Perfect Happiness

by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

  “Ms. McGanley,” the counselor says, standing and shaking her hand. She looks about Charlotte’s age, though she’s at least a head taller. “I’m Ms. Loren,” she says, smiling in the apologetic, slightly self-effacing way a doctor might just before revealing your horrible diagnosis. Coach Noah stands, too, shaking her hand, but his eyes barely meet hers. Charlotte looks at Birdie, who starts to cry again, covering her face with both hands.

  “What’s going on?” she says, scooting through the space behind the counselor’s chair to sit in the empty chair next to Birdie and gripping her daughter’s arm. “What happened?”

  Ms. Loren looks from the coach to Birdie and then back to Charlotte. “Well,” she says, twirling her pencil between her hands. “We had something come up today. Birdie, do you want to tell your mom, or would you like me to?”

  Birdie’s face crumples again and Charlotte pulls her close, feeling her body shake with her sobs. “What is it? Tell me,” she says to the counselor.

  “A student brought this to our attention,” she says and pushes her phone across the table. Charlotte picks it up and puts her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Birdie,” she says. This is much worse than anything she could have imagined. Much, much worse.

  It’s an Instagram photo posted yesterday. A black-and-white shot of Birdie, taken from the side, her hair mussed and hanging down her back. She is topless (her arms crossed over her chest, at least, Charlotte thinks, a wave of nausea coming on) and wearing her team tennis skirt, the school’s logo clearly visible on her thigh. In the background of this shot, which looks, sadly, like it was meant to be artful, there is a figure outside the frame, but his hand—a clammy, callused, teenage boy’s hand—is resting on Birdie’s waist, his fingertips grazing her hip bone.

  Charlotte sucks in her breath. “Okay,” she says, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. “Okay.” She can’t find any other words. Her arm is still around Birdie and she pats her back, not knowing what else to do, then lets her hand slide away.

  “So,” Ms. Loren says, scooting forward in her chair, seeming to choose her words carefully. “This is obviously a problem on several levels.”

  “Birdie,” Charlotte says. “Why would you—” She sees that the username on the account isn’t one she recognizes from the pool of Birdie’s friends that she stalks online. “Whose account is this?”

  Birdie stares down at her lap. Charlotte looks at the counselor and the coach, neither of whom say anything.

  “Birdie,” Ms. Loren finally says.

  “It’s mine,” Birdie says, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “It’s— Wait,” Charlotte says. “But you don’t have an Instagram account. You know that’s a rule in our house, Bird.”

  “It’s mine,” Birdie repeats.

  “A lot of kids have secret accounts,” Ms. Loren explains, her expression sympathetic. “Under obscure usernames, or shadow profiles . . .” She trails off.

  “Oh my God.” Charlotte shakes her head. She knew some other kids did this but— She feels so stupid. “Oh, no.”

  Coach Noah clears his throat. “One of the upperclassmen on the team brought it to my attention. When I arrived at practice today, a bunch of the girls were looking at it.”

  Birdie’s eyes are still pinned to her lap, her cheeks flaming red.

  “Now, school policy is that kids aren’t supposed to use their devices during the day, and certainly this is . . .” The counselor stops and flips through a stack of papers in front of her, then passes one to Charlotte, where a passage has been highlighted. The words Expulsion . . . lewd content . . . jump out at Charlotte, though she’s hardly able to process them. She looks at her daughter, the sweet kid who used to draw smiling suns on any available surface. What the hell happened?

  “We’ve asked Birdie to remove the post, of course, but it’s probably been shared by other students at this point. We’ve also . . . we’ve considered a suspension. This incident is problematic not just because of the photo itself but because it so clearly shows the school logo. I’ve discussed it with the administration, however, and because Birdie is in her freshman year, and she’s such a bright kid, and this seems to be atypical for her, Coach Noah and the administration and I are not going to suspend her. However.” She puts her hands out, inviting the coach to jump in. “Would you like to . . . ?”

  He leans forward in his seat. “We are going to have to put Birdie on athletic probation. She won’t be able to play for the rest of the season.” Charlotte hears Birdie begin to sniffle beside her. “Obviously, this is a huge blow to the team. As you know, Birdie is among our strongest players.” Your strongest player, Charlotte thinks. “And losing her isn’t something any of us want, but consequences are important. We’ll have to see—” he starts, his leg bouncing rapidly under the table. “We’ll have to see about next year.”

  “See about next year?” Charlotte says. “There’s a chance this could continue into next year?”

  “We hope not,” he says. “But that will depend on Birdie. We have certain expectations for our players, you have to understand.”

  Charlotte sighs. “I do.” She nods. “And Tucker?” she says, trying to imagine how Finch and Dayna will react to this news. “I assume he’s off the lacrosse team for the rest of the season.”

  Ms. Loren tilts her head to the side, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Lacrosse?” she says.

  “Yes,” Charlotte says. “Tucker Cunningham.” She points to the phone, now facedown on the table in front of them. “The boy in the—”

  Birdie suddenly speaks. “That’s not Tucker, Mom.”

  A sharp pain bolts through her chest. “What?”

  Ms. Loren gives Charlotte a look that is meant to be compassionate but feels like a punch to her gut. “The boy’s parents have been contacted as well,” she says.

  Charlotte’s hands shake, gripping the steering wheel.

  “His name is Micah,” Birdie says through her hands. She is leaning into the passenger-side door, like she might try to jump out at any moment, and Charlotte wouldn’t blame her if she did.

  “Who is Micah?” Charlotte sputters. “What about Tucker? I thought—” She wipes a sweaty palm across her forehead. “None of this makes sense, Birdie! Who is this boy? Why would you do such a thing? And a secret Instagram account? I can’t even . . . !” She shakes her head. “I can’t even believe this is you, doing this!”

  “Mom, all of my friends have secret accounts!” Birdie wails. “And I wouldn’t have ever gotten one if you’d only let me get on social—”

  Charlotte jerks the steering wheel, pulling to the side of the road and slamming the gearshift into park. Birdie jolts back. “Don’t you dare tell me that this is our fault!” Charlotte screams, leaning over the armrest toward her daughter. “Don’t you dare try to put this on me! I’m not the one who did this! How on earth could you think this was a good idea, Birdie? How could you be so stupid?”

  “A lot of my friends—” she yells. “It’s not that unusual, Mom, for kids to send pictures like this to their—”

  Charlotte puts her hands out. “Birdie, stop!” she yells. “Stop! You can’t begin to try to explain to me why this is okay! On any level! You are fourteen! Was this his idea? This boy? Is he your boyfriend now?”

  “It was my idea,” Birdie says.

  Charlotte grips her hands tighter against the steering wheel. “But why, Birdie? Why would you do this?”

  “I wanted to make Tucker jealous, okay?” she yells, sobbing again.

  “I don’t understand. Birdie, I just don’t understand!”

  “I wanted to make him jealous, Mom!” she screams again. “He broke up with me! Last week!”

  “He broke up with you?” Charlotte says, remembering what Jason said Finch had told him when he walked by the Cunninghams’ house the other night, and how, with everything going on, she must’ve forgotten.

  “Yes,” Birdie says, her voice a whine. “Yeah, Mom, he did. He broke up with me the
day after he came to my practice, Mom,” she says. “When you talked to him?”

  “But . . .” Charlotte starts, an uncomfortable tingling creeping up her legs. “Why? What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Birdie says. “He said he . . . he said things were getting too intense for him, that he didn’t want anything so serious. But he’s already seeing somebody else. The girl he was with before me.” She starts to say something else but then stops.

  “What?” Charlotte says.

  “He also said his mom didn’t want him seeing me anymore.”

  “What?” Charlotte says. “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Birdie says. “Tucker and I are done. It doesn’t matter. Mom, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

  Charlotte straightens in her seat. “Birdie, let’s go home.”

  Jason is so angry he can’t speak.

  For hours after Birdie goes up to her room, he sits at the table in the backyard, staring into space, barely moving. Charlotte made Birdie tell him herself, and it was gut-wrenching to witness both the shame in her daughter’s voice and the disappointment on his face. He was so quiet that it was worse than if he had yelled and screamed. Charlotte stalks him from the kitchen window, where she sips a cup of chamomile. There is a bottle of wine in the refrigerator and every time she opens the door, her eyes slide toward it, but she won’t let herself. Not tonight.

  Her mother calls, leaving a message asking about her travel plans for the vow renewal, and she ignores it. Stephanie calls (she’s probably seen the photo, Charlotte thinks, or at least heard about it from Hannah), and she sends it to voicemail. And then finally, unable to wait any longer for Jason to come in, she sits down at her desk in the home office, surrounded by family pictures and mementos (a sand dollar Birdie found on the beach, a picture she drew of their family when she was little), and discovers that her old friend @KGPartyof5 has messaged her. So you’re just not going to respond? it says, and Charlotte hits delete. Game over.

  She emails Wendy to tell her about the woman’s post, but doesn’t feel so concerned now that she has her daughter’s to compare it to. What happened to Birdie (or what Birdie made happen to herself) is a big deal. This—a critic, a nameless person whom she should have known better than to tussle with—means nothing. She’ll deal with the repercussions of Montana later, if she needs to.

  She thinks of Reese again. She’s been thinking of him all night, wanting to text him, to call him and tell him what happened because she knows he’ll make her feel better, the way he did the night before. He’ll tell her it’s going to be okay. Finally, she relents, opening up her email inbox.

  You won’t believe what happened today, she starts. It’s bizarre, how simple it is, to fall back into this easy shorthand with him, as if they’re twenty again and there was no rift in their relationship. She tells him everything, about how drunk she actually was in Montana and how awful she felt on the plane ride home, about how she knows how unfair it is to Jason for her to talk like this with him, about Birdie and how much she worries that her unraveling is a direct result of her parenting or lack thereof.

  She’s getting up from her desk, about to turn off the lamp, when Jason appears in the doorway.

  “Can we talk?” he says.

  “Sure.”

  He pulls out the ottoman next to the armchair in the corner of the room and sits, and she swings around in her desk chair to face him, hugging her knees to her chest.

  “Are you okay?” she says, sipping her tea.

  He nods. He didn’t want to see the photo, he said earlier. The description was enough.

  “I’m hoping this is rock bottom for her,” she says, repeating what she just emailed to Reese. “I don’t think she’ll go any further. Losing tennis is too big a risk. I think that’s going to scare her straight.”

  He has his arms leaning on his knees, his hands clasped in front of his mouth.

  “What do you think?” she says.

  He looks at her, then looks away, and in the reflection of the fading light out the window, she sees the tears in his eyes. They’ve always joked about the fact that he only cries during dog movies. Funerals, graduations, even the birth of their own daughter didn’t faze him. “Jason,” she says.

  He finally looks at her. “I’m tired,” he says.

  She nods, not totally understanding what he means.

  “I can’t—” He pauses and presses his lips together, a pained expression on his face. “I can’t do this anymore, Charlotte.”

  “What do you mean?” she says, fear building inside of her.

  “Charlotte, I need a break.”

  “A break?”

  “I need some time.” He looks at her again, his jaw shifting behind closed lips, and this time she sees it. The blankness. Through all of their fights and disagreements and storming out of the room, she has never quite seen him look at her in a way that sends a shiver down her spine like this does, because there is nothing behind it. He looks at her like he has no feeling at all.

  “Time for . . . what?” she says, her voice small.

  “I’m going to go stay at my parents’,” he says. “They’ll be at the beach until the week after Memorial Day.”

  “But what do we—” She feels a sudden panic, letting his decision settle in. “I don’t understand how this will work.”

  “I just think some distance will do us some good. All of us. Maybe it will help us get some perspective.” His eyes meet hers then.

  “Give me some perspective? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Both of us.”

  “Jason, we’re married. We’re not . . . teenagers. We can’t take breaks.”

  “I’m not saying . . . I’m not sure what else to do, Charlotte. I don’t know, exactly, what this looks like. But I need some time away to clear my head.”

  She studies him, watches as he shifts his feet on the floor, plays with the paper clip he’s picked up off the desk.

  “Does this have anything to do with Jamie?” she says.

  “What?”

  “Jamie,” she says again, feeling stupid when she sees the genuine surprise on his face.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, knowing how hypocritical this is, when she was just baring her soul over email to her ex-fiancé.

  “Listen,” he says, scooching farther up in his chair. “This has nothing to do with anyone except me and you. I would never cheat on you. Ever. I would leave you first.”

  The words feel like a slap across her face. “Is that what you’re doing now?”

  “It’s not,” he says, standing. “Okay? I promise you, it’s not. I’m just taking some space.”

  He looks at her in a way that tells her she can’t change his mind.

  “When will you go?” she asks, the reality sinking in. Jason isn’t someone to do something like this. It’s one of the reasons she married him.

  “Tomorrow, I guess.”

  She squeezes her shaking hands together, her panic building. “How do we explain this to Birdie? Especially after what happened today? It’s not great timing, Jason.”

  “There’s never going to be a good time,” he says. “And if it will help us, it’s the best thing for her.”

  She gasps.

  “I don’t know what else to do, Charlotte. It’s not like I feel good about it.”

  “But this will kill her,” she says quietly.

  “I’m right here,” a voice suddenly says from just outside the door. Birdie is standing in the hallway, tears streaming down her face.

  Charlotte freezes. Jason jumps.

  “I heard everything!” she wails. “Everything!”

  “Birdie, honey. We just—” Charlotte starts.

  “We’re trying to do what’s best for us, Bird,” Jason says, placatingly. “What’s best for all of us as a family.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she says, convulsing into sobs. “You guys are actually trying to convince me
that the best thing for our family is for you to live somewhere else?”

  “Birdie, it’s—” He tries to put an arm around her but she flinches and moves away. “We’re not separating,” Charlotte says, feeling lower with each passing second.

  “How could you do this to me!” Birdie screams. “How could you!”

  “We’re just not getting along right now, Bird,” Jason tries.

  “It’s the healthy thing for us to do,” Charlotte says.

  “Just stop, Mom!” she yells. “Just stop!”

  “Birdie—”

  “You know what? I don’t even care what you do anymore! I don’t even care if you never come back!” she screams at her father.

  “You don’t mean that, honey . . .” Charlotte says, seeing how his face falls.

  “Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to feel!” Birdie says. “I’m not a kid! I’m not stupid!”

  “We know you’re not—” Charlotte begins.

  “Just stop!” She backs away from them, shaking her head. “What’s the point?” she says, crying. “Really? Why do I even care anymore?”

  She runs up the stairs and Charlotte starts after her, racing down the hall, but then halfway up the staircase, she stops. What is there to say?

  She turns, and Jason is standing at the foot of the stairs. She takes a step toward him.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  She nods. “Me, too.”

  The next afternoon, as she’s driving home from work, her mother calls. Charlotte didn’t call her on the way into work this morning because she couldn’t bear to fake it, not after last night. Jason had left before she awoke, and while she was getting dressed for class, she noticed what he’d taken with him: his toothbrush and razor were gone, along with the suitcase she’d used for Montana, which she’d emptied but hadn’t put away. Birdie told her that she was going to walk to school and left without another word, the door slamming behind her. Charlotte had gone back upstairs then, her emotions overtaking her as she thought about what Birdie would go through at school that day and how she and Jason, instead of being a safe harbor for their daughter, had only made it worse. She pulled the shoebox off the linen closet shelf that they used as a medicine cabinet and found the in-case-of-emergency bottle of Klonopin she’d been prescribed years and years ago when she was in the thick of her infertility struggle.