Get Happy (6 page)

“I didn’t know if I’d make it.”

Her face squinched. “Get Happy?”

“Yes. Get Happy. You can look them up. Get Happy, Incorporated. It’s a big company. They’re opening a new branch.”

Her fingernails began clacking on the keyboard. She was silent as she searched through the site, clicking on the various pictures, lingering on one with a girl
in a princess costume, singing in front of an obviously staged living room full of smiling children. “I don’t know about this, Minny. The idea of going into strange people’s houses …”

“I knew you’d say something like that. It’s not strange people, Mom.”

“What if it’s a pervert’s house?”

I laughed. “It’s going to be a five-year-old’s house, Mom. I don’t think there are many five-year-old perverts.”

“It could be a pervert pretending to have a five-year-old.”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek and did a little waltz around the kitchen. “Mom, go back to Facebook and don’t worry so much.”

She smiled. “It’s my job to keep you safe.”

“I’ll be safe. You should be happy I have a job, Mom.”

“I’m pretty darn sure I could get you a job at the mall.”

I hugged her. “This is a job
singing
.”

“I just want to make sure this is legitimate. You have to be careful these days.”

“It’s not a scam. It’s a national thing.” I grabbed a
banana from the counter. “By the way, Fin is coming. We have to go over our scripts.”

“I’m going to read up on this Get Happy thing. Did you clean your room?”

“Yes, Mommy.” Calling her mommy usually put her in a good mood for some reason.

“Did you do a thorough job?”

“Thorough enough for me.”

“Thorough enough for me?”

“You don’t have to sleep there.”

“Honey, if I go up there and discover that you didn’t do a good job …”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

I
DECIDED THEN
and there to stop thinking about the whole Keanu Choy thing. I didn’t have to prove who he was, because I knew I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. It didn’t matter if he was a hotshot scientist or a convict. Either way, he’d left us high and dry, and if he thought one little necklace was going to make me forgive and forget, he could just jump off his boat and get eaten by sharks. I had a job and I was going to earn money. I was going to buy myself a uke and live happily ever after.

Fin came over, and we made hot chocolate and watched Get Happy videos on YouTube and read through our scripts like good little employees. The whole Get Happy enterprise was extremely corny, but it felt liberating to have something positive to focus on.

I stood up and said in my new, giddy Get Happy voice: “Let’s be the best singing mermaid and pirate Joy Banks has ever seen. Let’s make Joy Banks so excited she barfs.”

Some people hear other people’s words as conversation. Fin hears other people’s words as cues. He immediately launched into singing the Get Happy song. I joined in, and we sang and danced around my room like insane asylum inmates. Thankfully, Joy Banks was not there to witness it, because if she had, she probably would have fired us. With a smile, of course.

7

M
Y MOM INSISTED
on driving me and Fin to the Get Happy office. The sun was out and it was abnormally warm — I mean take-your-coat-off warm — and most of the snow had melted.

When we stopped to get Fin, his two little brothers were kicking the soccer ball around and his dad was outside, too, in his big green muddy boots, tossing small branches and twigs into a wheelbarrow. I rolled down my window.

“Hi, Pat. Hey, Min darlin’. Congrats on your first real job.” He took off his gardening gloves and walked over to the car. I’ve always loved Finnegan’s dad. He
was born and raised in Ireland and still has an Irish accent and all these freckles and reddish-brown hair that sticks up. Meteors could be headed toward Illinois, and everybody would panic and run around screaming their heads off, except Fin’s dad, who would continue to calmly and cheerfully pick up twigs.

Fin walked out, and his brothers kicked the ball at him. He roared them away and got in the car.

“Have fun!” Mr. O’Connor said.

My mom wanted to come in and meet Joy, but I said absolutely not. She had already called Joy to make sure it was legitimate. We started having a big fight in the car, and Fin tried to negotiate peace, which didn’t help, and I finally opened the door. “We are getting out now, Mom. And if you come in, I will die.”

The heavens parted and, lo and behold, she showed me infinite mercy by driving away without saying another word.

As we walked up to the front door, Hayes arrived on foot, a big smile on his face, and shook our hands again, which cracked us up. “Minerva Watson and Finnegan O’Connor, future entertainers of young children, a pleasure to see you again.”

“Hayes Martinelli, giver of plakettes,” I said, “a pleasure to see you, too.” And then I felt self-conscious, wondering if it was pathetic that I remembered the stone and his improvisational word for it, but he just laughed.

When we walked into the Get Happy office, Joy stood up from her desk and applauded.

“Wow,” Hayes whispered. “I feel so loved.”

“She is a desperate woman,” I whispered back.

Cassie walked in. “Finally some great weather!” She twirled around, her coat flying open, another short skirt with bare legs.

“Yay! Here’s my princess!” Joy said. “We’re going to go over your scripts, learn the Get Happy theme song, and practice the games that you’ll each be leading. But, to put everybody in the Get Happy mood, first we’re going to try on our costumes!” She wheeled out a rack with four large white garment bags and four white boxes.

“I was thinking of doing my hair up like this,” Cassie said, and in one deft motion, she swept her long hair into an updo.

“Yes!” Joy said. “Perfect. These are high-quality costumes, so take good care of them. Your costume goes in
the garment bag, your accessories go in your box. We meet here, change here, and then I take everybody in the van and do a drop-off and pickup.” She pulled the first bag and box off the rack — Cassie’s — and started going over it with her.

“Shoot me now,” Hayes whispered.

“You’re a cowboy,” Fin said. “You can shoot yourself.”

“I don’t think that’s the proper Get Happy attitude,” I said.

“What’s up with cowboys anyway? Why are kids supposed to want a cowboy party? What do cowboys even do?”

“They eat beans and sit around the campfire,” Fin said. “And then they do it with the cows.”

I laughed. “Get Happy is probably thinking more like Woody.”

Fin started singing the theme song from
Toy Story
and then he said, “Golly, Hayes, everybody wants a cowboy friend because they’re loyal and brave and true.”

“Aw, shucks,” Hayes said. “You’re right.”

“Darn tootin’,” I added.

I was next. Joy handed over my garment bag and box. I lifted the lid off and pulled out a wig of long red
hair. Fin pulled a wig of dreadlocks out of his box. We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Let’s see yours,” I said to Hayes.

He pulled out a cowboy hat and a fake gun. He pulled the gun’s trigger, and a flag popped out, which said
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
.

Joy snatched it. “Oh, rattlefinks! I meant to put that away. We had complaints, so we can’t use it anymore.”

Fin glanced at me, loving “rattlefinks,” and trying not to laugh out loud.

“I don’t get a gun,” Hayes said. “I don’t get a wig. What kind of cowboy am I?”

I nudged my box toward him. “Wanna switch?”

He smiled. “I guess cowboy ain’t so bad.”

Dimples aren’t fair. They make it very hard to focus.

“Try on your costumes and let me know if anything needs adjusting.” Joy gestured to the back. Curtains suspended from rods separated the back of the room into two changing areas. “Hayes, you can wear your own jeans with your outfit.”

Cassie and I took our costumes into our area.
This is going to be fun
, I told myself.
Just have fun.

With serious difficulty and mounting horror, I pulled on the tan bodysuit, positioned the stiff,
seashell-shaped pink cups, and then struggled into a tight green tube skirt with iridescent chiffon flounces at the bottom — the fins of a mermaid tail.

“That is so pretty,” Cassie lied through her perfect teeth. “I wish I got the mermaid.”

I looked at myself in the mirror. My hips and thighs looked enormous.

“Help me with mine.” She turned so I could zip up her white satin princess dress. “It fits.” She spun around in front of the mirror and then she went out to show Joy.

Fin’s voice came from the other side of the curtain. “These pants make my butt look HUGE. I want to wear my own jeans, like Hayes.”

“No,” Joy called out.

“Can I skip the wig and wear my own hair?” I called.

“No.”

“This is a disaster,” I whispered to Fin through the curtain. “I hate you for getting me involved with this.” I put on my long red wig and tiara, picked up the glittering pink trident.

“Rattlefinks, I need eyeliner,” Fin said, and then started laughing.

“Boys do not wear eyeliner,” Joy called out.

I braced for the side view. “This is truly hideous. Fin …”

“Seriously. I need eyeliner,” he whispered through the curtain. “And a tan.”

“I need a tan, too,” I said. “I look like a corpse.”

“We need to buy some of that fake tan-in-a-tube stuff. Wait. I think I put the shirt on backward.”

Hayes’s voice came through: “These buttonholes are too small for the buttons. How do cowboys live this like?”