This is What Happy Looks Like

He was only a few feet away now, and the nearness of him was startling; until this moment, he’d seemed almost like a figment of her imagination, perhaps because of the number of times she’d pictured a scenario exactly like this one. But in those daydreams, she always walked right up to him, and they would look at each other with two pairs of identical green eyes, and he would know exactly who she was.

That, she realized, was why she’d come.

Not for the money. Not even just to see him.

It was so that he could see her.

There was only one person between them now, a man in a Red Sox cap who looked bewildered as the handsome senator clapped him on the shoulder. “What a day, huh?” he said with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm, and the man raised a drumstick in an awkward salute, his mouth too full of chicken to respond.

The senator laughed, and his eyes shifted to Ellie. She found herself stiffening, bracing herself for—what? She didn’t know. Those matching eyes of his, green as sea glass, landed on her with a look of benign interest, and she could see that there was a little fan of wrinkles at the corner of each one, so small you didn’t notice them in the photos.

“Happy Fourth,” he said, extending a hand, and Ellie stared at it. She waited a beat too long before reaching out, half expecting to feel some kind of jolt. But there was nothing, only the warmth of his hand, which was a little sweaty as he shook hers.

The words died like bubbles inside her, one after another, all the many things she wanted to say. For a moment, she forgot about Mom and she forgot about Harvard; she forgot about his beautiful wife and the two boys he took hunting and fishing; she forgot about politics, his job, the very reasons they were wrenched apart in the first place.

The only thing she was thinking was, Can’t you see?

But on his face, there was nothing but a polite smile, utterly professional and almost entirely blank. When he pulled his hand back, Ellie’s stomach plummeted, and she looked down, vaguely surprised to find herself on solid ground. Out of nowhere, it seemed, Graham was at her side, balancing a paper plate in one hand. The lobster roll rocked like a small boat as he reached out to accept the senator’s hand.

“Happy Fourth to you too,” he said, and Graham smiled uncertainly, glancing at Ellie. But she was still watching her father. The look he gave Graham could hardly be called recognition—it was more like how you’d consider an old classmate you hadn’t seen in years and weren’t quite able to place—but even so, it was still something.

It was still more than the way he’d looked at Ellie.

She blinked, feeling dazed, but he only flashed a too-bright smile, looking beyond them to the next people in the endless series of handshakes and greetings. “Enjoy the day,” he said, but he was already moving past them. His photographer, a few steps behind, raised his camera to take a picture of them—not just Ellie and Graham, but the man in the Red Sox cap and the chef with his lobster apron and a few others who were standing nearby—but Graham’s whole body stiffened, and he threw a hand out in front of him. The photographer shrugged—confused but unbothered—then trotted after the senator into a sea of potential voters.

“Sorry,” Graham said, turning to Ellie. “I guess I’m still a little gun-shy after last night.”

But she didn’t answer. She just stood there, staring after her father, watching as he was swallowed up by a crowd of admirers. She glanced down at her empty hand, which prickled with the memory of his palm, and when she raised her eyes again, he was gone.

–Would it help if I told you another joke?

–Probably not.

–Okay.

–But… thank you.

They decided to leave the boat behind.

It was no doubt ready to be picked up by now, but neither of them felt quite up to the job of sailing all the way back to Henley, and though it had been a while since Graham had spent so much time on a bus, it seemed the far preferable option at the moment. It wasn’t that he was seasick exactly—if such a thing was even possible on solid ground—but the feel of the ocean was still with him, even after all these hours, a rolling sensation that made him feel shaky and slightly off balance. Even as they walked back toward the bus stop, the noise from the clambake growing distant, the road felt untrustworthy beneath his feet.

“It’ll be fine,” he was telling Ellie, who kept her eyes straight ahead. “I’m sure the production guys can pick it up tomorrow morning, and besides, they said they wanted it back in one piece, and I think there’s a much better chance of that happening if we’re not in it.”

She nodded in the same blank way she’d been nodding at him for the past ten minutes, with glassy and unfocused eyes that she refused to turn his way.

Not sure what else to do, he kept up a steady line of chatter that sounded nervous even to his own ears. “And anyway, I’m not sure how that lobster roll would feel about being back at sea,” he said, patting his stomach. “I mean, it was good, definitely. But you just never know with those waves—”

“Graham,” she said, and he looked over.

“Yeah?”

“Can we not talk about the lobster roll?” she said, though not unkindly.

He laughed. “Sure.”

At the bus stop, they sat on the wooden bench on the opposite side of the street from where they’d been dropped off earlier. It seemed like it had been hours ago, but Graham knew it couldn’t have been more than an hour, and probably even less. They were still weary and sunburned, but where before the journey had been urged along by a sense of gritty determination, they were now on their way back to Henley, where nothing good could await them.

Graham dreaded having to face Harry, who had been so patient with him last night, and who would surely have been told about the boat by now. He knew he should have stayed in Henley today. He should have faced the consequences and helped deal with the situation himself. But instead, he’d done what he always did: he ran away.

In his real life, it was admittedly more like hiding away, this specialty of his. It had become the worst kind of habit. He’d started to avoid everything, parties and press events and people in general, tucking himself away with only a pig for company. When his life had changed, the world rushed in and he’d responded in the only way he knew how: by creating a cushion between himself and everyone else, a distance that extended even to his parents.

It was easy to blame them. But the truth was, it was Graham’s fault too. He’d told himself they didn’t understand his new life, and then, instead of letting them in, he’d shut himself away. He’d mistaken loneliness for independence, and had become so good at closing himself off from the world that it took an e-mail from Ellie to remind him what it was like to have a real conversation.