I Have Been Happy Here

I was raised to believe desire was a sin, and then I met Leah.

Leah was brilliant and the most indelicate of women, the kind that is quite capable of causing pain and knows how. I never felt it as malicious so much as borne of hidden despair, all the worse for her having grown accustomed to it. I never figured out if she realized what she was doing or she was merely acting out an unconscious pattern.

It didn't matter; I was in love with her.

I was in my thirties and still carried my Catholic school education like a heavy coat—sex was something that happened in the dark, apologetically, with someone you intended to marry. All my relationships had the same suffocating quality: affection wrapped in guilt; pleasure measured in teaspoons.

With Leah, I had to accept a good measure of snarky observations on my scrupulosity and sexual prowess in order to keep sleeping with her. She was quick to point out that her comments were instructive, and she sought pleasure as much as I did. I never intended to marry her, but I endured her comments and observations because I couldn't imagine living without her.

Eight months of dancing between bliss and bewilderment. Looking back, I’m not sure how I survived it.

I met her when she was engaged to Michael. A petite, beautiful wisp of a woman with short curly black hair and a smile that would light up a room. But I noticed things—the way her smile sometimes held a beat too long, like she was remembering to keep it there. How she'd laugh at her own jokes before anyone else could, as if filling silence before it could swallow her. Her joy felt practiced, even disciplined, as though she had trained herself to move lightly through the world without ever setting anything down. She wore happiness like armor, a shield between herself and everyone watching.

I was working for AT&T in Manhattan. My office was on the eighth floor of a building on 51st and Broadway. Many of the other floors were home to the offices of talent agents. Every week, I would share the elevator with some Broadway star or an aspiring actor. One beautiful warm summer afternoon, I was returning from a difficult client meeting. I was in a foul mood as I stood in the lobby waiting for the elevator when Leah walked in. She was smiling and laughing quietly to herself. It annoyed me.

I was staring at the wall when she suddenly looked at me and said,

"Why so glum on such a beautiful day?"

"What?"

“You look like your cat just died. Are you okay?” she asked, concern etching her brow.

"I'm okay. Employee issues, the bane of being a manager."

"Give yourself a break. It's just a job and it's a marvelous day to be alive. What do you manage?"

The elevator arrived and we stepped in.

"Premise Distribution Systems for corporate clients, basically the voice and data networks within their offices."

"Sounds a bit boring," she laughed.

"And you?" I asked.

"I sing and dance."

"In the theatre?"

"Where else? Actually, I sing and dance wherever and whenever I can," she smiled broadly and then tapped out a few steps on the elevator floor.

"Beautiful," I remarked. My initial annoyance turned to fascination.

The elevator stopped, and she got out.

Turning back to look at me, she said, "Nice meeting you. Keep smiling."

I watched her disappear down the hallway and realized I was smiling. Not the tight, professional smile I'd worn all day, but something genuine. Something I'd forgotten I could do.

Two more chance elevator meetings and I finally worked up the nerve to ask her to join me for lunch. We ate at Ellen's Stardust Diner, a hop, skip, and a jump from our building and a classic meeting place for aspiring Broadway actors. During lunch, Leah sang along with the staff and surprised me with the beauty of her voice. Between songs and laughter, she said something that stayed with me: "Dancing is easier than standing still. If you keep moving, people can't see you're scared." She said it lightly, as if it were a joke, but her eyes didn't match the smile.

We exchanged numbers. We enjoyed another luncheon meeting two weeks later and a dinner a week after that. At dinner, Leah informed me that in two weeks she would be traveling to California with her fiancé. Once there, she was going to tell him the engagement was off. She said it the way someone might mention picking up dry cleaning, a task to complete, nothing more. She then said that when she returned, she was going to sleep with me.

Just like that.

I got up from my seat and kissed her passionately. It was the best response I could summon. When I pulled back, she was grinning.

"See? You're already learning."

"Learning what?"

"That we're allowed to want things. That desire isn't something to be managed, contained, or feel guilty about."

I didn't understand what she meant then. But I would.

And just short of a month later, we were naked in bed in her New York apartment. The abandon with which we flung ourselves into lovemaking was frenzied and exhilarating—precarious only because I kept waiting for the guilt to arrive, the familiar voice that would tell me this was wrong. It never came. We moved together with an intuitive rhythm, each touch answered, each breath matched. I had never known someone so uninhibited about sex. Making love with her was an adventure of the highest order and we would spend hours in bed together with no regard for the world outside.

Afterwards, as we lay tangled in sheets damp with sweat, she traced a finger along my chest.

"You kept apologizing," she said.

"I did?"

"Three times. For nothing."

She propped herself up on one elbow. "Pleasure isn't something you need to be sorry for. Not to me. Not to yourself."

It had never occurred to me that I was apologizing. But of course, I was. The guilt hadn't arrived as a crushing weight—it had been there all along, so familiar I couldn't even hear it in my own voice. I'd been apologizing for wanting things my entire life.

The pattern repeated itself for months. She would critique; I would adjust. She would teach; I would learn. Between the sheets, I learned to ask for what I wanted, to receive without at once calculating what I owed in return. I learned to stay present in my own body instead of apologizing. I discovered parts of myself I'd kept shuttered.

Outside the bedroom, however, she remained unknowable. Some nights she'd greet me with kisses and laughter. Others, I'd arrive to find her staring out the window, unreachable, her smile a mask she'd forgotten to remove. I learned not to ask about those moods—just as I'd learned not to ask what she'd said to Michael in California when she ended their engagement. I'd make myself useful in small ways: a drink, the TV on low, space on the couch when she was ready. Her problems were not mine to fix—that much I did understand.

Eight months later, after a wonderful afternoon of lovemaking, she turned toward me and fixed me with a long, careful, searching stare. I now suspect it was the same stare that Michael had experienced in California.

Without so much as a flutter in her voice she said, "I'm leaving you."

"What do you mean you're leaving me?" I said, as if I had been bitten by a snake.

"I'm leaving you. It's as simple as that. Sometimes I make up my mind about something without knowing why. Once I decide, I don't change my mind."

She got out of bed and started to get dressed. I got up, walked over to her, and put my arms around her from behind. For a moment neither of us moved.

“I know better than to ask why,” I said, desperate for a hint of the reason behind her decision. "But—haven't you been happy here?"

"I have." Her voice was steady, matter-of-fact. "As have you. But I'm leaving anyway."

“How am I going to survive without you?” I asked.

“That’s a child’s question and one asked by every lover. You’ll find a way.”

She stepped away, finished dressing, pulled on her jacket, and slung her bag over her shoulder. She paused in the doorway and gave me that sidelong, appraising look.

"Don't forget to smile."

Then she was gone, leaving the ache of her laughter echoing through the empty apartment. I stood there for a long time, watching dust motes drift through the afternoon light, and realized I was grinning. Not the tight, guilty grin I'd worn through my twenties. Something genuine. Something she'd taught me.

The class was over, perhaps she wanted a new student, or perhaps she simply grew bored with teaching. I'll never know—she was unknowable even at the end, especially at the end. But I kept the lessons. How to be present. How to ask for what I wanted. How to receive pleasure without calculating what I owed in return. Every relationship since has been richer for it.

We used each other, of course—but not in the way I’d been taught to fear. Some teachers stay. Others change the way you inhabit your own skin, then leave before you can thank them.

"Don't forget to smile," she'd said.

I haven't. Somewhere in those months with Leah, I learned the difference between the happiness she wore as armor and the happiness I finally learned to live in. She used her joy to keep the world at bay; she taught me how to use mine to let the world in.

Now, when the afternoon light catches dust motes drifting through an empty room, I don't feel the old, suffocating weight of guilt. I just catch myself grinning—not the careful, practiced smile of a man seeking permission, but the one she taught me how to keep for myself.