Too Much Happiness

makes a noise that Joyce cannot interpret.
    “Inclined to be rather aloof,” Tommy says. He speaks to Jay. “Am I right? Would you say that?”
    “She thinks she’s hot shit,” Jay says distinctly.
    “Well, she’s just got her first book published,” Tommy says. “I forget what it’s called. Some title like a how-to book, I don’t think it’s a good title. You get your first book out, I guess you are hot shit for a while.”
    Passing a bookstore on Lonsdale a few days later, Joyce sees the girl’s face on a poster. And there is her name, Christie O’Dell. She is wearing a black hat and the same little black jacket she wore to the party. Tailored, severe, very low in the neck. Though she has practically nothing there to show off. She stares straight into the camera, with her somber, wounded, distantly accusing look.
    Where has Joyce seen her before? At the party, of course. But even then, in the midst of her probably unwarranted dislike, she felt she had seen that face before.
    A student? She’d had so many students in her time.
    She goes into the store and buys a copy of the book.
How Are We to Live
. No question mark. The woman who sold it to her says, “And you know if you bring it back Friday afternoon between two and four, the author will be here to sign it for you.
    “Just don’t tear the little gold sticker off so it shows you bought it here.”
    Joyce has never understood this business of lining up to get a glimpse of the author and then going away with a stranger’s name written in your book. So she murmurs politely, indicating neither yes nor no.
    She doesn’t even know if she will read the book. She has a couple of good biographies on the go at the moment that she is sure are more to her taste than this will be.
    How Are We to Live
is a collection of short stories, not a novel. This in itself is a disappointment. It seems to diminish the book’s authority, making the author seem like somebody who is just hanging on to the gates of Literature, rather than safely settled inside.
    Nevertheless Joyce takes the book to bed with her that night and turns dutifully to the table of contents. About halfway down the list a title catches her eye.
    “Kindertotenlieder.”
    Mahler. Familiar territory. Reassured, she turns to the page indicated. Somebody, probably the author herself, has had the sense to supply a translation.
    “Songs on the Death of Children.”
    Beside her, Matt gives a snort.
    She knows that he has disagreed with something he is reading and would like her to ask what it is. So she does.
    “Christ. This idiot.”
    She puts
How Are We to Live
facedown on her chest, making sounds to show that she is listening to him.
    On the back cover of the book there is the same author’s photo, without the hat this time. Unsmiling still, and sulky, but a bit less pretentious. While Matt talks, Joyce shifts her knees so that she can position the book against them and read the few sentences of the cover biography.
    Christie O’Dell grew up in Rough River, a small town on the coast of British Columbia. She is a graduate of the UBC Creative Writing Program. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband, Justin, and her cat, Tiberius
.
    When he has explained to her what the idiocy in his book is all about, Matt lifts his eyes from his book to look at her book and says, “There’s that girl that was at our party.”
    “Yes. Her name’s Christie O’Dell. She’s Justin’s wife.”
    “She’s written a book then? What is it?”
    “Fiction.”
    “Oh.”
    He has resumed his reading but in a moment asks her, with a hint of contrition, “Is it any good?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “She lived with her mother,” she reads, “in a house between the mountains and the sea-”
    As soon as she has read those words Joyce feels too uncomfortable to continue reading. Or to continue reading with her husband beside her. She closes the book and says, “I think I’ll go downstairs for a little.”
    “Is the light bothering you? I’m about to turn it off.”
    “No. I think I want some tea. See you in a while.”
    “I’ll probably be asleep.”
    “Good night then.”
    “Good night.”
    She kisses him and takes the book with her.
    She lived with her mother in a house between the mountains and the sea. Before that she had lived with Mrs. Noland who took in foster children. The number of children in Mrs. Noland’s house varied from time to time but there were always too many. The