The Secret of Joy

by Melissa Senate

  Clinton nodded. “You can’t account for chemistry. You can want this or that in someone, but chemistry is chemistry.”

  And blood is blood, Rebecca thought out of nowhere. She glanced again at Joy, this total stranger who shared her DNA, who shared her father.

  “I never seem to have chemistry with anyone,” Jed piped up.

  “That’s because you’re so shy,” Ellie said, patting his shoulder. “We’ll fix that.”

  Jed smiled. “That’s why I signed up. I figured I’d do better in a group.”

  For the next ten minutes, Jed and Clinton talked about the Red Sox, while the women covered their former mothers-in-law. Rebecca realized she’d left Michael’s mother’s wedding gown on the hook behind the door to her office. That had to mean something.

  “Okay, everyone,” Joy said. “Last pickup.”

  Once again, the women were frothing in anticipation. Joy parked in front of what looked like a three-family house with a balcony on each story. She checked something in an overstuffed datebook, then rang one of the buzzers. A few minutes later, a husky man followed her to the orange bus, carrying an enormous duffel bag.

  “Ellie, Maggie, Victoria, Rebecca, Clinton, Jed, meet Victor.”

  “Victor and Victoria,” Clinton said. “Musical!”

  Victor appeared to be trying to figure out which of the women was his musical match, then shoved his duffel bag in the back and climbed in next to Jed. Victor was pretty much the opposite of Jed. He never stopped talking. Or eating. He carried a baggie of what looked like gummy worms and held them above his mouth. Thirty-five, with something of a goatee, Victor had an attractive face and carried his extra fifty pounds or so pretty well. He wore the kind of patterned sweater and Dockers that Harold Goldberg favored for dress-down Fridays. He was a salesman of office chairs and knew everything about pneumatic seat heights and lumbar support.

  “So tell us your story,” Victoria asked him when he finally stopped going on about chairs and which sports teams he rooted for. She twirled a long red strand of hair around her finger. She’s interested, Rebecca realized.

  He turned to Victoria, his expression deadly. “My story? My story is that women are lying bitches.”

  Everyone stared.

  “I kid!” he exclaimed, and then belly-laughed alone.

  “Smooth,” Clinton said.

  “Real smooth,” Jed added, then laughed his head off. And just like that, Jed had joined the party.

  The bed-and-breakfast, in the Munjoy Hill section of the city of Portland, had a stunning view of Casco Bay and the Portland Observatory, but no room for Rebecca.

  Joy frowned. “No, I called a few hours ago and booked an additional room at the single rate.”

  The proprietor shook her head. “I took no such call.” She stopped. “Oh, goodness. You must have spoken to Lizzie, my daughter. She’s fifteen and thinks it’s hilarious to book nonexistent rooms. I’ll make sure she’s disciplined.”

  Joy sighed. “But we have an extra person.”

  The woman peered at her computer screen. “Well, we could bring a cot into your room. It’ll be tight, but a cot will fit. No charge for the extra bed.”

  Joy let out a deep breath.

  “I could sleep in the parlor,” Rebecca offered. They’d passed a chintz-covered living room with a Victorian sofa and upholstered chairs.

  “Okay,” Joy said.

  Rebecca’s face fell.

  “I kid,” Joy said without a smile.

  Everyone decided on Mexican for dinner. The restaurant the proprietor recommended was down a cobblestone alleyway of sorts that opened into the waterfront. The Old Port reminded Rebecca of a mini Greenwich Village, but with a crowded harbor and no Gap and no zigzagging yellow taxis. Only one-of-a-kind shops and charming restaurants and a condom shop called Condom Sense, which Clinton wanted to visit.

  Ellie and Victoria had given handsome Clinton to Maggie, who needed him most this weekend. Ellie, who really only wanted her husband, took Jed under her platonic wing. Victoria, almost as tall as Victor, giggled as Victor pulled her in the condom shop’s doorway with yet another “I kid!”

  So far, so good.

  Enchiladaville had a trio of serenading guitar players and a dance floor. Jed danced like Elaine on Seinfeld, his arms and legs jerking out at strange angles. But he seemed to be having his first blast. Ellie mostly did the twist. Victoria and Victor had progressed to slow dancing to fast music. And Maggie and Clinton, neither of whom could dance, were deep in conversation, each sipping a margarita.

  Which left Rebecca and Joy alone at the table, with mostly empty plates and platters between them. They both faced the dance floor, which saved them from sitting awkwardly across from each other. Every now and then, Joy would wink or smile at one of her charges with genuine warmth and affection. It was clear she cared about people, cared about her work. And her work was romance. Rebecca wondered what Joy thought about Pia Jayhawk’s affair with Daniel Strand. That her mother had fallen for a married man and had gotten burned bad? That her mother had fallen in love and should have won her man? Had her mother been in love with Daniel Strand? Rebecca had no idea of the circumstances.

  Joy was grinning at Jed, who had dramatically dipped Ellie during a tangolike number and almost dropped her. Joy’s smile faded when she realized Rebecca was watching her.

  “I’m really glad you let me come,” Rebecca said, taking a sip of her own margarita. “I didn’t know what to expect, but even the ride down was fun.”

  “That’s why I keep doing it. People just want to find love. And you never know who someone will connect with.”

  “How long have you been operating the Love Bus?”

  “Just about a year. The Divorced Ladies Club of Wiscasset are my constant clients. I’ve had a few other strays, mostly their referrals. To attract male clientele, they drive an hour in each direction and put up my brochures on bulletin boards in health clubs, sports bars, everywhere they can think of.”

  “What did you do before?”

  Joy reached for a tortilla chip and broke it in half but didn’t eat it. “I worked on a farm, actually. Grooming bulls and taking care of the babies. I majored in math in college—that’s where I met Harry—and got my teaching certificate to teach middle school and high school, but when it came time to apply to schools, I found myself applying to farms in the area. All of a sudden I wanted to work with bulls or alpacas. I really loved farmwork.”

  Rebecca didn’t even know what an alpaca was.

  “And then Rex came along, so I stayed home with him. I found I loved that most of all, actually. And last year, an eccentric old uncle of Harry’s died and left him the orange minibus. He had a little tour company and drove people all over Maine, especially up north. And one day, just kidding, really, I mentioned to Harry that I could continue Uncle Jasper’s life work and take the Divorced Ladies Club on singles tours to meet new loves, and Harry thought it was a wonderful idea, and all of a sudden, my new business was born. Just like that.”

  “Would you rather be grooming bulls?” Rebecca asked.

  “I guess so. I just sort of fell out of that. And this came along, and it’s fun and gives me my own money again. I like the idea of going back to farmwork when Rex starts kindergarten. That’s in just two years. Maybe one day I’ll have my own farm. But right now, the Love Bus is perfect. It’s happy work. The tours aren’t always successful—in fact, most aren’t—but everyone usually has fun.”

  “Was your mother in love with our father?” Rebecca blurted out.

  Joy glared at her. “Rebecca, first of all, please stop referring to your father as our father. He was not my father, except in the most base biological sense. And second, my mother’s business is her own.”

  Rebecca felt her cheeks burn. “I—Okay, you’re right. Sorry. I don’t really know how to do this.”

  So your mother is still alive, Rebecca couldn’t help thinking. She wondered if she’d get the opportunity to meet Pia Jayhawk.


  “Me either,” Joy said, offering a bit of a smile.

  “He really did care, Joy. Your—Daniel Strand, I mean.” She reached into her bag for the leather box. “He wrote you all these letters. He explains—”

  Joy pushed the box back in front of Rebecca. “I don’t care what his explanation was. And I’m not interested in reading the letters.”

  “Aren’t you curious about your father at all?” Rebecca asked. She wondered what Pia Jayhawk had told her daughter.

  “Nope,” Joy said, dipping a tortilla chip into the little pot of salsa, her eyes on the dance floor.

  “Really?”

  She glanced back at Rebecca. “Really. He’s nothing to me but biology and DNA. My mother married a very nice man when I was nine. He helped raised me. Why would I be interested in some stranger who couldn’t even face up to the most basic of responsibilities?”

  Rebecca stiffened. Joy was right, of course.

  “He did all right by you, it seems,” Joy said suddenly.

  Rebecca nodded. “He was a good man. He really—”

  Joy clunked her glass on the table. “A good man. Right. So good he disappeared off the face of the earth when he found out his mistress was knocked up. Don’t come into my life and tell me what a good man my biological father was when it’s clearly not true. You can’t be a good person if you turn your back on your own baby. I know this is true more than ever now that I have my own child.”

  Again Rebecca’s face burned. “I—” But what was she supposed to say?

  Could you be a good person and still do something that was the opposite of good? What Daniel Strand had done couldn’t simply be called a mistake. Or bad judgment. It was something else. Something Rebecca couldn’t seem to understand. Her father had been a good person.

  “Sometimes there are circum—”

  Joy took a sip of her drink. “Like not wanting to mess up his perfect little life?”

  “It’s not that simple, though. Nothing is that black or white.”

  “Except a child,” Joy said. “Your father got a woman pregnant, and when he was informed of that, he disappeared. What’s gray about that?”

  “I just think if you read his letters to you, you would—”

  “Rebecca, look. I understand why you tracked me down. I get that. And again, I’m sorry you lost your father. But he’s not my father. You’re not my sister. There’s no family connection here. I’m sorry.”

  But you’re my father’s daughter. You are.

  “If you’d just read the letters, Joy—”

  Joy stood and reached into her handbag for some bills, which she put under her drink. “I’d like you to leave in the morning, Rebecca. And I mean head back to New York City.” She walked over to the dance floor and whispered something in Victoria’s ear. Victoria nodded, kissed Joy on the cheek, and resumed dancing. And Joy walked right out of the restaurant.

  No, no, no! How had this happened? One minute they were talking math and bulls and alpacas, whatever alpacas were; they were talking life and paths, and the next, Joy and the closed door were back.

  Her heart squeezing, Rebecca supposed that meant she should sleep on the chintz-covered sofa in the parlor, after all.

  six

  Two hours later, Rebecca was driving back north in a rental car courtesy of Joy Jayhawk’s Weekend Singles Tours, Jed biting at cuticles in the passenger seat. His mother, with whom he still lived, had called him complaining of both chest pain and foot pain, and so Jed had asked Joy if he could apply his unused tour to a future date. Joy had said of course, then added that “Rebecca will be happy to drive you home.”

  So that was that. Joy had managed to get rid of her even sooner than she’d intended. At the car rental agency, Joy had handed her a printout of a Google map and driving directions, a twenty-dollar bill for gas, and not even a forced smile.

  “I don’t know what to do here,” Rebecca had said. “I feel like this is it. You gave me a chance and I blew it and now this is it. I’m gone.” Your eyes are just like our dad’s. And your chin, too.

  “We’re not family,” she’d said in such a low voice that Rebecca had to lean in, which made Joy step back. “Words, labels, whatever, don’t mean anything in and of themselves.”

  But—Rebecca stood there, not knowing what to plead, how to fix this. “I totally agree. But we can at least talk, can’t we? Just talk?”

  Joy sighed and glanced away, then back. “Rebecca, I am all talked out. I’m sorry, but I’ve been talking and talking and talking for a while now. I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m sorry if that sounds cold.”

  Jed had walked over, his cell phone in hand. “That was my mom again. Her right big toe is tingling really bad. Anyone know what that’s a symptom of?”

  During the ride back home, he chatted nonstop about his mother and her ailments and his need to break free, move out, that Ellie was great and all, but that he had a little crush on Maggie, and did Rebecca think Maggie might go out with him, or did a guy like him have no chance with a guy like Clinton around? Rebecca dropped him off at his place with the assurance that the best thing to do in life, under any circumstance, was to ask for what you wanted.

  “That is really good advice,” Jed said. “Really good.” Then he gave her hand a squeeze and headed up the path to his home, suitcase bumping his thigh.

  Joy had instructed Rebecca to return the car to an agency in Brunswick, right off the highway. Apparently, someone would be happy to drive Rebecca to Joy’s house to pick up her own car.

  Someone was. Someone even chattier than Jed had been: “You’re from New York? I just came back from there—family vacation. Have you ever been to the top of the Empire State Building? What about the Statue of Liberty? I climbed up to the chin when I was a kid. Someone behind me got vertigo. Ever heard of that? I saw that movie, you know, the old one, but I didn’t think people still suffered from that, you know?” He talked and talked and talked, so much that Rebecca didn’t have to respond, for which she was grateful. She stared out the window at the passing scenery, at life speeding by—meandering by, really—and realized that as long as she was in this car, with this chatty middle-aged man, she was somewhere.

  “And here you are,” he said, pulling up at 52 Maple Lane in Wiscasset.

  It was very strange to stand in front of the house knowing that Joy wasn’t there, wasn’t inside, that she was miles away, and Rebecca had been banished, basically, from there. From Joy’s life.

  As she got into her own rental car, she took one last look at Joy’s sweet blue Cape Cod and then drove back to the center of town with the idea of finding a motel or a cute bed-and-breakfast, anywhere she could throw herself into a bath and think. Was she supposed to go home? Home to Michael and the firm and Marcie’s smug face? Home to a life that felt off size, off-key, off everything? There was no family anymore, just Michael, and the more Rebecca got to know him, really know him, understand him, how his mind worked, the less like family he seemed.

  She had nowhere to go, she realized as she arrived in the center of town. Mama’s Pizza was aglow with lights and Rebecca could hear music, strange music, like a polka, maybe. Arlene would know where Rebecca could go, at least for the night. A few nights, maybe.

  Inside, the restaurant was crowded with a party—helium balloons imprinted with HAPPY 60TH TRUDY! were everywhere. The polka music was loud, and a makeshift dance floor was crowded with mostly the senior citizen set. She’d crashed a party. Just as she turned to go, Arlene sashayed over.

  “Rebecca! Nice to see you again,” Arlene shouted. She wore a dark fuchsia fuzzy sweater dress with a big flower pinned at the chest. “Come have the last slice of cake.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude on a private party,” Rebecca told her. “I’ll head out.”

  “Don’t be silly. And I baked this cake myself. Trust me, you want some.”

  Rebecca smiled and accepted a plate of chocolate cake with pink icing, the edge of the letter Y adorning it. She
took a bite and it melted in her mouth. Her mother had made cake this good, a skill Rebecca hadn’t inherited.

  “Told you,” Arlene said.

  The music changed from polka to square dance, and the crowd curtsied and do-si-doed. Arlene explained that Trudy was her sister and taught “Dance Styles Through the Ages” through the Wiscasset Recreation Department.

  Rebecca had to shout to be heard over the music. “Arlene, could you recommend a hotel or an inn nearby? For a night or two?”

  Arlene nodded. “Finch’s just down Water Street is closed for the season, but the owner is an old friend. I’ll call if you’d like. Why don’t you go on out to the deck till I get a hold of her. There’s a path leading down to the beach, but I’d better warn you that the water will be too cold for toe dipping.”

  Rebecca hadn’t met many people like Arlene in her life, kind for no reason. The woman’s warmth and motherly spirit were so comforting at the moment that Rebecca didn’t want to leave her presence, but Arlene was already heading to the counter and the telephone. She was spun around a few times along the way.

  Rebecca headed outside to the deck with her cake. A man sat alone at a far table, a bottle of Sam Adams beside him and his feet up on the railing. She’d know that hair anywhere. Thick, dirty-blond, sexy. Underneath, the tanned neck, the broad shoulders in a dark green T-shirt.

  “Theo, right?” she asked.

  He turned around and smiled at her, his dark brown eyes sharp and intense. “Rebecca, was it?”

  She nodded. “Nice view.” Not that she could see much of anything. The deck lights barely lit up the grass below, and about a hundred feet away she could make out a rocky path. But she could hear the lapping of the ocean.

  He turned the chair next to him in invitation, and she sat down. “So what brings you to Wiscasset in September?” he asked, reaching for his beer. “We’re pretty much a summer town.”