Love and Joy Read online

  “I thought so,” Delores said. “If there wasn’t something, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Mom, that’s not fair.” But it was fair. It was.

  “Either way, you’d better come out with it.” Delores emerged from the refrigerator, put the rag in the sink, and washed her hands. Then she came to the table and sat across from Joy, the contents of the refrigerator still lined up on the countertop.

  “You can go ahead and finish first. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Go ahead and tell me, Joy. No sense putting it off, whatever it is.”

  Delores looked like an older version of Joy: trim figure, brown eyes, blond hair. The two women had the same finely sculpted cheekbones, the same refined nose. Like Joy, Delores had always had an eye for fashion, and even while cleaning out the refrigerator, she was dressed in an upscale ensemble that would look appropriate at a society luncheon. Her face was carefully made up to hide the fine lines that had formed around her eyes and mouth over the past few years.

  “It’s just … I’m starting a new project, and I’m really excited.” Joy tried to put the best possible spin on it. “It’s going to combine social media and blog posts, and I’m hoping to get a book deal out of it. It’s a new direction for my career, and I wanted to tell you about it.”

  “Your career,” Delores repeated, and the way she pronounced the word suggested that she disagreed with its appropriateness in relation to what Joy did for a living.

  “Yes. My career.”

  “Is this new direction going to get you an agent? Is it going to get you auditions? Because otherwise—”

  Ah, now Joy remembered why she didn’t visit more often. Her mother had decided early on that Joy was going to be a star, and to her, being popular on YouTube didn’t qualify, regardless of the impressive income Joy had made at the height of her popularity. “I don’t want auditions, Mom,” she said. “I’m not an actress.”

  “After all of the money I spent on acting classes, you could at least make more of an effort. You’re not getting any younger.” Delores got up from the table, took a glass out of a cabinet, and poured herself some sparkling water from a bottle on the counter. She didn’t offer any to Joy.

  “Mom. If you want someone in this family to be a big TV star, maybe you should go out on auditions yourself. That way, you could have what you want and you can stop being ashamed of me.”

  Delores sat back down, looking tired. She pressed two fingertips to her forehead and sighed. “I’m not ashamed of you, Joy. I just think you could be doing so much more with your career. You’re so beautiful. And your figure—”

  Of course the conversation had come back to what really mattered to Delores—how Joy looked. The pattern had started early, when Delores had entered Joy in her first beauty pageant at age five. Since then, nothing else had mattered. Not Joy’s interests, or her intelligence, or her own ambitions. Only the question of whether she photographed well and how effectively she could grab male attention.

  She could have pointed all of that out, but she hadn’t come here to anger her mother. She’d come to give her the news.

  “I’m moving,” she said. “I’m … I’m leaving L.A. and going to Cambria.”

  Delores looked at her daughter blankly. “Where’s that?”

  “It’s on the Central Coast, near Big Sur. About a three-hour drive north of Santa Barbara, so I can still come down for weekends or holidays or—”

  Joy stopped talking as she saw the stricken look on her mother’s face. She watched as Delores composed her features and got up from the table to put her water glass into the sink.

  “How do you expect to build a career in the industry if you’re living in the middle of the wilderness?”

  “I don’t, Mom. That’s what I’ve been telling you. I’m going to move into a tiny house and then blog about minimalism. I’m hoping to write a book.”

  Delores fixed Joy with a withering glare. “I will never understand why you set your sights so low. I had such high hopes for you and your career, and you settled for an Instagram presence and a YouTube channel.”

  “My Instagram presence and YouTube channel bought me a $750,000 condo, Mom.”

  “Which you’re giving up. I suspect that’s because you can’t afford it any longer. Am I wrong?”

  The fact that Delores was right stung more than Joy wanted to admit.

  “I didn’t come here to debate it. I came here to tell you I’m doing it,” she said.

  Delores turned her back on her daughter and started putting things back into the refrigerator. “That’s fine, Joy.”

  But it wasn’t fine—that much was clear from how her mother was avoiding eye contact.

  “Mom, it’s close enough that I can visit.”

  “But you won’t.”

  Joy opened her mouth to protest, then closed it without saying anything. She could insist that she would call, that she would come down to take her mother to lunch or to enjoy Delores’s home cooking. But that would have been a lie, and they both knew it.

  “I know I haven’t been around much, but … I’ve been busy,” Joy tried. It felt as lame and meaningless as it must have sounded.

  Delores stood at the sink, her back to her daughter. “You know, I don’t see what difference it makes if you’re here or there or on the moon. You’re not interested in the things I want for you, and none of that is going to change.”

  Joy couldn’t argue with that, because it was true.

  Chapter 4

  The visit with her mother had been awkward and painful, but it was done now, and Joy felt the relief of that as she loaded her things into her car and started the drive toward Cambria.

  She’d packed light—she only had two suitcases full of clothes and six boxes of random belongings. She’d managed to fit all of it into her SUV without having to pull a trailer behind her or tie anything to the luggage rack.

  Narrowing things down had been hard, but she was proud that she’d managed it. The rest of her things were being brought to a storage unit in Cambria.

  She’d initially thought to store her belongings in Los Angeles, because it would be much cheaper if the movers didn’t have to travel so far to deliver everything. But what if she needed something? What if she discovered that some indispensable item was locked up in storage a five-hour drive south? This way, she’d be able to retrieve anything she needed.

  Joy left midmorning, after the rush-hour traffic had thinned. Leaving at ten a.m. also meant she’d been able to have a goodbye breakfast at a local diner with Amber. They’d both cried, but that was silly. Amber would visit. They’d already planned their first sleepover for the end of the month.

  She blasted music as she drove up Highway 101 past Thousand Oaks and into Ventura beneath a clear blue sky. The temperature was cool but pleasant—typical of April in California—and Joy felt a sense of adventure and possibility.

  Yes, the tiny house was going to be an adjustment. But surely she was up to the challenge.

  At least, she hoped she was.

  Nix spent the morning getting the house ready for Joy Maxwell’s arrival.

  He’d already moved all of his belongings to Otter Bluff, so today he focused his efforts on cleaning the place from top to bottom. He mopped the floors, scrubbed the toilet, scoured the shower floors and walls, polished the stainless steel kitchen sink, and even cleaned the inside of the oven—something he hadn’t done before because he rarely used it.

  He cleaned the windows, then swept the front porch and placed the outdoor furniture in an attractive arrangement.

  All of that would have been standard procedure for a landlord preparing to rent a property, but for Nix, it was so much more. He’d built this place with his own two hands, his own sweat and labor. He was proud of what he’d done, and he wanted Joy Maxwell to like it. He wanted her to see in the place what he did.

  Knowing what he knew about her, though, there was a good chance she wouldn’t appreciate what he’d built here. Anybody wit
h a clothing and shoe collection like hers would find it a significant adjustment moving into Nix’s house.

  His concerns proved valid when Joy arrived later that afternoon.

  Joy was dismayed, first of all, when she realized she’d have to access the house via a dirt road. Her SUV was less than a year old, and she hadn’t anticipated getting it coated in dust on a daily basis.

  Not only that, but what would happen when it rained? Was she destined to get stuck in a bog of mud on her way to the grocery store or the post office?

  She bumped her way along the road—if you could call it that—and emerged into the clearing where the house stood, a giant tree of some sort towering over it.

  Joy had to admit it was pretty—the land with its tall grass and stands of trees, the painfully blue sky overhead—and she tried to focus on that as she parked next to the house and got out of her car.

  The man standing on the front porch waiting for her was tall and athletically built, with thick, dark hair that almost reached his shoulders. He needed a shave, and he was wearing worn jeans, torn at the knees, a pair of sandals, and a T-shirt that looked like it had been laundered at least a hundred times. He was leaning against the doorway of the house, his arms crossed over his chest, already smiling at her before she even got out of her car.

  The smile made something flutter inside her chest, and she wished he would stop it so she could focus.

  “Hi,” she called up to him as she made her way up the steps to the porch. “I’m Joy.”

  “Nix.” He reached out to shake her hand.

  His full name had been on the rental agreement, so she knew Nix was short for Phoenix. Looking at him, she had to figure his parents were hippies. Were those Birkenstocks on his feet? Yes, she concluded as she looked down while trying to seem like she wasn’t looking. They were. Definitely hippies.

  He wore the look well, though. His faded jeans fit his body like they’d been made for him, and the hair—well, the hair was simply glorious. She repressed the urge to touch it.

  “You ready for a tour of the place?” He was still holding her hand, and the contact made her cheeks hot. She resisted the desire to stare at his eyes, which were a shade of blue so light they reminded her of a cloudy midday sky.

  “Um … sure. I can’t wait.”

  Seeing two hundred and fifty square feet in online photos was one thing. Actually standing in the space was another.

  The place was tidy, well-designed, and cozy. But, my God, she could practically stretch out her arms and touch both opposing walls at the same time. And she would have to climb a ladder into the sleeping loft and crawl to her bed every night. She’d known that after looking at the photos, but the pictures hadn’t been the same as standing here staring reality in the face.

  “Everything okay?” Nix asked as she looked around the house in thinly disguised horror.

  “Um … yes. Of course. Absolutely.”

  The stove only had two burners. Two burners! And the clothes closet—which was, inexplicably, in the kitchen—looked like it wouldn’t hold more than five or six hanging items. Once she hung up the outfit she was wearing, she’d have room for a coat, maybe, and not much else.

  “This isn’t much space for clothes.” She tried to make it sound like a casual, neutral observation instead of like the complaint it was.

  “Well, there’s storage under the sofa.” He led her into the sitting area, where he pulled up a sofa cushion to reveal a space underneath. “And there’s more under the bed.”

  They went up into the loft—where they both had to crawl to the bed—and he showed her that the mattress lifted on some sort of hydraulic mechanism, allowing her to store shoes, folded clothing, or anything else under there.

  “Oh. That’s … great.” She tried to sound like she meant it.

  She thought she was doing a fairly good job of hiding her dismay—until she saw the composting toilet.

  “You store the sawdust here”—he pulled out a drawer full of the stuff, along with a plastic scoop—“and you just use it to cover your waste after you use the toilet. It vents to the outside, so it shouldn’t smell if you keep the lid closed.”

  “I cover it with sawdust?” Surely humans weren’t meant to do such a thing. “And then what do I do with it? You know, when it’s full?”

  “You just take out the liner, tie it closed, and throw it in the trash. Easy.”

  “Easy,” she repeated, more to herself than to him. “And … why doesn’t it flush? Not that I’m complaining, it’s just …”

  “Because this place is off the grid.” He gave her a half smile that might have been mocking her. “No power, water, or sewer service. You get your power from the solar panels on the roof, and your water comes from the tank outside. Not only is it eco-friendly, it’s low-cost. When I’m living here, I’ve got no rent and no utility bills.”

  “You live here usually? I mean … full time?”

  “Sure. Right now I’ve got a place in town, but I’ve lived here for the past year, ever since I built the place.”

  The fact that he’d built it himself meant she had to do a better job of hiding her bad attitude. Though she suspected from the look on his face that it might be too late.

  Nix leaned his shoulder against the wall, crossed his arms over his chest, and regarded his new tenant. They were outside, where they’d gone so he could show her the water tank and the solar panels. Now, he was wondering if all of this had been a waste of time.

  He should have known it would be. The woman he’d seen online had not been someone who would appreciate eco-friendly off-grid living in a minimalist environment.

  “Look. I know you’ve already signed the lease, but I’ll let you out of it if you want.” If she was miserable here and he held her to the lease, it would only cause heartache and suffering—for him, whenever she called to complain about something.

  “What? No. It’s … it’s perfect. For what I need, I mean. It’s just right.”

  He was skeptical, and he squinted at her in the sunlight. “And what’s that?” he asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “What you need. What is that, exactly?”

  She seemed to weigh her answer. She ran a hand through her hair, and the strands shimmered as though she’d had gold woven in there. Which she might have, given her high-maintenance beauty rituals.

  “I need to downsize,” she said. “And I need a break from L.A.”

  “Well, this is downsizing, all right.” He’d seen her condo on YouTube—the place looked like one of the Kardashians lived there. “And it’s not L.A.”

  “Exactly. Now … the solar power. Does it go out a lot, or is it pretty reliable?”

  Nix had a distinct feeling that his house was a mismatch for this overly pampered, overly groomed blond. That impression was only strengthened when he helped her bring her things into the house.

  Two big suitcases and six large boxes. By the time they’d brought all of it inside, every bit of floor space was taken and there was nowhere to stand.

  “You’re gonna want to put some of your stuff in storage,” Nix said mildly, trying not to sound judgmental.

  “But … I already did. I already put most of my stuff in a unit in town. This is just the essentials.”

  She’d opened one big box to reveal it was entirely filled with shoes. Nix himself had exactly three pairs of shoes: the sandals he was wearing, one pair of athletic shoes, and one pair of dress shoes. He hadn’t worn the dress shoes in months.

  He picked up a four-inch spike-heeled pump from the box and held it up. “This is essential?”

  She snatched the shoe from him. “For my mental health, yes.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “This is Cambria, though. Not much call for four-inch heels when you’re walking on the beach or hanging out with the cows.”

  Up on the hill above her, several black cows grazed and mooed.

  “Are you my landlord or my fashion adviser?” She was starting to sound testy
.

  “Landlord,” he said. “You’re right. Your shoes are your business.”

  “But?” She arched one eyebrow at him, which he found fascinating. He’d never understood why some people could do that and others couldn’t.

  “But, I’m just thinking this place doesn’t seem like you. Not exactly a match made in heaven.”

  “Well, that’s kind of the point,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated. “I mean, the way I was living wasn’t working for me anymore. I needed something new.”

  Chapter 5

  “So, are you there yet? How’s the new place?”

  Joy was just starting to unpack when Amber called. She paused amid open boxes and random items of clothing to update her friend.

  “Small,” Joy said.

  “Well, that’s why they call it a tiny house. Because it’s … you know. Tiny.”

  Joy didn’t say anything.

  “Is everything okay?” Amber asked.

  Joy sighed. She would have sunk down onto the sofa if it weren’t entirely covered in her belongings. “Yes. I guess so. I mean … sure.” She shoved a pile of jeans aside to make a space to sit, then settled in on a tiny cleared spot of cushion.

  “Okay. What’s wrong? What’s the problem?”

  How to explain? How could Joy convey to Amber the depth of her certainty that she’d made a horrible mistake? Changing her lifestyle was one thing, but this? This was barely more than camping.

  “I’m just not sure what I’ve gotten myself into, that’s all. I mean, you should see this place.”

  “I have seen it. We looked at it online together, remember?”

  “Yes, but in person, it’s even smaller. I have to crawl to bed, and Amber? I have to shit on sawdust.”