Page 71 of Happiness for Beginners

I was working hard to feel grateful for the opportunity for heartbreak and all thealivenessit would bring when I realized that Jake and Windy had broken the morning’s quiet and were chatting with each other.

“So thepleasuresystem,” Windy was saying, “is modulated by neurotransmitters called opioids. They help us enjoy the good things in our lives and tune out discomfort. But the system ofdesireis governed by dopamine, which makes you antsy and itchy with longing.”

“So they kind of cancel each other out,” Jake said, following her thinking closely.

“That’s right. When desire is high, pleasure and satisfaction are low. They’re, like, at opposite ends of a seesaw.”

I had no idea what they were even talking about, but I heard myself jump in, anyway. “Is that why some men only want women they can’t have? Because they confuse pleasure for desire?”

“Yes,” Windy called up. “Probably. It always seems to come back to neurotransmitters.”

“Can’t they take something for that?” I asked.

“Not really. People can get hooked on longing, though. They wind up liking the wanting more than the having.”

“Exactly!” I said. “Is that fixable?”

Windy thought for a minute before answering. “Well,” she said, “there’s a lot more neurological plasticity in the brain than we used to believe. In theory, anything’s possible. But that’s in theory. The most important thing to remember is that getting what you want doesn’t make you happy.”

“It doesn’t?” I asked.

“Not for long. Happiness is more about appreciation than acquisition.”

“Oh,” I said. That stumped me a little. I’d always assumed that getting what you wanted wasthe definitionof being happy. Guess I’d kinda jumped in over my head, here.

When there were no more questions from me, Windy turned her attention back to Jake. “So, anyway, that’s when I decided to become a Buddhist. Freshman year at Barnard.”

“That’s awesome,” Jake said. “I keep meaning to become a Buddhist.”

“It’s not that hard,” Windy said. “I can teach you.”

“Sure,” Jake said. “Great.”

Windy went to Barnard? And was a Buddhist? That was the thing about her—she was full of surprises. She was never dull. And she was very much, unapologetically, her own person. I couldn’t even dislike her.

“Maybe next time we have a Zero Day,” Windy suggested, “I could give you a lesson.”

“It’s a date,” Jake said.

Or maybe, actually, I could dislike her—just a tiny bit.

***

It took us three hours to get back to Hugh. He was alert when we arrived, and sipping soup the Sisters had made for him.

Jake went right to work, cutting Hugh’s pants and socks off with shears to assess the situation, and he sent Windy and the big guys to go find him a branch of some kind to use for a splint.

“You’re going to splint his leg?” Mason asked.

Jake shook his head. “I’m going to splint his whole body.”

Beckett herded the rest of us a few feet away to start preparing for the evac. He divided us into two groups. He pointed at three people who had packs with external aluminum frames and told them to empty them out. When the packs were empty, he told the owners to redistribute their belongings into the remaining packs. Then he started dismantling the frames.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making a litter for Hugh.”

We had flat, nylon ropes called lashes with us, and Beckett used several to weave around the three frames. Lashed together, they made a litter shape, and a woven surface for Hugh to lie on. When Beckett was done, he spread a sleeping bag over it for padding, and then lay down on top. “Not bad,” he said, looking at me from the ground. “It’s no featherbed, but it’ll do.”

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