How to Look Happy (8 page)

I sprawl out in my chair in a way that’s probably less than ladylike, but I don’t care. The wine warms my stomach and softens the hard edges of the images going through my head—of Candace casually walking by my desk, picking up my samples, and trashing my afternoon’s work. As Carrie tells me about a cute onesie she found for Mazie at a vintage baby boutique down the street from our offices, the worry that’s been gnawing at my stomach all evening finally begins to dissipate.

Everybody’s Favorite Aunt

“Can you sue for custody of a dog?” I ask, only half kidding. I’m on the phone with my sister-in-law, Eleanor. I called her to find out what type of gift she’s buying for Jake, Chris and Christine’s youngest, who’s turning two on Tuesday. His birthday party is tomorrow afternoon at their house on the far eastern end of the county. There’s a great divide in this city of people who live “inside the loop” and “outside the loop”—the loop being the ring road of Interstate 40 that circles the heart of Memphis. People who live outside the loop tend to hate driving into it but not as much as the people who live inside the loop hate to drive out. To hear my Midtown neighbors talk, you’d think Collierville, where my brother lives, was halfway to Alaska.

But I digress.

“Jeremy took Simon?” Eleanor asks in an incredulous tone. “Geez, Jen, did he stomp on your foot and slash your tires too? What a grade-A asshole.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not the worst part.” I tell her how I found out about Jeremy’s new “roommate.”

I’ve spent the past fifteen minutes filling Eleanor in on Jeremy’s visit to the house. In a way, I guess I’m using her as a test case for tomorrow’s family gathering. I’ve been dreading Jake’s party for days because it’ll be the first time I’ve seen most of my family since the breakup.

I can only imagine how it’s going to go. First, everybody will laugh it off, simply because Jeremy and I have broken up about fourteen times previously, and each time I’ve sworn it was really over. So then I’ll have to discuss the reason we broke up, which is sure to spawn a round of sympathy I’m not ready for. And of course, everybody who saw the Facebook post—which, let’s face it, is everybody—will make me rehash the humiliating story of my day and night from hell.

At least I’ll get to eat cake.

“You are definitely better off without him,” Eleanor is saying. “I’ve always thought Jeremy was kind of a snob. And selfish. He took advantage of you.”

I’m starting to realize that pretty much everybody in my life feels this way. Why on earth didn’t anybody clue me in?

I guess, like my mom, they all thought I was happy. And in a way, clueless
does
equal happy. There’s a reason the phrase “ignorance is bliss” exists. It’s just not a lovely feeling to realize your ignorance came from within—that you’ve been lying to yourself, playing yourself for a fool.

Viewing it this way, it’s harder to blame Jeremy for all my misery. And if that’s the case, I pick clueless.

“Mmm,” I say, feeling fidgety and ready to change the subject. “Well, anyway, so you’re giving Jake clothes? Then I’ll buy the puzzles.” I spied these cute Melissa & Doug puzzles with construction vehicles in the Toys “R” Us sales mailer, which I receive, I’m sure, because of the staggering number of gifts I’ve bought for my siblings’ offspring. Jake loves trucks, so I know the puzzles will be a winner. But since he’s the third kid in the household, I also know Chris and Christine’s playroom is already overflowing with toys.

Oh, to have their problems.

*  *  *

The next afternoon, I take a deep breath and brace myself as I round the corner and turn onto Chris’s street. Their driveway is already full, so I park in front of the house next door and open the hatch on my Prius to grab Jake’s gift. As I walk around the car, Eleanor and Brian’s massive SUV turns in, and I wave to Eleanor as she drives by, turns around in a neighbor’s driveway, and pulls up to the curb across the street. Distracted, I pull out the package without watching what I’m doing, and a corner of the wrapping paper catches on the edge of the door frame. I hear a loud ripping sound.

“Aw, crap,” I say, glancing down at the ruined package, the bright-colored puzzles poking out from the balloon-printed wrapping paper.

“Eh, he’s two,” Eleanor calls out to me. She’s already out of the car, swinging a gift bag with a giraffe on it from her left hand. The kids aren’t with her, so she and Brian must be driving separately. I wonder if she’s been at the spa. Mother’s Day was last weekend, and she told me on the phone last night that Brian had given her a gift card for a massage and a pedicure. As she catches up with me I peek down at her feet, and sure enough her toes are buffed to a high shine and glossed with perfect violet polish. “He won’t know the difference,” she continues. “Besides, it’ll be easier to unwrap if the paper’s ripped a little bit.” She grins at me.

“Justification for my stellar clumsiness. I’ll take it,” I say, smiling back and feeling guilty for my jealousy over a little purple nail polish. In my single, childless, and miraculously still-employed state, I could go to the spa too, if I felt like it. But that’s not the same as having someone love you enough to pamper you.

“I’m here for ya, babe,” Eleanor says.

I smile to myself, thinking her words are as good a reason as any to quit whining. My career might be in shambles and my love life a hot mess, but at least I have the best friends and family in the entire world.

I can’t tell anyone this, of course, but Eleanor is my favorite sister-in-law. She’s my age, thirty-one, and we have loads in common. She worked as a high school art teacher before leaving to become a stay-at-home mom when the twins were born. The non-working life didn’t suit her, so now she’s working from home, writing a crafting blog that actually has some advertisers and designing handmade greeting cards that she sells from an Etsy shop.

Like me, Eleanor grew up with all brothers, and also like me, two of her favorite things in the world are shopping and going to concerts. We used to do one or the other together every month or so, but since the twins came along it’s harder and harder to get our schedules to sync.

I’m not sure which of us is more jealous of the other.

“Look at your flat stomach,” she says, eyeing my midsection with an envious glint in her eye as we walk side by side up the front walk. Guess that answers
that
question. “I don’t think I’m ever going to lose these last ten pounds.” She drops her free hand to her stomach and rubs it self-consciously, though I can’t see the extra weight.

“You’d never know it,” I say. I’ve reassured her of this before, but I can only imagine how it will feel one day to have my body stretch and change and no longer belong only to me. I’m sure I’ll be thinking or saying the same thing one day. At least, I hope so.

Eleanor hops up the front steps ahead of me and reaches for the door handle, and the noise of my brother’s household precedes the opening of the front door. As soon as I’m two steps in, my niece Charlotte has already wrapped herself around my leg. “Come see my new Elsa dress, Aunt Jen,” she says in her trilling, sweet, four-year-old soprano voice.

“I thought it was the birthday boy’s turn to get all the presents,” I joke, tugging on one of her light brown ringlets. As if my brother and Christine could deny her anything. Not only is Charlotte the only girl in the brood, she’s also the kindest child I’ve ever met—the type of kid who shares without being asked, offers you her ice cream cone when you look like you’ve had a bad day, or cries when somebody steps on a spider.

I immediately feel bad for saying this because of the tortured look on her face.

“Mommy bought it for me
days
ago,” she says. “Because it was on clea-wance at Target.”

She pronounces it “Tar-zjay,” the way her mom does, which makes me, Eleanor, and Chris, who’s just walked into the foyer to greet us, all dissolve into giggles.

“Christine’s mini-me or what?” Chris says as he leans in for a hug. “I am in trouble with a capital T.” He looks so happy as he says this that it makes me squeeze him extra hard for a second. He leans back and looks at me with his brow furrowed.

“You okay, sis?” he asks after a long moment, and I think,
And it begins.

*  *  *

“Are you looking for other jobs?” Christine asks, leaning toward me to be heard over the din of shrieking, laughing, and wailing children that have overtaken her suburban backyard. Even though Jake’s only two, they’ve hired a giant inflatable bounce house that the birthday boy and his toddler-age day care friends are too scared to go into. Instead it’s overrun with big kids, including Max, Jake’s eight-year-old big brother, and my own brother and his thirty-something friends. As I watch, my dad yells out, “Do y’all have liability insurance on that thing?”

I snicker and then turn reluctantly to Christine. “No. Why? Do you think I should?”

I’ve just told the story of Candace’s sabotage—starting with the moment she took over my client meeting and ending with Friday afternoon’s childish display of passive-aggressiveness—to both of my sisters-in-law and to Christine’s best friend, Meghan. The four of us are sitting on the back deck drinking lemonade through bendy straws. Maybe I’ve become too accustomed to my carefree, single woman’s life, but I’m thinking,
This could sure use a spike of vodka
.

“Clearly she’s not planning to fire you,” Eleanor said in a rational tone. “Or she would have already.”

“She’s just trying to make sure you quit,” added Meghan in her high-pitched voice. She’s a former college cheerleader with round, freckled cheeks and blonde hair streaked with highlights that’s cut in that trademark “mom style” so many women seem to get after having babies—uber-short in the back and stacked and feathered at the crown of her head so it resembles an upside-down bob. I’ve told Carrie to nail shut the salon door before she ever lets me do that to myself, and she expects the same favor from me.

Pretty much all of Christine’s friends have that hair, but she doesn’t, thankfully. Saves me an awkward conversation.

“Trust me, that’s occurred to me,” I say. “I’m not planning to give her that satisfaction.” I’ve now told the story of Jeremy’s and my breakup and how I humiliated myself on the most public platform at my disposal three separate times, and this is the second time today Eleanor has heard it.

“I think you need to get revenge by being awesome,” Eleanor says. “Do amazing work. Show her she can’t get you down.”

That’s Carrie’s take on things too, and I’m inclined to agree. Besides, it’s on my own comeback plan. I visualize my list, which I haven’t thought about once since creating it a week ago.

“I think you need to get revenge by starting your own firm, and
then
doing amazing work,” Christine says. “Why should that…
woman
… get the benefit of your hard work?” I can tell she really, really wanted to use a better expletive, but Christine’s been trying to stop using curse words since the kids were born.

Meghan and even Eleanor are nodding emphatically, which takes me aback a little bit. Me, start my own design firm? How on God’s green earth could I make that happen? Starting a business comes with a pesky little thing called overhead, and with my mortgage, car payment, and student loans I’m already barely getting by, especially after losing the Brewster commission.

“Ha. Yeah, right,” I say, looking down into my lemonade and taking a long, slow sip. A gnat is buzzing around the rim of my cup, and I swat it away.

“Yeah, right? Why?” It’s Eleanor who asks this, and again I feel a little jolt of surprise, or indignation.

“Well, think about it,” I say. “I’d have to find a space, then afford the rent—which, let me tell you, just isn’t happening. And then I’d have to hope against all hope that my clients would follow me to the new place, and chances are that not all of them would. And
then
I’d have to figure out how to build a workroom, buy samples, advertise. All of this would probably mean I’d have to hire employees, which means I’d have to pay them. Honestly, this would take years to build. And I have no capital to build from. My house, car, and all my other expenses don’t give me a ton of leftover income.”

I probably need to advertise for a roommate
, I think, feeling depressed all over again. I’d been counting on Jeremy moving in soon and lifting part of the mortgage burden off of my salary.

Eleanor starts to protest, but just then Christine jumps out of her chair and runs to the edge of the deck. “Christopher Maxwell Dawson, shut that hose off and leave your sister alone. Are you kidding me?” She turns to us. “He’s eight.
Eight.
He should know better than this.” She stalks down the deck steps as Charlotte runs toward us, wailing at the top of her lungs. The bottom half of her dress is soaked through and sticking to her legs. “Max, the Xbox is
off
for the rest of the weekend.”

Eleanor is trying not to laugh, and Meghan says, “God, what are we in for?” She pats her stomach, where baby number three is nestled in a cute, low-slung baby bump under her maternity dress. Her first boy. And then Sadie and Sam, who’ve been playing on the big wooden playset on the far side of Chris and Christine’s sprawling, fenced backyard, streak toward the deck, both screaming as loud as their little voices can manage. Sympathy cries, from what I can tell, because Charlotte is still wailing. Brian trails behind them, and he raises both hands in a helpless gesture, looking at Eleanor.

As she jumps up to calm the waters, I stare silently into my sticky cup, which by now is just a sugar-flavored bug collector.
At least I’m out of the hot seat.