The Happiest People in the World Read online

  “Who’s that supposed to be?” Kevin asked.

  “Me,” Kurt said.

  “It doesn’t look like you,” Tyler said.

  “No,” Kurt said. Because it didn’t. His real eyes were actually on the smallish side. But that was definitely Kurt in the drawing. It was incredible. The old guidance counselor had known Kurt for years and had never given him any useful advice, except for telling him that he was going to be late for his next class. And even that she usually got wrong. But somehow this new guidance counselor, in just a few minutes of being in Kurt’s general vicinity, had managed to see into Kurt’s soul, or essence, or whatever. Kurt felt something running up and down his spine. “But it’s definitely me.”

  “Excuse me!” This was from a woman. She was trying to pull into the parking lot. Her head was out the car window. She had black hair peeking out underneath a baseball hat like the one his father often wore—a red hat bearing a white C—and her mirrored sunglasses were the large kind that seemed designed to swallow the whole face. They dominated the woman’s face like Kurt’s eyes in the drawing had dominated his. “Excuse me!” she yelled again. And then, before they could excuse her, or not, they hadn’t yet made up their minds, she hit the horn! She hit the fucking horn! The unbelievable arrogance of people and their fucking car horns! Which always caused the opposite of the intended reaction.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,” Kurt said. He said this really, really slowly, as slowly as he possibly could. He often did this with his parents: he would talk slowly so that it would seem to them that he must be on drugs and so that they’d eventually ask, all worried, “Are you on drugs?” and he’d get to say, in his normal voice, “No, I can’t believe you’d ask me that!” because even when he was on drugs, the drugs didn’t make him talk that way. “I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,” he said, slowly, slowly.

  “What?” the woman said. “What did you say?” And then she beeped again! Unbelievable, this woman and her horn. No wonder she couldn’t hear. The horn had probably deafened her, the way she leaned on it all the time.

  The three of them moved to the driver’s window, Kevin and Tyler flanking Kurt. Kurt leaned over slightly, just barely entering the car’s space. It smelled to him like Delray Beach, Florida, and also Telluride, Colorado, but really it only smelled like the rental cars his parents had rented to get them from the airport to those places. “I said,” he said, “you can’t park here.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought you said something before that, too.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “No, hey, you did,” Kevin whispered. “You said, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did,” Tyler said. “You said, ‘I’m sorry, but . . .’ And then the rest of it.”

  Kurt all of a sudden felt tired, especially in the eyes. He wished he had this woman’s huge sunglasses to rest behind. “I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” he said to her.

  “Apology accepted,” the woman said, already backing out into the street. Fast, too. With Kurt’s head pretty much still inside the car window! What a bitch! “Bitch!” they yelled, as the car drove west. Once the car was out of sight, they continued to talk about what a bitch the woman was. Who the hell did she think she was? And who the hell was she? She was a total bitch, whoever she was! Etc. And only when they were done with that did they notice that Kurt was no longer holding the stranger’s pad of paper. It wasn’t on the ground anywhere, and neither of the cronies could find it on their persons. It was gone. Their memory of the strange word that meant “counter” was gone, too. All that any of them could remember was that they’d probably all mispronounced it. This was the worst: they’d failed to remember anything about something except that they’d failed at it. This was a lot like school, of course, not to mention everything else.

  17

  Henry entered the Lumber Lodge just as the cronies were exiting. He smiled and held the door open for them, but they did not thank him or even seem to be aware of his existence. He closed the door behind him, then entered the bar. It was empty. But Henry didn’t feel like he was alone. He could hear footsteps overhead. Someone took four steps, then stopped, then took four steps back. There was a long pause. Then another four steps, another brief stop, then another four steps. It was like someone was trying to speak to him in code. He’d felt this way in the restaurant, too. Those clocks, for instance: what were they trying to tell him? He’d been in hiding in two of those places—Berlin and Moscow. Surely those clocks must be some kind of sign or clue. But then again, he’d never been in hiding in London or Cairo. And then there was the clock labeled BROOMEVILLE. It was the only one that was running, but did that mean that Henry had plenty of time in Broomeville, or that time was running out? He didn’t know, but he felt strongly that someone probably did. He also felt strongly that someone was watching him. Locs had predicted this. She’d told him, Don’t worry. Someone’s always watching you in Broomeville. But he did worry. That’s why he’d drawn that cartoon in the restaurant. It gave him some sense of control: Everything is going to be just fine, because I know you’re watching me! was what the cartoon was meant to communicate. But to whom? When Henry had left the restaurant, there was only Kurt. He didn’t think Kurt was the one watching him, and if he was, then that probably wouldn’t be so bad: Kurt seemed like a good kid. He wouldn’t mind if it was Kurt’s mother watching him, either. Don’t worry. Kurt’s mother is always watching you in Broomeville. That sounded much better to Henry. Although it would sound even better if he knew her real name. He didn’t like calling her “the woman” or “Kurt’s mother,” not even in his head.

  Henry heard more footsteps overhead. Then a furious crashing of feet on wood, and then a door to the left of the bar flew open as though it’d been kicked, and Henry saw the woman jump from two steps up. When she noticed him looking at her, the woman smiled sheepishly, and girlishly, as though to say, My mother always told me not to run down the stairs.

  “I was just getting your room ready,” the woman said. She handed him a key. It was attached to a piece of plastic with the number 24 on it.

  “I don’t even know your name,” Henry said.

  “It’s Ellen,” Ellen said. “I brought your suitcases up there, too.”

  “Thank you, Ellen.”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

  “Why would I mind?”

  “Because I rifled through them a little bit, too.”

  Rifled? Henry thought but did not say. Then he did a quick mental accounting of the contents of his suitcases. Clothes, bathroom things. What else? Anything incriminating? The expression on Ellen’s face said, Come on, we both know what I found in the suitcases, and Henry wondered whether he should be worried about her watching him after all.

  “So, you’re Swedish,” she finally said.

  She took my fake passport! Henry thought. But then he remembered it was in his inside jacket pocket, not in his suitcase. He patted the spot, just to make sure. Locs must have told Matthew he was Swedish or was pretending to be Swedish. And Matthew must have told Ellen. And Ellen had told Henry that almost everyone called him Matty, not Matthew.

  “Matty told you,” Henry said, and she smiled at him. Gratefully, he thought, and also a little sadly, he thought.

  “Come on,” she said. “He’s at the baseball game.”

  BY THE TIME THEY got outside the Lumber Lodge, it was snowing. Snowing! Evidently, Ellen felt the same way. “Snowing!” she said. But then she looked up and got a snowflake in the eye.

  “Oh, wow,” she said. She blinked rapidly and then began tugging at the underside of her right eye.

  “Does it hurt?” Henry asked.

  “It’s only snow,” Ellen said. “But yeah, it does hurt a little.” She tugged her eye again, then blinked slowly, once, twice, three times. “I really should wear glasses.”

  “They would protect your eyes from the snow,” Henry said.

  Ellen blinke
d once more and then looked at him with wide eyes. “Instead of contacts,” Ellen said.

  Contacts? Henry thought. And then he thought: Kontaktlinsers. He wore them, too, special kontaktlinsers that helped correct his nearsightedness and also made his blue eyes brown.

  Anyway, it had apparently been snowing for a while, because there was a rusty blue pickup truck parked in front of the Lumber Lodge and its windshield was covered with snow. Ellen got into the driver’s side of the truck, and Henry into the passenger’s side. Ellen then did several things in quick succession. First, she put the key into the ignition and turned it, which started the truck with a roar and then a rattle. Then she turned the windshield wipers on, but the snow was crusted on the glass and wouldn’t wipe off. Henry offered to get out and scrape, but Ellen waved him off. “It’s cold out there,” she said. Then Ellen turned on the defrost, and cold air came blasting into the truck. Then she turned on the radio. A man’s voice came out. He was talking about the weather. They listened for a few seconds, and then Ellen punched a button on the radio and another man’s voice came out. Henry recognized it immediately: sports talk radio sounds the same no matter what language it’s spoken in and what sport is being discussed. They listened to that for a few seconds, and then Ellen punched another button and another man’s voice came out, talking about politics. After a few seconds of listening to that, Ellen turned off the radio. She lit a cigarette and smoked it halfway to the filter before glancing at Henry. The glance was half dare, half apology. “Matty doesn’t like to see me smoke,” she said. Finally she put the car in gear. To Henry, all of this seemed like preparations for a very long journey. But not even a minute later, Ellen stopped the truck and said, “We’re here.”

  In this way, Henry learned several things. That once Americans were out of the cold and in their trucks, they did not like to get back out into the cold, even if it meant making the inside of their trucks as cold as the outside; that American weathermen liked to refer to snow as “the white stuff”; that American sports talk radio announcers liked to say about something, “There’s no doubt about it,” before then expressing their many doubts about it; that American political commentators liked to preface their comments by saying, “No offense,” before then saying something offensive (the political commentator on the radio had said to whomever he was talking to, “No offense, but you have to be the stupidest human being on the planet”); that Americans were very impatient people with very short attention spans; that Americans believed as long as they were inside their trucks they were invisible, and that as long as they smoked cigarettes inside their trucks they would not then smell like cigarettes once they exited their trucks, and that in general Americans thought their trucks were magic; that while Europeans tended to think of Americans as people who liked to drive incredibly long distances in their pickup trucks, in fact Americans liked to drive incredibly short distances in their pickup trucks as well. These were the lessons Henry learned about Americans during his first minute in Ellen’s truck, and not once was he forced to reconsider them during all his days in Broomeville.

  Ellen put the truck in park, but its engine was still running, its wipers still wiping. It was difficult to see anything but snow; the truck headlights were full of it.

  “Does it always snow this much here?” he asked.

  “Why? Doesn’t it snow like this where you’re from, too?”

  “No,” Henry said. He was picturing winter in Skagen, which rhymes with rain in English, although in Danish the word for rain—regn—rhymed with pine and not Skagen or rain. Regardless, it didn’t snow much there, not even in the winter.

  “Really?” Ellen said. “Because when I see Sweden, I see snow.”

  “Of course, of course,” Henry said. “But then, I’m from southern Sweden.”

  “It doesn’t snow in southern Sweden?”

  “It does. But not often in October.”

  “It doesn’t usually snow this much in October here, either,” Ellen said. She turned off the truck and the headlights, too. But still, there was snow; still, there was light—not too far in front of them and much higher off the ground. A ring of light towers. Henry supposed they had something to do with this baseball game. In a moment he and Ellen would get out of the car and start walking in that direction. And what then? Something is about to happen, Henry thought. But what is about to happen? He wanted to reach across the bench seat to grab Ellen’s hand. Instead, he said, “It’s beautiful.”

  “Snow is always beautiful in October,” she said.

  “I really think I’m going to like it here,” he said.

  “OK, listen,” Ellen said. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Talk like what?” Henry asked. He seemed genuinely, almost pedagogically concerned. If he’d had a pad of paper, Ellen was sure he’d have started taking notes on the subject. In fact, he reached into his jacket pocket, as though looking for something to write on and with. And then he reached into the other jacket pocket. There was clearly nothing in either. Then he looked even more concerned. Ellen didn’t think she’d ever seen a face like that, so wide open; Ellen didn’t think she’d ever seen someone who clearly wanted advice, who wanted to be helped.

  “Like you talk,” Ellen said. “ ‘I really think I’m going to like it here.’ If you say things like that, these people will eat you alive.”

  “Even the students?”

  “Especially them.”

  “What should I say?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything,” she said. Ellen remembered when Kurt was younger. She would say something he didn’t like, and he would just stand there with his arms crossed, frowning, evidently waiting for her to say something else. Which she inevitably did. She explained this to Henry. “You should just go like this,” she said, and then she demonstrated. Henry did it back, and when he did, Ellen thought of a younger Kurt, and a younger Matty, and a younger self, and suddenly she became so lonely for that time and those people.

  “Are you all right?” Henry asked.

  “I’ve been a little lonely,” she said. Henry didn’t say anything back. He just frowned at her, as though he disapproved of the inaccuracy of her declaration. “I’m so lonely,” she said. “I’ve been so lonely for a long time.” Still, Henry frowned. Ellen remembered this now: She remembered feeling that she would have done or said anything to get that look off Kurt’s face. Even tell the truth. “I’ve been so lonely ever since Matty told me he’d been cheating on me.”

  The frown disappeared. That’s more like it, Henry’s face seemed to say.

  18

  Turku!” Lawrence was saying, but Matty was barely listening. He was looking at Kurt, who was standing with his buddies against the fence. None of them were wearing coats. Instead they were wearing sweatshirts, with the hoods up and their hands in the pouches. God, Kurt looked so cold. Matty wanted to go over there and hug him. But then Kurt would say, What are you doing? and then Matty would feel hurt and then get on Kurt’s case for not even being half smart enough to dress for the weather, and besides, it was possible the clothes Kurt was wearing would smell like pot, and Matty would either have to pretend he didn’t notice or admit he did notice and then make a big scene about it in front of Kurt’s friends, who were also, of course, Matty’s students. If Kurt smelled like pot, then they would also smell like pot, and if Matty made a big scene about Kurt, then he’d have to make a big scene about them, too. Meanwhile, there was this baseball game to be played. Everyone had told him to cancel it. There had been no school that day, because of state-mandated teacher workshops. That would mean that students would have to come back to school for the game. Plus, there was supposed to be a big snowstorm. But it was a tradition: they always held the faculty-student baseball game on the first Wednesday in October. And besides, it was only the first Wednesday in October. They would never actually end up getting that much snow. And yet, it seemed like they really were getting that much snow.

  “Turku!” Lawrence was still
saying.

  “What does that mean?”

  “So much snow!” Lawrence said. “It reminds me of that December I spent in Turku.” And then he was off, talking about that December he spent in Turku. Wherever that was. Someplace where there was snow in December, evidently. Just one of many stops on what Lawrence called his “grand tour” and what everyone else thought of as his more than ten years of fucking around after college before settling down and getting a real job back in Broomeville. Although he couldn’t have been entirely fucking around: he must have had a job somewhere doing something to pay for all his traveling. But finally, Lawrence must have run out of money or gotten bored or something, because twelve years earlier he’d come home and Matty had given him a job teaching twelfth-grade history. It had worked out, too. It turned out that Lawrence was a pretty good teacher. He’d even become the Civics Club adviser; the club met down at Doc’s every Friday after school. The students in the club loved him and in fact were younger versions of him: conscientious, smart, eager, not quite right, but not demonstrably wrong, either. Matty sometimes dropped by Doc’s and watched the students listen with big eyes as Lawrence told them about all his travels to all these places where this man and that had welcomed Lawrence into their homes. A few of them even kept in touch with Lawrence after they graduated, would meet him for coffee at Doc’s when they were back in town visiting. Matty thought the whole thing was very sweet; it made him hopeful: everyone finds the people, or person, they’re meant to find, eventually.