Page 34 of The Happiness Blueprint
“Yes, like randomly inheriting a large sum of money from a wealthy relative who hates people but appreciates you for your veganism.”
“Okay...”
“Or how it turns out you had a beautiful voice all along but it’s only discovered at a karaoke session when you drunkenly perform a Taylor Swift song, but oh, guess what? There’s a talent scout there, and they give you a record deal immediately. Or how you’d give a vulnerable, candid interview to Oprah, telling her all about your struggles growing up and how you’ve come to be the success you are now despite the odds.”
“Yes. Have had that last one. It really is incredible how I can have risen to branch manager despite the trauma of my best friend giving away her half of our friendship necklace to her big brother who had a crush on me.” She snorts. “Wait, tell me about your Alex one?”
“Oh, it’s nothing special. You know how you dream that you wake up one morning and just function like everyone else, and the person you work with is actually single and available to be dated by people who function like everyone else? It’s that sort of fantasy. Which I don’t mind. As long as my hair isn’t touched and the lines between fantasy and reality aren’t blurred.”
Alice pauses slightly longer than usual, as if she’s at a crossroads and not sure which way to go.
“Maybe you read too much into it? You weren’t feeling great. He may just have been helpful,” she says eventually.
“Yes.Maybe.” It’s just that I’ve never wanted to be touched on my face by my other two friends before. I don’t mind hugging Alice: she squeezes tight then releases fast, like a blood-pressure machine.
We’re friends.Friends.Better start thinking it in capital, font 72 every time the thought of Alex’s mouth pops up in my mind. Any smaller and I might just happen to push the tiny word off the page altogether.
I close my eyes, but all I can see is Alex’s mouth forming words,kindwords, directed at me. I need to do some baking. Organize the recycling, pull labels off and wash out containers. Anything. I’m getting silly and way too distracted by thisthing,whatever it is. I keep catching myself thinking about Alex when I shouldn’t be, playing our chats over when I’m in the shower, driving or cooking, and imagining what he was thinking.
There is no message from Alex all day, but when I check our calendar there is a new edit to our next staff meeting. Location:The friendship zone, it reads.
When I next see him, on Tuesday, I struggle to walk straight, as if I’m somehow intoxicated, and say intelligent things like, “Aha!Great,” when he speaks to me, having no clue what he was just talking about, and then I retreat to the quiet sanctuary that is the kitchen. I will get caught up in accounting, filing and sending out invoices. That should divert my thoughts nicely.
I make an espresso because coffee is meant to balance you and increase your alertness and cognitive function in the short term. It works. I feel like myself again. Balanced and normal and, most importantly,in control. I am proud to say I am no longer in danger of becoming fixated on any part of my employees’ physical features. Splendid.
My levelheaded self decides that it would be a good idea for some team-building.I message Gunnar.
“What do you say about a simple drinks evening tomorrow? To celebrate that we’re a full team again? Dad would enjoy it.” To be fair he’d probably grumble about whether it is strictly necessary, how much of the company’s capital will be spent and whether the next day’s work will at all be affected. But once it’s happening, he will enjoy himself.
Gunnar: Great idea Will keep evening free.
Learning to mix with my employees (namely, Alex) as friends will be valuable. And Dad could use the cheering up. I pull out my phone to enter it into the calendar.
ALEX
Shared Calendar
• NEW EVENT (KLARA):Company get-together after work. Wife welcome!
Assume this isn’t for me. I do get Klara’s personal ones every now and then (this week’s highlight washang hand-washed underwear to drythat gave me a glorious mental image, which I could definitely have done without) but this one baffles me. Whose wife is she bringing to the company drinks?!
Respond with a new note:Are we welcome without wives as well? Or are plus-ones compulsory?
No reply so I think how I haven’t written to Calle yet today and how maybe, just maybe, Klara has something to do with the lessening in frequency. Tonight I feel that familiar void, though. Five weeks away from the trial and no progress made.
SAVED TO DRAFTS
Calle,
I have a few voice messages stored on my phone. You were that strange person who preferred a voice note over a message, always the talker. I would write you a novel-length text and you’d send an audiobook-length reply. When I listen to them now, it’s like a shadow of who you were, like I’m not listening to the real you but a technical, processed version.
We never sound ourselves in recordings. Makes me sad that when we die there is no trace of our true self, we’re mainly gone. Now all I have to remember you from, the only place you exist, is in my patched-together memory of you. Will your face twist like your voice has? Will your hair turn a different color when I think of you in a year’s time?
I hold on to the small details that are so sharp in my memory I can’t ever forget them. They are your feet, way too small for your height. I see them in flip-flops on a beach, small blond hairs even lighter than your skin growing at the base of the big toes. Your ears look like mine. So all I have to do is go and give them a proper look and I’d be okay. People neglect feet and ears, but they are body parts with less distractions. A face can look a million ways—an ear cannot hide its shape with a frown or an eyebrow shape and tint. They are reliable, and I thank myself for remembering them.
Inevitably this has me thinking about feet and ears. Klara has lovely ears, I have noticed. The type that I could easily remember. Don’t tell this to Dan or Paul because I’m aware complimenting women’s ears is not the norm. They are petite and point ever so slightly outward; they have flat creases, formed like a perfect half of a heart (I wonder if the two fit together; must find opportunity to inspect both left and right side of face without being noticed as am now intrigued) and usually wear gold or silver jewelry. One time they wore huge hoops and bounced under the weight. They’re never naked, but I can imagine it, bright pink like cheeks when they are hot, and a pale brown when it’s early morning and the frost hasn’t lifted yet. I think I would do a very good witness statement concerning Klara Nilsson’s ears if I were ever to give one.
KLARA
