Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  “What is it?” she says, walking around the counter and kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “Tell me.” She squeezes her shoulder but Birdie wiggles away.

  “Birdie and I talked on the way home from tennis about this, but . . . We need to . . .” He stammers like he can’t find his words. “Birdie, why don’t you fill your mother in?” He flips a palm toward the ceiling, inviting her to speak, and Birdie frowns, hunching into herself.

  “It’s really not a big deal!” she exclaims, looking down at her lap. “I don’t know why you’re making a thing out of it!”

  “Well, it is a big deal, Birdie,” Jason says, his voice measured. “It’s a very big deal.”

  “Whoa, whoa!” Charlotte says, looking back and forth between the two of them as she fills her glass. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

  Jason fiddles with a triangle of quesadilla on his plate, then finally speaks. “I was looking for Birdie’s tennis jersey in her room before her match and I found that,” he says, nodding toward something on top of the pile of mail on the counter.

  Charlotte picks up the pamphlet, and she only needs to read the heading before it all becomes clear. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. A dizzying shiver runs up and down her body, from her head to her toes. Her Birdie? Having sex? If Dayna thinks she was threatening Tucker before, she hasn’t seen anything yet.

  “You’re only fourteen,” she says, dropping the pamphlet on the counter. “You’re fourteen, Birdie.” She had assumed the worst of Tucker, but she hadn’t expected this. Kissing, yes. Second-base stuff, maybe. But this? No. How? “I don’t understand,” she says. She lifts her glass, downing at least half of it, and stares at her daughter, thinking that this is one of those do-or-die moments in parenting that she must get right. Okay, she thinks, steadying herself. Information is power. This is a good thing. She’s educating herself. It doesn’t mean she’s actually doing anything. “Birdie, where did you get this?” she asks, trying to inject some gentleness into her voice despite her alarm. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

  She looks at Jason, who seems as morose as Birdie does. She wishes he would chime in and help her, but he just sits there, clenching his jaw.

  She turns back to Birdie. “Are you . . . having sex?” she asks. “Or are you . . . thinking about it? Are your friends?” She remembers a Dateline report she saw a few years ago, about the horrid game that teenagers play at parties now, an amped-up version of spin the bottle involving blow jobs and—She shakes away the thought.

  Birdie bends forward, holding her balled fists to her eyes, and Charlotte realizes how mortifying this must be. “I haven’t done anything,” Birdie says, head still bowed, eyes firmly on her lap. “I just . . . I got it at school, in the counselor’s office. I thought I was being smart. I thought I was doing the right thing, thinking things through, getting information, the way you’ve always told me to.”

  Charlotte looks at Jason and exhales a heavy sigh. He rubs his hands up and down over his face like he’s just woken up. Birdie’s shoulders start to shake. “Oh, honey,” Charlotte says, racing to wrap her arms around her daughter. Jason leaps up to retrieve the box of tissues from across the room. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Charlotte says, shushing her. “You did exactly the right thing.” She takes Birdie’s hands, feeling the ever-present calluses on her palms, from gripping her racket. “You absolutely did the right thing, getting information from the counselor, but is this something you really need to worry about right now? You’re just getting used to high school, honey. You’re so young. You have all the time in the world.”

  “Mom, I don’t . . .” Birdie huffs hard, sighing through her teeth, and squeezes her eyes shut.

  “We just want to help you,” Jason says, putting a hand on Birdie’s back. This must be so hard for him, Charlotte thinks, and she reaches and squeezes his shoulder. He looks at her, his mouth turning up in a reluctant half-smile, acknowledging the gesture.

  “Bird?” Charlotte says. “How can we help?”

  Birdie shakes her head, the same exasperated expression on her face that she makes when things aren’t going right on the tennis court. “I’m not actually doing anything!” she suddenly shrieks. “I don’t actually intend to do anything!”

  Charlotte looks at Jason, the surprise on his face matching her own.

  “Okay, well . . . that’s good, honey,” Charlotte says tentatively. “But then . . .”

  “Is he pressuring you?” Jason says.

  “Dad!” Birdie throws her crumpled napkin onto her plate.

  “Because if he’s pressuring you—” Charlotte puts her hand on Birdie’s shoulder but her daughter jerks away from her and stands.

  “I don’t . . . No!”

  “Then . . . If it’s not about Tucker . . .” Charlotte starts. “Is it . . .” She can’t bear to think it. “Another boy? Is there someone else?”

  “Oh my God!” Birdie yells and starts out of the room.

  “Birdie!” Jason says. “Honey, talk to us!”

  She spins around. “It’s nothing, okay? Just trust me! I just got it from the counselor! That’s it!”

  “We just want to help,” Charlotte says, feeling helpless.

  “We just want to understand,” says Jason, taking a step forward.

  Birdie could nod, understanding, assure them that she’s fine and that everything’s okay. But she turns, running up the stairs to her room once again. Her door slams.

  Charlotte looks at Jason, the defeat in his eyes matching her own.

  “I don’t . . .” She takes a step toward him but he turns away, his hand over his mouth.

  “Jason,” she says, putting a hand on his back. “What do we do now?”

  He turns to her. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

  She should answer emails, take a bath, pull out her neglected yoga mat and do some stretches, anything else, but she refills her wineglass instead. Jason retreats to the backyard, watering plants, making himself busy. She goes upstairs and knocks on Birdie’s door but Birdie says she doesn’t want to talk. She promises she’s fine, it’s “just awkward.”

  She starts to call Stephanie, to ask her what she thinks, but there’s a part of her that’s afraid to, because what if Hannah isn’t talking about any of this yet? What if it’s just her daughter? Birdie’s the first one with a boyfriend, after all. She decides against it—to respect Birdie’s privacy, she tells herself. She looks out the window at Jason.

  She’d always told herself that she would be the kind of mother who would be open and talk these things through with her kid, ensuring that her child would never have to weather these things alone. Easier said than done, she thinks, remembering a morning, years and years ago, sitting in the pediatrician’s office when Birdie was a newborn in her carrier, and confessing to the older mother next to her that she was nervous that Birdie was going to need to eat soon and would have a meltdown, disturbing everyone around them. The woman leaned toward her. “Little kids, little problems,” she said. “Big kids, big problems.” It had felt like a comfort and a warning all at once, and now, in what feels like the blink of an eye, here they are.

  When Jason finally comes inside, his hairline wet and spiky with sweat, she’s pouring her third glass. She is losing the day’s edges, finally, like somebody is rubbing their palms along her skin, smoothing out the nervous energy on the surface.

  “Did you talk to her?” he says, washing his hands. She sees speckles of dirt along his forearms.

  She shakes her head. “I tried but she doesn’t want to talk.” She takes a sip of her wine. Her last glass, she tells herself, and looks at Jason, relieved he hasn’t said anything about it yet.

  “How was your meeting?” he says.

  “What?”

  “With Tabatha. You said you were talking to Tabatha before you left?”

  “Oh,” she says, leaning against the counter. “That.”

  “What?” he says.

  She takes a de
ep breath and looks at him. Now or never. “I have some news actually.”

  “Oh?” he says. “Good news, I hope?”

  “Well,” Charlotte says, scratching the back of her head. “That depends.”

  “Depends?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “It looks like I’m writing another book.”

  “Another book,” he says, in a way that feels a little bit like a question.

  She nods and takes a sip of her wine. It tastes too syrupy now, with the faintest musky scent, but she doesn’t care. “Yes,” she says. “You know they’ve been on me for a while to do a follow-up.”

  He dips his head and runs his thumb against his brow. “Do you really want to write it?”

  “I don’t think it’s something we can say no to,” she says. “Wendy was here. That’s who I was having lunch with, when I—” She pauses. “In Georgetown.”

  He looks away.

  She sucks in her lips. “They’re offering me $750,000.”

  He pitches forward a little bit, the number registering. “Seriously?”

  She nods.

  “Oh.” He lets the news settle over him. “Wow.” And then: “Congratulations.” The way he says it sounds like he’s somehow on the other side of her good fortune, the one losing out, the runner-up.

  “Well, it’s not just . . . It’s for all of us, Jason. It’s not just my thing. And—” She takes a deep breath. “They came to me with the idea. It’s a follow-up but focused on family. Perfect Happiness: Family.” She takes another drink.

  “Oh,” he says again, and she notices his eyes trailing her glass as she puts it down. “Will you—”

  “I assume they’ll want me to write about us, yes,” she says, biting her lip.

  “Right.”

  She twirls the stem of her glass, watching it skitter against the counter. “Jason,” she starts. “I don’t . . .” She looks at him. Is this when he confesses? “What’s going on with us?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know how we got here.”

  “I don’t either,” she says. “I thought it was just a rut at first.”

  “Me, too,” he says.

  “But it seems like—”

  “We just can’t connect,” he finishes for her.

  She thinks again of him laughing with Jamie, and about what Reese said on the phone earlier about his wife, and how it always seemed like she was having more fun with the other guy. “Do you want to try to make things work?” she asks, bracing herself for his answer.

  He looks at her like the question surprises him. “Of course I do,” he says. “I’m the one who suggested counseling not that long ago.”

  “Right,” she says, remembering that night.

  “I want you back,” he says.

  “You have me, though, Jason,” she says, tearing up, the unexpected words hitting her like a strong gust of wind. “I’m right here.”

  “No,” he says. “No, things have been different ever since—”

  “My work,” she finishes for him, swiping a tear from her face.

  He nods. “You seem like two different people, Charlotte,” he says. “The one at home and the one giving the speeches, posting the shiny happy stuff on Instagram.”

  She knows he’s right, but it stings to hear him say it, and realize how obvious it is. “It’s just a lot of pressure,” she says and picks up her glass again.

  “How much have you had to drink tonight?” he says.

  She puts it down, the stem clattering against the counter. “Jason.”

  “It can’t be helping,” he says.

  “Every woman I know has a glass of wine at night.”

  “A glass.”

  “Oh, come on!” she says. “Why are you . . . Don’t you see all of the jokes online? The wine memes and stupid T-shirts? Wine o’clock and whatever? I’m hardly alone on this.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, trust me.”

  “Fine,” he says.

  “Jason, everyone drinks. It’s not like I’m shooting heroin.”

  He stares back at her.

  “I’m doing my best,” she says, trying to hold back more tears. “You know that, right?”

  “I do actually. I know you are. But we’re both miserable, and to what end? I just don’t know how you think you’re going to do this. Don’t we have enough to deal with?”

  “I don’t know, either.” She wipes a tear from her cheek and looks at the clock. It’s only eight but she is so, so tired. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Does it matter?” he says.

  “Jason . . .”

  “None of this has been good for you,” he says. “Or for us.”

  “It’s been good for our bank account, hasn’t it?”

  “Oh, come on.” He slaps the counter and turns away.

  “Well, hasn’t it, Jason?”

  He whips back around, suddenly angry. “And at what expense?”

  “That’s easy for you to say!” she says, her voice rising. “While I’m off busting my ass, running a million miles an hour to be successful for our family, and you just get to sit back and reap the rewards.”

  “Is that you or your mother talking?” he says, wincing out the words.

  He’s right. She knows he’s right. But they also both know that invoking her mother is about as low as it gets. They stand there, facing off, both of them too stubborn to give in.

  “Just think this through, Charlotte,” he finally says. “Make sure it’s worth it. Make sure you can do it.”

  “Of course I can do it,” she says.

  “If the past couple of years are any indication, no. I don’t want more of that.”

  “It will more than pay for college, Jason,” she says, trying to be logical. “And if Birdie gets a full ride because of tennis, even better. Imagine what kind of shape we’ll be in, heading into retirement.” She realizes the irony of her words the second they’re out of her mouth.

  “I can only imagine,” he says. “The shape we’ll be in.”

  She eyes her wineglass, which is almost empty now. “Jason, it’s not an either-or. It’s not either I write the book or our family stays together. There are gray areas, there are options.”

  “What’s going on?” Birdie says, suddenly appearing behind them in the doorway. “Are you guys fighting?”

  “No,” they both say, nearly simultaneously.

  “We’re not fighting,” Jason says.

  Birdie continues into the kitchen. She goes to the refrigerator to fill her water glass. “I can get that for you, honey,” Charlotte says, moving past Jason. “Let me.” The words in her mouth feel suddenly jumbled. She’s slurring a little, she realizes. Just a little, she thinks. Not enough for anyone to notice.

  “Oh,” Birdie says, moving aside. “Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

  Charlotte hands her the glass.

  “Mom,” Birdie says, confused.

  “What? Oh!” she realizes. “Oh my God.” She laughs it off, taking the wineglass from Birdie’s hands. “I gave you my. . . .” She hurries for the water glass she’s just poured, refusing to look anywhere in Jason’s direction.

  “Are you okay?” she says to Birdie, running her hand along her back. “About earlier?”

  “Uh-huh,” Birdie says, pulling away from her. “I was just reading for school, and I heard you guys talking.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Jason says.

  “Okay, good night then,” Birdie says, slipping out of the room as quickly as she arrived.

  Jason looks at her, just for a moment, but it’s long enough to see the disappointment in his eyes. “I’m going to take Sylvie for a walk,” he says.

  Charlotte listens as he grabs the dog’s leash off the hook by the garage door and they leave. She takes her glass and walks to the window over the sink, where the trees are silhouetted against the denim sky. There are just a few sips left, she thinks, swirling it in her hand. I could j
ust dump it. She considers it for a moment, tipping the glass toward the drain, and then, hardly thinking about it, she swallows it down in one gulp, the taste on the back of her throat acrid and sour, like bad medicine.

  She rinses the glass and puts it in the sink, aware of her reflection in the window. She closes her eyes. She doesn’t look up.

  Fourteen

  Sylvie sniffs something in the neighbor’s yard, and Jason thinks how nice it must be to be a golden retriever, to be so gloriously clueless. Eat, sleep, shit, walk. It’s a thought he has often while he’s working with the animals. He really believes that they have something to teach people, that watching the way they live, their simplicity, their presence, is a good lesson.

  It is just beginning to get dark out, the streetlights coming on up the block. The young mother who recently moved in a few doors down is getting out of the car, dressed in a black skirt suit, hoisting a grocery bag onto her hip. Across the street, Will, a lawyer for DHS, waves as he heads into his house. Sylvie, straining on her leash, stops in front of a house owned by people Jason doesn’t know, an older couple—not as old as his parents but older than him, with twirling lawn ornaments in their yard. She digs her nose into their mulch, seeking out something, and he notices the flickering light of the TV inside their window. How long have they been married? he wonders. And has it always been smooth sailing?

  He walks, thinking that he doesn’t really know-know anyone on his street anymore, not in any significant way, and especially since Birdie grew out of selling Girl Scout cookies and trick-or-treating, lemonade stands and riding her bike in circles around the cul-de-sac at the end of the block. He feels a lump in his throat, realizing it. Mourning her childhood.

  He turns the corner and takes his phone from his pocket. He doesn’t even know who to call. Charlotte was always the person he went to, the person he talked to. When they were first dating, she marveled at how different the DC area was compared to Savannah, and even Atlanta. Capital-S serious, she said, laughing about how weird it was to discover that the woman who speed-walks down the street on Saturday mornings in an old grubby windbreaker is the former ambassador to France, or that the person behind you in line at the grocery store, grumbling about the slow cashier, is the manager of a presidential campaign. Arlington, she said, was full of Serious People doing Serious Things, Type A’s who spouted off acronyms when you asked them where they worked: OPM, DARPA, DOJ, HHS. As hard as she worked back then, trying to get tenure, she wasn’t so hardened, so intense. She could laugh things off and let them go at the end of the day.