Reasons to Be Happy

Reasons to Be Happy - By Katrina Kittle


For Rachel Moulton,

talented writer and beautiful friend,

who is always a reason to be happy,

as are the following, especially when shared with her:

good coffee, dark chocolate, salted caramel,

Jeni’s ice cream, Gerbera daisies,

and zombie movies.



Reasons to Be Happy:

1. Swimming with dolphins

2. Outrunning a forest fire

3. A hot air balloon ride

4. Seeing a shark fin while surfing but making it back to the shore intact

5. Hiking by moonlight

I used to be brave.

What happened to the girl who wrote those things? The girl who left the house that morning all excited about her first day of eighth grade at a new school? That girl who got up way too early and flipped through her sequined purple notebook where she keeps a list of things that are good in life—things like:

20. The smell of Band-Aids

21. Cat purr vibrating through your skin

22. Hiking with Dad up on Arroyo Seco and seeing a mountain lion at dusk

23. Vampires

24. Playing with the rubbery residue after you let glue dry on your fingers

How could so much change so fast in just one day?

Scratch that. Stupid question. Besides, it wasn’t really a day. It was a summer. How could they change so fast over one summer? Let’s see, you could move to a new school, be totally humiliated, have no real friends, and oh, yeah, your mom could get cancer.

Yep, that about does it. That would explain the changes. So, the harder question is: how do I get that girl back? That girl who saw so many reasons to be happy that she started to keep a list:

6. Making lists

7. Jumping on a trampoline in the rain

8. Ghost stories

9. Painting your toenails

10. Winning a race

11. Dark chocolate melting in your mouth

12. Pad Thai so spicy hot it makes your nose run

I missed that girl. She used to be bold and fun. Then she became a big chicken loser. “There goes Hannah,” Aunt Izzy used to say (okay, her name is really Isabelle but everyone calls her Izzy), “jumping in with both feet.”

Aunt Izzy is my mom’s sister. She lives in Ohio (where she and my mom grew up) in a funky purple house in this hippie town called Yellow Springs (Aunt Izzy’s purple house is reason #28 on the list). Aunt Izzy makes documentary films. I know, I know, documentary films sound boring, but she makes good ones. Her last one won an Academy Award. My mom and dad are actors. They’ve never won Academy Awards, even though both of them have been nominated. They make their living in feature films, which is why we live all the way in Los Angeles now.

Aunt Izzy said I “jumped in with both feet” like it was a compliment, like it was good and brave. (Which reminds me, running hurdles when you hit your stride just right is #56.) My mom, though, said I jump in with both feet like it’s a very, very bad thing. “You don’t have any fear,” she said with this look of exasperation. But that was before I became afraid of everything. I hesitated too long before I jumped. I waited, paralyzed, thinking of all the bad things that could happen, until the moment was gone. It was like, once I stopped risking, I lost the ability.

Like that day, my disaster of a first day—I hesitated too long. I let the wrong things gain momentum and there was no way to stop the avalanche.





Reasons to Be Happy:

70. The smell of Play-Doh

71. Sand under your bare feet

72. Seeing a shooting star

73. Riding the front car of a roller coaster

74. Raw cookie dough

75. Glitter

These were some of the things I listed before I turned into a big loser.

In my journal that morning (which is different from the purple Reasons to Be Happy book) I listed all the things I would do at my new school:

1. Make at least three new friends

2. Join track team

3. Sit with a different group at lunch every day. Get to know everybody!

4. Take more art classes

Oh my God. Who was that girl? I wrote those dorky, cheerful things and I really believed they would work.

I told you my parents were actors, but did I mention that they’re…unnaturally gorgeous people? They’ve turned heads all their lives, even before they were famous. People just like to look at them, the same way they like to gaze at lovely flower arrangements or trees in bloom in springtime.

My dad filled a room, and not just with his broad-shouldered height. People breathed easier around him; I’d seen it happen. Something about those muscled arms, those high cheekbones, and those really long lashes (totally unfair to waste on a man, if you ask me) all added up to this casual, comfortable certainty. He made you feel safe, like he’d handle anything that threatened you, just like he did in his movies. His teeth could hypnotize you, lighting up a room like a flashbulb. Really, that wasn’t an exaggeration; his face would be all still and listening, then flash! off went that smile. You felt like you’d been touched by the sun when it was aimed at you.

It hadn’t been aimed at me in a long time.

Seeing my mother made people stop and say “oh” aloud, like they’d seen the Taj Mahal or a perfect sunset—even while she was so skinny and sick. She liked to say, “Pretty is as pretty does,” and it was truer of her than of anyone else I’d ever met. When she was healthy, her pale, porcelain skin glowed like moonlight against her paprika hair. She had kind, hazel cat eyes and a pixie nose that turned up slightly at the bottom. Her smile was slower than my dad’s; it started in the corners of her mouth (where she has these great dimples) then slowly unfurled. She crinkled her nose when she smiled or laughed. Everyone—men and women alike—smiled back, looking grateful, like they’d been handed a gift.

So with breeding like mine, I should’ve been hot, right? What happened? I was as tall as my dad, which meant I towered over everyone in my grade. I wasn’t petite like Mom at all. I was this ogre that got switched at the hospital. I was sure there was some big, ugly, giant couple somewhere with this pretty, proportioned, ballerina-looking girl just giving each other high-fives every day.

I always knew I wasn’t as beautiful as my parents, but you know what? I never knew I was ugly until I showed up at my new school.

• • •

I liked my old school. I liked school in general. But Mom and Dad had both gotten new attention in bigger, critically acclaimed roles and had become worthy of paparazzi. We hadn’t had to deal with that before. I mean, occasionally a fan would stop one of them in a coffee shop or at a gas station or whatever, but with my dad’s last movie, Cold Right Hand, people were taking our pictures when we went to pick up Thai food or shopped for toilet paper.

So over the summer, they had enrolled me at a private school that had security especially for this reason.

Everything might’ve been different if Brooke hadn’t been my “host” that day.

When Brooke called me the day before, she was so friendly I felt like I was in great hands. Maybe I should’ve been clued in by the way she gushed, “Caleb Carlisle is really your dad? Oh my God, that must be so cool. You are so, so lucky.”

Probably half of the kids’ parents at my new school work in the film industry (and a bunch of the kids are actors themselves), but Brooke’s dad was CEO of some bank.

Brooke’s eyes narrowed when I walked up the school sidewalk. She looked me up and down in a way that made me feel naked.

I wore my usual jeans, T-shirt, and flip-flops. My hair was in a ponytail. I wore no makeup. I reached up and touched my earlobes—nope, I hadn’t put in any earrings.

Brooke had on jeans too, but stylish jeans embroidered with sequins and flowers up one thigh—one very skinny thigh, that is. She wore strappy sandals with heels and a see-through gauzy top with a pin-tucked camisole underneath. She had on not only earrings, but a necklace, bracelet, and rings on most of her manicured fingers and even on one toe. Her dark hair was piled up loosely on top of her head, like she was going to an awards show.

She looked like a woman.

I looked like a little girl.

A chubby, plain little girl.

“Hannah?” she asked, like there might be a chance she was wrong.

I nodded.

“Okay, then,” she said, throwing back her shoulders. “Come on.” She pulled me into a bathroom and offered me some makeup. I hardly knew what to do with it, so she took it out of my hands to apply it herself. “You’ll wanna ditch the backpack and wear better shoes,” she said.

I almost laughed and said, “I don’t remember asking your opinion.” Why didn’t I? The Hannah I’d been that morning when I’d left my house would have. Why didn’t I say, “no thanks” to the makeup? Why did I let her take down my ponytail, and fluff up my hair and spray it?

Was it the way the other pretty girls squealed her name and kissed her on the cheek? Was it the way a girl—a plain girl, like me (named Kelly I later found out)—stepped into the restroom then turned right back around and left when she saw Brooke with her friends?

“Don’t talk to her,” Brooke said when the girl was gone.

Brooke’s friends, Brittany and Bebe (pronounced bee-bee, like the gun, or the stinging insect, both of which are appropriate), both hyperventilated over my dad. They fell all over themselves with questions. What was he like? Was he funny? Did we have a pool? Where did he work out? What was he filming now? Did I know how lucky I was?

“What’s your name again?” Brittany asked me. Brittany looked almost identical to Brooke except she had blond hair piled on her head instead of dark. But she also wore tight jeans, a camisole, and filmy shirt.

“Hannah,” Brooke answered for me, combing my hair. “Hannah Anne Carlisle. Isn’t that, like, so…Midwest?”

She said Midwest like it was dog crap.

“My mom’s from Ohio,” I said, closing my eyes against the sting of hair spray.

“We know,” Brooke said. She quoted the tabloid line in a singsong voice. “‘From farm girl to starlet.’ I wouldn’t brag about that.”

Bitter hair spray filled my open mouth.

“Annabeth Anderson,” Brittany recited my mother’s name. “Talk about Midwest. That’s a hick name, really.”

“But she looked awesome in Tinfoil Butterfly,” Bebe said. Her tone implied that looking awesome kind of made up for the name. Bebe was African American but was in the same “uniform” as Brooke and Brittany. Even her black hair was piled up in those ringlets.

“Any of your parents act?” I asked.

They all snorted. Brittany’s parents were both plastic surgeons. Bebe’s dad was a cardiologist. Her mom was an oncologist.

“Really?” I asked. My mom’s oncologist was a beautiful black woman. “What’s her name?”

“Natasha Jabari.” Bebe shrugged as if my question annoyed her.

No one paid any attention to my suddenly burning face, so I didn’t have to share that Bebe’s mother was my mother’s doctor.

My mother has cancer. I caught myself thinking that several times a day, like repetition might help me wrap my brain around it.

When they deemed me presentable, they herded me into the crowded hallways, introducing me to people they liked. A boy I recognized approached.

“Oh God,” Brooke whispered. “Oh God. Oh God. Do I look okay?”

I saw frantic desperation cross Brooke’s face before I was transfixed by Kevin Sampson’s green eyes.

“Hey, Hannah.” His voice rumbled under my skin like a cat’s purr. Kevin Sampson: tall, tan, so blond his hair was almost white.

Brooke bristled beside me. “Hey, Kevin,” she said.

He nodded at her.

Just looking at Kevin made my insides feel like they were falling. You could tell he spent tons of time at the beach—his nose had the cutest pink, peeling spot. His dad was A-list. Definitely A+-list, and had been there lots longer than mine, and Kevin was on the way himself. He’d already been in a Gap commercial and two print ads for Sketchers shoes. He’d had a minor role in a popular but now canceled TV series and had just been cast in his first feature role—in my dad’s upcoming movie Blood Roses, due to start filming next year.

“Nice to have you here, Hannah,” he said. His grin set my face on fire.

When he wandered away from us, Brooke said, “So you know him already?”

I shrugged, as if dismissing it, and said, “He’s in my dad’s next project.”

Brooke stared at me a moment, her expression hungry, then continued with the tour of the school. It consisted of “Here’s the library, if you’re a dork and actually want to study” and “Here’s the computer lab but only losers hang out here.” When we walked through an amazingly cool lounge where an enormous climbing wall rose up to high ceilings, Brooke said, “Here’s the geek playground. Losers of the world unite here at lunch.”

I tried. I made an attempt, even if feeble. I give myself credit for that. “I like to climb,” I said. (Rock climbing was reason #39.)

“Well, don’t do it here,” Brooke said. “Not if you want to be anybody.”

Be anybody. Did I want to be anybody? No, I wanted to be me. But did I say anything?

Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe led me through another lounge, outside the cafeteria, where a boy sat playing the piano. His dark, wavy hair hung so far in his eyes I wondered how he could see. He must’ve been able to though, because he stopped, marked something on the sheet music with a pencil, then continued playing.

“He’s still here?” Brooke asked, as if he weren’t sitting right there and could hear her. “I didn’t think he’d come back this year.”

I winced.

“Scholarship,” Brooke said. “His parents could never afford to send him here. They work in craft services.” She said it like providing food on movie sets was the same as begging in the street.

The other girls giggled. I started edging away, willing them to follow. Maybe they’d all laugh and it would turn out to be a joke, like he was their best friend or something.

He gave his head one small shake, tossing the hair out of his eyes, never missing a note of the music. He flicked his eyes at them for a beat, maybe two. His eyes met mine for a split second, stopped—by the fact that he didn’t know me maybe—and then returned to the music.

He didn’t know me. And this was his chance to know me, if I’d do something, say something, grow a spine, anything. But…I didn’t.

I didn’t say anything in art class, either, when Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe talked and whispered through the whole class, being rude to the teacher who was really cool. I’d read all about him on the school’s website and had been psyched to take classes with him.

I loved art, and I did this really cool art at home. It’s hard to explain to anyone, but it’s one of my favorite things to do: I build cities. Tiny intricate cities out of bits and pieces, trinkets and cool stuff. I told you it was hard to explain, but here, I’ll try: Our backyard (surrounded by a privacy fence topped with electric wire) is divided up into garden plots and a tiny pond, all separated by winding stone paths. A couple of the garden plots are devoted to hibiscus and bougainvillea (orange bougainvillea is #36) and the Ohio vegetables my mom tries to coax out of the sandy ground, but most of the plots were given over to me to build my miniature cities. The borders of the buildings are decorated with beads, buttons, and gaudy jewelry I get for a quarter at the Salvation Army. (Mom calls me “magpie” because I love the bright shiny pieces best.) The walls are mosaicked with pieces of broken china and pottery. One building has an entire chimney made of snail shells, and another has a barricade fence of starfish. A red toy truck carrying a load of glass Christmas ornaments parks on a boulevard of Scrabble letters. You probably have to see one to really understand it, but just know that when most people see one of my cities, they’re blown away. Even adults will crouch down, hug their knees, and stare at it for a long time. My cities are unbelievably cool and complex (if I do say so myself).

My cities make me feel…peaceful, if that’s not too dorky. I can make a world where everything is okay, where everything is the way it should be. You can look at it and breathe a sigh of relief.

Those cities are the reason I have things on my list like:

25. Running my hands through a barrel of beads

35. Beach glass

37. Really great thrift stores

(Like once, I found an entire glass jar of buttons at this funky shop in Venice Beach, buttons that looked like typewriter keys, cameo buttons, yellow flower buttons, and tiny copper sun buttons.)

49. Finding surprise stuff inside boxes at yard sales

(One time I found this square, art-deco iridescent peacock broach inside a music box.)

61. Old-fashioned keys (and wondering what they open)

I was actually naïve enough to consider sharing these cities with my new “friends,” when Bebe yawned loudly—a fake, mean yawn meant to tell the art teacher how boring he was—and said, “Can you believe we have to take this class?”

Brooke rolled her eyes and cracked the enormous wad of purple gum in her jaw.

I didn’t tell any of them about the cities.

I still didn’t say anything at lunch when they invited me to their table. I gratefully let Brooke lead me, since there’s nothing so terrifying as facing a cafeteria alone. Brooke did her hyperventilating “Oh God, oh God” again when Kevin sat down at our table. She had it bad for him. He sat across from me and asked how my day had been. I stuttered like a moron. He kept bumping my knees under the table and every time he did, my brain fizzed with white noise for a full thirty seconds.

Brooke held up my baggie of homemade cookies and said, “Oh my God, that’s so cute.”

I snatched them back and shrugged. “My dad likes to bake.”

The girls fell on that like sharks on a bloody limb.

“Ooooh,” Brittany squealed, “that’s so sweet. Caleb Carlisle bakes cookies.”

Kevin laughed. “Caleb Carlisle does it all, man. He’s no joke.”

I smiled. When he smiled back, I got dizzy.

None of the girls brought their lunches from home. They paid for intricate, fancy salads, but then picked through them, eating only the lettuce.

The boys ate huge lunches, shoved each other a lot, and talked too loud.

“So, what do you guys do after school?” I asked. “Do you play sports or anything?”

“Tennis,” Bebe said. “And it’s not too late for us to get you on the team too.”

“Actually, I run. I was going to join cross-country this fall and track in the spring.”

Brooke grabbed me and put a hand over my mouth. “Never say that out loud ever again!” Brittany and Bebe collapsed in giggles.

I wriggled out from under her grasp, wanting to slug her, but before I could say anything, she said, “Only losers run track, Hannah Anne Carlisle.” She said my full name in that mocking singsong. “Don’t go hanging out with that geek squad.”

I blinked. Was there anything about me that was acceptable?

“I have saved you today,” Brooke said. “What would you have done without me?”

Maybe been happier, said a little voice in my head. But my own actual voice seemed broken and out-of-order. I stopped eating my sandwich when I noticed all the girls had their giant salads still intact in front of them.

I recognized the piano-playing boy cleaning tables. Brooke followed my gaze and said, “He doesn’t pay tuition. He has to do school service.”

Kevin bumped his container of ketchup, sending a red dash across the table.

I handed him a napkin but he shrugged. “He’ll get it,” Kevin said, nodding at the piano-playing boy. “But thanks, Hannah.” The way he said my name made me unable to form words.

I’d walked in that morning, a girl who believed she could Sit with a different group each day at lunch. Make friends with everybody!

By the time I left that afternoon, I doubted everything about myself.





66. Finally seeing a trailer for a movie you’ve been waiting for

67. That screeching sound of packing tape

68. Dogs wearing sweaters

69. Finger painting (especially when you know you’re “too old” to be doing it)

I sometimes read the list just to distract myself from the disaster of my life.

87. Wearing a costume

88. The scuttle sound autumn leaves make on the sidewalk

89. Getting yourself all freaked out after a scary movie

90. Warm, fluffy towels straight out of the dryer

91. The skin on top of pudding

92. That smell when the first drops of rain hit concrete

93. Dancing like an idiot when no one is watching

I read the list to distract myself from the fact my mom is dying.

She’s so brave battling her cancer that it’s not fair at all the cancer is winning. She’d tell me each update—like, “The treatments aren’t working”—all matter-of-fact and then say, “But I’m going to keep fighting.” Even as Dad started to fall apart in his sorrow, she stayed calm and focused.

94. Cinnamon and sugar on butter-soggy toast

95. Rubbing velvet the wrong way

96. Remembering dreams

97. Playing hooky with Mom

When Mom has really good days, Mom and Dad will let me stay home to be with her. We’ll walk on the beach, or watch movies we’ve already seen but loved, or just sit in the backyard.

Even sick and losing her hair, her beauty seems to light her up from the inside. I feel hideous next to her, all fat, ugly, and cowardly.

I’m such a coward I didn’t go out for the cross-country team.

I’m such a coward I didn’t join the Art Club.

I’m such a coward I kept sitting with those girls I know are horrible. I feel trapped. I don’t know how to break free, and each day I don’t speak up, it gets harder and harder to figure out how. I’m paralyzed.

Poor Mom. She thought it was her fault I’ve given up everything I love. That hurt worst of all, when she held my hand in the backyard and said, “Hannah Banana, you have to live, sweetie. Have friends. Do the things you want to do. Please, don’t stay home because of me. You’re so sad and I can’t stand that. The best medicine for me is for you to laugh and have fun with your friends.”

Friends? She wouldn’t wish these friends on me if she knew them.

“Are you sure you don’t want to run cross-country?” she almost begged. “I thought the coach was your favorite teacher.”

She is. Mrs. DeTello. She’d been bugging me to join too, but I can’t. But I’m fat. Poor Mom probably wants me to run because I’m fat.

I miss running. I have dreams about running, but instead of joining cross-country, I at least accepted an invitation to go to the beach with my “new friends” just to make Mom happy. It felt so good to make her happy.

When I said yes to the invite, I didn’t know that boys would be there too. My face blazed as I took in Brooke, Brittany, and Bebe in their bikinis. They looked like models. Like women. I was the dumpy little girl in a babyish one-piece. A pink babyish one-piece, just to make it worse. The boys ignored me, falling all over themselves around the toned bodies of the other girls. I finally waded out into the ocean. The water covered me up; its wildness made me happy.

“Hey, Hannah.” Kevin’s voice surprised me. He waded out to join me, dragging a surfboard.

“I’m gonna teach you how to surf,” he announced.

For a split second, irritation sparked through me. Teach me? I already knew how to surf. And how about asking if I wanted to…but the white static his dimples and eyes produced made me mute. I just smiled. What an idiot.

It was fun to be doing something, even though I knew Brooke would be jealous. Kevin thought he was an excellent teacher because I picked it up so fast (um, how about me being an excellent student?). Time flew and I felt genuinely happy, just the two of us out in the waves.

After a couple good runs in a row, I was just paddling on his board on my stomach and he was treading water near me. He tossed his wet hair out of his eyes, touched my hip, and said, so kindly and sincerely, “You wanna be careful, Hannah. Don’t get chubby. You’re cute, but you could be hot.”

I froze, wanting the ocean to swallow me up. I felt sick. He thinks I’m fat.

Thank God the others shouted at us to come in. Brooke’s mom was there to pick us up. Everyone was waiting on me. The hatred and misery shining in Brooke’s eyes was sharp enough to cut. My breath dropped funny, and I broke out in a slimy sweat. “I-I have to run to the bathroom,” I said, ignoring her mom’s impatient sigh. I ran through the hot sand to the stinky beach bathroom, barely making it to a toilet before I vomited. Oh my God. It happened so fast!

Another wave of nausea punched me. I threw up again…and when I stood, the ripple of relief felt…good. I splashed water on my face at the sink, rinsed out my mouth, brushed my hair, then headed back to grab my stuff. I felt almost like I floated.

“Sorry,” I said, squeezing into the car.

Bebe stared at me, forehead wrinkled.

“What?” I asked.

“You look…I dunno, really good. What did you do in there?”

I laughed. I puked didn’t seem a good answer. I craned my neck to see myself in the rearview mirror: bright eyes, pink cheeks, something…alive in me. I felt happy.

So happy that later, after dinner, I made myself throw up again just to feel that sensation.

I wrote in my journal, I think I discovered an amazing secret. When everything is sucky—and when is it not anymore?—this will be my Secret Remedy, my SR.

I couldn’t wait to use it again.