Love and Joy

by Linda Seed

  Tile was tricky. You had to make sure everything was aligned properly, which included cutting pieces to fit the oddly shaped spots around the toilet and tub. Then there was the whole question of grout—both the application of it and the sealing of it.

  He’d done some of that before, in the bathroom of the tiny house. But this bathroom was four times the size of his own, so it was a longer, more complicated process.

  While he laid out pieces of tile, using spacers between each to ensure uniformity, he had time to let his mind wander.

  Predictably, it wandered to Joy Maxwell.

  She’d apologized for disparaging his house in that first video, so that was something. Even if she’d only said it to smooth things over with him, it had been nice to hear.

  He suspected she hadn’t just said it to appease him, though. Her more recent blog posts and videos had changed in tone to emphasize her own quirks and weaknesses rather than those of his house. Would she have made that change if she weren’t truly sorry for offending him?

  Part of him said she was none of his business. What she felt or believed or didn’t feel had nothing to do with him. As long as she paid her rent on time and kept the place in good condition, none of the rest of it mattered.

  But the house mattered to him, and he didn’t like the idea of it being used as a stunt—as though Joy Maxwell were competing on Survivor: Tiny House Edition.

  She’d apologized, and she’d changed the tone of her videos and her blog, and that counted for something. But she’d probably done it to ease her way with him and not because she really had changed her mind.

  Well, maybe he’d do what he could to help her change it.

  The idea came on slowly, sneaking up on him while he wasn’t looking. What if he helped her see the magic of living a simple life close to nature? Because to him, it really was magic. Living in the tiny house, waking up to the hills and the grass and the wandering deer, tending his garden, taking long walks by the creek—those things all created a hum of contentment inside him that nothing else could match.

  Maybe Joy Maxwell had to be taught how to feel the hum.

  Nix had enough to do without dealing with her as well. He had his job at the market, he had his work at Otter Bluff, he had his tiny house business to plan and work on and coax into being.

  He didn’t have time for Joy Maxwell.

  And yet. Would it kill him to extend a hand of friendship to her to help her understand what she’d been missing all that time she’d lived in L.A.?

  It was a humanitarian good deed, that’s all. It had nothing to do with the way she looked.

  That’s what he told himself, anyway.

  Chapter 9

  By the end of Joy’s first month in the tiny house, she couldn’t wait to see Amber.

  Joy’s friend was scheduled to arrive in Cambria on Friday evening and stay until Sunday afternoon.

  Joy had suggested that Amber book one of the hotels on Moonstone Beach. If she stayed in the tiny house with Joy, she’d have to sleep on the pull-out sofa, and everybody knew those things were barely disguised torture devices.

  But Amber insisted she wouldn’t hear of it.

  “I want to experience tiny house living!” Amber said on the phone. “It’s half the point of me coming there! Please, can I stay with you? I don’t mind the sofa bed.”

  “Of course you can.”

  Secretly, Joy had hoped Amber might get a hotel room with two beds so Joy could escape the tiny house for a weekend. It would be a novelty to sleep in a bedroom with ceilings high enough for her to stand up. But Amber’s enthusiasm was such that Joy couldn’t disappoint her.

  “I can’t wait,” Amber said. “I’m excited to see the house.”

  “Well … we’ll see if you still feel that way once you get here.”

  Amber arrived at the tiny house at sunset on Friday, just as Joy was writing a blog post about her adventures trying to cook meals using miniature appliances. She used a selection of photos she’d taken of the kitchen, the countertop staged with partially chopped carrots and onions, the undersized oven laden with a casserole dish full of Joy’s homemade macaroni and cheese.

  The photos would go on both the blog and Instagram, and the whole thing would be supplemented with a YouTube video offering a detailed kitchen tour along with amusing anecdotes about Joy’s struggles.

  She was just wrapping up the blog when she heard Amber’s car tires crunching on the dirt road that led to the house.

  Joy ran out onto the porch to meet her, then rushed down the steps and over to Amber’s car as she parked.

  “Oh, my God, you’re here!” Joy threw her arms around her friend as soon as she got out of the car. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you, too. God, it was a long drive up here.” Amber hugged Joy tightly, then held her at arm’s length to get a look at her. “Jeez, you look good. And would you get a load of that sunset?” Amber turned to bask in the beauty of orange and pink hues peeking out from behind the hills. Higher above them, the sky darkened to a deep blue.

  “You get to look at this every day? I swear, if I lived here, I’d never leave.”

  Joy’s first reaction to that was surprise. Surely Amber was just saying that to be nice. This place was in the middle of nowhere, so basic she might as well have been living in a cave. It wasn’t until Amber mentioned the sunset that Joy really noticed it. The hills and trees were in silhouette, and the sky nearest the horizon was the shade of a ripe peach. From where they stood, there was no visible civilization. They might have been the first people to inhabit the earth.

  “Well, come on in. Let me show you the place,” Joy said.

  “I can’t wait. I want to see everything.”

  Everything didn’t amount to much, so it didn’t take long for Joy to give Amber the complete tour of the tiny house.

  She started in the kitchen, since that was the subject of her latest blog post, moved on to the bathroom and living area, then progressed to the sleeping loft.

  “This is super cozy.” Amber stretched out on Joy’s bed. “And oh, wow, there’s a skylight. You get to fall asleep looking at the stars through the trees.”

  Amber made that sound so nice. Joy hadn’t really noticed the stars—she’d been too preoccupied with the worry that she might bump her head if she sat up. She wouldn’t have—the ceiling was too high for that, even if it wasn’t high enough for standing—but it felt that way.

  “Why don’t you sleep up here?” Joy asked impulsively. “I’ll take the pullout.”

  “Oh, I can’t do that. I don’t want to put you out of your bed.”

  “It’s fine. Really. You’re my guest, I want you to be comfortable.”

  Amber seemed so in love with the sleeping loft and the skylight that Joy wanted her friend to have it. Besides, if the sofa bed was painfully uncomfortable, it would give her something else to blog about.

  “Are you sure?”

  Amber looked so happy, Joy knew it was the right move.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Oh, wow.” Amber wiggled on the bed, unable to control her enthusiasm. “Meanwhile, what’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

  “How do you feel about homemade mac and cheese?”

  They ate at a little dining table that collapsed flat against the wall when not in use. They sat on low stools that nested together in a narrow kitchen cabinet when they weren’t needed.

  Amber ate the mac and cheese while Joy had a salad she’d bought at the grocery store where Nix worked. Thankfully, she hadn’t run into him while she’d shopped.

  “This is really good.” Amber held up a forkful of pasta. “Why aren’t you having any? You went to all that effort to make it, and you’re eating a salad?”

  “I made it for Instagram,” Joy said. “I couldn’t blog about the perils of working in a tiny kitchen without showing what I was cooking. It looked good on the screen.”

  “I’ll bet it looked good. It is good. So have some.”<
br />
  “The pound,” Joy said.

  She’d long since lost the one extra pound she’d complained about that day at the gym. But now, the phrase the pound had become shorthand for Joy’s concerns about her weight, her body, and her general fitness for posing scantily clad on camera.

  “If you’re worried about the pound, this has got to be a great place for trail running. Or hiking.”

  “There’s a gym on Main Street,” Joy said. “I joined last week. It’s small, but they’ve got a good spin class.”

  Amber lifted her wineglass—they were sharing a bottle of Chardonnay—and gave Joy a look of harsh judgment.

  “What?” Joy asked.

  “I just don’t think you’re enjoying what this place has to offer.” Amber took a sip of wine, then put her glass down and picked up her fork. “In L.A., you had to go to the gym because exercising outside in your neighborhood wasn’t much of an option with the heat and the traffic and everything. But here? God. You can go right out your front door and hike in one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever seen. Have you even been to the beach?”

  “Of course I have. I got some good selfies on the Moonstone Beach boardwalk.”

  “Selfies.”

  “Yes. Speaking of which, while you’re here, it would be a huge help if you could take some photos of me out there on the rocks at sunset, that kind of thing.”

  When Joy had been at the height of her popularity, she’d had an assistant to help with camera work. But cost-cutting measures had left her to do everything by herself.

  “Sure.”

  Amber seemed to be agreeing, but Joy knew from her tone that she was still judging the crap out of her.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Joy. When I asked if you’d been to the beach, I meant, have you just gone to enjoy it? Have you just … I don’t know … relaxed and watched the waves and felt the way a person is supposed to feel when they’re chilling out in a beautiful place?”

  “I’m not here for fun. I’m here for work.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean you can’t do both, does it?”

  By the time Nix was laying the bathroom tile for real instead of as a trial run, he’d come up with a few ideas for how to bring Joy Maxwell around to the pleasures of tiny house living in general, and tiny house living in Cambria in particular.

  He still wasn’t sure why he cared, but he did. It wasn’t entirely altruistic, either. He wanted her to know she’d been wrong. He wanted her to admit it—not just to him, but to all of her viewers and readers.

  First, though, he needed a way in.

  When he’d been out there tending his garden, he’d mentioned that he had some books on organic gardening she could borrow. That was a good start.

  He gathered the books and took them out there on his day off from the market, after the bathroom tiles were placed but before he put in the grout.

  He needed to think of something other than flooring.

  Nix made it to the property around eleven a.m. The day was bright and cool, and a light breeze whispered through the trees. The grass was tall and emerald green, and a chorus of birds greeted his arrival.

  When he got there, he was surprised to find an unfamiliar car parked next to Joy’s SUV.

  Boyfriend? Friend? A relative, maybe?

  Nix was intrigued to know what kinds of people Joy Maxwell hung out with.

  He climbed up onto the porch and knocked on the door, calling to her. “Hey, Joy? It’s Nix.”

  The woman who opened the door was not Joy.

  She was a little shorter than Joy and darker, with brunette hair and deep brown eyes. Her face was put together as though the parts hadn’t all come from the same kit—nose a little too long, mouth a little too wide—but the overall effect was appealing when she smiled, which she was doing now.

  “Well, hello. You must be the landlord.”

  “I must be.”

  She turned and called into the house, “Joy, your hunky landlord is here.”

  Hunky. Interesting. He certainly would not have described himself that way, but it was intriguing that she had. Maybe the two of them had been talking about him. Maybe Joy had described him that way.

  “Nix.” He offered his hand, and she took it.

  “Amber.”

  “And you’re Joy’s, what? Sister?”

  “Friend. I’m also an admirer of your work. You built this place yourself?”

  “I did.”

  “It’s amazing. Seriously. I could live here forever if it weren’t for my Starbucks habit.”

  Amber was bubbly with enthusiasm and happiness, and Nix found himself smiling. Hard to help it with all those positive vibes rushing around him.

  “Thank you. I appreciate it. I don’t think Joy feels the same way.”

  She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Don’t take that personally. It’s just Joy. She’s used to a certain kind of lifestyle, you know?”

  “I gathered.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin and wondered what it’s just Joy meant in a deeper sense.

  Amber’s hand was still on his arm when Joy emerged from somewhere deep in the house—probably the shower, given her wet hair.

  “Hey.” Nix waved his fingers at her with his free hand.

  “Hello.” Joy looked at the hand on Nix’s arm, then at her friend. Amber caught the look and snatched her hand back.

  Again, interesting.

  “Ah … I brought you these books.” Nix held up the organic gardening references he’d brought. “Just in case you want to give it a try.”

  “Oh. Thank you.” Joy took the books from him then stood awkwardly in the doorway as though she were unsure what the conventions of social behavior demanded of her.

  Amber had no such uncertainty.

  “Do you have a minute? Come in! I was just about to make tea. Would you like some? I’d love to hear more about the house from the perspective of the guy who built it. Can you stay a little? Please?”

  He could see the alarm in Joy’s eyes, but what could he do?

  “Sure. Thanks. I’d love to.”

  Chapter 10

  Amber continued to gush about the house while she heated a kettle on the two-burner stove.

  “I love the shelf over here with the dolphins. Did you make that?”

  “I did.” He was sitting at the little folded-out dining table, watching Amber work.

  “So you’re a woodcarver, too?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. It’s just something I did because I had the idea. I thought the dolphins might come out looking like weasels, given that it was my first time doing that kind of thing. But it went okay.”

  “I love the built-in cabinetry, the storage. But the skylight in the loft is my favorite. I went to sleep last night looking at the stars.”

  “Joy gave you the loft?”

  “She did! She says it makes her feel claustrophobic, but I love it.”

  The glow he felt from Amber’s praise faded as he registered the dig from Joy. Nix should have been used to Joy’s criticism by now, but somehow, he wasn’t.

  “I like the small space for sleeping,” Nix said mildly. “It feels safe. Like I’m going into my cave to hibernate.”

  “Exactly!” Amber said.

  All this time, Joy didn’t say much of anything. He got the sense that she didn’t want him here, though to his mind, he was being perfectly pleasant.

  “So, how was the pullout?” he asked Joy.

  “Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The memory foam mattress was actually pretty comfortable.”

  Not as bad as I thought it would be was probably the best compliment he was likely to get out of her.

  Joy couldn’t have a private word with Amber inside the house because it was too small. So she grabbed Amber’s hand and pulled her toward the front door.

  “Let me show you the organic garden,” she said to her friend. When Nix started to get up, she said, “Sit down. Stay. Relax. Watch the kettle for us. We’l
l be right back.” And she practically dragged Amber outside.

  “What are you doing?” Amber said once they were out of Nix’s earshot. “Can’t I see the organic garden later?”

  “You’re going to see it now.”

  Joy marched up the trail toward the raised planting beds, and Amber followed.

  When they were out there, far enough away from the house that they wouldn’t be overheard, Joy turned on Amber.

  “What are you doing?”

  Amber blinked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “All of that, back there.” Joy gestured toward the house with one arm. “The flirting.”

  “I wasn’t flirting.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Amber waggled her head in a maybe not, maybe so gesture. “Well … I might have been. A little.”

  Joy pointed a finger at her friend in triumph. “Aha!”

  “So what if I was? He’s pretty scrumptious.”

  Hearing Amber describe Nix as scrumptious only inflamed Joy’s ire. “He is not scrumptious! He’s my landlord.”

  “Can’t he be both?”

  Okay, he was both, but somehow Joy couldn’t admit that part to her friend. Instead, she took a different approach.

  “You cannot make a move on my landlord, Amber. What if … what if you go out with him, and things end badly, and then he kicks me out of the house, and I have nowhere to go? I’ll be living in a box on the side of the road just because you thought he was scrumptious!”

  Amber side-eyed Joy. “You’ve lost your mind.”

  “No! I haven’t! I just don’t want to lose my living arrangements!”

  Amber ticked off points on her fingers. “One, just because I was flirting doesn’t mean he and I are going to embark on a torrid affair. Even though that sounds really good to me.”

  “Amber!”

  “Two,” she continued, “even if we did embark on said torrid affair, that doesn’t mean it would end badly. Three, if it did end badly, that doesn’t mean he would kick you out. He seems like a reasonable guy. I’m sure he could keep his feelings about me separate from his business arrangement with you. Even though I’m a hard woman to get over. So I’m told.”