‘Crumbs of Happiness’

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. If I lived in Moscow I don’t think I’d care what the weather was like.—masha prozorova

At eight I slipped through the basement to Chris’s car in the backyard. I explained the situation with my mother in the condo as we drove up a sluggish 900 East. He pressed a button on his CD player, discs spun, and the ubiquitous reggaetón was replaced by female antifolk.

“You have Regina Spektor!” I gasped.

We screeched to a stop at a red light. He looked at me, worried, “She’s Russian, and the girl at Borders thought you might like—”

I unbuckled my seatbelt and flung my arms around his neck. “I love her!”

Chris smiled so wide that a filling in the back of his mouth glinted. “You know, she’s not that bad.”

Awkwardly sprawled across the seat as I was, I squeezed Chris a second time. “When I woke up, I thought today was going to be a bad day!”

“The light’s green.”

“Really?”

A car behind us honked. Laughing, Chris pulled me into his lap and went through the light nearly blind. More suddenly than his playfulness began, he flung me away.

“Oh, sorry,” I breathed, wondering what I had done, and then I too saw the cop car parked in the temple entrance, about thirty feet away and closing. I buckled my seatbelt. “Chris, I don’t think he saw—”

With a jerk of his head, Chris silenced my babble. His eyes stared straight ahead. We passed the car marked ‘Provo Police’, and one of Chris’s hands left the ten-and-two position to wipe his flushed brow. The steering wheel glistened where he’d held it. His shoulders finally relaxed when we turned on Timpview and settled behind a line of late-model coupes waiting to enter the parking lot. Chris found an open bit of curb between two SUVs and deftly maneuvered his long car into the spot, with no space to spare. “Don’t do that again,” he said as we got out.

We approached the doors of the auditorium, and Chris turned back to me, “How’d you like to visit me at work today?” I smiled and squeezed his arm.

* * * *

The summer program scouts were immediately visible; they were the stern, unisex administrative sorts holding clipboards and iPhones. Another group stood out among the bustle of scene and costume preparation: Cole Douglas, Trevor Dixon, and a couple beefy guys were collected in an arms-crossed, brows-furrowed mass stomping towards Chris and me. Trevor nodded at Chris; Chris jerked his own head from left to right.

“Um,” I crossed my arms over my chest, “are y—you guys here to see the play? Y’know, we have four more performances this weekend, and they’re at BYU. The stage is better.” Chris stepped in front of me; I shut my mouth.

“You’ve got her pretty well trained,” Cole snarled. Chris stuck an arm in front of me as I tried to rush past him. I stared at the ground.

Chris surveyed the group, “You’re up early. I bet your beds are missing you right now.”

Trevor, the only scrawny one of the four, lurched forward, checked by Cole’s grunt. “I’m missing Marianne right now,” Trevor whined. His eyes were bloodshot; his face patchy with stubble.

“Well, she doesn’t miss you,” Marianne’s brother hissed. When Trevor shot forward again, I shut my eyes. Chris’s voice was low and steady, “Not here, Dixon.”

When I opened my eyes, all four young men were exiting the auditorium. “Wow, Mr. Nonviolence! Have you ever considered becoming a diplomat? BYU’s got great connections.”

Chris shook his head; he was still staring at the door.

A streak of redheaded energy appeared at my side the next moment, “C’mon, Rebekah! We’ve gotta get you to makeup! And Christian, there’s a tube of Brylcreem waiting for you in hair!”

Kent led me by the hand through a maze of scenery and changing booths to the makeup table. While Kent styled my long hair into a plain updo, I unsuccessfully argued against the red lip stain. As always when I wear stage makeup, I was unnerved by the sophisticated, black-garbed blonde staring at me in the mirror. She blinked when I blinked, frowned when I frowned, but she wasn’t me. I watched her move from over her right shoulder. Jeff Danielson whistled suggestively when I walked past him. He’d once said he was only attracted to women who could eat him for breakfast.

The more stress piled up in my life, the more power shone through my acting. Chris must have operated the same way, for his performance—though his character was minor—was electric. Jared’s Vershinin dragged me towards him with his eyes. By act 4, the line between Bekah and Masha had so dissolved that I knew now whether what I said was from the script or my soul. The finale began.

From a stereo system offstage, a band played a rousing turn-of-the-twentieth-century march. Vershinin marched away with them.

“Our friends are leaving,” I said. My eyes were dry, but red rimmed. “Oh, well. May they have a happy journey.” I turned to Chris/Kulygin and slipped my arm into his, “We’d better go home.” He smiled down at me as if I were a broken doll. I looked around, “Where’s my hat and coat?”

Kulygin patted my hand, “I took them indoors. I’ll go and get them.”

“Yes, we can all go off home. It’s high time,” Olga affirmed.

Kulygin started inside, but stopped to watch as Chebutykin ran out the same door, his eyes wild. Chebutykin ran to Olga and answered her worries by whispering in her ear.

Olga gasped, “No, it can’t be true.”

Chebutykin shook his head, “Yes! What a business! I’m tired out, absolutely done in; I don’t want to say another word.” I came towards him. He continued bitterly, “Anyway, what does it all matter?”

“What happened?” I pressed.

Olga hugged Irina, “This has been a terrible day. Darling, I don’t know how to tell you—”

“What is it?” Irina demanded, “Tell me at once, for God’s sake—what is it?”

Chebutykin answered, as Olga was speechless, “The baron’s been killed in a duel with Solony.”

For a moment, the illusion broke. In a deathly silent theater, upstage where he lingered by the house door, Christian Miles Jr. stood exposed and confused, blood drained from his face. He exited through the door.

Irina cried. Chebutykin sat on a bench against the back wall with his newspaper and sang under his breath. “Anyway, what does it all matter?” he muttered.

Olga gathered her sisters around her at center stage—my brain itched, Something’s going to happen! Nothing did. I spoke first, “Oh, listen to the band. They’re all leaving us, and one has gone right away and will never, never come back, and we shall be left alone to begin our lives again. We must go on living, we must.” I thought of living a normal life with Kulygin after the passion I’d felt for Vershinin, and I shuddered at the thought.

Irina laid her head on Olga’s breast and spoke through her tears: “What is this all for? Why all of this suffering? The answer will be known one day, and then there will be no more mysteries left, but ’til then life must go on, we must work and work and think of nothing else. I’ll go off alone tomorrow to teach at a school and spend my whole life serving those who may need me. It’s autumn now, and it will soon be winter, with everything buried in snow, and I shall work, work, work.

Olga held us to her tighter, “Listen to the band. What a splendid, stirring tune, it puts new heart into you, doesn’t it? Oh, my God! In time we shall pass on for ever and be forgotten. Our faces will be forgotten and our voices and how many of us there were. But our sufferings will bring happiness to those who come after us, peace and joy will reign on earth, and there will be kind words and kind thoughts for us and our times. We still have our lives ahead of us, my dears, so let’s make the most of them. The band’s playing such cheerful, happy music; it feels as if we might find out before long what our lives and sufferings are for. If we could only know! If we could only know!”

The band music faded away. Kulygin came smiling with my hat and coat to coax me away. Andrei pushed his little son’s pram across the stage.

At the last, “Oh, if we could only know!” the curtain whooshed closed on the quietist high school auditorium I had ever witnessed. Then the applause came deafening, reverberating against the stucco walls through three curtain calls. I nearly knocked Chris over with my triumphant hug, and in the same breath I ran to the bathroom to scrub off my makeup. The auditorium was emptying as I sped out into the audience, my poplin skirt rustling.

Chris was deep in conversation with one of the summer program scouts. I sidled up to Chris and smiled at both of them.

The scout was frowning at his iPhone, “So Christian, I think you could have a future in film—I’ve got Hollywood connections who would love to meet you. Where are you planning to start your acting career?”

Chris shifted his weight from his left to his right foot and back to his left again. He looked up and laughed briefly, “I don’t even know where I’ll be next month!”

The scout persisted, “Despite what you read in People, stars aren’t picked off the street. You’ve gotta have connections to make it in the Business.”

Chris put his hand on the small of my back and pushed me forward, “Mr. Renelli, this is Rebekah Cardim—she is a terrific actress, and she is actually interested in the Business.” He patted my shoulder and left to help the crew dismantle the set.

Mr. Renelli turned his frown from his iPhone to me and coughed with his mouth closed.

I stared at the floor, “Um, did you, I mean, I hope you enjoyed the play . . .”

He looked me up and down, “Wow. You really were acting.” The scout took a deep breath and clasped his hands in front of his body, “Look, Miss . . . Cardim, was it? You’re sensational on stage, but I doubt you have the presence for screen work. Studios these days want tall, pale, protruding ribs, and cutting cheekbones. Your friend there,” Mr. Renelli nodded at Chris carrying a plywood gable out the auditorium doors, “he fits the bill. You’re more of a Colbert than a Hepburn.”

I nodded four times before forcing out an “okay.” Did I even want more than the stage lights? I had never really thought beyond it. “I—I’m more interested in the theater anyway,” I told the frowning man.

“That’s nice,” he mumbled. Someone on the other end of the auditorium beckoned, and Mr. Renelli rushed over in their direction.

An arm slipped casually around my shoulders, “So, are you a movie star yet?”

“Not yet,” I smiled. Chris was gorgeous—anyone looking at him would say that he was a movie star.

* * * *

Charlie Ramirez’s forest-green sedan was parked in front of the condo over when Chris dropped me off on his way to work. Charlie and Graça were studying organic chemistry together at the kitchen table. My cousin smiled up at me from her messy notes. Her black hair was free of its usual ponytail and flowed past her shoulders.

I leaned over Charlie’s shoulder; his graph paper was covered with neat printing and neat solutions. He never erased. He never had to. “You’re just as organized as ever,” I complimented.

“I haven’t changed, Bekah. It’s just my legs that don’t work anymore.”

My cheeks burned; I pulled at the end of my hasty ponytail.

Graça slipped into the bathroom.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Charlie sighed.

“She only looks this happy when she’s around you.” I sat down at the table and picked at a hangnail.

My exboyfriend’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist—the brown hand that was once delicate was now callused, with an iron grip. “Christian Miles is a good guy,” Charlie began, his brown eyes serious. “But he’s made some people not like him, guys who can get more guys who don’t even know ’im to not like ’im.”

“But this is BYU—”

“Doesn’t matter. Bad things happen here too.”

“Well, anyway, Chris can defend himself.”

Charlie shrugged, “I’m not telling you, Bekah, I’m warning you. My fingers are on our group’s pulse, and right now it’s racing.” Sounds of hand washing came from the bathroom. Charlie released my wrist.

“Thanks,” I muttered, and I stood. Stumbling a few steps back, I escaped to my room.

My mother had left me a note on my bed:

Looking for your dad with Rock. Will be back after dinner.

Mom

* * * *

My cellphone rang half an hour into my nap. The voice on the line was intermittently drowned out by loud burst of high-pitched machinery noises, but I could tell Chris’s voice from anyone’s. “Bekah!” he was so excited, “Do you still want to visit me at work?”

I swallowed. “Do you still want me to come?”

“Of course! You’ll make the long hours go by faster. The thing is—”

Here it comes—the excuse. I sighed.

Chris rushed to dispel my disappointment. “I was going to pick you up on my lunch break, but it doesn’t look like I’m gonna get one ’cause the boss’s here. I still want you to come, and my friend Dodger says he’d be happy to pick you up.”

“Well . . .”

“I totally understand if you don’t want to ride with a stranger.”

I peeked out my bedroom door. Charlie and Graça had taken a kissing break from studying. I closed the door again. “Chris, tell Dodger to get over here as soon as possible; you and I are spending the afternoon together.”

I heard Dodger’s motor scooter coming from a street away. It was old and red and white. Under his red helmet was shaggy dyed-black hair. His jeans were tight. I opened the door as he walked up the condo steps.

“You Bekah?” he asked.

“Yep. You Dodger?”

He stuck his hand out for me to shake. “Dave Harvey.”

Carefully locking to door behind me, I descended the concrete steps to our driveway. Dave handed me a blue helmet covered with gold stars; the foam inside it smelled of Herbal Essences and Lancôme Trésor.

“That’s my wife’s,” he informed me as he pulled on his own helmet. He straddled the scooter and looked at me, “Well, get on, Bekah.”

At first I delicately encircled his waist with my arms, but as we accelerated down highway 89, I screamed and grabbed Dave Harvey so tightly that I was amazed he still breathed. Goosebumps cropped up on my arms as the wind rushed through my flimsy lavender top, and bits of gravel bit my feet through my sandals. We screeched to a stop in southwest Provo just as I was considering enjoying the experience. Mitchell Garage was on West Center Street near the freeway entrance. The whine of machinery and shouts of mechanics mixed with the intermittent drone of passing cars.

“Hey, Bekah!” Chris yelled as I teetered off the Vespa. My helmet lifted just as a half-naked man with gleaming blond hair rushed up to hug me.

“Hi,” I squeaked.

One of Chris’s hands look my arm, and he led me through the shop yard, pointing out people and things that I could not comprehend through the rush of blood in my head. In full sunlight, Chris’s tanned skin was still lighter than mine; his chest was streaked with sweat and motor oil. He’d tied a rag around his upper right arm.

Another half-naked man stepped in front of us, “Hey, Pretty Boy, is that yo’ girl?”

My heart pounded faster. Chris put his hands on my shoulders, “Bekah, this is TJ. TJ,Bekah.”

An older, white man with a pot belly shoved TJ away, “Get back to work, Tomás!” He looked down at me. His eyes were grey. “Where’re you from, Bekah?”

“Colorado,” I gulped.

“Hmm, I’ve got friends in Colorado—what’s your last name?”

“Um, Cardim . . .”

The man’s smile got wider, “Car-deem,” he pronounced. “Never heard of ’em.”

When the man was gone, I asked Chris, “Who . . . ?”

“Oh, that’s Mitchell,” Chris shrugged and led me to a relatively quiet spot in the shade of the building. He lifted me up onto the clean hood of a white sports car. “Are you gonna be okay while I work on that crunched Explorer over there?”

“So, I’m just a hood ornament now?” I smirked and arranged my body model-style—reclining, with crossed legs.

“Yep,” Chris grinned, “that’s exactly what you are.” He pulled my ponytail, and his salty scent washed over me.

I grabbed his bicep and fingered the rag tied around it, “Why’d you hide your tattoo?” Thoughts flashed behind Chris’s eyes, almost as if he were considering a lie. I retracted with a shrug, “It certainly ups your cool factor.”

This time Chris kissed my head. “Ah, Bekah, I love how naïve you are!” Nyx Hastings, her hair a violent shade of red and her worn jeans spotted with oil (she was wearing a shirt, though), called Chris’s name, and he hurried away to the Explorer. For a long while, I let my mind go numb in the pleasant shade of the building. Watching Chris, Nyx, TJ, and the other mechanics scurry around the garage was soothing, and the noises merged into a drone as I drifted into a daydream . . .

The sky had shifted from blue-white to a rich gold when Chris wiped his hands on a greasy rag, disappeared into the office, and emerged modestly clad in a white t-shirt and denim blazer. He carried a notebook and a folder. “Are you done for the day?” I asked. My arms had little goosebumps on them.

Stretching his arms, Chris sat down beside me on the hood of the white sports car. “I’m sorry, Bekah—I feel like I abandoned you over here.”

“No, it’s okay.” I swung my legs and looked at the pink polish on my toenails. It was chipping. “I liked—I mean, it wasn’t bad watching you guys working, and stuff.”

He laughed and played with his notebook, “How ’bout watching me do an algebra assignment?”

“Mmm . . . riveting!” We slid off the car, and I followed Chris into the clean break room. It was clean and grey; an old leather couch and a scratched glass coffee table were the only furnishings. A vending machine hummed in the corner. The room’s only saving grace was an east-facing window perfectly situated to allow a view of Y Mountain through a fortuitous crack in the Provo skyline.

Chris settled on the floor and bent over his assignment on the coffee table. I stared out the window at the afternoon alpine glow that was already settling on the Wasatch Front. Flopping on the couch with a sigh, I ventured, “Chris?”

“Hmm?” he kept his eye on the equation.

“How’d you get into any classes if you got here in March?”

He shrugged, “Independent study. At this rate, I’ll probably graduate when I’m thirty-two.”

“Oh,” I struggled to keep the nonchalant in my voice, “cool.”

Marianne’s twin brother from Albuquerque pulled himself onto the opposite end of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I didn’t—exactly—finish high school. Or anything, really, for a long time. I mean, I’ve got my GED, of course, but I’m pretty behind with college stuff.”

I took a deep breath as silently as I could, “At least you’re back on track.” Twirling my ponytail, I stretched out luxuriously on the couch.

“Okay,” Chris kicked his binder off the table with his Keds,“you’re distracting me.”

“Well, you invited me—ah!”

Chris tickled me—I twisted and giggled. He tickled harder.

“Stop!” I grabbed his deltoids, and he became very, very still. We stared at each other for one second . . . two . . . three, and then I slithered down the side of the couch to the floor. Brushing invisible dust off my shirt, I stood up.

“You wanna get something to eat?” Chris asked, putting his pencil down.

We shared a crunchy Beehive roll, a smooth Rainbow roll, and warm, salty edamame in Happy Sumo at Riverwoods. It was my first sushi, but I didn’t tell Chris that.