A Measure of Happiness

by Lorrie Thomson

  “Thank you, Katherine.” Daniel gazed up at her. Gone was the playfulness, the flirtatiousness that shielded him from uncertainty. Stripped of falsehood, they were two adults, trying to navigate an uncertain world.

  “The muffins,” Katherine said, her own shyness leaving her tender at the center. “They’re quite good.”

  “I wasn’t thanking you for the muffin.”

  “I know,” she said, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

  Across the room, Zach and Celeste refilled the bread shelves, moving sourdough loaves, baguettes, and ryes as quickly with three hands as they had with four.

  Barry waited at the coffee station. He stirred cream into his coffee and kept his gaze on Katherine. A strange expression clouded his features—equal parts pleased and mischievous. But at least he wasn’t zoning in on Zach. At least he wasn’t getting closer to the truth.

  “Took care of business?” Barry asked her when she arrived at the counter.

  “I did, and now I’ve some interesting news to tell you.”

  “Oh?” Barry snapped a lid on his coffee.

  “Do you recall the kid I was never going to hire? Blake?”

  “I do,” Barry said, holding the same strange look on his face.

  “Turns out he was the big, bad wolf who broke into the bakery and made such a mess last month. Figured it out because he did it again. Only this time, we—Celeste, Zach, and I—caught him in the act.”

  Barry sipped his coffee, his demeanor inappropriately calm, even for Barry, considering the news. “How do you feel about this?”

  “Stupid! After all of my worry. What a colossal waste of precious energy.”

  “See what happens when you keep your fears inside you and deny them?” Barry asked.

  “I know! I feel foolish for having obsessed over—”

  Barry’s eyes flashed on obsessed. The mischievous grin playing on his lips broke out and danced.

  “Celeste told you. How long were you going to let me go on?”

  “How long did you need to go on?” Barry asked, completely serious and poking fun.

  The conflicting instincts to either sock him in the shoulder or kiss him full on the mouth battled in her mind and body. She decided to take the high road and ignore her instincts. “I’m making Blake work for me to pay me back for the damages. On one hand, I think he’s going to like it here. It will do him good to face consequences for his actions. My other hand thinks I’m way out of my league. He obviously has issues. Family problems . . .” Katherine thought of the look on Blake’s face when she’d mentioned talking to his parents, the tangled ball of panic that drew her back to her own family’s dark, twisted hovel.

  “You’ll do fine.”

  “I haven’t even managed to get Celeste to talk to me. Forget about open-ended questions. Everything I say is wrong.”

  “Patience,” Barry said.

  “Are you referring to the state of being or those under your care?”

  Barry tweaked her nose, something he hadn’t done in years. “You’ll do fine. You always do fine.”

  Katherine rubbed the tip of her nose.

  “I need to get going.” He tweaked her nose a second time before heading for the door.

  Katherine went after him. “Wait! What did you need to talk to me about?”

  Halfway out the door, Barry pulled himself back in. He tapped the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Nearly forgot,” he said, reminding her of the time he’d—middle of a snow-covered night—raced out the door to help a patient and she’d raced after him to hand him his shoes.

  One of her favorite memories.

  “I’m going to be away at a conference all week. I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell you. I’m coming back on Sunday. I didn’t want you to worry when I didn’t come in and send police out to the house.”

  His house. No matter how many times she’d told him, he refused to take her name off the deed.

  “What, me worry?” she said, and she wasn’t worried. A whole week when she could enjoy Zach without Barry’s close scrutiny, his penchant for examining people up close, personal, and below the surface. “Have a great conference! See you Monday morning!”

  Barry pulled himself back in the door. “Don’t you mean Sunday? Sunday night dinner.”

  Then, without waiting for Katherine to gather her thoughts and fine-tune her comprehension, Barry gazed past Katherine to where Celeste stood, raised his hand in the air, and gave her what Katherine could only describe as a high five from across the room.

  Barry stepped out into the first bright rays of dawn.

  Katherine set her hands on her hips and her sights on Celeste.

  Celeste’s grin competed with the rising sun, and she answered Katherine’s glare. “You’re welcome!”

  CHAPTER 13

  For the second time today, Celeste faced her window of opportunity.

  She would’ve liked it better this morning if Katherine had yelled at her for inviting Barry to Sunday dinner, if she’d shaken a finger and read her the riot act—something Celeste’s mother threatened to do before a harsh reprimand. Instead, after Barry had left Lamontagne’s, Katherine had calmly poured herself a cup of coffee, walked up to Celeste, and said, “You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  Weird, because Celeste had been quite aware of her accomplishment.

  She was doing everything humanly possible to get Katherine and Barry back together. Since their divorce, they’d only seen each other on the neutral, public grounds of Lamontagne’s. Time, Celeste figured, for something private and personal. The easiest part had been getting Barry onboard with the covert operation. Celeste had issued the invitation, Barry had figured out Katherine hadn’t known about the issuing, and he’d provided a lock-safe way to get away with it. He’d be away all week at a conference, but he wouldn’t tell Celeste where he was going. That way, even if Katherine had read the aforementioned riot act, she wouldn’t have been able to get the secret information from Celeste. Besides, Celeste and Barry were collaborating for Katherine’s own good.

  Katherine would thank Celeste later.

  Now Zach, her one-armed superhero friend, had gone to Shaw’s to buy, as he called it, real food. Thus the aforementioned window of opportunity. Only, instead of collaborating with Barry, she needed to interrogate Natalie.

  Or, as pseudo-detective Zach said, find out what she knew about the night in question.

  Celeste picked up the cordless. She put down the receiver. She knocked on the side table three times, something she hadn’t done in years. Following her brother Lincoln’s advice to knock three times for good luck had at first seemed like a good idea. How else would she have earned an A on her ninth-grade pre-algebra final exam? But then she’d needed to knock to ensure target practice bull’s-eyes. She’d knocked so that she could sleep through the night without waking. She’d knocked to guarantee her parents drove to Bath and back without getting killed in a car accident.

  She’d told Zach she was effed up, but she’d only touched on a few of the recent particulars.

  She picked up the phone and dialed Natalie’s number.

  Natalie answered on the third ring. “What do you want?”

  Celeste held her breath.

  “Just messing with you. Who is it?” Natalie asked.

  Goddamn, brassy, ballsy blonde bim—“Hi, Natalie. It’s Celeste,” she said in her most authentic cheerful tone. At least she hoped she sounded authentic. “Remember me?”

  Celeste imagined Natalie leaning a hip against her dorm room’s counter and slouching. She imagined her gathering the phone’s curlicue cord and twisting it around her long, thin arm.

  Celeste thought she heard Natalie chuckle, but she couldn’t be sure. “How could I forget you after only one week?” Natalie asked. “How the hell have you been, sistah?” Natalie said, even though the term sistah had never sounded sincere coming from Natalie’s lips. Was anything?

  Six months ago, Natalie had legally changed her name
from Cynthia, chopped off and bleached her dishwater-brown bangs and bob, and dropped out of a small community college somewhere in New Jersey, where, rumor had it, she’d studied accounting and lived in her parents’ basement.

  Of course, the particulars had come from Matt, so who the hell knew what to believe?

  A distant relative of the panic attack from last night laid claim to Celeste’s windpipe. She conjured an image of Zach’s face. She focused on breathing into her belly. “I’ve been decent.”

  Natalie issued a laugh-snort. “No one’s going to believe you called. Everyone’s, like, wondering where you went, why you left, whether you—”

  “Seriously?” Celeste asked. Or maybe she yelled. But only so she could hear herself above the ear-clogging roar of blood.

  “Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?” Natalie asked, an about-face from party on to pissed off.

  “I know what Matt did,” Celeste said.

  Celeste hadn’t overheard Natalie’s voice coming from the practice kitchen. But what were the chances Natalie hadn’t heard everything five minutes later, if not from Matt, then from the other guys?

  “What are you talking about?” Natalie asked.

  “I heard him.” Celeste knocked once on the table, not for good luck this time but for emphasis. She only wished Matt were here so she could emphasize her point on his face. “I came to class early to check on my grade,” Celeste said, tacking on a lame excuse. Unlike Natalie, Celeste had never rushed to check her Tuesday morning grades. Without trying too hard, she’d always gotten A’s. She’d wanted to talk to Matt about what had happened in his dorm room. She’d worried it had ruined their friendship. Their friendship! Celeste walked to the window, gazed out at the empty visitor’s spot, wished Zach were here holding her hand. “I heard Matt talking to Drake and a few of the guys. I heard him talking about me. I heard him bragging about—”

  “Okay, okay. You heard him. I get it. What do you want from me?”

  Celeste took a deep breath and smiled. She swallowed to lubricate her dry throat. How much to tell? How much to leave out? How much to trust Natalie?

  “I kind of got faced at Drake’s. . . .”

  Natalie laugh-snorted again. “You sure did, sistah. You—”

  “I never get faced.”

  “And yet,” Natalie said, biting off her words, “you did.”

  “You didn’t drink any of the punch, right?”

  “No way I was going near any of that Drake juice. I’m not stupid.”

  “Me, you, and Matt,” Celeste said, hating the sound of his name. Note to self: Rename that thing she stepped on by the door to wipe her feet. On second thought, the name was perfect. “We were all drinking screwdrivers. Did Matt seem like he was getting drunk off them? Were you? Because it seemed like—”

  “That’s what you’re worried about? The fact you can’t hold your alcohol?”

  “Yes. No. Sort of.”

  “Sistah, you have bigger things to worry about.”

  “Whatever.” Celeste forced lightness into her voice, tried imagining she was a different person, someone who cared nothing about slings and arrows. She tried imagining that nothing could pierce her skin. “I heard Matt bragging,” Celeste said. “What could be bigger than that?”

  “Matt took pictures and he’s passing them around.”

  “What?” Celeste asked, her voice hushed and disconnected, as though it were coming from across the room.

  “Photographs?”

  Images of raspberry tarts, blueberry buckle, and almond scones played across her vision, pastries Matt had photographed in class. Pastries she’d helped him bake. The receiver trembled against her cheek. Her gaze drifted to the ceiling and traced the seams of the room, as though she were looking for a way out.

  She imagined glossy four-by-six photos of pastries. She envisioned Matt laying them on the stainless steel counter of the practice kitchen the way he dealt poker cards.

  “Um, what?”

  “Pho-to-graphs of you,” Natalie said, her voice louder, as though Celeste were hard of hearing, rather than slow to comprehend. “Nak-ed pho-to-graphs. A whole goddamn photo shoot.”

  Don’t you worry. I’ll give you proof.

  Matt’s overheard words played in Celeste’s head. And then words she hadn’t previously remembered popped up. Go back to sleep, Matt had said, after she’d blinked awake to the harsh light of a flash. I have to do this.

  Have to do what? Humiliate her?

  Celeste’s temples pulsed. Heat prickled her skin—arms, legs, torso. She paced across the room, came to a wall, turned back around. She remembered her head cocked at an uncomfortable angle but being too tired to move. She remembered floating in a murky abyss, as though she were trapped in half-awake, half-asleep hypnagogia.

  “Yeah, so, kind of sucks to be you,” Natalie said. “But don’t shoot the messenger.”

  “Shoot who?”

  “The messenger!” Natalie said.

  “Um, what?”

  When Natalie laughed, Celeste took the receiver from her ear and set it on the hook. The cackle of Natalie’s laugh echoed in Celeste’s head.

  Matt had taken nude pictures of her and he was passing them around campus.

  Don’t shoot the messenger.

  Celeste didn’t want to shoot the messenger; she wanted to shoot Matt. She’d gotten drunk and had ended up in bed with a so-called friend. So what! She hadn’t given him permission to talk about having sex with her. She hadn’t given him permission to take pictures of her. No matter what Matt or anyone else thought of her, no matter what anyone said, she wasn’t a fucking whore.

  Nausea tickled her throat, and perspiration beaded her forehead. She tugged at her turtleneck, paced the room. Her sinuses pounded, as though her face might explode.

  Some of Matt’s food photos were wide shots, panoramas to take in a dessert buffet. But most of them were up close and personal, stylized detail work. He’d arrange a slice of devil’s food cake. He’d get down on his knees—

  She’s got the sweetest birthmark . . . I’ll give you proof.

  Celeste clamped her hands over her mouth and ran to the bathroom. She opened the toilet lid, just in case. She shook her head. No. No, no, no. Throwing up was the worst, most wretched—

  Oh, shit.

  Her throat refluxed, and she swallowed. With shaking hands, she bent over the sink and splashed her face with water. In the mirror, her lashes stuck together. When she was little, every night after her bath, her mother would tell her that she had eyes like a cartoon character. Lukewarm bubble baths had seemed to last for hours, until the water went cold and the bubbles faded to milky suds.Then her mother would wrap her in her hooded towel—a pink bunny with long, floppy ears. No matter how worn-thin the terry cloth, she’d always felt warm.

  Celeste pressed a palm against the glass, trying to get back to that girl. She banged on the glass three times. Her cartoon character eyes stared back at her.

  I can’t be here.

  Celeste went into the bedroom and changed in the semidarkness, the shades pulled down from this morning. She came out of the bedroom wearing last night’s hoodie and sweats, slid her feet into her bakery clogs, grabbed her pocketbook, and ran out the door. She fumbled twice with the keys before starting up Old Yeller.

  Zach pulled into the spot beside her. A bunch of brown grocery bags filled Matilda’s backseat. Matilda’s engine cut out, and Zach burst from the car. He came around to Celeste’s driver’s side and she rolled down the window.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “I got coffee ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. And, uh, those nuts you like . . .” Zach snapped his fingers next to his head. “Pecans.”

  Coffee sundaes were her favorite. She’d told Zach once. He was so nice to her. Her bottom lip trembled.

  “Celeste?” Zach asked.

  “I can’t be here.”

  “Huh?” he said. “What’s going on?”

  The sound of Na
talie’s laughter played in Celeste’s head. The bright light from Matt’s flash. His voice, telling her to go back to sleep. The girl in the mirror, so far away.

  “Zach—I—he—” Celeste looked into Zach’s eyes, the way she had last night. She breathed into her belly. “I can’t be here.”

  Zach bent to the window. “So, you’re going somewhere . . . ?”

  How to make him understand?

  “That’s okay. Not a problem. You can’t be here. Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you. Yup, going with you!” Zach jogged around Old Yeller and slid onto the passenger seat. With his left hand, he pulled the shoulder strap across his body and hooked the belt. “Ready to roll,” he said, and she backed from the space.

  She wasn’t a whore, she wasn’t a whore, she wasn’t a whore.

  They rolled down Route 209, the forest on either side thick with pines. She could jump from the car, run through the trees, and live the rest of her days in the woods like a wild thing.

  Instead, she dug her nails into the steering wheel and turned onto Route 216.

  Zach hummed “Slide.” When that didn’t work, he tried “Iris” and gave up after the third stanza.

  Celeste took a left onto Perkins Farm Lane, pulled into Popham Beach State Park, paid at the parking booth, and parked Old Yeller in front of Center Beach.

  Last week in October meant only a few cars were in the lot. A few solitary figures walked the beach. Cold nights meant water temperatures dipped into the low fifties. No one was crazy enough to swim in the surf, unless either they’d lost a dare or they needed to numb out.

  She couldn’t explain that need to Zach.

  Zach slumped back in the seat and rolled his head to the side. “You wanted to go to the beach?”

  Celeste nodded.

  “You scared the crap out of me! I thought you were ready to drive Old Yeller off a cliff, and he’s a fine car, so—”

  She opened the car door. The sea breeze whipped in her face. She turned her face into the wind.

  Zach appeared before her. He put a hand on the side of her face. His fingers cooled her temple, a pocket of relief. “You’re burning up,” he said.

  “That’s why we’re here.” She left her clogs in the car and ran down the faded dune grass trail. When she glanced over her shoulder, Zach was right behind her. She ran past the white lifeguard stand and down the beach until the soft, white sand turned dark and solid beneath her feet. To her right, Fox Island loomed before Seguin and its lighthouse. The ocean extended as far as the eye could see. And not just any ocean, the Atlantic Ocean.