How to Look Happy (5 page)

Rebuilding Year

I pull up Facebook, click on my own profile, and spend a few minutes scrolling down my wall making a paranoid check for comments that hint at my stupidity from earlier in the week.

The thing about the internet is that once you put something out there, it’s there. You can’t take it back. The split second someone else sees it, it’s part of you, and it lives forever. I try to remember what life was like before social media, before prospective employers checked your Twitter feed along with your résumé and before your high school frenemies competed on Facebook to make sure their version of the good life looks better than yours. What life was like when you could actually leave your past and your stupid mistakes behind, when they didn’t literally “follow” you on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

I think about how hard I’ve worked in the past few years to build my reputation and portfolio, how quickly and easily I was able to shoot myself down. Fifteen years ago, this type of thing wasn’t even possible. I’d have had to take out a newspaper ad to make even a tenth of the impression I made online with a few keystrokes.

“Well, Dawson. You’ve just got to rebuild,” I say out loud. I wiggle to reposition myself on the couch, where I’ve been sitting with my computer on my lap and my legs propped on the coffee table, Simon curled into a warm ball beside me. I swing my legs around and tuck my feet underneath me, and Simon opens one eye and gives me a sleepy, bothered look, as if to chastise me for interrupting his nap.

I open a new document and type these words at the top:

Jen’s Comeback Plan:

1. Rebuild reputation by meeting with every client

2. Work on portfolio/add last year’s projects

3. Clean up Facebook and Twitter, only keep real friends

4. Attend networking groups

5. Take lead back on Brewster job

6. Add five clients within next quarter

I tap my fingers against the keyboard, wracking my brain to come up with more ways to turn my mistake around.
Maybe it’s good that I screwed up.
I’ve had so much luck building business in the last couple of years that maybe I was due a setback, to keep me on my toes and keep me from getting complacent.

I’ve worked too hard to give up even a fraction of it. My mind turns to Jeremy, to the wedding I’m supposed to be planning—the wedding that was supposed to complete this picture, this idealized blend of life and love and career and family I realize I’ve been striving for. I feel a twinge, remembering his words Thursday morning.
“We were complacent, but we weren’t happy.”

Oh, but we
looked
happy. On paper, we were perfect.

I wonder if maybe that wasn’t what kept me with him for so long. He completed my picture.

Inspired suddenly, I look back at my list and add:

7. Find someone to be truly happy with

The rest of my conversation with Jeremy comes flooding back, and I remember his other, more puzzling words.
“In seven years, I don’t know the first damn thing about you.”

Well, that’s just silly.
My life is an open book. Too open, clearly. That’s how I got myself in this mess in the first place. I have to work much, much harder to protect what I’ve built and manage my image.
And I have to watch my back.
Candace’s sleek blonde head makes an unwelcome appearance in my thoughts.

*  *  *

At around two, I’m in the kitchen loading dishes into the dishwasher when I hear Simon take off to the front of the house, his tags jingling wildly. I shut the water off and walk toward the kitchen doorway, drying my hands on a green-and-white striped towel. A key turns in the lock, and then there’s Jeremy, walking inside as if nothing’s out of the ordinary, Simon dancing and leaping around his feet like he’s just won the doggie lottery.

I emerge from the kitchen and frown at him, and he frowns back.

“I didn’t think you were here,” he says.

“I dropped my car for an oil change and walked back,” I reply. I needed the exercise, and I really needed the oil change. My car was overdue because Jeremy had been promising he’d take it for months.

He raises an eyebrow, and I feel a tiny twinge of satisfaction. I can do this without him. I’ve leaned on him too much in the last seven years—I can see that now.

He bends down and scoops Simon up in his arms, and my satisfaction quickly turns to worry. “Um, you’re not planning to take him with you, are you?”

His cheeks turn a darker color, and I can practically see his defenses rise. “Why wouldn’t I?” he blusters. “He’s my dog.”

“He’s lived with me for the last four years, Jeremy. He’s
our
dog.” I pause. “He’s certainly not
Brianna’s
dog.” I’m instantly pissed at myself for saying that. I didn’t want this to happen today. If I’d known what time Jeremy was planning to come by, I’d have stayed with the car and left his boxes right inside the front door. But then again, then he would’ve taken Simon.

When I look up at him, Jeremy is staring at me with an odd expression in his eyes. “What makes you… How did you…know about Brianna?”

I cock my head to the right, bewildered, as I stare back at him. Is he on drugs along with the sex and lies? “What the hell are you talking about?
You
told me about Brianna yourself. Why else are you here today, picking up all this?” I gesture with my hands toward the hallway, which is lined with five or six boxes of Jeremy’s things, a fishing pole he’d kept in my back shed stretched across the top.

“No, I mean how did you know Brianna’s moving—”

He stops mid-sentence as understanding lights his eyes. Too late.

“She’s moving
in
with you?” I screech. I feel the color drain from my face, and then I get control of myself and move past him into the hallway. “You are such a jackass, Jerm,” I say in a low voice, bending down and snatching up the first box I come to, knocking the fishing pole to the hallway floor with a loud clatter. He immediately sets down Simon and rushes over, picking up the expensive, top-of-the-line pole he’s hardly ever used and examining it gingerly to make sure it isn’t scratched. I feel like poking him in the ass with it.

I march past him and into the living room, struggling briefly to get the front door open. Then I cart the box straight down the front porch steps and dump it on the sidewalk beside his six-month-old Land Rover. As I head back for another one, I see him standing on the front porch, still holding the fishing pole and scratching his head.

“Be reasonable, Jen,” he says as I march past him. This time I prop the door open before stomping down the hallway for the second box. He remains on the front porch as I make another trip to the sidewalk, but it’s not until I’m back inside the house that he starts in again. The last thing Jeremy ever wants is to cause a scene.

I’m reserved too, but out of the two of us, I definitely have more fire. Whenever I start to get riled up, Jeremy tends to agree with whatever I’m saying just so he doesn’t have to argue. It’s probably the thing that infuriates me most about him. And today I don’t feel like playing his game.

“What am I doing that’s unreasonable,
Jeremy
?” My voice has escalated about four notches in timbre, and I enjoy the slight look of panic on his face. I should have done this more often, this whole “saying what I want to” thing. I catered to his whims way too much. “You’re moving out of my life, I’m speeding along the process.” I’m half bent over, about to pick up another box, when I straighten and turn toward him. “In fact, do you mind giving me a hand here?”

He looks confused again, or like he’s deep in thought, for several seconds. And then he snaps out of it, shakes his head slightly, and rushes into the hallway behind me. I pick up a box, he picks up a box, and neither of us says anything else as he follows me outside. He begins loading the boxes into his car as I make two rapid trips inside for the last two. The last one is filled with his books and weighs about two tons. It’s a good thing I’m used to moving furniture and carting around heavy objects at project installations, because at this point I just want him out of my house as fast as humanly possible.

I transfer the last box into his arms instead of setting it on the sidewalk, since it’s so heavy I’d rather not bend down with it. As our arms and hands brush, an aching quiver rushes down my body, and I realize this might be the last time he’ll ever touch me. Despite everything, this knowledge sends shockwaves of pain through me, pain I’ve refused to let myself feel up to this point.

I do love him, I realize. I love Jeremy, even though I want nothing more right now than to get him out of my life. The warring emotions are about to overtake me, so I spin on my heel and walk quickly back up the walkway and into the house. I shut the door without saying good-bye.

I’m back in the kitchen when I hear the door open again, and I quickly wipe my cheeks with the dish towel, anger overtaking my other emotions. I rush into the living room doorway.

“What?” I snap. “What else do you want?”

He looks tired, older somehow. As I watch in horror, he picks up Simon’s leash from the bowl on the console table just inside the front door. He makes clicking noises with his tongue, but Simon is already running into the room, spotting his leash and jumping around excitedly, ready for his walk. Jeremy bends down and clicks the leash into place.

As he rises he says, “He is my dog, Jen.”

I’m so frozen with fury that I can’t even speak. He continues standing there, just staring at me, and after a few seconds my anger mixes with confusion. He looks as if he simultaneously wants to and doesn’t want to say something, his mouth opening and then closing again at least twice.

Finally he reaches back, pulls open the door, and leads Simon through it. As he leaves for good he looks back toward me, his eyes sweeping down my body to where I’m still holding the towel, twisting it between my fingers. My mouth is open in silent protest.

“Good-bye,” he says in a quiet voice, his eyes on the towel. He closes the door, and then he’s gone.

“Simon,” I say out loud after the door is closed, my voice cracking. I rush to the door and pull it open again, to at least get one last doggie kiss, a proper good-bye, but Jeremy’s already firing up his massive vehicle with a roar and then pulling away from the curb.

Tears drop from my eyes onto the towel, and I glance down at my hands. That’s when it hits me.
The ring.
He wanted to ask me for the ring.

I cry for the rest of the afternoon.

*  *  *

It’s the next day, and I’m sitting at my parents’ long, rectangular kitchen table, picking at a tiny chip in the off-white paint. My mom and I painted it together when I was home from college one summer—it’s the same table we had when I was growing up, a sturdy, plank-style farmhouse number meant to withstand the dents and dings that come along with a houseful of rowdy boys. It had a few peaceful, whitewashed years, and now it’s subject to the new torment of an ever-growing number of grandchildren.

So far I’m an aunt of six. My brothers, from oldest to youngest, are Chris, who’s thirty-seven and married to Christine (yes, too cute to be true, I know), and half of the brood so far belongs to them. Next in line is James, who’s thirty-five, married to Eileen, and lives in Baltimore. He and Eileen are both lawyers and super career focused, and they’re currently freaking out my mom by saying they don’t want kids. After James come Brian and Adam, who are thirty-three. Brian is married to Eleanor, who gave birth to her own set of twins eighteen months ago, Sadie and Sam, the cutest squishy-cheeked, curly-haired little monsters I’ve ever seen—they light up my world. And finally Adam, who was the first of my brothers to tie the knot, is married to Jane and lives in London with their seven-year-old son Braxton, a fact that endlessly breaks my mother’s heart. We see them once a year, usually around the holidays. Braxton, though, has the most adorable hybrid accent…British mixed with hints of Southern. I Skype with them regularly and could listen to his little voice for hours on end.

Chris, Brian, and I all live in Memphis near our folks, though Chris is way out in the ‘burbs and spends most of the time he’s not at work coaching soccer and tag teaming with Christine to shuttle the kids to day care, schools, practices, and play dates.

I know it’s hard. Chris is a financial planner at a small firm, and Christine works in graphic design for a big, regional newspaper. I see them struggle daily with their hectic schedules. But still, I can’t wait for that to be me. At thirty-one, I want children of my own so badly I can already smell their sweet baby smells and see the crumbs littering my minivan. But for now, my nieces and nephews are welcome substitutes.

Which leads me to the reason I’m here.

“We can still cancel the reception hall and get back the deposit,” my mom is saying. “And I’ll call Maxine and let her know we won’t need the catering.” I can hear from her chipper tone how hard she’s working to cover up her disappointment.