Page 38 of The Happiness Blueprint
“He’s great, today’s a good day. He pulled weeds and mowed the lawn, dripping in sweat when I came home.”
“You let him do that?”
“What do you want me to do, tell him off? I’m not his parent, remember. He’s actually mine.”
“You are meant to help him, look out for him.” This is the problem with Saga—making a big fuss over little things and as little fuss as possible over big things.
“Well, you are welcome to come over if I’m doing such a shitty job! It’s allPoor Dad, he needs helpwhen you sit in another country, but me who’s actually here gets no credit.”
Saga is quiet, clutching her mug of tea. I usually know her quiet pauses, have become good at analyzing them, but this is not the Change Your Mind one, the Know Your Place one or Don’t Say a Word one. She has a new one in her repertoire.
“Why can’t we ever speak without you making me feel bad?” she says.
“You feel bad? I wasn’t the one criticizing you.”
“Okay, whatever. I’m glad you’re okay. I have a lecture to prepare now.”
“Great, enjoy Christopher Columbus.”
“Klara, I specialize in postwar, postcolonial relations between England and India. They don’t involve a fifteenth-century murderer.”
I am not sure which one of us hangs up first. Benny, my trouper, jumps off my lap and onto the floor, wandering off looking for a more permanent place to spend the night. I should do the same but stay where I am and reach for the bottle of Sancerre to top up my glass. How can it already be empty? I practice a moment of what a Pilates instructor in a class I was brought (read:dragged) to taught me:checking in with myself.I don’t like Pilates. Too many limbs and bums moving outside of mats. I kept mine firmly inside my mat boundaries, pretending the floor was lava, but the teacher came around and put his hand on my lower back, and I kept thinking he was standing in the lava and resisted when he took my ankle and extended it. But thechecking inI can do. Is my head spinning? Yup. Am I feeling unusually antsy? Check. Okay, time to join Benny in bed, then.
But after just one more scroll. I open up Facebook. I think of Tom. I haven’t checked him out in years and type his name into the search engine.Tom Vidén.Nothing. Not sure why it’s not coming up. Maybe he’s one of those people who don’t use Facebook. The type that anyone should be suspicious of, the same type that had unpublished phone numbers when I grew up.Unpublished number!Mum would hiss at us. Honest, hardworking people hide nothing, not even the ten digits they’ve been allocated.
I take Tom’s absence from social media as a sign to go to bed and trot off upstairs.
Next morning is the usual blur of scalding hot coffee, work pants that are not fully dry despite having hung to air-dry all night and a fast slap of makeup on my face. Last on the list is my blood sugar, which is thankfully cooperating this morning. The graph line is nice and straight on my screen, and I thank myself, my dinner last night, and the diabetes god I often have serious conversations with. Then I stop midmorning rush.Wait, why do I have Facebook notifications?I never write anything.I only use it to spy on people I don’t care about enough to keep in contact with but still care about enough to see as my competition in life. And to wish relatives a happy birthday so I don’t have to send a card or,horror, call them. Twelve people liked my post.Oh God.I typed the name into the wrong box. Instead of putting Tom’s name in the search box I entered it into the status box. My Facebook status for the past eight hours has beenTom Vidén. The name of my ex.Oh. No.
I want the earth to swallow me, to disappear into thin air and every single cliché you have ever heard. Delete, delete, delete some more. Has he seen it? Too late, I’ve already deleted it, and I now have no chance to see who (oh, the horror!)liked this post. Please let him not have seen it. I consider adding an explanatory status.Wrong box!OrMy Facebook got hacked!Or better yetMy brain got hacked!But decide that may be even more awkward.
I freeze a second time when I get out to the van.Speaking of the devil, as Alice would put it; I’m convinced he’s no longer the devil, so let’s rephrase:speaking of Tom. I have a message.
Tom: Hey, it was nice seeing you yesterday. I’m happy your car decided to bump into mine (sorry for the pun). My Mercedes would have asked that nice big Renault with the large rear out, but since she got hit pretty badly, I was asked to represent. How is dinner tomorrow night? Lund?
Gaaah.“Okay, girl!” I say to myself although I’m alone and probably not young enough to be a girl any longer, just because it’s the type of chick-lit thing I imagine a highly successfully dating woman would exclaim. I read the message again. And just one more time. For a moment I think how I’d rather have Alex train me in carpentry. Or, you know, stare at a wall while the paint dries with Alex. But this might be exactly what I need. A distraction. I’m only here for a little while, and I’ve been so focused on my dad and his company and not crashing that into the ground. Plus, I do love a bad joke and am a sucker for a good chat-up line, so here goes.
Me: Invitation accepted on behalf of Miss Van Renault.
It is my unsworn duty to inform Alice of any developments in the dating area, and hers to me, so I reluctantly inform her from the car.
Predictably, Alice is not impressed.
“Isn’t that the guy that broke up with you on a take-out cup?” she asks. “Bad choice, Klara.” She reminds me of my sister telling her toddler off.That’s not a good choice, Harry, is it? Pouring milk on the dog?
“Well, yes, but we were kids. Only eighteen.” It had stung. Tom was my first love and proper boyfriend, and I had gone up to the counter to check what was taking so long, and found only my cup there, with a message on it. I had thought the barista had added an inspirational quote perhaps and looked around the room to find Tom to read it to him. Except he wasn’t there, and all it said was that he was breaking up with me.
I still feel my stomach clench when I take my cup from a counter, half expecting new nastinesses written on its side. I always ask for my coffee in a to-stay cup, if at all possible.
“And you thought accepting a dinner invitation would be a good idea why?”
“You know how bad I am at saying no. He did a good text.”
“If it’s just banter you’re after, you can just date a clown. Oh wait, that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“I wouldn’t want to date a clown. I was kind of hoping I could find a decent guy that has at leastsomeredeeming qualities such as loyalty, intellect and domestic ability with a side dish of humor and banter. But maybe that’s too much to ask.”
“Possibly, yes. And you think your ex has any of those qualities?”
