Jennifer E Smith

by This Is What Happy Looks Like (v5. 0) (epub)

  But Ellie wasn’t looking for pity. She was looking for her friend.

  Besides, telling her would mean having to answer that most difficult of questions—why had she walked away from him in the first place?—which would only bring them back to the place where this had all started: a secret that couldn’t be told.

  “Which beach is it?” Ellie asked, and Quinn glanced over at her for the first time, her eyes flashing.

  “It’s a secret,” she said pointedly.

  After that, Ellie decided it wasn’t even worth trying. Instead, she set about ignoring Quinn in the same way that Quinn was ignoring her, which only served to create a wall between them so much thicker than if it had been built by only one of them.

  Still, it was worse with Graham. It might take time with Quinn, but Ellie knew she would come around eventually. This wasn’t the first time they’d fought, and it wouldn’t be the last.

  With Graham, however, Ellie suspected she’d broken something that might never be fixed. That night when he showed up at her house, she’d sat huddled at the top of the stairs, listening to the voices drifting through the front door, and wishing she had the courage to walk downstairs and tell her mom to let him in, to say that none of the rest of it mattered: not the past, not their secrets, and especially not her father.

  But she’d made her decision. She’d walked away from him at the harbor that day, and now she was left playing a desperate game of espionage as she skulked around town, trying her hardest not to run into him again.

  Because the truth was, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to walk away a second time.

  And so today, like every day, Ellie stood in the doorway of Happy Thoughts, looking left and then right before stepping outside. It had been only three weeks since they’d forked over enough money to get the air conditioner at home fixed, and now, on the hottest day of the summer, the one at the shop had broken down too, sputtering to a halt with one last dying groan. After a morning spent alternately fanning themselves and banging on the rusted hunk of metal, Mom finally sent Ellie out for some iced tea.

  On the village green, someone had set up a sprinkler, and there were a few kids in saggy bathing suits running through the water. Most everyone else was inside today, waiting for the shimmering heat to break. But even so, Ellie scanned the area with the nervous air of a criminal as she crossed the green, casting furtive glances at the shops on the other side.

  The town’s only deli had replaced a Henley institution the year before, a little general store called Marv’s that had been there as long as anyone could remember, and as a nod to tradition, it was now called the Sandwich Shop Where Marv’s Once Was, which was still inevitably shortened to Marv’s. As soon as she pushed open the door, Ellie sighed with relief at the cool air, which lifted the heavy coat of heat right off her. Her cheeks were still flushed and her tank top was still sticking to her, but she felt immediately better. It was like walking into a refrigerator.

  There was a line at the counter, so she lingered near the door, more than happy to take her time as she stood under the air vent. A small table beneath the window held the day’s newspapers, and she picked up the local one, leafing through it idly.

  “What can I get you, kiddo?” asked Meg, the owner, who had walked down to the far end of the counter, a notepad in one hand and a pencil in the other.

  “It’s okay,” Ellie said, waving a section of the newspaper. It was an unspoken rule that locals were served first here, but she was in no hurry to get back to Happy Thoughts, which felt like a furnace today. “I can wait.”

  Meg shrugged. “You look hot,” she said. “Can I at least get you some lemonade or an iced tea or anything?”

  “That’s actually what I’m here for,” Ellie admitted. “I’ll take two iced teas.”

  Meg gave a little salute and then elbowed her way toward the back, while Ellie returned to the paper. She’d randomly grabbed the real estate section and was skimming a piece about how the disappearing shoreline on one of the barrier islands was affecting the price of the enormous homes there when she noticed a familiar name in a narrow column at the bottom:

  As he prepares for a much-needed vacation over the coming holiday weekend, Senator Paul T. Whitman told reporters that he plans to leave work behind for a few days.

  “We’ll be celebrating America’s birthday,” he said. “I can’t think of a better reason to knock off and relax with my family.”

  The presidential hopeful will spend four days in scenic Kennebunkport, Maine, a town famous for being the summer home of former president George H. W. Bush.

  So is Whitman, the senior senator from Delaware, trying to follow in the elder Bush’s footsteps?

  “We’ll see,” he said, laughing. “But no politics this weekend. I’m just planning to take my boys out on the boat, catch some fish, and relax.”

  Ellie lowered the paper, blinking fast.

  Kennebunkport was less than an hour away, and it was this—the proximity of the thing—that made her hands tremble where she gripped the paper. She knew he was always out there somewhere, her father, but she was only ever aware of him in the way you’re aware of a distant planet, always moving, always orbiting around you but never getting close enough to really matter. All her life, she’d heard about him on the news, followed his speeches and campaigns, his family vacations, his dinner parties and fund-raisers, but she was no better informed than anyone else in the country.

  He was, in a way, the very opposite of Graham. He was someone who, by all logic, Ellie should know better than anyone, someone who should be so much more to her than just a name in the paper, whereas there was no worldly reason she should ever have gotten to know Graham Larkin any better than the dozens of people lining up along the fringes of the set each day in the hope of getting his autograph.

  The bell above the door jangled then, and when Ellie looked over, she drew in a sharp breath. It was as if he’d marched straight out of the thought in her head, materializing on the other side of the glass in a faded blue T-shirt that matched his eyes, which were hidden by a pair of dark sunglasses.

  She was so startled to see him there that she found herself moving backward, and it took only two steps before she managed to bump into the display of gum and candy. The whole thing teetered for one horrible, endless moment before crashing to the floor, the packets falling heavily and one of the containers splitting wide open, sending pale green mints skittering in all directions like runaway marbles.

  The entire back half of the shop turned to look. Graham pulled open the door the rest of the way, nudging his sunglasses down on his nose to peer over the lenses at the mess. But Ellie remained frozen in place, even as Meg dashed out from behind the counter with a broom. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she was saying, her words loud in the suddenly quiet shop. “I’d been meaning to move that display anyway.”

  She brushed past Graham without any sort of acknowledgment and began sweeping up the mess as Ellie stood helplessly in the middle of the now-colorful floor. She was acutely aware of her dirty tank top, her messy ponytail, the fact that she’d spent the morning sweating in a corner of the shop occupied by a giant stuffed lobster. She realized she was still gripping the newspaper hard in one hand, and she rolled it into a tube, unable to think of anything to say. All she could do was stare uselessly at the floor.

  Graham had let the door fall shut behind him, and without a word, he stooped down beside Meg, using both hands to gather the mints into piles while the rest of the customers looked on, apparently as dumbfounded as Ellie. She stared down at his broad back, the same back she’d followed up the beach that day, and her heart thumped hard against her chest. Even standing right below the vent, she was suddenly too warm again, her eyes prickly, her face tingling. She wondered if this is what heatstroke felt like.

  “Disaster averted,” Graham said, straightening up again as Meg headed into the back with the broom. The other customers had started to remember why they were there in the first place
, turning back to the counter to order their sandwiches, and to Ellie’s relief, the unnatural quiet that had settled over the shop dissolved again, giving way to the clink of silverware and the sound of laughter.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly, unable to look at him, though she could feel his gaze like a kind of heat. He cleared his throat and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, and when he raised an eyebrow, the moon-shaped scar above his left eye shot up as well. Ellie felt her heart jump in her chest, as if that too were connected by the same fragile string. She wanted to say something, but her tongue was thick in her mouth, and before she had a chance to even try, the door opened again, and once more, there was a collective hush as Olivia walked in, looking fresh-faced and unbearably cool.

  “Sorry,” she said, walking right up to Graham. She held up her phone, the jeweled case flashing. “My agent.” She crinkled her nose at him, her eyes falling to a single green mint that was stuck to his knee. “Was that you on the floor?”

  “We had a little situation,” he said, brushing it off. “Cleanup on aisle four.”

  Olivia looked around distractedly. “Don’t they have someone else to do that sort of thing?”

  “Yes, they do,” Meg said, suddenly beside them again, a sweating cup of iced tea in each hand. “You two looking for a sandwich or a table or both?”

  “Both, I suppose,” Olivia said, sounding less than convinced as she surveyed the tiny seating area, where families of tourists ate their lunches out of wicker baskets.

  Ellie tucked the newspaper under her arm, avoiding a searching look from Graham, and took the cups from Meg. “Thanks so much,” she told her. “I’ve got to get back.”

  “Good to see you,” Graham said, and Ellie nodded stiffly. As she pushed open the door, she heard Olivia ask, “Do you know her?”

  She didn’t wait to hear his response.

  Outside, she forced herself to hurry back across the green on wobbly legs. The door to the shop was propped open with an old lobster trap, and though she was greeted by a wall of hot air, heavy and stifling, Ellie still felt a swell of relief at having returned.

  Mom was leaning on the counter, propped up on one elbow, mopping at her forehead with a bandanna. When she saw Ellie, she straightened up.

  “You look like you just ran a marathon.”

  “It sort of feels that way,” Ellie said, setting the dripping cups on the counter. She hadn’t realized her hands were shaking, and she tried to steady them as she slipped the newspaper from underneath her arm and hid it behind one of the bins of toys lined up at her feet so that she could come back for it later.

  “You okay?” Mom asked, and Ellie nodded.

  “I’m fine,” she said, but that wasn’t quite true. She was dazed by what had just happened. She was shaken by the article about her father. She was tired of running away from Graham. She was miserable. She was heartbroken. She was anything but fine.

  “Good,” said Mom. “ ’Cause I thought we could finish up the windows.”

  Ellie sighed wearily. Mom had an exhausting habit of changing out the two window displays every few weeks. “Today?” she asked, though what she really meant was, In this heat?

  Mom chose to ignore her. “It’s as good a day as any,” she said. “I’m thinking the crustacean chess board should go on one side, maybe with some seashells around it, and then we could put some of your frames on the other.”

  “Fine,” Ellie said, walking over to the window boxes to begin clearing out the beach balls that had been there since school let out.

  “I’ll do that,” Mom said. “Can you add some more poems to the new frames? We’re a couple short now.”

  Ellie reached down for the small volume of poetry she kept tucked in her bag. They’d sold two frames last week, both housing poems by Elizabeth Bishop, and Mom was sure that was why. The woman had apparently spent nearly fifteen minutes reading through them before deciding which to buy.

  Now, as she settled on the stool behind the counter, Ellie was already debating between Auden and Yeats. But when she opened the book, a loose page slipped out, and she was surprised to find herself holding Graham’s drawing.

  Her eyes followed the lines on the page, the whole thing a study of geometry, with arrow-straight edges and precise corners. It was like falling into a dream, and she felt herself getting lost inside the lines, the simplicity of the page a safety net against the memory of the day it was made.

  She ran a thumb across the tiny hole where the pencil had gone through the paper when she interrupted him. Behind the drawing, she could see the faint imprints of certain words, and she flipped it over and examined the menu, suddenly back in that shop with Graham, the air filled with the sweet smell of chocolate.

  She sat there for a long time, holding the drawing by its edges, her mind drifting. And then she stood and carried it to the back of the shop, where she selected one of the new frames—a sturdy-looking black one—and removed the back. As she slid the drawing inside, she was careful to hide the signature along the bottom, the uneven gray line that might give away the artist.

  When she brought it out to the front of the shop, Mom frowned.

  “That’s not a poem,” she said, but Ellie didn’t listen. She set down a pink index card that read “Drawing not for sale” and then placed the frame on top of it, propped in the window alongside the others so that it was angled south, where it would face the water and harbor. Where it would face Graham.

  “Yeah,” she said, “it is.”

  From: GDL824@yahoo.com

  Sent: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 11:44 AM

  To: EONeill222@hotmail.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  Hey Evan,

  Looks like I’ll be home this weekend after all. Hard to believe it, but we’re on schedule with the shoot, and I’m ready to get out of here. If you could just feed Wilbur around lunchtime on Saturday, he should be fine till I get back later that night.

  Thanks again, man. Give the hog a hug for me.

  GL

  The moment he saw her in the deli, Graham understood his mistake.

  He hadn’t forgotten about her. But he had given up.

  And now, sitting across the table from Olivia, he felt a quick flash of certainty, a desperate flailing knowledge that he’d done the wrong thing. He should have tried harder. He should have shown up at her house every night, called her every day, e-mailed her every hour. He shouldn’t have taken no for an answer.

  He shouldn’t have walked away.

  And now it was too late.

  She hadn’t even looked at him. Not once.

  Across from him, Olivia was squinting at the menu, which was scrawled on a chalkboard above the deli counter. “How can there be no salads,” she said, a whiny note to her voice that she managed to drop only when she was in character.

  “I’m sure they can throw some lettuce in a bowl for you,” he said distractedly, and she looked at him as if he’d suggested she eat off the floor.

  For almost three weeks now, he’d been imagining what would happen if he ran into Ellie again. But none of those scenarios involved being out with Olivia.

  “Excuse me,” she was saying, waving down the woman who’d helped sweep up the candy earlier. “Would it be possible to get some sort of arugula salad? Do you have any pear? Or goat cheese?” She turned to Graham with a dazzling smile. “I could really go for some goat cheese.”

  It was clear the woman was trying not to laugh. “We only have what’s on the menu,” she said, gesturing to a board filled with options like roast beef, turkey, and ham. “And you order up at the counter.”

  Graham rose to his feet. “I’ll get it.”

  “I guess I’ll have a turkey sandwich, then,” Olivia said, pulling out her phone with a sigh. “No bread.”

  “Not much of a sandwich,” the woman muttered, moving around the table and back to the counter.

  A few people tried to let Graham cut ahead of them in line, but he politely declined. He glanced
out the window, where he could see the O’Neills’ shop on the other side of the green, then looked back over at the table, where Olivia was fanning herself with one manicured hand.

  Harry had been unrelenting in his efforts to convince Graham that dating Olivia would be the second best thing he could do for his career. The first, of course, would be to pick his next project from the long lineup of scripts that were fanned out across the coffee table in his hotel room, each synopsis worse than the one before it, movies about aliens and robots and vampires. There was a musical version of an old sitcom, one where Graham would play his own identical twin, and a buddy comedy about two high school freshmen who pretend to be in college for a night.

  “I know, I know,” Harry would say each time he dropped off another script. “But we need to figure out what’s next.”

  Graham realized that too, but he wanted to choose carefully.

  For the past couple of weeks, he’d thrown himself into the shoot, approaching each scene with new energy, hitting all his marks, nailing each and every one of his lines. At night, he fell asleep on the uneven hotel bed with a marked-up copy of the script on his chest, and in the mornings, he ran lines in his head while he showered and brushed his teeth.

  There wasn’t much else for him to do. Without Ellie, the town had started to feel small, and he was getting tired of eating every lunch in his trailer and every dinner in his hotel room. Harry was wearing on him, and Mick only wanted to talk about work. Occasionally, he played cards with some of the other cast members, but most of them were older, so he usually ended up passing the time on his own. And there were few things lonelier than a blinking TV screen and a half-eaten plate of room-service food on an unmade hotel bed.

  Last night, when he turned on the TV, he’d been surprised to discover that To Kill a Mockingbird was on. He hadn’t seen it since he was little, curled on the couch with his parents, all three of them sharing a bowl of popcorn, and he was captivated now as he watched, entranced by the classic feel of it. All of his peers could have their dance movies and raunchy comedies and action flicks. Graham realized that what he wanted was to do something like this. Something that mattered.