Page 31 of The Happiness Blueprint
“Please tell me that I’m wrong. Are we supposed to be in Dalby in twenty minutes?” she says.
“You tell me. You’re the boss.”
“How does this keep happening to me? Sorry, Alex, but you have about five minutes to finish your meal. Oh, it feels wrong to have ended the salmon’s life span early to only spend five minutes on it!”
Not entirely sure how Klara has managed not to mess up an entire job yet. It’s like she doesn’t know that there is such a thing as a calendar that comes with your Apple devices. Her scribbles across her dad’s leather-bound one do not count as organization. I almost installed a handrail and wheelchair access in the wrong apartment last week because the screenshots she sent me of said calendar are illegible. I feel a sweat coming on just looking at the messy attempt at time-keeping. Numbers, being on time and neatness are my jam. Entering tasks and completing them... I think your tactic is working, Dr. Hadid...
“How have you managed until now? You’re an adult living abroad and all, the international hotshot from London gracing the south of Sweden with your presence.”
“Hardly an accurate description. I shared a flat with my best friend in London, never lived on my own and spent my days on the computer feeling like I repeated the same conversation over and over but with a different person. I’ve never been the boss of anyone or anything.”
“Still, I feel like you—we—are doomed if we continue the way things are going. This morning I got a reminder sayingbuy tampons.” She laughs a big belly laugh.
“Sorry, that was obviously for my eyes only.”
“Damn, I wish you had told me before. Already picked up the tampons on my way to work,” I say jokingly. “I bet you’re the type of person who has five hundred unread messages clinging to your inbox.”
She glances at her phone. I stand up, and we start walking. Impressed at the speed at which she finished her meal.
“Three hundred and twelve,” she says over her shoulder as she speeds off ahead of me. “Look, in London we had a response coordinator, reference responses and a schedule. I never had a reason to get my shit together. Why are you so ace at notes and diary entries anyway?”
“Let’s just say it’s my thing lately.”My only thing lately.
“Well, feel free to take my calendar over. I hate the thing.”
“Seriously? I won’t pass on that offer. Send me your log-ins, and I’ll slide into your calendar, then.”What did I just say?Sounds like a dating technique. But, actually, this works. We will have less confusion, fewer annoyed customers. Win-win.
Just as we reach the van my phone pings with Klara’s calendar access information. We’re now synced.
KLARA
What should be on my bucket list?
Google Search I’m Feeling Lucky
Six weeks into Dad’s treatment, and there has been a change. No more eggs on toast. Dad suddenly looks a lot older, as if he’s my grandfather instead of my dad.
“I can leave the car at the tile shop around the corner. Saves us the parking,” he suggests. I’m joining Dad at his appointment today. We could arrange a taxi transfer now that he is too tired to drive himself, but I prefer to be there. Plus, we used the thirty-five-minute drive to talk through the expenses and what I need to prepare for the accountants.
“Dad, we are certainly not walking four blocks to your chemo appointment to save 150 kronor!”
When I arrived, I thought that Dad hadstage 1rather thancancer. That they could somehow be separated, like numerals and words normally are. But he doesn’t look like a 1. He looks more like an 8 on the pain scale. For me a headache is a 4, a stubbed toe a 7 and a broken wrist from falling down a tree a 9.
“How would you rate your nausea?” I ask him. He smiles.
“I would rate it a 2.5 today, Klara.”
I decide to google prostate cancer. I hadn’t done this before because I had a numeral, astage. But now there is this nagging feeling that disease cannot be categorized as a number, and it is rather soft around the edges instead. It floats out, and we can’t contain it. Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding and it is a performance stage we are talking about, where cancer can twirl and hop as much as it wants.
Google tells me that stage 1 cancer is small and hasn’t spread. I couldn’t imagine aggressive cells spreading through my dad’s body, but apparently, I don’t have to. It’s confined to the prostate gland—I like this word also,confined. Clear boundaries. Then it says that the survival rate is nearly one hundred percent for the next five years, and I think, at least I’ll have a dad until I’m thirty-one. No need to stress or worry before then.
“Dad, I’ve made a plan for the next five years,” I say. “There are lots of things I’d like to do.”
My bucket list includes: averaging typing speed at four seconds in the YourMove chat (have crossed this out as I’m no longer working there), and coming up with a word that rhymes withorangeorpint. It also includes getting married or engaged. Since a relationship is unlikely, I instead think of other wedding-related goals I could have, to revise the list. Google tells me a realistic goal is one that you can reach given your current mindset, motivation level, time frame, skills and abilities. Realistic goals help you identify not only what you want but also what you can achieve.
I decide if I can’t get married, I would like to be a bridesmaid. My sister’s wedding doesn’t count because the only planning she allowed me to do for the event was organize my own travel there. Even the shoes I had to wear along with a piglet-snout-colored dress (my sister called itrosepink) arrived in my mailbox one month before, as did my instructions for the day. Saga had drawn a map of the church with arrows marking my position at all times. This was a good move, although I improved it further by drawing small figures on it. A stick-man priest, a Jesus display and guests with triangular dresses and hats. During the service I pulled it out for amendments, something Saga questioned later on.
“What were you writing?” I thought you were only supposed to have eyes for the groom. Apparently Saga had eyes for her little sister as well.
