves of the peace lily on her desk and checks whether it needs water. When her eyes catch on the photo of her and Jason and Birdie at the beach a few summers ago, he in the center, his arms around the two of them, she turns it over, then picks it up and shoves it into her bottom desk drawer, slamming it closed, shaking with anger.
She turns to the window, watching the students pass below, envying how easy their lives look from this vantage point, how small their problems seem.
She needs to get it together. She needs to stop circling the drain with this misery, stop living every day like a martyr, “shift her focus,” “see her own possibilities,” she thinks. She needs to start following her own advice. What could I do right now? she asks herself. What’s the one thing that could make me feel better in this instant? She sits, swiveling back and forth in her chair, a thought occurring to her. She shouldn’t, she knows she shouldn’t, but like going back into the kitchen for another glass of wine after everyone’s in bed, it’s exactly what she wants.
She finds her wallet in her bag, pulling out the card from the slot behind her driver’s license. Emailing would feel safer, she knows, but she picks up her phone anyway, tapping in the numbers before she can talk herself out of it. It rings, twice and then a third time, and she considers hanging up, but then a voice comes on the line.
“Hello?”
“Oh!” she says, startled. “Hi, it’s—”
“Charlotte?” Reese says, sounding confused.
“Yes,” she says, her face on fire. “I didn’t think I’d get you in the middle of the workday.”
He laughs. “So you called hoping not to get me, or . . . ?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know exactly,” she says. “You’re not in surgery?”
“Nope,” he says. “Not today. Cleared my calendar for the afternoon.”
“Well, that sounds nice,” she says.
“Mmm,” he says, doubt in his voice. “I actually just left my lawyer’s office. Trust me when I tell you that I would rather be on an operating table than going through divorce proceedings.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says, the word he just used—divorce—reverberating.
“Nothing for you to be sorry about, it’s not your fault.” He laughs. “Though apparently it’s one hundred percent mine.”
“So it’s not amicable?”
“That’s not the word I would use.”
“What happened?” she says, realizing how forward the question is only once it’s out of her mouth. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, no,” he says. “I’m surprised you don’t already know, given how word spreads in our fair city. She cheated on me.”
“Oh, Reese,” she says, her face going hot, thinking of the parallel to her day. If she’d learned this a few weeks ago, before she saw him, or any day other than today, she’d probably feel some sort of vindication, but now . . .
“With our next-door neighbor, of all people,” he says. “He’s a pilot who moved up from Jacksonville. Thought he was a good friend, but . . .” He sighs. “It’s probably karma for what I did all of those years ago.”
A jolt runs through her body.
“You know I still hate myself for doing that to you,” he says.
“No, Reese, no,” she says, swallowing. “It’s—”
The silence hangs between them. She doesn’t want to say it’s okay, because it’
s not. “It was a long time ago,” she finally says.
“You’re too forgiving,” he answers.
She starts to say something about how the research shows that forgiveness is one of the best routes to contentment, but then she stops herself. He doesn’t need to hear her shoptalk.
“So what’s happening with you?” he says. “How are you? Where are you?”
“Oh,” she says. “I’m at work.”
“The famous Dr. McGanley,” he says. “Is there a little plaque on your door?”
“Well.” She laughs. “Yes.”
“And do your students all call you Dr. McGanley?”
“They do.” She laughs again. “And some of my colleagues, occasionally. But yours do, too. I don’t know why you’re making fun.”
He chuckles. “I’m not making fun,” he says. “I’m just happy for you, doing exactly what you set out to do.”
“More or less,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I second-guess myself.”
“I do, too,” he says. He lowers his voice. “Even sometimes in the middle of surgery, but don’t tell that to my patients.”
“Reese!” She laughs, and it feels good, especially because it feels familiar. They could be sitting on the dock behind her parents’ house right now, shooting the shit like they did for so many years. She realizes how much better she feels after just a few minutes of talking with him, and remembers how it was so often like this between them, the world shrunk down to its simplest, and its best.
“But you’re so good at what you do,” he says.
“It’s changed,” she says. “I feel a little blindsided by it . . . and I worry about what it’s doing to the rest of my life.”
“Really?” he says.
“Yes,” she says. “Sometimes I just wish I could escape. Chuck it all. Run away.”
“But I bet you’ll look back years from now and be so happy about everything you accomplished.”
“I don’t know,” she says, her mind drifting to Birdie, who’s probably on her way to practice now.
“Maybe you just need a vacation?” he says.
She laughs. “I won’t get one anytime soon. I actually just agreed to write a second book.”
“What?” he says. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!”
“Thanks,” she says, wondering what Jason’s reaction will be.
“Charlotte, seriously,” he says. “That’s fantastic news. You need to celebrate.”
“It’s really not that big—”
“It’s a huge deal,” he says. “Come on. You’ve always sold yourself short. Don’t be so damn modest. Charlotte, you’re amazing,” he says. “Don’t you know that?”
Tears suddenly come to her eyes again. It’s been so long since anyone who mattered said something like this to her. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to stop the tears.
“You really, really are,” he says. “I’m so proud of you. If I were there, I’d take you out for champagne.”
“I’d love that,” she says, but the moment the words are out of her mouth, she realizes how wrong this is. She thinks of Jason, of Birdie. This feels too dangerous, too good.
“I should go,” she says.
“I’m glad you called,” he says. “It totally turned my day around.”
She closes her eyes, not wanting to say it. “Mine, too.”
Ten
SOS! SOS!
Amanda’s text arrives just as Charlotte’s pulling into the parking lot of the high school. She’d decided to blow off the rest of the day and leave work early to watch Birdie’s practice, hoping the gesture might smooth things between them.
What is it? she types, scanning the groups of students milling between the parking lot and the practice fields. School’s been out for over an hour, but with all of the activities that these kids have these days, few of them will be home before dinnertime.
A warning that your mother came by an hour ago and mentioned the idea of us walking that horrendous dog of hers down the aisle at her and E’s vow renewal.
Oh, Jesus, Charlotte types. And are we walking down an aisle?? Does she think this is a royal wedding?
She also wants us to all give toasts.
No! I already weaseled my way out of helping her write her vows.
Says she will call you about it in the am to discuss.
God help us all.
Charlotte starts to get out of the car, then hesitates, deciding to check Instagram quickly. Right before she left the office, she’d posted a photo of the cherry blossoms, a caption about noticing the little things because they are so fleeting. Almost 16,000 likes. She taps over to her profile page and checks her follower count. Almost 94,000. Another book might double it, she thinks, and then she thinks again about the money, recalling those studies that occasionally pop up in her psych journals about it—the misery of lottery winners, the correlation between income and happiness. There’s a sweet spot, around $100,000, she thinks she remembers, past which people just become more miserable as their incomes grow. And then she thinks of Jason. And Jamie. Would he be happier with her? Is he already?
She walks across the grassy swath that separates the parking lot from the tennis courts, and has a momentary panic that Birdie won’t be there. But then she hears the familiar thwack of Birdie’s racket against the ball, and sees her daughter racing across the court, her arm slicing through the air. The sight itself is a comfort to Charlotte, because this—the grace, the strength, the speed—this is her Birdie.
She barely knows the other parents from the team, but she smiles at them as she climbs the metal bleachers, nodding hello. A woman in a green Masters Tournament baseball cap turns to her from her spot two rows beneath. “She’s yours, right?” she says, pointing at the court, where Birdie is getting ready to serve.
“Yes,” Charlotte says, slipping her feet out of her flats and resting them on the warm metal of the step in front of her. She wishes she was dressed like this woman is, in exercise shorts and a tank top, the unmistakable sheen from sunscreen on her skin. She looks like summer vacation.
“She’s only a freshman, right?”
Charlotte nods.
“Wow,” the woman says, though the expression on her face shows no enthusiasm. She turns away and raises her eyebrows at the woman sitting next to her, who hasn’t bothered to greet Charlotte. She immediately wonders if they’re the mothers of the upperclassmen on the team who are giving Birdie a hard time.
They watch Birdie’s serve zoom over the net, the player across the court just missing the return, and the other woman leans back. “How long has she played?”
“Oh,” Charlotte says. “Forever. Since she was a toddler.”
The woman’s eyebrows shoot up. Charlotte knows what she’s thinking, that she and Jason pushed Birdie into it, that they made this Birdie’s sport. She turns back around to the court, whispers something in the other mother’s ear. Charlotte laces her hands together, squeezing.
“How old is she?” asks Green Masters Cap, leaning back again.
“Fourteen,” Charlotte says.
“Did you play?”
“No,” Charlotte says, happy for this question. “My husband either. We had nothing to do with this.”
“Mm,” the woman says, clearly not buying it.
“She used to sit in front of the TV for hours watching matches, and not just the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, but the Australian Open, the French Open, random regional matches on the Tennis Channel.”
She wishes she could go on and on, but she doesn’t want to seem defensive. She could tell them about the walls of Birdie’s bedroom, plastered with so many Serena posters that Jason joked that it looked like a stalker’s bedroom in a horror movie. Or about how, in fourth grade, while her friends wrote book reports on Harry Potter, Birdie wrote about Open, Andre Agassi’s autobiography, a book she read so many times that the spine broke.
Another mom farther down the bl
eachers turns around. “You’re that happiness person, right?” she says, her hands above her eyes to shield the sun.
Charlotte smiles. “Yes,” she says. “I am.”
All three women now appraise her, and she waits for one to say something but they don’t. What is this about? Eventually they turn around, and she shakes the encounter away, turning her focus to Birdie.
Birdie bounces a ball on the court, preparing to serve again, and then hits it with such force that a dad on the far end of the bleachers gasps. The ball zooms past the tall, pale redhead on the other end of the court, so fast that the girl whirls around, twirling like a pinwheel. Charlotte scans the reaction of the other girls on the court, and sees a couple whisper to each other, watching Birdie all the while. It could be nothing, or it could not be, she thinks, eyeing the women who just spoke to her, waiting to see if they’ll say something.
Birdie hasn’t seemed to notice her mother there or is pretending not to, but after a few minutes, while she’s grabbing a ball out of the basket on the edge of the court and tucking it into her skirt, she looks over to scan the stands. Charlotte gives her a little wave, not wanting to embarrass her, and Birdie lifts her hand like she’s about to wave back, but then something catches her eye. When Charlotte follows her gaze, she sees it: Tucker.
He’s approaching the bleachers. He sits on the bottom row and watches Birdie for a minute, chin in his hand, then turns to his phone. Before long he’s laughing, God knows at what. What do fifteen-year-old boys laugh at on their phones? Fart jokes? Girl jokes? Porn memes? Put your phone down, Tucker, and watch her play, she thinks. He doesn’t deserve her.
Birdie, meanwhile, keeps looking over at him, smiling a little, in stark contrast to the way she looks at Charlotte lately. Coach Noah notices that she’s distracted and calls to her, looking exasperated, whispering something in her ear that apparently does the trick because seconds later, the focus is back on her face and in her shots. Even at practice, and with her mind somewhere else, it’s evident that she can outplay anyone on this team.
Perfect Happiness Page 15
