Finding Joy (The Joy Series)

by Jenni Moen

  I turned back to Carly just as Ethan slid in next to me. “Honestly, I’m not even sure what I want.”

  “I know what you want,” he said. “You want me.”

  “I want you, huh?” I asked.

  “Yep. I have nutter butters.” He slid a paper sack my direction.

  I gasped. “From Bouchon’s?”

  “The one and only. I couldn’t walk by without picking some up for you. What kind of husband would I be?”

  “I love you,” I squealed.

  “You two are twisted,” Carly said, shaking her head at us. “What does Adam think of your husband?”

  “He doesn’t care … any more.”

  “I’d like to mess around, all right,” Ethan said under his breath.

  I slapped him on the arm. “Gross. Stop.”

  “Gross? Really? I’m hurt, Alexis. Truly hurt.” Ethan flipped his gaze to Carly. “Really, he knows that I’d kick his ass before giving her up. I was here first. So I’m the husband. He’s just her mistress.”

  Carly snorted. “I’d like to see that showdown. Speaking of showdowns,” she continued. “What was up last night?”

  Ethan looked at the table and started fidgeting with the silverware in front of him. Uh oh. My alarm bells were going off. Her question was making him uncomfortable, and there was only one reason that he would be uncomfortable talking about Jillian.

  “Oh, you know your sister. She’s impossible when it comes to ordering off the menu. I took her out for a nice dinner last night, and I swear she took 40 fucking minutes to order. Then our food came out and, of course, hers was wrong … because when you modify the meal on the menu 12 different ways … they are bound to screw it up. So she sent it back. It took us three hours to eat dinner. Three hours. She’s in the damn food business. You’d think she’d cut somebody some slack. I’ve decided that I can’t handle eating with her, and it’s kind of hard to date someone when you can’t eat a meal together.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Carly said, slapping her hand on the table. “I knew it. You’re going to break up with her. Stop talking right now. I don’t want to hear this. I won’t be able to keep it a secret. I’ll have to tell her. And she may murder me. And then she’ll murder you.”

  “Yeah, I’m a little worried about that, too,” Ethan said, as our food arrived. “She’s a little nuts. Of course, you’re all bat shit crazy. Every single last one of you.”

  He picked up his knife and pointed it at me. “Even you,” he said, jabbing it into the mustard.

  “Especially me,” I said, laughing. “I’m certifiable. I have the records to prove it.”

  “Stop it,” Carly said. “You’re not nuts. You’re damaged. There’s a difference.”

  “Nope. She’s a little nuts,” Ethan said under his breath.

  “Well, I think you’ve turned out rather well ... all things considered,” Carly said, taking her turn waving her fork around.

  “I see a shrink every week. I take more medication than a 60 year old woman … though I have cut down. And I can’t make a decision to save my life. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. But now I have no clue.”

  Ethan stuffed a fry in his mouth and threw his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a squeeze. “Well, if you’re crazy, you’re my kind of crazy.”

  “Absolutely,” Carly said in agreement.

  “Hey, I heard you’re singing again tonight. Is that right?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, at The Shelter. The band wants to give it another try. Just three songs. If it goes over as well as last time, they’ll make me an official part-time member of the band.”

  “What’s an official part-time member?” I asked, as I took a bite of my cake.

  “Good question. I’m not sure. I think it means that I only get to sing for part of the songs. Or maybe it means that they are only going to tell me about part of the gigs. Or maybe it means that I need to keep my day job to continue to support Burke in the life to which he’s become accustomed. Who knows? Are you coming?”

  “Depends. Is Jillian?” Ethan asked. Last week, if her answer had been yes, his answer would be, too. Now I suspected that the opposite was true.

  Carly nodded. “She’s going.”

  “I’m out then.”

  “Stop!” Carly said in exasperation. “This is my sister you’re talking about. I like you, Ethan. I really do. But if you’re going to break up with her, do it the right way, or I’m going to have to cut you.”

  “I’m out, too,” I threw out to the table in an effort to change the subject. “Adam’s friend Tony invited us to dinner in Queens.”

  “You’re having dinner in Queens? With your doorman?” Ethan asked. “What’s that all about?”

  I shrugged. “He and Adam are buddies now. Tony has some old muscle car that Adam wants to take a look at.”

  I didn’t mind in the least that Adam wanted to go out to Queens to talk cars on a Friday night. I actually liked Tony quite a bit. He had been looking out for me for years. But if I was honest, I had my own agenda in going.

  Tony had kids. A whole harem of them, in fact. I’d seen him flashing pictures around to the old ladies in the building a few weeks ago so I was well aware that one of them was a new baby. Maybe just maybe if Adam was around a baby for a night …

  “Buddies?” Ethan asked. “Are they 8?”

  “What? You don’t have buddies?” I asked.

  “No. Men don’t have ‘buddies.’”

  “What do you have?” I asked, already laughing at what I knew would be a good answer.

  “We have friends, fellas, dudes, homies, maybe even buds. But never buddies.

  “Homies?” Carly snorted. “I am not a homie. So what does that make us?”

  “That’s easy,” Ethan said with a lopsided grin. “You two are my bitches.”

  Carly gave Ethan the stink eye. “You screw my sister over, and I’ll show you bitch.”

  _________________________

  “Thank you so much for inviting us, Jacqueline.”

  “It’s our pleasure,” she said warmly. “We love to entertain. Besides, Tony thinks the world of Adam.”

  Jacqueline had turned out to be quite the hostess. I’d come to Queens for dinner any day of the week. She had served up an authentic TexMex dinner complete with brisket nachos and cheese enchiladas. For years, I’d been searching for edible Mexican food in Manhattan, but I’d yet to find it. Oh, there were a few Mexican restaurants. I had tried them all, but nothing had lived up to the food I becameaccustomed to while growing up in Texas. But Jacqueline had nailed it. The smell had assaulted me as soon as I had entered the Torino house, and I’d been foaming at the mouth by the time we sat down to eat.

  She was a quintessential homemaker, and her house was just as warm and inviting as the aromas coming from her kitchen. The furnishings were not new, but still had a lot of life left in them. Everything ... including the broken-in recliner that was obviously Tony’s throne ... practically screamed at me to take a seat, get comfortable, and stay for a while. Pictures of family members hung on every available wall, and the kitchen refrigerator was covered with layers and layers of drawings and school papers. Her home was lovingly lived in and a far cry from the museum in which I’d been raised.

  Supposedly, tonight was a quiet night since the two oldest kids were out for the night. But even with only the three smaller children buzzing around our feet, it had felt pretty crazy to me.

  Being an only child, the activity and noise created by Jacqueline and Tony’s three small beings took me by surprise. Someone always needed something ... a drink, a snack, a diaper change. Their mom met every reasonable demand and easily rebuffed the others.

  After dinner, the little kids had disappeared upstairs to watch TV, and Tony and Adam had gone outside to poke around on each other’s cars. No doubt they were comparing horsepower, carburetors, drive shafts, and a whole lot of other things I didn’t understand. Having had our fill of the subject
at dinner, Jacqueline and I had opted to stay inside. The baby needed a bottle, and I had the masochistic desire to watch her feed and rock him to sleep. Now she cradled a sleeping Jaden with one arm while topping off my glass of wine with the other. I had a lot of respect for multitaskers.

  “I find them downstairs hanging out a lot. I think, since coming to Manhattan, Adam has lacked friends that appreciate listening to him talk about his car for hours on end.”

  “It gets real old, doesn’t it?” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Yeah well, I kind of like listening to him talk about it. It’s one of the two things he’s truly passionate about. Cars and movies.”

  “From what Tony tells me, he’s pretty passionate about you, too,” she said. “Tony says he’s fiercely protective of you, which I find incredibly endearing. I do love an alpha male, but I read too many books. You know, when you’re stuck at home all the time like I am, you’ve got to get your kicks somehow.”

  “Yeah, he’s been pretty protective lately,” I said, blushing slightly.

  “Tony told me that he once slept on the floor in the hall outside your door. All night. Just because he was worried about you.”

  “It wasn’t really like that,” I said, staring into my glass of wine.

  I didn’t like to think about that night. It was the same night I’d found out about Joy … and the accident … and my parent’s lies … and Adam’s, too. The worst day of my life. Well, maybe the second worst.

  But a lot of good had come from that night, too. In a way, it had been liberating. I finally knew why I had been running for so many years ... running from the truth ... and running from happiness that I didn’t think I deserved, without knowing why.

  Yes, Adam had followed me home that night.

  Why he had want to follow the girl who had taken his sister’s life had been beyond anything I could comprehend at the time. He’d pounded on the door, relentlessly at first, but after a few minutes, the beating had lost its forcefulness until it stopped completely. I never opened the door or answered him. My mind and my memory had been a mess. I could barely fathom the monster that I’d just become.

  When I finally peered through the peep hole, I had expected him to be gone. But there he sat on the floor, slumped against the wall. I’d similarly collapsed, folded over like a rag doll. For 12 hours, we had stayed there, with nothing but a door and an insurmountable amount of regret separating us.

  “Well, whatever it was, it sounds pretty romantic to me,” she said a little dreamily.

  If she only knew. I rubbed my eyes to ward away the tears. “Wow, I’m really tired,” I lied.

  The kitchen door opened a crack, and Tony stuck his head inside. “Jackie,” he said. “We’re going for a drive.”

  “Of course, you are,” she said. “Don’t be too long though. I have dessert waiting, and I’ve heard that it’s Allie’s favorite part of the meal.”

  “We’ll just be a few minutes,” he barely got out before the door clicked shut.

  Jacqueline smiled knowingly. “Well, I guess we’ve got about an hour and a half to kill. Let me go put Jaden down.”

  As her feet pounded up the stairs, my mind was again pulled back to September. Now that I’d let the memory back in, it was hard to push away. I could actually hear Adam’s unrelenting knocking on my door and the silent begging that followed. I took a sip of wine and closed my eyes and could actually see his slumped body lying in the hallway. His downcast eyes pleading with me to open the door. I knew now that he’d only wanted to talk, to make me understand. But all I could think about was how much I loved the man in the hall and that he surely hated me more than I loved him.

  I was still lost in thought when Jacqueline’s voice pulled me back to the present. She slid back into her chair with a contented sigh. “Well, that was easier than usual.”

  “He’s usually hard?” I asked. “He seems like such an easy baby.”

  She looked at her watch. “Just wait. He’ll be up in an hour, screaming his bloody head off. And he won’t stop for at least three hours. The doctor’s say it’s not colic, but I beg to differ.”

  “Colic?” I asked.

  “That’s the medical term for unexplained, make-you-want-to-bang-your-head-on-the-wall crying. No one knows why they have it or why some babies have it and others don’t, but I swear it will drive you to drink,” she raised her glass and took a long sip. “I gave up breastfeeding because the only way through this is a couple of glasses of wine every night. Some say it’s due to digestive issues like acid reflux, but there is nothing wrong with this kid. Except he cries. Every night. From nine until 12.”

  “That sounds awful,” I said. “What can you do?”

  “Nothing. He’ll outgrow it in a month or so. For now, I lay on the floor in his room with the hair dryer going for three hours every night.”

  “The hair dryer?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine how blow drying that baby’s nonexistent hair would help matters.

  “White noise. Loud white noise. Helps us both. Anyway,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about your job. Tony says you’re an attorney with a big fancy law firm.”

  I shrugged sheepishly. “I’m just a grunt attorney. I’ve only been at it a couple of years so I still get the work that no one else wants.”

  “Sounds pretty exciting to me.”

  We spent the next hour talking about my job and the one that she’d given up. Almost unbelievably, Jacqueline had once been a DHS worker. Before marrying Tony and settling down, she had spent her days investigating child abuse cases. Since I had questions galore on this subject, I spent the next 45 minutes interrogating her like a witness in a death row case. I filled her in on Lizzie’s situation, and Jacqueline gave me an idea of what I could expect in the upcoming months. Jacqueline seemed to really know her shit. As she rattled on about the shortcomings of child welfare laws, I realized that I had more in common with this stay-at-home mom from Queens than I’d ever thought imaginable.

  We had just jumped ship from the serious subject of child abandonment to the subject of books when Tony and Adam returned from their joy ride.

  “What have you ladies been up to?” Tony asked, as he dug through the refrigerator. He pulled out two beers and handed one to Adam. He popped the top off of his and took a long swig.

  “Just chatting,” Jacqueline said blithely. “Babies, work, books ... the usual stuff.”

  “Sorry to miss that,” Tony teased.

  “Oh yeah, and we’re real sorry we missed out on more talk about cams and struts and shocks and shit,” Jacqueline stood up and walked to the kitchen counter where a sopapilla cheesecake sat waiting. She cut three pieces and slid them onto plates. After she’d sat one down in front of each of us, she joined us at the table.

  “Aren’t you going to have a piece?” Tony asked.

  “Nah,” she said. “I’m full of nachos and enchiladas, and I still have all this baby weight to lose.”

  “Have a piece of cake, baby. You look great.” Tony’s eyes roamed over Jacqueline as if they were alone instead of entertaining. “Doesn’t she look great? I mean, can you believe she had her fifth baby eight weeks ago?”

  Honestly, I couldn’t. She had a little paunch, but surely that was to be expected. Eight weeks was barely any time at all. “She does,” I said. “She looks fantastic.”

  “If she didn’t have that little monster attached to her all the time, you wouldn’t even know,” he said.

  She placed her hands on either sides of her stomach and blew out, accentuating her stomach. “Whatever,” she sighed.

  “It’s just nachos and enchiladas,” he said. “Have a damn piece of cheesecake.”

  Jacqueline looked down at her still puffed out stomach and started giggling. “It’s not-cho baby. It’s nacho baby.”

  Tony rolled his eyes and cut off a large chunk of sopapilla cheesecake with the side of his fork and held it up in front of her face. “O
pen up. You deserve it. Dinner was great.”

  We spent the next 30 minutes chatting about nothing in particular. It was exactly how I’d imagined a dinner party like this would go ... Adam teasing me ... Jacqueline teasing Tony. It was perfect and another first for me.

  Before Adam, I had never been a part of a couple. I’d never had dinner at another couple’s home. Sure, I’d had countless dinners with Ethan and our law school friends, but it wasn’t the same. We had gone out with Burke and Carly, but it was always as part of a big group. The band always seemed to tag along everywhere Burke went.

  Tony told us about how he’d met Jacqueline. It had been at the baptism of the baby of one of his cousins. He’d looked across the sanctuary and knew right then and there that she was the one. Later, as they had drunk punch and ate cake in the fellowship hall, he’d told her, ‘One day, I’m going to marry you in this church.” And he had. Five months later he’d done that very thing. That had been more than 15 years ago.

  I looked across the table and wondered if Adam and I would ever be able to tell our story as casually as Tony told theirs. I didn’t think so. Adam could say, ‘I was in this awful bar down in the Financial District, and I looked down at the end of the bar and knew that she was the one.’ However, Adam’s ‘the one’ had an entirely different meaning than Tony’s ‘the one.’ And there was nothing casual about it.

  I snapped back into the conversation when Adam began telling Tony and Jacqueline about our date last week. When he explained how he had gotten us on the set of his favorite show, Tony’s eyes lit up in disbelief. Apparently, he appreciated the show almost as much as Adam.

  “I can’t believe you got to see him in person. That is fantastic,” he said. “Did you talk to him?”

  “No, but the filming of that show is pure artistry,” Adam said.

  “I don’t know about artistry, but the show’s awesome,” Tony said.

  “It’s too violent,” Jacqueline said, shaking her head. “People dying left and right.”