How to Look Happy (6 page)

“Have you paid for the engagement photos yet?” she asks.

Jeremy and I had our engagement pictures taken just two weeks ago, outside a gorgeous, aging mansion called Annesdale that now serves as a spot for weddings and events. It’s where we were planning to hold our reception. The photos are beautiful—I saw the online proofs for the first time just two days before Jeremy dropped his bomb on me in the parking lot outside Local, with Carrie and David hanging back and watching me with concern.

“No,” I say glumly, thinking of those amazing, perfect photos I’ll never actually own. “I’ll have to pay the sitting fee, but it’s not that big a deal.” It’s a
very
big deal, actually, but I’m trying hard to make light of that fact for my mom.

She pulls out the chair across from me and sits. I’m not looking at her. I’m toying with a napkin ring, my right foot jiggling uncontrollably as I try not to cry again. I’m so over crying.

“Jennifer,” my mom says, and still I don’t look up. She reaches across the table and tilts up my chin, like she did when I was a little girl. “This, too, shall pass.”

At that a tiny smile raises the corners of my lips. That was my grandmother’s catchphrase, and I haven’t heard it in the three years since she passed away. She used it for everything from skinned knees to broken hearts, and on her lips it had a certain magic power to make anything seem better.

“I know,” I say, making a weak attempt to form my mouth into a real smile. The expression feels more like a grimace. I glance down at the napkin ring I’m still twirling.

“He wasn’t right for you, sweetie,” she says, and at that my head shoots up in surprise. “I’ve never said that because you seemed happy with him, and it isn’t up to me to decide who makes you happy. And he’s a very nice young man. But—”

She stops as if she’s said too much, turning her head to look out the big picture window toward the back garden she spends all her spare time tending.

“But what, Mom?” I say. “What makes you think he’s not right for me?”

She continues staring out the window for a couple of seconds, then turns her head and looks right into my eyes. “He’s not real,” she says. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but even though he says all the right things and does the right things—” I start to protest, but she holds up a hand and continues. “Until now, I mean.” She pauses again. “I don’t know, I’ve just always had this feeling when he’s talking to me that he’s humoring me, that he’s just humoring all of us. Like he’s posing for some invisible camera.”

I harrumph because she’s nailed Jeremy so completely. The problem is, she’s nailed me, too. I bought into the image Jeremy was selling, and there’s a part of me that still really, really wants it. I wanted to walk down the aisle toward him, all handsome in his pristine tux. I wanted a baby boy with his dark hair and striking features, a little girl with his blue-gray eyes. The straight-A report cards our kids were sure to bring home, the soccer trophies and homecoming crowns.

I’m not just mourning the end of me and Jeremy. I’m mourning the total picture, the whole life I’d designed in my head, like a storyboard for one of my projects. And now I have to start over. Never mind that somewhere deep inside, I knew the picture in real life wasn’t as perfect as the picture in my head. Never mind that Jeremy and I would have spent our entire lives trying to change each other into our separate versions of perfection.

He doesn’t even want kids.

I always figured that one day I’d change his mind. I see now how crazy that was.

“You’re right, Mom,” I say. “I know. I just… I’m sorry, you know. I…I’ve wasted so much time with him. And I know how much fun you’ve been having helping me plan the wedding.”

“Psssshaw,” my mother says, waving off my comment. And then she reaches up to tuck a stray strand of straw-colored, highlighted hair behind her right ear. “I will love to help you with your wedding one day,” she says. “But the most beautiful, perfect wedding in the world means nothing if it’s not with the right person. It’s the marriage that matters, not the wedding. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to wake up ten years from now and realize you’ve been married to the wrong man.” She pauses long enough for me to read more than I want to into her comment. Just as I’m starting to panic about my parents’ impending divorce, she goes on. “I thank God every day that I married your father,” she says, and the lump that’s formed in my throat dissipates in a cough. To cover it up, I take a sip of my super-sweet iced tea, my mom’s specialty and probably her biggest vice.

“Marriage is hard, very hard, even when you’re with the
right
person,” she says, her eyes far away, making me wonder again about things I’m sure I’d rather not know. She shakes her head and gazes right at me again. “You’ll be ready for it in time, and you’ll figure it all out. I know it’s hard to see past what Jeremy did right now, but you’ll be grateful for it one day. I guarantee it.”

I smile, the first genuine smile that’s passed my lips in days. She’s right. I know she’s right. It’s just that I wish I could turn back the clock to when I thought I
did
have things figured out. I wish I could design life to be exactly what I want it to be.

Executive Sabotage

“Has anybody seen my Kennedy samples?” I call out across the office. My voice practically echoes, since the only people in the place are me, Quinn, and Brice. Carson popped out to grab a drink at Bluff City Coffee. Ellie Kate left to pick up her daughter, and I haven’t seen Candace or Rachael in hours.

Brice looks up from the Candy Crush game I know he’s playing on his phone—he’s completely addicted—and Quinn raises her eyes from her computer screen and shakes her head. I know she’s working on a new blog post for the firm’s website because it’s Friday afternoon, and she always puts up a new post on Fridays. And when she’s not working on the website, Quinn is rarely still.

I stand and walk all around my desk, checking to see if the neat stack of samples got pushed somehow behind my computer monitor or knocked to the floor. Nothing. Then I walk to our big worktable in the back to see if maybe I left them there. Nada.

Finally, I head over to the wall of cubbies where each designer stores materials for our projects in progress, even though I don’t remember putting these samples away. My job includes keeping track of a lot of stuff, and that stuff needs to be available at times to other designers. So Brice worked out a system of shelves and cubbies we use to organize our projects while keeping all of our fabric memos and finish samples accessible. I’m the second row from the bottom, and I systematically pull out each canvas bin that’s labeled with my name. No dice.

By this time Brice is circling me, twisting his hands together. “Um, Jen, it wasn’t that stack with the blue ikat on top, was it?”

“Yes!” I stand up so fast I almost topple backward on my stacked-heel wedges. “Did you put it somewhere?”

He looks uncomfortable. “Well, actually, I put it all away,” he says. “Candace handed it to me a few hours ago and said she was finished with it.” My mouth drops open on his first sentence, but I don’t respond. This certainly isn’t his fault, and anything I say right now is guaranteed to make him feel awful. “I thought it looked like a project you’d been working on, but…she said—”

“No worries,” I finally sputter. “She must not have realized I wasn’t finished with it. I…I’ll just pull them back out again.”

Much easier said than done—I hadn’t written a single item down, and I spent the entire afternoon pulling samples for this project, a sitting room for a very sweet repeat client of mine named Elsie Kennedy. I’m scheduled to present the project to her first thing Monday morning, and I really don’t want to put her off…again. I’ve already rescheduled with her twice. I’ve been procrastinating and pushing it to the back burner while I finished the space plan for the new bakery.

Looks like I’ll be burning the midnight oil tonight or working this weekend. And I’ll probably have to call and check the availability and pricing on all the items myself, since Brice doesn’t come in until ten. My appointment is Monday at 10:30 in Germantown, about forty minutes from the office.

Brice must be reading the anxiety on my face because he says, “I’m sorry,” with his forehead furrowed. I shake my head and try to look blasé.

“Not your fault.” I spin on my heel and survey the long side wall of our office, which is lined floor to ceiling with custom-built shelves designed to house the firm’s extensive array of wallpaper and fabric books, folded and hanging fabric memos, thick books of drapery trims, chunky collections of hardware, and more. I know it will be impossible to remember and find every sample I’d gathered, so I inhale deeply and prepare to start the project over again.

Brice walks over to a far shelf and pulls out the blue ikat that had topped the stack. “Here’s this one,” he says. “I think you had a Robert Allen stripe in there, and maybe a Kravet linen?” He walks quickly to another shelf and starts digging through his neat and organized piles, and my heart swells with gratitude.

“You’re a rock star, Brice,” I say. “Thanks.” He’s already saved me at least thirty minutes on my project redo. I’m trying not to let my brain dip to the place it’s wanting to go—
why the hell did Candace take
my
samples off
my
desk and ask Brice to put them away?
—but it’s no use. I can see this was no accident. She’s playing a passive-aggressive game of sabotage that’s clearly just beginning.

The fact that she’s sabotaging her own firm’s revenues in the process is the part that truly worries me. She knows how busy I am and how many commissions I bring in. For her to play this game with me means Candace must
really
be pissed.

Cringing internally, I realize I’m going to have to talk it out with her. The thought makes me want to run through the front doors and never come back.

*  *  *

It’s around eight when I finally leave the office, my file for the Kennedy project locked into my desk drawer and my samples, sketches, and specs tucked safely into one of my bins. I can’t even think about what Candace did to me. Every time I do, I get all hot, my head fills with pressure, and I’m so anxious I feel like I could throw something across the room.

It’s totally unlike me.

I have a sudden, overwhelming craving for a glass of wine. Or a bottle.

I wait till I’ve pulled out of the parking lot and am driving east on Peabody Avenue before I reach for my phone to see what Carrie’s up to tonight. Chances are she has plans with David, but I haven’t actually talked to her today, so I’m not sure. Usually I’d have some type of plan on a Friday night with Jeremy, and I’m trying really hard not to dwell on the fact that I’m suddenly single, with nothing at all to do and nothing big and exciting to look forward to—like a wedding.

As Carr’s voicemail message starts to play, I’m musing over the fact that one week earlier, I was on top of the world. I’d scored a coup by landing Brewster as a client, I was on track for partnership in my firm (according to rumor, at least), and I had a fiancé who’d just been named one of the city’s hottest bachelors.

And I had integrity.

And a dog.

At that last thought, my heart thumps in an aching jolt.
Simon.

How is it even possible for so much change to take place in seven days? It’s enough to make me want to crawl into my bed, sleep for a week, and pray that when I wake up the world is right again. I feel off-balance, like I’ve lost some essential element in my makeup that holds the air particles around me in place.

I’ve been lucky up to this point, I guess. And I guess at some point, everybody’s luck runs out. I hear the beep on the other end of the phone call and try to make my voice sound peppier than I feel—or at least, to not sound as strange as the thoughts kicking around in my head. “Um, hey, Carr. I’m just now leaving work. Had a little, um, situation to take care of at the office. I think I’m going out in Cooper-Young tonight. I might call and see if Rachael’s up for meeting me. Amelia’s not in town, is she?” I pause. “Anyway, if you’re not busy, call me, and maybe we can meet up.”

I click the button to hang up, but I’m pretty sure I was already sighing before the message cut off. I feel bad for making Carrie feel bad for me because I know she
will
take on my pain. Carrie is one of the most empathetic, selfless, caring people I’ve known in my entire life.

Sure enough, I haven’t even parked the car in Cooper-Young before my cricket ringtone blares out from my car’s speakers.

“Hey, Carr,” I say, clicking to put her on speaker while I crane my neck to check for cars as I parallel park. I can’t believe I’ve found a free spot this time of night on a weekend.

“Hey,” she answers in a loud voice, and I hear clangs and clatters and voices in the background of the call.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Café 1912,” she says. “I had that dinner with the spice people, remember?”

At first that sentence doesn’t even make sense, but then I vaguely recall a conversation about a new client she’s trying to land for her firm, some family-run herbs and spices company, if I’m remembering right. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own life in the past few days that I don’t know what’s happening in anybody else’s. The thought piles guilt on top of my depression.

I really
should
be a mother, I think. I’ve got the mom-guilt thing down pat.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, feeling even more deflated. “How come you’re answering my call then?”

“Well, they actually just left. I just came out of the ladies’ room, and I’m about to go to my car.”

“Are you meeting David after?”

“No, David’s in Boston this weekend for some cooking demonstration. If I hadn’t had this meeting, I’d have gone with him.”

“Yeesh. I hope it was a good meeting then.”

“It was,” she says. “I presented the initial strategy, and they’re signing on with us. We have another meeting to sign the contract set for next week.”

Carrie’s been kicking ass and taking names ever since she was promoted to creative director at her firm last summer. I’m super proud of her, especially since she had major self-doubt about the promotion. Another friend of ours, Amelia Wright (or Mel, for short) used to be in Carrie’s role, but she lives in Texas now with her husband. Lately, though, she’s been in town several times scouting real estate because she oversees the Dallas office of Anderson Public Relations and sometimes travels to Memphis for work. She has the money for this second home by virtue of her other job as an internationally bestselling author.

“Go, you,” I say, impressed but not surprised. I know better than Carrie does how awesome she is. “So, you want to go celebrate?”

“Sure,” she says. “I was going to call you anyway. Mel’s not in town this weekend, by the way. She’s coming in week after next for some literary event at Rhodes College. She’s the keynote speaker.”

I’m shaking my head at this. It seems like two months ago that the three of us—along with Reese Spencer-Chapman, Amelia’s childhood best friend and the fourth member of our old crew—were in our mid-twenties, just meeting, and regularly hanging out in bars bemoaning our pitiful careers, bank accounts, and love lives. It doesn’t seem possible that we’re now grown-ups.

Or that Amelia, Reese, and Carrie are grown up, at least. Ever since my Facebook stunt I’ve felt more like an overgrown teenager.

I shake off the thought, swinging open my car door at the same time without checking to see if the street is clear. An oncoming Hummer almost takes off my door, and I feel a rush of wind and the car shuddering beneath my feet as it passes. “Ack!” My heart racing at my idiocy, I gather myself for a breath and then say, “I’m just up the street from you. I was about to go into Greencork—is that okay?”

The chic-but-laid-back wine bar has exactly the vibe I need tonight. It’s cheerful, friendly, and usually plays host to large groups of women—book clubs and girls’ nights out—nary a man in sight on a typical evening. The thought of dipping back into the dating pool makes me sick to my stomach, so I want to avoid the singles scene for now.

“You’re reading my mind,” Carrie says. “Did you say you were calling Rachael?”

“Nah,” I reply. I
would
have called Rachael if Carrie wasn’t free, but since she is, I’d much rather have my best friend to myself. Besides, I’m getting a weird vibe off of Rachael now that I’m persona non grata at the office. I feel a dash of unease as I think about work. That’s another reason I don’t want to call Rachael. I haven’t told Carrie about Candace’s passive-aggressive behavior yet, and I wouldn’t be able to dish with Rachael there.

*  *  *

I’m so comfortable that I don’t even notice Brad Pepper’s arrival at Greencork until he’s towering over my chair. Carrie and I have managed to snag the best seats in the place—one of two pairs of slipper chairs in front of a homey fireplace. There’s no fire in it tonight, what with it seventy-eight degrees outside at 9:30 p.m., but it still ups the cozy vibe in the restaurant a thousandfold.

Brad is a principal at Levi-Pepper Architects, a Midtown firm that specializes in historic adaptation. I’ve worked with Brad on one project, an old bread factory his firm turned into a mixed-use residential and commercial development. I designed the model units for the condos.

“Well, Jennifer Dawson,” he says, and his voice booms so loudly in my right ear I nearly jump out of my seat.

“Bradley Pepper, hello,” I answer, switching into my “office voice,” something Carrie’s boyfriend, David, makes fun of me for. Jeremy has an “office voice” too. I never even knew we did it until recently when David pointed it out. Now I’m a little self-conscious about it, and I try to modulate my voice back to a more normal, conversational tone. “What are you up to tonight?”

It’s obvious what he’s up to—after all, we’re in the same bar on the same weekend evening. I look beyond him to see who he’s with, but I can’t tell. Greencork is a self-service wine bar with five or six wine cooler stations topped by signs that read “crisp, fruity whites,” “full-bodied reds,” and so on. Customers are milling about, perusing the wine machines and inserting cards into the card readers when they decide on a pour. There’s a table a few feet away from us with a woman’s bag slung over the back of one chair, and I’m guessing it belongs to Brad’s date. Sure enough, a tall, leggy brunette makes her way to it, and I watch as she scans the restaurant, her eyes finally landing on us.