Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  “And did that affect you?”

  Charlotte gasps out a laugh. “I’m sure. I was sort of the peacekeeper.”

  “I can see that. Keeping everyone happy?” Valeria raises an eyebrow.

  “I guess so.”

  “Well . . .” Valeria says, holding up the book. “Thanks for this.”

  “Of course. See you in class next week.”

  Charlotte sits down at her desk, hearing the door click shut, and thinks again about her father, the counterweight to her mother’s mercurial rage, always making a joke to tamp down the tension her mother filled the room with just by her presence.

  She jiggles her computer mouse, looking up at her monitor as it springs to life out of sleep mode, and feels an instant wave of shame. During her lunch break today, she’d been putting the final touches on her Montana speech, suddenly just two days away, when she found her mind drifting, and typed Jamie’s name into her search bar.

  As the results popped up, she instantly felt awful about it, because seventy-five percent of them were links to local news articles and announcements about her husband’s fatal accident. But there was one particular picture, on the second page of hits, from a press release that ran eight years ago about Lucy the orangutan. In the photo, Jason and Jamie stand on either side of her, each with one palm faced up, Lucy between them with her hands resting on theirs. It’s a silly picture, one that Jason probably complained about at the time. He hates anything that smacks of humanizing animals—raincoats on dogs, cats in strollers—and in this photo, the three of them look very much like a weird little family. Charlotte leans forward, examining it, looking for some clue she could have missed if she saw this back when it was taken, and then she hears her phone buzzing in her bag. Jason, she thinks, but when she looks down, she sees a 912 area code. And she feels a flutter in her stomach that she knows she shouldn’t.

  How’s your day?

  She holds the phone in her hands. Perhaps she shouldn’t answer the text at all, she thinks, realizing the hypocrisy of it given her accusation to Jason last night, but then she looks up at the screen, seeing Jamie’s smile, and she thinks about her hand on Jason, how he rushed into work last night . . .

  Just finished teaching. It’s a totally innocent response. Totally innocuous. Then, unable to help herself, she adds: And you?

  Two nose job consults, breast reconstruction surgery prep, calf implant follow-up.

  She can’t help herself. She hits the call button. He’s laughing before she says anything.

  “Did you say calf implant?” she says.

  “Well, calves, technically,” he says.

  “What exactly do you implant? Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “All in a day’s work,” he says. “Aren’t you impressed?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, laughing. “I’m not sure.” Her eyes drift to the monitor, where Jason and Jamie stare back at her. She reaches for her mouse and closes out of the browser. “So,” she says.

  “So,” he echoes.

  “Are you still at the office?” she asks, leaning back in her chair, and kicking off her shoes under the desk.

  “Just leaving,” he says.

  “What does it look like?”

  “My office?”

  “Yeah,” she says, stretching her arms over her head. “I’m picturing all dreamy blues, gorgeous supermodel assistants walking around in white lab coats.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says. “It’s just like that.”

  She laughs, feeling relaxed for the first time all day.

  “How about you?” he says. “Still at work?”

  “Trying to leave,” she says. “But I have to talk to my department head first and I don’t really want to so I’m stalling.”

  “Oh yeah?” he says. “Why’s that?”

  “I need to break the news about the new book.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Won’t he be happy for you?”

  “She will not be pleased.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “Why not? I don’t understand why she wouldn’t be.”

  “She doesn’t like anything that has to do with me, but that’s another story for another time.”

  “Mm,” he says. “Sounds like fun.”

  “And what do you have planned for the rest of the night?”

  “Well,” he says. “I’m headed over to my mother’s house.”

  “For dinner?” she says, remembering his mother, whom she ran into years ago when she was home for the holidays. Birdie was just a toddler, and Reese’s mom leaned down and cooed at her in her stroller, albeit in her polite, reserved way.

  “I’m actually staying there now. Just for a little while. The ex is still in our house.”

  “She cheated on you and you were the one who had to clear out?” Charlotte says, remembering how, last night, when she went to bed, Jason still not back from the zoo, she imagined what it would be like if the room was always just hers.

  “I was,” he says. “Stupid, I know, but she’s supposed to be out next week. I might just put it on the market. Too many memories.”

  “That makes sense,” she says, weighing whether to ask the question she really wants to. “How did you know?” she finally asks.

  He groans. “To be honest, I wasn’t that surprised,” he says.

  “You weren’t?”

  “I guess I always sort of knew it wasn’t exactly right, between me and her,” he says. “I hoped it would become right.”

  “I understand,” she says, though with Jason it felt right at first. The cracks began to show later, with age.

  “I also noticed when we were with our neighbor. She always seemed to be having more fun with him than with me. Laughing louder, smiling bigger, that sort of thing.”

  “Right,” she says.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Oh,” she says. “No reason. I’m, uh . . .” She pauses. “Asking for a friend.”

  “Oh, really?” he says, the concern in his voice unmistakable. “A friend?”

  “Yup,” she says, taking a deep breath.

  A beat of silence passes between them, and then another.

  “Huh,” he says.

  “Yeah,” she says. “I thought we were just having growing pains. Typical, married-for-a-while stuff, lots of changes with my job. I’m not sure, but . . . It could all be my imagination, honestly.”

  “Wow,” he says. “Wouldn’t that be . . . Are you worried about . . .”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Well, if you ever need to talk . . . Not that I’m the person you’d probably want to talk to, but, anyway. I’m here.”

  “Thanks,” she says, feeling uneasy as she recalls the days after she found out about his cheating, how Amanda practically had to drag her out of bed.

  “It was good to hear your voice, Charlotte.”

  “Yeah,” she says, rapping her fingers on her desk. She’s let things get too comfortable, too fast. “I should go,” she says.

  “Okay,” he starts, but she hangs up before she hears him say goodbye. She stands at her desk, and then she pulls up the image again, Jason and Jamie, just one last time before she leaves.

  She’s halfway down the hall to Tabatha’s office when she hears her phone buzzing again. She fishes it out of her bag to turn it off and sees a text from Jason: When will you be home?

  Soon, she types back, walking slowly down the hallway. Just have to chat with Tabatha quick. Birdie win?

  Yes, played great, he writes back. Was easy for her. But need to talk to you about something.

  OK, she types. She stiffens, locking her knees. Oh, God. It suddenly occurs to her: Could their confrontation last night have precipitated something? Is he going to confess? She hears Tabatha shuffling around in her office. Her doorway is just a few feet away. Wait till I’m home? she types. Need to catch her.

  She glances toward the open doorway, wondering whether she should just leave. I
t seems crazy, that she would just yesterday have this Jason/Jamie thing pop in her head, and now . . . No, she thinks. He said it was nothing. It’s Jason, for God’s sake. It must be something with Birdie, or some other—

  “Hello?” she hears Tabatha bark from inside her office. “Charlotte, is that you?”

  “Yes,” she says, peeking her head into the dimly lit space.

  “What are you doing lurking around out there?” Tabatha says, her chin hunched into her shoulders.

  “I was just finishing—”

  “Never mind,” she says, holding out her hand. “Just give me five, okay? Need to—” She taps her pen to the papers in front of her. “Give me five minutes.”

  Charlotte dips into the hallway and leans against the wall. She looks down at her phone and sees the text notifications from the unfamiliar number she ignored earlier. She taps on it, then freezes. It is not, as she’d assumed, an auto-message from a local business who values her patronage.

  THIS IS DAYNA CUNNINGHAM, it reads in all caps. I AM VERY CONCERNED! TUCKER JUST TOLD ME ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED AT TENNIS!

  Charlotte’s hand flies to her chest. What happened? Is this what Jason wanted to talk about? She thinks of what Birdie said about the upperclassmen on the team picking on her. Did something happen at the match?

  I’m sorry, she types back. I’m at work.

  She bites her lip, trying to figure out what else to say. She doesn’t want to appear like she’s in the dark if something happened today, but she remembers Jason saying Birdie played great. She shakes her head, frustrated with herself. Fill me in, she types, then waits as the three dots flash across her screen.

  HE SAYS HE SAW U AT PRACTICE. I CANT BELIEVE U R PRETENDING U DONT REMEMBER!

  Ohhhh. Charlotte blinks. Fuck.

  HE SAYS YOU THREATINED HIM! YOU ARE LUCKY I HAVENT CALLED THE SCHOOL! IF YOU THREATIN MY SON I WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE HELL!

  Oh, God, Charlotte thinks. She taps her foot against the nubby industrial carpet, trying to remember exactly what she said to Tucker.

  I promise you, Dayna. I didn’t threaten him, she types, then pauses, deletes a word and writes it again in all caps—THREATEN. Sure, it’s petty, passive-aggressively pointing out her misspelling, but fuck her. Charlotte glances toward Tabatha’s office. What she would give for a nip from the bottle of whiskey she knows Tabatha keeps in her desk. I was going to reach out to you, she types. The kids skipped practice and hung out at your house the other day. Did Tucker tell you that? When I saw him, I simply explained that that was unacceptable for Jason and me. Nothing threatening in the least. I just don’t want my daughter alone at your house w/out adults. Sure you understand.

  “Charlotte?” Tabatha calls from her office.

  Please call me if you need to discuss further. She hits send and puts the phone in her bag.

  Charlotte is not the first person in the department to publish a bestselling book. Her colleague Juan has had a book on the Wall Street Journal’s list for over a year now about cynicism in modern culture, something he still talks about on cable news on a regular basis. But Charlotte is the department’s cash cow. She reminds herself of this as she sits down, placing her bag carefully beside her chair.

  Tabatha is leaning over the paperwork in front of her on her desk. “What can I help you with?” she says, pushing the end of her ballpoint pen and depositing it in the silver cup next to her monitor.

  It’s such a Tabatha thing to say, Charlotte thinks. Of course, she assumes that Charlotte needs something from her. “I’ve had something come up,” she says, deciding to just rip off the Band-Aid. “My publisher has offered me another book deal.”

  “Really?” Tabatha says in a disbelieving way, as if she hasn’t closely followed Charlotte’s success.

  Charlotte nods, her heart racing beneath her white button-down. “It’s another happiness book—”

  “Obviously,” Tabatha interrupts, retrieving her pen and clicking the top a few times. She does this during department meetings, too, and Charlotte wonders if it’s truly a tic or something she does on purpose, just to irritate the people around her.

  “But it’s a happiness book for families,” she says.

  Tabatha’s eyebrows shoot up. Charlotte doesn’t have to guess what she’s thinking, that the family subject is soft, silly. She has three grown children herself, and her husband has been a producer on the political desk at NPR for several decades now, but Charlotte can only assume she approached raising children with the same dull sobriety she exudes in the halls of their department. She never talks about her kids, and none of them have ever been to the office to visit. It’s obvious that she was never a rolling-around-on-the-floor-laughing kind of mother.

  “The manuscript is due later this year so I’ll do the bulk of the writing while school’s out this summer,” she says, hearing her voice rise, thinking to herself that she sounds like Minnie Mouse. She clears her throat. “I don’t suspect this will affect my course load next term—”

  “You don’t suspect?” Tabatha interrupts again.

  “No,” Charlotte says more forcefully. “I don’t. Though because I don’t know the book’s publication date just yet, I can’t be entirely firm on when I might need to travel for a book tour or speaking engagements related to the release. But that’s a ways off.”

  Tabatha taps her pen against the papers on her desk, which look like the draft of an academic paper, a journal article that she and/or one of her students must be submitting somewhere. Her one saving grace in Charlotte’s eyes is that she appears to be a very good teacher. The only time Charlotte ever hears a trace of enthusiasm in her voice is when she’s talking to one of her advisees.

  Charlotte shifts in her seat, noticing out the window behind Tabatha’s desk that dusk is just beginning to fall.

  “Let me ask you something,” Tabatha finally says, leaning across the desk toward Charlotte, a move that can only be meant to intimidate her, which it does. “Do you want to be a college professor, an academic psychology expert at one of the best universities on the East Coast, or do you want to write . . . these books?” she says, the distaste so clear that Charlotte may as well have told her that she is leaving Georgetown to write for a tabloid. “Because it’s not clear to me.”

  The pen clicks in the heavy silence, the sound like Charlotte’s ratcheting anger. She has given her entire life to her work over the past couple of years. She thinks of Birdie, screaming at her just a week ago about never being around, of Jason, who so clearly resents what she needs to do for her job. How dare Tabatha suggest that she isn’t committed?

  “I got tenure over a decade ago,” Charlotte says, fighting to keep her voice even. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’m certainly not going to apologize for my success, which has done a lot for this university and for this department in particular.”

  Tabatha smiles at her in a bored way, like she’s being forced to sit through a children’s dance recital.

  “By telling you about the book I was simply doing you a courtesy,” Charlotte says, her heart banging in her chest. “Any other department head might be thrilled at the prospect of more attention. Oh—and before you ask, a reminder that I’m out for the rest of the week because I’m heading to Montana. The Grey Browning symposium.”

  “Why?” Tabatha asks, taking a sip from her NPR travel mug.

  “Why what?” Charlotte begins. “Why was I invited to the symposium?”

  “No, no.” Tabatha grins, like Charlotte’s confusion amuses her. “Why do you do it? This work? Why do you run yourself around, like a little . . .” Her voice trails off, and she wiggles her two fingers, making them running legs. “Your class is the most popular course in Georgetown’s history. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  Charlotte’s mouth falls open. She’s caught off guard. “I . . .”

  “Oh, wait,” Tabatha says, pointing a finger toward the sky. “The money! That must be it. You must like the money.”

  “No, no!” Charlotte says.
“That’s—I do it because—” Her mind races, her face flushing as her boss studies her. Why? she thinks. Why do I . . .

  “And the attention,” Tabatha says, scooching forward in her chair, her hands on the armrests. “You seem like the type who needs that,” she says, almost as if she’s saying it to herself.

  “Tabatha, I—” Charlotte begins. “I don’t know what to say. I’m appalled that you—”

  “Is there anything else you really need to say, Charlotte?” Tabatha says, smiling at her in the dim yellow glow of her lamp.

  Charlotte stares back at her, feeling utterly stuck, because there are a lot of things she’d like to say, but can’t.

  “It’s getting late,” Tabatha says. “You should go home to your family.”

  Charlotte stands, practically shaking from their interaction. “As should you,” she says. She begins to walk out but then she pauses and turns back. “You’re lucky to have me,” she says. “You know that, right?”

  “Oh, sure,” Tabatha says, her eyes not leaving her papers. Charlotte stands there for a moment, waiting, as if she could expect some other outcome, and then she turns to go.

  Thirteen

  Charlotte should go right home, but slamming the car door and turning on the ignition, she remembers that the only wine left in the house is a dusty bottle of a horrid-looking riesling that Jason’s aunt brought them months ago.

  She stops at the local wine store that is conveniently on the way home, picking up two bottles, and when she finally walks in the door, she finds Jason and Birdie sitting side by side at the kitchen counter, both of them picking at the quesadillas Jason’s made.

  “What’s going on?” she says, fishing the wine opener out of the drawer. Birdie’s expression is hard to read. She’s upset, it’s clear, but is she angry? Feeling guilty?

  “What happened?” she says. “I heard you played great, Bird. I wish I’d been there to see it.” Is she mad I wasn’t there? she thinks.

  Jason opens his mouth and closes it, his eyes sliding toward Birdie, and Charlotte realizes that the expression on his face isn’t anger. He looks worried, fearful even.