Love and Joy Read online

“Yeah.” He looked at the ceiling instead of at her.

  “So … it happened. We finally … you know.”

  Joy and Amber were having lunch at a café in Santa Barbara, which they’d determined was an equitable halfway point between Los Angeles and Cambria. Joy was picking at a salad—which she’d ordered because she actually wanted a salad—and Amber was working her way through a BLT with fries.

  When Amber heard the news, her eyes widened and she dropped the fry she was holding onto her plate. “Oh, my God. You did? How was it? Was it awesome?”

  Joy’s miserable face answered for her.

  “Oh, no.” Amber’s expression fell. “What happened?”

  “The usual.” Joy looked at her plate, her hands in her lap. “You know I never …I’ve told you how I …”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Yeah. The grand finale didn’t happen. And he tried so hard, Amber. He really did. I give him an A for effort. It’s just …”

  “He got an A, but you didn’t get an O,” Amber offered.

  “Exactly. Which would have been fine. It’s fine! I still had a good time. It still felt great, and it was so nice to be close to him, but afterward …”

  “He had an ego problem.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which ruined everything.”

  “Yeah. It kind of did.”

  Amber considered that. “Well, what have you done in the past when guys had ego problems … after?”

  “They didn’t.” Joy scrunched up her face in an expression of regret. “I kind of … you know. Faked it.”

  “You faked it.”

  “Yes! So that this kind of thing wouldn’t happen!”

  “But you didn’t fake it with Nix.”

  “No.” Joy couldn’t really explain why she hadn’t. It was just a feeling, really. A feeling that he deserved her honesty, her authenticity. And there was also the feeling that she wanted more this time. She didn’t want to fake ecstasy anymore. She wanted the real thing.

  “Look.” Amber wiped her fingers on her napkin and focused on Joy. “I think it’s good that you didn’t fake it. I mean, yes, it hurt his confidence, maybe. But now he’s got no other recourse but to up his game.”

  Joy could see Amber’s point. But what if, instead of upping his game, Nix decided to forfeit? Or, what if he wasn’t the problem at all? What if Joy was the one who needed to improve her play?

  She’d been holding back her real thoughts, so now she just let them spill out.

  “It’s the five pounds,” Joy said. “I know it is.”

  “Wait … what?” Amber looked as though the confusion caused by that sentence was causing her physical pain.

  “I was so worried about whether he’d like my body now that I’ve gained five pounds that I just … couldn’t.”

  Amber’s mouth fell open, and she gave Joy a withering look. “Did he get to the finish line?”

  “Yes. Of course he did.”

  “Then he liked your body just fine. The penis doesn’t lie.”

  Amber delivered that last line just as the waitress arrived at their table.

  “Uh … I hate to interrupt, but would you two like dessert?”

  Nix tried to tell himself everything was fine.

  Of course it was.

  He and Joy had shared a lovely time together, even if it hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned. She’d seemed to have fun even without the fireworks he’d expected to give her. And anyway, any disappointment she might have felt wasn’t his fault. After all, she’d told him it had always been that way between her and her partners.

  He would just try again. He’d ask her for feedback, and he would act on it. He’d be patient and persistent, and it would happen.

  That was what the rational part of his brain told him. But the irrational part—the part that whispered to him at his most vulnerable moments—had another take on things.

  What if she lied about the other guys? What if I really am the problem? What if my technique sucks? What then?

  Nobody had complained about his technique before, but that didn’t mean anything. It was possible they were just being kind.

  He thought about all of that as he stood in the flooring aisle at The Home Depot, looking at samples of hardwood for Otter Bluff.

  He tried to weigh the merits of dark vs. light colors in terms of what would hide scratches and dirt the best, but his mind kept going back to Joy.

  He wanted another chance, but what if she didn’t give him one? What if she’d written him off as bad in bed, and he never got to show her that he could do better? That he could learn?

  “Anything I can help you with?”

  Nix looked up to see a guy in an orange apron looking at him expectantly.

  “Yeah. What do women want? Sexually, I mean?”

  The guy regarded him with skepticism. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re planning to do with that flooring, but I guarantee it wasn’t made for that.”

  Chapter 23

  Joy’s organic vegetables continued to grow, and she wrote about it on her blog and posted photos to Instagram. She gained another pound and tried not to worry about it. The audience for her blog grew, and her ad revenue grew along with it—though not to anywhere near what she’d earned at her peak.

  She and Nix took another go at it—a few times—with similar results. He tried valiantly and tirelessly to push her over the edge, and she tried valiantly and tirelessly to get there. No luck so far, but she loved being with him, and they both tried to tell themselves it was enough.

  “You know, I don’t really think it’s me,” he said one night when they were lying naked in each other’s arms after another effort. “I mean, the things I’m doing have always worked for me before.”

  “I’ve been telling you that.” Her head lay on his chest, and she could hear the steady thump of his heart. “I’ve been telling you it’s not you.”

  “Yeah, but … you would say that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I guess I would,” she conceded. “But it’s really true.”

  They were both quiet for a while, then he spoke softly into the darkness. “I’ve got a theory.”

  “Mm. Do you?”

  “Yeah. It’s got something to do with the fact that you never want me to keep the lights on. And the fact that you never really let me look at you.”

  From the tone of his voice, she could tell he was nervous about saying it, not knowing how she’d react.

  When she didn’t say anything, he pressed on. “Joy? Why don’t you think I’ll like your body? You’re beautiful.”

  Her eyes welled up with tears, and she didn’t answer him.

  “I mean, you have all those photos out there on Instagram, with the bikinis and the lingerie. So you don’t mind people seeing you. But with me …” He didn’t finish the thought.

  She pulled away from him. She couldn’t help it. The move was automatic, involuntary.

  “Joy …”

  “I just need …” She got up and padded to the bathroom in the darkness, and she stayed in there long enough to make it clear that he shouldn’t bring up the topic again.

  Joy hadn’t visited her mother since she’d moved to Cambria, but now she had no choice—it was her mother’s birthday, and Delores didn’t have any other family.

  Nix offered to go with her, but Joy made excuses.

  “Really, that’s sweet, but you don’t have to. This is just a thing I have to get done. Like dropping off my dry cleaning.” Once it was out of her mouth, she realized it sounded cold and uncaring. But it was an accurate reflection of how Joy felt about visiting her mom—if going to the dry cleaners involved a large dollop of regret and self-loathing.

  She bought a gift—Delores’s favorite perfume—wrapped it, picked up a cake from a bakery near her mother’s place, and knocked on the door at just after one p.m. on the day Delores turned 56.

  “Oh. Joy. I didn’t know you were coming.” Delores stood on the doorstep in an expensive pastel pants e
nsemble.

  “Of course I came. It’s your birthday.” She tried to keep her tone upbeat.

  “Well, come on in.” Delores stepped aside to allow Joy to enter.

  They chatted a little about Delores’s day—she didn’t have anything planned until evening, when she’d be having a birthday dinner with a couple of women from her book club—Joy’s life in the tiny house, and the news that one of Joy’s cousins had gotten engaged. Then Delores opened her gift and made the appropriate noises about how much she loved it.

  The whole thing was tense and awkward but mostly fine until Joy was standing at the kitchen counter cutting the cake. Delores, scrutinizing her, said, “Have you gained weight?”

  Joy’s knife froze in mid-cut.

  “Um … a little. Why?”

  Delores’s face arranged itself into an expression of dismay. “Oh, Joy. Don’t start letting yourself go. You’re not as young as you used to be, and if you want to find a relationship …”

  Tension and anxiety coursed through Joy, and she advised herself to do what she always did—smile, say nothing, and get out as quickly as possible. But somehow, her mouth didn’t do what her brain was telling it to.

  She put down the knife and turned toward her mother.

  “It’s six pounds, Mom. I’m hardly letting myself go.”

  “Six! Oh, honey. They say if you gain five pounds or more, it’s so much harder to take it back off. You never should have let it get this far. Now, my friend Sheila has a detox smoothie recipe that I—”

  “I don’t need a detox smoothie!” Joy stood with her eyes clamped shut, fists clenched at her sides.

  “Well, you don’t need to raise your voice with me, either.”

  Standing in her mother’s kitchen, Joy had a sudden burst of clarity about why she didn’t like her body, why she didn’t trust a man to accept her the way she was, why she’d thought the only thing she had to offer was her physical attractiveness.

  “Mom, has it ever occurred to you that your focus on my weight and how I look might have done some damage?”

  Delores looked stunned, blinking like a newly hatched bird. “Damage? Look at you. You’re beautiful. That doesn’t come without work, without sacrifice. Once you lose that six pounds—”

  “I don’t want to lose the six pounds.” Only once it was out of her mouth did Joy realize it was true. She didn’t want to do this anymore—the dieting, the weighing, the worrying. She couldn’t.

  “What do you mean you don’t want to? Look at me, I’m still a size six at my age. Do you think that wasn’t hard? Do you think I got here by … by eating cake?” She gestured toward the cake Joy had brought.

  Oh, God, here we go again.

  It was the same thing, over and over. Except that now, Joy had decided she wasn’t going to take it anymore.

  “I guess not.” She grabbed a chunk of the cake with her bare hand and threw it into the sink. “I should have known cake is off the menu for you, huh?” Another fistful—plop—into the sink.

  “Joy, what in the world are you—”

  “And God forbid I should eat anything like this.” Plop, another chunk. Tears had begun streaming down Joy’s cheeks, and her hand was a mitt of frosting and crumbs. “God forbid I should enjoy anything.” Plop. “Because you would never approve of that, would you?” She was using both hands now, shoveling up birthday cake and dumping it into the sink. “And you will never, ever approve of me unless I’m tiny and thin and beautiful.” She picked up the empty cake board and threw that into the trash, both of her hands covered in frosting. “But you know what? I’m sick of it. I’m sick to death of it. And I’m done.” She pointedly licked a bit of frosting off of one finger. “Mmm. Delicious. Too bad you’re not having any.”

  She wiped her hands on a dish towel, grabbed her purse, and stormed out the door.

  Joy was crying, and her hands were still slick with the remnants of birthday cake and frosting, when she pulled up outside Amber’s apartment building forty minutes later, having made her way through L.A.’s afternoon traffic.

  She rang the bell and no one answered, so she dug her cell phone out of her purse, trying not to get frosting on everything inside.

  “Joy? Hey, there. I thought you’d be at your mom’s house right now.”

  Something about Amber’s voice—about the way she sounded warm and welcoming and glad to hear from her—made Joy cry even harder.

  “Oh, no. What’s going on? What happened?” Amber asked in alarm.

  “My mother. That’s what happened.”

  “Oh, God. Where are you? I’ll be right there.”

  Once Amber had arrived and let Joy into her apartment, Joy washed the remains of the cake off her hands, wiped the smeared mascara off her face, and sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of herbal tea Amber had insisted she accept for its soothing properties.

  “Okay, let’s have it.” Amber put her hand on Joy’s arm for support. “What did she do?”

  Joy went through it—the comments about her weight and her failure to find a lasting relationship, Joy’s response, and the messy, disastrous fate of the cake.

  “Oh, shit. You really did that?” Amber clapped a hand over her mouth in shock. “You beat up your mother’s birthday cake?”

  Now that Amber had put it that way, Joy could see the humor in it, and she smirked. “You should have seen it. It was like some kind of bakery-themed crime scene.”

  Amber laughed, a helpless kind of laughter that bubbled up from inside her and could not be stopped until it had run its course. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes. “I know it’s not funny. It’s just …”

  “It’s kind of funny,” Joy admitted.

  “It is! I can just see her face.” Amber arranged her features into a spot-on parody of Delores’s shocked scowl, which made Joy dissolve into laughter.

  “I just … It’s like I had an out of body experience,” Joy said. “Like I was watching someone else destroy the cake. It was like this horrifying train wreck that I couldn’t stop, and maybe didn’t even want to.”

  Amber caught her breath and wiped her eyes with a napkin. “Oh my God. I wish I’d been there. I really do.”

  “I kind of wish I hadn’t.”

  Joy grew somber as she thought of the implications of what had happened. Her relationship with her mother had never been the best, but now it might be irreparable. Was it worth saving just because Delores was her mother? Was it possible to create a new and better relationship with her?

  “Joy, I’m damned proud of you.” Amber put her hand on Joy’s arm again and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’ve put up with her bullshit long enough.”

  “I don’t know if she can change, Amber. I don’t know if either of us can.”

  “Listen to me.” Amber waited until Joy looked at her, really looked at her, then went on. “She might not change. But you can choose not to let the things she says affect you.”

  “But they do affect me. They do.”

  “That’s why you’re not really letting Nix in.”

  Joy knew it would come back to Nix. Because, of course, Amber was right. The things Delores had said to Joy all of her life, the things she’d valued about her, made it impossible for Joy to trust a man—or to trust herself to be enough for one.

  “You have to talk to him about it,” Amber said.

  Joy let out a weary sigh. “Oh … God. Do I have to?”

  “I really think you do. And the fact that you don’t want to pretty much proves the point, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 24

  Joy avoided Nix for a few days after that. Not because she wanted to stay at a distance from him, but because she didn’t. She knew Amber was right and she had to talk to him about her insecurities. But first, she had to gear up for it.

  “Are we okay?” Nix asked over the phone when she’d put him off for the second time. “Are you … Is this … Please tell me you’re not breaking up with me and you’re too
scared to say it out loud.”

  “No! It’s not that. I swear. It’s just … I have some things I’m working out. And I’m going to tell you about them, but I’m not ready yet.”

  “Okay. But, while you’re working things out, I have something for you to think about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I love you.”

  Nix hadn’t expected to tell Joy he loved her. He’d felt it for a while now, but he hadn’t planned to blurt it out like that.

  He tried not to make too much of the fact that she hadn’t said it back.

  Thank you, that’s what she’d said. As though he’d given her a gift.

  Well, it was a gift, wasn’t it? He was giving her the gift of his love, freely and without expectation, and if he was one goddamned lucky bastard, she might choose to give him hers in return.

  She had to choose it, though. He didn’t want her to say it just because he had. He didn’t want her to respond out of obligation.

  He ran all of it over in his mind as he and Leon tore the flooring out of the living room at Otter Bluff.

  The old floor was a tired and worn carpet with stains in some places and flattened by wear in others. They’d already moved the furniture into the spare bedroom, and they were halfway through pulling the carpet up, rolling it as they went so it could be deposited into Leon’s pickup truck.

  “You okay?” Leon asked when they’d been working for a while in silence.

  “Sure. I’ve just got some stuff on my mind.”

  Leon didn’t ask what was on Nix’s mind—probably because he didn’t care. But that didn’t stop Nix from blurting it out anyway, much as he’d blurted out his declaration of love for Joy.

  “What does it mean if you tell a woman you love her and she doesn’t say it back?”

  Leon paused with a piece of old carpeting rolled up under his arm. “Ah, geez. Do I look like I know? I haven’t had a date since that chick at the wine bar. I’m not exactly an expert.”