A Measure of Happiness

by Lorrie Thomson

  The prints covering the walls were all metal-framed, modern, and abstract. Not a seaside watercolor in the mix, as though she weren’t in Hidden Harbor, as though she weren’t anywhere specific at all.

  The worst part? She’d signed a one-year rental agreement.

  She wanted to go home. But that place didn’t even exist anymore.

  She unpacked her groceries in the tiny kitchen, her hands weak from exhaustion. Lined the crisper with McIntosh apples and clementines, stocked the top shelf with nonfat Yoplait yogurts, a head of romaine lettuce, and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. Before hitting the grocery aisles, she’d driven through the McDonald’s drive-through, parked Old Yeller, downed a plain burger, and called it dinner. All she could manage today. Tomorrow, she’d head back to Shaw’s for a full order, stick-to-your-ribs sauces, pastas, and meats. Maybe even a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for a housewarming. Then she’d sit on the couch, eat the entire pint herself, and watch cellulite ripple her thighs.

  She’d skip the Ben & Jerry’s.

  Yogurt was almost as good, right?

  Celeste took a strawberry yogurt to the couch, licked the lid, and dialed her parents’ Florida phone number, her parents’ home phone.

  She’d never get used to thinking of her second-generation, too young to retire, Hidden Harbor townie parents living on the ninth hole of a Boca Raton golf course. When she was growing up, her parents hadn’t even played golf, unless you counted Bernie’s Miniature Golf, the seaside attraction with the odd combination of a prehistoric green dinosaur rearing up on its hind legs, a Dutch windmill, and the ubiquitous water traps. But the week after Celeste—the last bird in the nest—graduated from high school, her parents had made their big announcement. They were selling the house and flying south to the old folks’ state, supposedly past their usefulness once Celeste had managed to keep her chin up and her weight on.

  Now her childhood home was as good as a junkyard, a neighborhood eyesore no amount of signatures on petitions or town meetings had succeeded in eradicating. Cars, rusted and rotting, lined the driveway where she and Abby had chalked the blacktop for hopscotch, jumped double Dutch with the neighborhood kids, and traded misinformation about boys.

  Growing up in a house full of brothers had taught Celeste that boys were immature, silly, and goofy, prone to mess and insecurity. In short, they were human. So why had she expected unrelated boys to be anything special? Why had she expected unrelated boys to act as though she was special?

  Her mother’s latest chipper message kicked into gear. “You’ve reached Davey and Delilah.” Davey? Really? “We’re busy playing golf, swimming laps, and sipping tequila. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you after we’re off the course and dried out.”

  “Hi, guys,” Celeste said. “I’m back in Hidden Harbor. Just thought you’d want to know. . . .”

  Had her parents even realized she’d gone to New York? She’d told them she was going to culinary school—of course she’d told them—but had they even remembered? Her brothers and their families were scattered across the country; each of the once-self-described black T-shirted high school slackers had aced college, married a girl with long hair and a tiny waist, and then promptly convinced that tiny-waisted girl to push out a kid or two. Celeste’s mother sent cards on the appropriate birthdays, Christmas, and Easter. According to Celeste’s brothers, their parents occasionally visited, breezing into town on a Thursday, leaving on a Sunday, and preferring to stay at a hotel rather than “bother” a daughter-in-law.

  In the last four years, Celeste’s parents had returned to Hidden Harbor and “bothered” her exactly twice.

  Didn’t they miss Hidden Harbor? Didn’t they miss her?

  The cold pleather cushion stuck to her jeans. The chill slid to the small of her back, reminding her how fast the seasons changed in Maine. Today’s cloudy, early fall sundown was giving her a taste of winter, the Earth spinning and cooling. No one had ever accused Hidden Harbor of moving fast, but Celeste could see it now, the world barreling forward, while her life was destined to move one step forward, two steps back. Thanks to first Katherine and then Matt, circumstances beyond Celeste’s control.

  Even Abby was moving forward, sort of, by getting back with Charlie. Maybe Charlie had changed. Anything was possible, right? Maybe Celeste was more than a little jealous of Charlie, because Abby forgave him again and again, whether he deserved it or not. That’s what Celeste liked best about Abby, her ability to ignore faults and see the best in people. After all, Abby saw the best in Celeste.

  Celeste snatched up the receiver and dialed Abby’s number.

  “Briar Rose B&B,” Charlie said, and Celeste’s grin deflated.

  “Hello?” Charlie said. “Anybody there?”

  The left side of Celeste’s upper lip rose in a sneer. Unlike Abby, Celeste couldn’t assume the best in Charlie. She needed proof.

  “Who is it?” Luke’s voice in the background, little-boy shrill but carrying a hint of huskiness. “Can I talk on the phone?”

  “Anybody there?” Charlie repeated. And then to Luke, “Nobody’s there, buddy, no one—” The connection cut out.

  At all.

  Celeste rubbed her hands together, but the cold remained. She went into the kitchen, spooned the yogurt down the drain, and ran the disposal. She leaned against the counter, and the machine vibrated through her back, a rumble against a low ache. She was impossibly tired, the sound almost soothing in its repetition. Her eyes drifted shut, and her head jerked up fast and hard. No sleeping until she showered. Steam off the last couple of days, and then—yes!—oblivion.

  She let the shower run and undressed before the bathroom sink. First kicking off her bakery clogs and pulling her long-sleeved white T-shirt up over her head. Next came the chignon Katherine had fashioned. Each pin released a reciprocal sigh. Celeste rubbed the soreness from her scalp. Hair around her shoulders, she unhooked her bra, but the removal offered no relief. Her breasts ached, as though she were expecting her period. Which she was not. She unzipped her jeans, pushed them over her hips, and the fabric scraped against her thigh, shooting a pain all the way to her throat. Upon closer inspection, a wide, sensitive swatch of black-and-blue stood out against the pink flesh of her inner thigh. Not the first time sex had left her bruised.

  The first time she and Justin had had sex was a disappointment. It had hurt when he’d entered her, and wasn’t the tearing supposed to have catapulted her into an orgasm? She was just about ready to give up on the whole stupid sex thing. But on the third or fourth try, something clicked, she got off, and she knew she’d discovered her favorite sport of all time. Missionary style was fine by Justin, but why should they stop at one position when there were endless possibilities and contortions? Bottom, top, sideways. Hands, lips, tongue. The only thing as good as getting pleasure was giving it.

  Sometimes she liked it a little bit rough, a little bit intense. Sometimes Justin called her bossy. At some point, she told Justin she found it funny that she was more into sex than he was. Then he’d called her a sex-crazed slut.

  Then everything had gone to hell.

  At least with Justin she remembered doing everything he claimed she’d done. But she’d only done those things with him.

  Celeste slipped a hand beneath the shower spray. The water had heated, warming her hand but causing the rest of her body to shake. She took off her underwear and held it up to the medicine cabinet light. A tiny drop of dried blood stained the crotch, as though she’d been recently deflowered. And when she stood under the showerhead, the spray stung between her legs. She gritted her teeth, forced herself to endure the pain. Even when her chest convulsed, she squeezed her eyes shut and told herself to get over herself. She told herself to deal with it. Because she’d acted like a sex-crazed slut.

  Because she’d remembered who she was.

  CHAPTER 4

  By quarter of five, Celeste had progressed from the worry she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep to the certainty nothing
could prevent another fall.

  Energy jittered beneath her skin. She needed to sleep, she had to sleep. She was sick with the need for sleep. But she had the weird feeling that she also needed to stay wide awake, stand vigil over her sleeping self, and guard the door.

  She’d locked the door. She’d checked the lock twice. She’d had thoughts like this before and learned to ignore them.

  She tucked her blankets beneath her chin and hugged the straw-yellow, love-worn relics, buried her nose in the fluff. She’d slept with the blankets since she was two years old, the year she’d upgraded from crib to big-girl bed. One blanket comforted, two kept her warm. Tonight, she needed both. Lights out, shades drawn against the last hour of daylight, the walls of the unfamiliar bedroom seemed to throb with a pulse. But, of course, it was only her heart beating in her ears, her thoughts keeping her from sleep.

  Her wrong thoughts.

  Above her, the gray ceiling twirled, sleep deprivation masquerading as a hangover. For a few moments she drifted up there and spun in the murky light. Then her covers took on weight, as though a downed tree trunk were pinning her limbs.

  Celeste.

  A male voice breathed her name in her ear. A light flashed from her peripheral vision. And then came the knocking. Hard and sharp and insistent and reverberating in her throat.

  Rap, rap, rap.

  Her eyes snapped open to the nearly empty room, the blank walls, a kind of reverse nightmare. The digital clock on the dresser read 5:03 p.m.

  “Shit,” Celeste said, all too aware she’d made the same proclamation half an hour ago, the last time she’d awoken with a start, her own personal Groundhog Day. When would she get it—life—right?

  The rapping, she knew, wasn’t even real, just an overtired hallucination. Hypnagogia. Lincoln, the brother closest in age to Celeste and with all the answers, had explained it to her. Another life lesson from the year of hell. Yet the sound tricked her every freaking time.

  Would she never learn?

  Rap, rap, rap.

  “What the—?” Celeste sat up, eyes wide. Her gaze shifted to the side. She was reasonably sure she was awake, so—

  Rap, rap, rap.

  She zipped up her hoodie till the slide nicked the skin at the base of her neck, and walked to the front door, stepping through the living room as though the furniture might reach out and take her out at the ankles. She angled her left eye to the peephole.

  Nothing out there but the front step and the curve of a wrought-iron railing leading to three more concrete steps just like it.

  Rap, rap, rap.

  This time, she could tell the knock echoed from the rental office next door.

  Was one of the tenants locked out from their place? Hurt? In need of assistance? When her brother Lincoln had been a volunteer firefighter, he’d responded to countless kitchen fires. The most popular culprit was usually a grilled cheese sandwich laid bare across the oven racks and a careless home cook who’d opened the oven door, feeding oxygen to the flames. People were their own worst enemies.

  Did she smell smoke?

  Celeste cracked open the door, slowly, slowly. But the stupid door creaked, igniting a heated tingle in her throat.

  The guy standing on the rental office’s artificial turf welcome mat, with his flannel shirt rattling in the wind, said exactly what Celeste was thinking. “No way!”

  Zach Fitzgerald—Lamontagne’s most recent, most curious employee—somehow managed to look both self-assured and sheepish, reminding Celeste of a stray cat she’d long ago found haunting her family’s doorstop. To her family’s credit, no one, not even her father—whose eyes swelled shut at the mention of cat—complained when they ran out of cream for their morning coffee or tuna for their brown-bag lunches.

  After Zach’s attempts to flirt with her that seemed more habit than heartfelt, he’d settled down. Celeste and Katherine had spent the rest of the morning and better part of the afternoon training Zach. Katherine showing Zach where to find the baker’s yeast, Zach piping up to ask Celeste where Katherine kept the toilet cleaner, and Celeste making sure Zach didn’t mistake one for the other.

  Unlike the first time Celeste had laid eyes on Zach, she grinned, as though returning a guy’s smile was her default reaction. Another one of her really bad habits. Or maybe she was relieved the knocking sound had come from someone real. She wrapped her arms around her waist, but the wind slipped like cold hands beneath her sweatshirt and T-shirt and across her belly. “Looking for anything special?”

  “That depends.” Zach clambered down the rental office steps and bounded up the steps to her front door, his stray-cat look having morphed into a lost pup. Easily encouraged by a cheerful tone, too close, and with too much energy. “How much does a special apartment go for around here?”

  “Five hundred a month. Unfurnished.”

  “That’s not too bad.”

  “That doesn’t include utilities.”

  “Oh.” His lips twisted to the side, considering. “Hmm.”

  “You have to fork over first month, last month, and a security deposit. And sign a year lease.”

  “Geesh! What about your firstborn kid?”

  “That would be illegal.”

  “Good point.” He gazed across the parking lot. “Looks like it’s another night in Matilda. Know a campground around here I can park her?”

  Celeste followed Zach’s gaze across the lot. An old lunch bag–brown four-door Volvo sedan was parked right next to Old Yeller. Celeste half-expected to see a woman stepping from Zach’s vehicle. Matilda sounded like a long-legged skinny blonde who could eat anything she wanted without gaining an ounce.

  Even Celeste knew that sort of person didn’t exist.

  “You named your car Matilda?”

  “You got a problem with that?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a problem. She looks more like an Agnes to me. How old is she?”

  “My girl’s an ’86. Bought her from the sweetest little old lady you’d ever want to know. Matilda’s dependable and, believe it or not, good on gas, so think before you start trash-talking my girl.”

  Celeste waited for Zach to crack a grin. He didn’t.

  She made sure her door was unlocked and stepped outside. The wind carried the aroma of damp leaves and a hint of a far-off wood fire, the smell she’d mistaken for a kitchen fire fiasco. The doormat’s plastic grass spiked beneath her bare insteps. “You got your car when her first owner was done with her,” Celeste said. “No one expected anything of her anymore, right? So you give her the name Agnes. Old-fashioned but nothing showy. Then, when she surpasses expectations, everyone’s surprised.” Celeste made jazz hands around her head, widened her eyes, made her mouth into a lowercase o.

  She was joking, sort of, but the silly face made her think of Katherine. Celeste had hoped to return to Hidden Harbor with a degree from Culinary America and enough experience to convince Katherine to sell. Celeste had never really wanted to open a bakery in New York. That threat, promise, whatever you wanted to call it, had been posturing. A test to see whether Katherine really knew Celeste at all.

  Katherine had failed.

  Zach folded his arms and squinted at Celeste. “First off, who’s everyone?” he asked. “Second, who cares what hypothetical people think?”

  Sadly, Celeste did give half a shit about what real people thought of her. And she was totally embarrassed about the shit she gave.

  But of course Zach was only talking about his car, nothing deeper.

  “I named my car after the movie to please myself,” Zach said. “Matilda suits me just fine.”

  “Wait a minute. Matilda from the movie?” A girl born to crappy parents turns out to have magical powers. A car deemed unsuitable turns out to run well enough to convey Zach to Hidden Harbor. “I can get onboard with that. Now, when I got Old Yeller—”

  “You named your car Old Yeller?”

  “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”

  “You know that story doesn’t e
nd well, right? You know the dog—car—”

  “See? You’ve only just met him, and he’s already surpassed your expectations.”

  “Ha,” Zach said, more an exhalation than a word, air rushing out of him in surprise.

  Expression neutral, Celeste made a second show of jazz hands.

  As though taking her point to heart, Zach sat down on the cement step below Celeste. “And yet I still need an inexpensive place to park Matilda for the night.”

  “Holiday Inn in Bath?” Celeste asked.

  “I hate hotels.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Celeste sat down on the step beside Zach, making sure to leave a space between them. A space large enough to fit an average-sized guy. A space large enough to fit Matt the Rat. She tucked the hems of her sweatpants beneath her toes, rubbed them to encourage circulation. “Just for the night?”

  Zach shrugged. “Until I find an apartment without a year lease.”

  “I don’t mean to pry—”

  “Exactly what you say if you’re about to—”

  “I know Katherine’s probably not paying you much and all. But, well, consider your training an investment in your future.”

  “My future cleaning toilets?”

  “Your future running a bakery. Or any business, really. You’ve got to understand how all the parts of the machine work before you can, you know, see it as a whole.” Celeste made a broad, sweeping motion, as if she were gathering ingredients and hugging them to her chest.

  And with that, Celeste had resurrected Katherine’s phrasing from a long-ago tutorial. The day Katherine had graduated Celeste to inventory and ordering, Celeste had walked from the shop with her head held high, a bounce, an actual bounce, in her step. The only managerial duty Katherine didn’t share with Celeste was closing the shop and taking end-of-day profits to the bank. After she had been working at Lamontagne’s for a year, Katherine had given Celeste a key to the shop. But the combination to the safe, Katherine shared with no one.