Love and Joy

by Linda Seed

  Over the course of a week, she sat at the little dining table in the tiny house and wrote a synopsis, an outline, and a cover letter that included information about her marketing plan, her platform, the blog, and the blog’s ever-increasing audience.

  By the time it was done, she was confident that there really was a book here, and it would sell pretty well if only she could get a publication deal.

  This book would have more text than her previous one, but it would have a lot of photos, too. The emphasis this time would be on transformation—on reinvention. She hardly felt like the same person she’d been when she moved to the tiny house more than five months ago.

  She sent all of her materials to the agent, then told herself not to think about it anymore until she heard back.

  These things took time—she knew that. And there were no guarantees. Plus, the ad revenue from her blog was rising enough that if she continued living a more low-key lifestyle—wherever she ended up once she left Nix’s house—she could cover her bills with a little bit to spare.

  That phrase—once I leave Nix’s house—replayed in Joy’s mind at the most inconvenient times. Like when she was trying to sleep. When she should have been enjoying a satisfying REM cycle, she was looking up at the stars through the skylight and wondering where she would go from here.

  Where they would go from here.

  She pondered the question one evening after midnight as she lay in bed and watched rain patter down onto the skylight.

  She and Nix were getting serious—both of them could see that. But he still spent most of his nights at Otter Bluff and she spent most of hers here. Which meant, what? That they’d both decided to take things slow, she supposed.

  Which was still a good idea. She didn’t want to jump into something just to get hurt.

  So why was she so lonely whenever she had to sleep without him? How had she gotten so accustomed, so quickly, to the feel of him beside her?

  She picked up her phone and texted him, hoping she wouldn’t wake him up.

  What are you doing?

  He answered a moment later.

  In bed with a book. You?

  Can’t sleep.

  It’s probably because you miss me, he wrote.

  She responded with an emoticon that she thought communicated lighthearted, teasing judgment.

  Then: I do miss you, she admitted.

  Want me to come over? he asked.

  She did. Oh, God, she did. But she had to be smart. She was holding back for a reason. This thing was almost over, wasn’t it? He’d move back into his house and she’d go … where? Back to L.A.? She didn’t know. What she did know was that he would, very soon, have an opportunity to cut things off with her, and she had to be ready for the possibility that he might take it.

  If she kept herself at a distance, if she kept things light between them, maybe she wouldn’t be hurt as badly if it happened.

  Not tonight, she wrote. It’s late.

  This whole thing with Nix had been a mistake, probably. She wasn’t the same person she used to be. She wasn’t that pretty, glossed-up girl who could make men want her. Now, she was just herself—and she wasn’t even sure yet who that was.

  How could she expect Nix to want someone who didn’t even really exist yet? Who was still in the process of becoming?

  I meant that thing I said, he wrote.

  She knew the thing he meant—the I love you thing. She hadn’t said it back yet, even though she was more and more certain it was true. How could she say it when she still wasn’t sure who she was or what she wanted?

  I know you did, she wrote. It means a lot to me.

  It wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was the only one she could give him right now.

  It means a lot to me, Nix read, and sighed.

  It means a lot to me wasn’t I love you, too. Did that mean she didn’t, or was she just too scared to say so?

  Why were women so hard to figure out? Why couldn’t Joy just say what she wanted so Nix could begin in earnest the business of giving it to her?

  Maybe what she wanted was a life without him in it.

  If that were the case, though, surely she wouldn’t have texted to say she missed him.

  At the beginning of the texting, Joy had been the one who couldn’t sleep. Now, as the night wore on, it turned out that Nix couldn’t, either.

  At least they agreed on that.

  “So, I’ve been looking at ads for apartments,” Amber said on the phone a couple of days later. “I know you said you wanted to spend less than you did for the condo, so you might have to change neighborhoods. Something a little farther out from downtown. If you’re open to sharing with a roommate, that’ll help. You can stay here until you find a place. The guest bed’s pretty comfortable.”

  Joy was being assaulted with so much information at once that it took her a moment to gather herself to respond.

  “You’ve been looking for apartments for me?”

  “Just the ads. I’ve got a list of good ones you can look at when you’re down here.”

  “Oh. Wow. Amber … you didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know, but I wanted to do it. I can’t wait for you to move back down here. It’s been pretty dull without you. I’ve been counting down the weeks until you come back.”

  “Oh.”

  Amber had grown skilled at reading the context of Joy’s voice, and she did that now with flawless accuracy. “Unless you and Nix are getting to be so serious you might not come back.”

  Joy was silent.

  “Oh, holy shit. You are. Aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” Joy said miserably. “I don’t know! He said he loved me, Amber. But he didn’t say he wanted me to stay. What does that mean? I don’t know what any of it means!”

  “He said he loves you?”

  “Yes. A while ago.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said … I said thank you.”

  “Thank you? Oh, jeez. Why didn’t you just kick the guy in the face? That would have been kinder.”

  “Amber …”

  “Joy, I mean … he hasn’t asked you to stay because he thinks you don’t love him. He thinks you’re going to bail as soon as the lease is up.”

  “Why does he think that?!” Joy’s voice was becoming a little hysterical.

  “He thinks that because you said thank you!”

  Amber was right, of course. If Joy loved Nix, she had to tell him before it was too late. She just wanted to be sure. And she wanted him to be sure, too.

  The following week, two things happened that shook Joy’s confidence.

  One was that she couldn’t get into her jeans. And the other was that people on the Internet were starting to attack her for her weight gain.

  The attackers were in the minority, thankfully—most people who responded to her blog were positive and encouraging—but there were enough of them that she felt it like a gut-punch.

  You used to be hot. What happened?

  Keep going this way and you’re going to be unfuckable.

  Response to that last one: I’d still fuck her.

  As though that was supposed to be encouraging.

  Is that a muffin top under your shirt? (Vomiting emoji.)

  Oh, God, Joy told herself. Just ignore it. Ignore it.

  It wasn’t as though Joy had never had haters before. In the past, people had scrutinized her body, accused her of Photoshopping her images to create impossible perfection, criticized her clothing, her settings, her captions, her blog posts. So, this was nothing new.

  When her career had started—back when she’d been acting in commercials and bit parts, and even before then, with the pageants—she’d thought positive comments on her body were affirming, reassuring. Now, she wondered why she’d ever invited that scrutiny.

  Why had she even thought that being fuckable was a good thing? When had she decided that was a worthy goal to pursue? Was it when she was sixteen? Fifteen? Younger?

/>   She thought about all of that as she shopped for a new, bigger pair of jeans.

  Her old jeans—the go-to pair that she turned to as a default—were a designer brand that went for three hundred dollars. (She’d gotten them free in exchange for a product endorsement.) Now, she thought about the waste and excess of three hundred dollar jeans. What was the point of it?

  Instead of driving down to Santa Barbara to visit a designer boutique, she went to the Target in San Luis Obispo.

  She found a thirty dollar pair (if she wanted, she could buy ten for the price of the ones she no longer fit into) and tried them on in the fitting room.

  The lighting in the dressing room made her ass look twice its actual size.

  At least, she hoped it was just the light.

  But that was ridiculous. She’d just gone from a size four to a six. Surely that was nothing to worry about.

  Except that the size six she was trying on was still too snug for comfort. Was it possible she’d gone up two sizes? She hadn’t stepped on the scale for a while—avoiding it was part of her new effort toward emotional wellness—so maybe.

  Shit.

  She got dressed, went back out into the store, and found a size eight in the style she’d already tried on. Back in the dressing room, she slipped them on, and they were perfect.

  Size eight.

  So, yeah, she’d gone up two sizes since she’d come to Cambria. She guessed it was possible her old jeans had stretched, and the whole question of what size she was supposed to be had been distorted.

  Size eight was good. It was fine. Women all over America would love to be a size eight. So why did Joy feel so … so broken? So devastated?

  She wiped away a few tears, took a deep breath, and got dressed in her own clothes again—a T-shirt and a pair of stretchy leggings that were more forgiving than her jeans had been. Then she bought two pairs of the jeans, feeling like she was failing as a human being.

  Were carbs really worth all of this self-doubt and angst?

  For one thing, yes, they were. Carbs were heaven. Joy couldn’t believe she’d lived without them for so long. And for another thing, being a size four hadn’t made her happy. It hadn’t done a thing to relieve her self-doubt. The self-doubt was its own entity, a wild beast waiting to attack her regardless of how she looked or what she weighed. It had always been there. Being thin hadn’t tamed it, so what was the point?

  And she felt better physically since she’d started to eat more. At first she’d thought it was just the sugar high, but it wasn’t. She felt stronger, more awake. More energetic.

  Her daily run was easier and felt better.

  Surely that was some kind of sign.

  Her body was in flux, and her life was in flux.

  She didn’t know where she was going from here, but she did know that she couldn’t go back to the way she’d been.

  There was only one direction: forward.

  Chapter 27

  Nix knew all of the reasons he shouldn’t ask Joy to marry him. He’d gone over them in his head a thousand times. And he was right—he shouldn’t ask her. Not now, at least. Not while it looked like a convenient means of solving a housing issue.

  And yet, he couldn’t seem to stop wanting to do it.

  God help him, he was going to propose.

  One day at the market, he asked Louise to help him pick out the ring.

  “I need a woman’s opinion. Or, wait. Should I let her pick it out? Should I propose without a ring and then go with her to choose one? Or, no. Whenever you see people propose online or in the movies or whatever, they already have a ring. So, that’s probably what I should do.”

  Louise stood with her hands on her hips, staring at Nix. “You’ve lost your goddamned mind.”

  That was entirely possible. He didn’t deny it.

  “But will you help me?” he said.

  “Will I help you make a colossal error in judgment? Is that what you’re asking?”

  “Why? Why is it a colossal error in judgment?”

  Nix was removing some old peaches from a bin in the produce section and replacing them with fresh ones while Louise watched him.

  “Because she still hasn’t said she loves you, Nix. Which means she’s not sure where this thing with you is going. Which means you have no idea what her answer will be. And you should never, never propose unless you know the other person is going to say yes.”

  Those were all rational points, but Nix wasn’t using his rational brain here. He was using his heart, his instincts, his needy, yearning soul.

  His shoulders fell. “So, you’re saying you won’t help me?”

  Louise regarded him sternly for a moment, then threw her hands into the air. “Oh, hell. Sure, I’ll help you. It’s your funeral.”

  They went to a jewelry store on Main Street, and when Nix didn’t find anything there, they drove down to San Luis Obispo.

  In the third shop they visited, Nix zeroed in on a ring with an emerald-cut diamond in the center and smaller pear-shaped diamonds on either side. The effect was delicate, elegant, and, in his opinion, lovely.

  “What do you think?” He held the ring in his hand, staring at it, while the clerk looked on with unconcealed glee.

  “It’s pretty,” Louise said. “Very pretty.”

  “But do you think Joy will like it?”

  “How could she not?” the clerk, a well-groomed woman in her fifties, said. “It’s stunning.”

  “She’ll like it,” Louise said.

  “If she doesn’t, we can exchange it, right?” he asked the clerk.

  “Of course. Though, I can’t imagine that happening.”

  “If she says no, he can get a refund, can’t he?” Louise asked.

  “Why do you think she’ll say no?” Nix turned to her, offended.

  “I don’t think that, necessarily. But she might, Nix.”

  “Yes. You’ll be able to get a refund if that happens,” the woman confirmed.

  Nix stared at the ring, seeing not just a ring but his own future—a wedding, children, fighting and making up and celebrating anniversaries, birthdays, traveling together, growing old in each other’s arms.

  He hadn’t even known he wanted such a thing, but now, with Joy, he wanted it more than he wanted to take his next breath.

  “But … she loves expensive designer things. Is she going to be upset that it’s not from Tiffany? Because—”

  “If she is, then you’re better off without her,” Louise said.

  “That was the old Joy,” he said, more to himself than to either of the women. “The old Joy was about the designer stuff, but the new one—she’s more down to earth. She’s … Do I buy a ring for the old Joy or the new one? Oh, God. I think I’m going to pass out.”

  The clerk came around to Nix’s side of the counter and brought over a chair. “Here you go, honey. Believe me, you’re not the first.”

  Nix sank into the chair gratefully.

  “Nix.” Louise laid a hand on his shoulder. “You buy the ring for whichever version of her that you love. If it’s the wrong one, then … well, it’s better to know that now, isn’t it?”

  He had to admit, she had a point.

  He was feeling a little shaky, so Louise drove them home.

  She’d given up trying to talk him out of proposing—especially now that he had the ring—so instead, she focused on the question of how he would do it.

  “So, what’s the plan? Quiet dinner at an intimate restaurant? Hot air balloon? Flash mob?”

  “Probably no on the flash mob.”

  “Right. Simple is better,” she said.

  “That’s what I was thinking. Simple. Maybe we’ll go for a walk someplace pretty. San Simeon Point, maybe, or Moonstone Beach. We’re holding hands, we’re both feeling good, and then …”

  “Then you drop to one knee and bring out the velvet box,” she finished for him.

  “Something like that.”

  Nix felt nauseated, and he was certain his face
was an alarming shade of green. And yet he knew—absolutely knew—that Joy was the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life.

  How could something that felt so right also make him feel like he had a bad case of the flu?

  “You doing okay over there, slugger?” Louise shot him a look from the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Are you two going to live in the tiny house? It’s one thing when there’s just one of you, but now …”

  “I’ll live anywhere if it’s with her. I’ll live in a penthouse apartment or a Motel 6 or a cardboard box.” As he said it, he knew it was true. She would be his home, and he would be hers, wherever that was.

  “Oh, shit. You’ve got it bad,” Louise said.

  The day Nix and Louise shopped for a ring, one week after Joy sent her book proposal to her agent, she got an e-mail saying that Gina loved it.

  Tiny houses are huge right now. Well, you know what I mean. So is simplifying, what with the whole Marie Kondo thing. This could be great! Call me.

  Joy, giddy with happiness, wrote back to her, and they set up an appointment to talk on the phone.

  Once that was arranged, the first person she wanted to tell about it was Nix.

  I have good news, she texted him.

  So do I, I think. We should get together and talk about it.

  I’m in. Where? When?!

  You want to go hiking tomorrow? Maybe San Simeon Point?

  Okay. But can you come over now? Or tonight?

  A long pause followed before he got back to her.

  Sorry, I’ve got work, and then some other things.

  Why didn’t he want to see her tonight? She got the distinct feeling he was putting her off and that it had something to do with his good news. What if he’d gotten a job offer somewhere out of town? What if he’d met someone? Shit. Shit.

  Joy told herself not to assume anything. She’d find out tomorrow.

  Nix hoped his efforts to hold Joy off hadn’t seemed too weird or awkward. The fact was, he was sure that if he saw her today, he’d pop the question before he was ready. Premature proposal—every guy’s worst fear.