Love and Joy

by Linda Seed

  She just wanted to be.

  A path from the tiny house led to a creek running through the property, and she let herself enjoy the burble of water over rocks, the cool breeze whispering through the trees, the chitter of birds and the rustle of a squirrel dashing through the grass.

  Nature actually wasn’t half bad.

  Surely there was nature in Los Angeles, even amid the bustle of a large city. Why hadn’t she noticed it? There were the beaches, sure, and that was good. That was fine. But this was different. This was quiet and peaceful and untouched.

  She could see why Nix loved it here.

  At the thought of Nix, she remembered the kiss they had shared and how it had made her feel. Not that she needed any kind of trigger to remember it—she seemed to be remembering it a lot, at odd moments, sometimes for no reason.

  He was interesting and nice and fun, and so attractive. But he was drawn to her for her looks, of course. All of the men in her life were. She was so tired of working to be pretty, working to be thin and perfect. Would he still be interested in her if she wasn’t those things? If she just let all of that go?

  Probably not, a voice in her head answered her. The voice was Joy but also not Joy. It was the voice of her own self-doubt, and it sounded remarkably like her mother.

  If she decided to see him again, she would have to do it with the full knowledge that he was probably like all of the others—he’d probably run when the conquest was complete or when she dropped the hot-girl facade.

  Because that’s all it was—a facade. She’d thought it was her, but it wasn’t. And now that she knew that, there was a big, empty space where her true self should have been.

  She needed to fill that space, and she had to be careful, selective, about what she filled it with.

  Joy sat down on a large, flat rock on the bank of the creek and pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapping her arms around her legs.

  Funny, when she and Amber had come up with the tiny house plan, Joy had thought of it as a gimmick. If she could just play-act at having made a major life transition, with all of the bumps and setbacks that suggested, then she could regain her fan base.

  Now that she was here, though, she wasn’t play-acting. The life transition actually seemed to be happening.

  Where was she supposed to go from here, though? Now that she’d realized the old Joy had to be torn down, burned, and done away with, how did she go about building a new and better one?

  I don’t even know what I like.

  And that was true, wasn’t it? Joy had been modeling a vision of what she thought other people liked, not what she did. And now, she didn’t even know herself.

  That seemed like the first step. She needed to find out what she liked, what she enjoyed, what filled her up and gave her pleasure, without regard to what the world might think of it.

  I need to brainstorm. I need a list.

  Buoyed by the thought, she got up, brushed some stray dirt off her jeans, then went back to the tiny house to start drawing up a set of plans for the new and improved Joy Maxwell.

  “A list?” Amber asked when Joy called her later that day.

  “Yeah. Of things I want to try that I might enjoy.”

  “Like a bucket list?” Amber asked.

  “No, no. A bucket list is stuff you really want to do and that you’re afraid you might not get to before you die. This is different. This is … an experiment.”

  “An experiment.”

  “Yeah. It’s stuff I don’t know if I’ll like, but I might. I want to find out what I enjoy.”

  Amber sighed. “Oh, Joy. How can you not even know what you like? I blame your mother for all of this. If she’d only—”

  “Less pity, more ideas,” Joy said, interrupting her.

  “It’s not pity, it’s sympathy.”

  “Well, less of that, too. I mean, I appreciate it. I do. But this isn’t a sympathize-with-Joy talk. It’s a brainstorming talk.”

  “You want to brainstorm about what kinds of things you might like if you only gave them a chance.”

  “Right.”

  “Hmm. This could be fun.”

  “There you go.” Joy sat on the porch at the tiny house with her phone on speaker and a notepad and pen in her hands. “First category: food.”

  “I hope there’s also going to be a sex category.”

  Oh, there will be.

  “Let’s start small,” Joy said, her pen poised. “Now, I’ve never tried boba tea. What else have you got?”

  Chapter 18

  Nix was in his car, ready to head back to Otter Bluff after work, when he saw the list.

  He had his e-mail set to alert him whenever Joy posted to her blog, and he told himself it would keep until he got home. But he couldn’t resist. He clicked on the link, thinking he’d just take a peek to see what the topic was before heading back to Otter Bluff.

  Once he saw what she’d written, though, he was riveted and didn’t move until he’d read the last word.

  It was a treasure trove of information, from a dating perspective.

  She had so many categories: food, adventure, travel (a subset of adventure), entertainment, and—sweet Jesus—sex.

  His immediate impulse was to offer to cross off the entire sex category in one day, but then he decided subtlety and nuance were his friends.

  I can help you with number eight, he texted her.

  In number eight, she’d stated that she’d never eaten fresh homemade pasta. In an unlikely but fortunate coincidence, he’d gotten a pasta maker for Christmas the year before. He still hadn’t taken it out of the box.

  Number eight? she wrote back.

  Fresh pasta. Come to Otter Bluff for dinner tomorrow and we’ll tick off that box for you.

  For a minute or two, nothing happened, and he worried he might get another we’ll see. Then, her response came.

  What time?

  Nix had the following day off, and he spent the morning painting the master bathroom in a pale taupe that Evan had chosen. When he was done, he cleaned up the paint mess, showered in the bathroom he hadn’t worked on yet, got dressed, and applied himself to the question of how to make fresh pasta.

  “I’ve never made fresh pasta before,” he told Louise on the phone. She was at the market, but he’d caught her on a break.

  “Well … I’ve never done macramé, so there’s that.”

  “No. It’s about Joy. I invited her for dinner and said I’d make fresh pasta, only I don’t know how.”

  “Why did you say you’d do it, then?” Her voice held the frustration of a woman who did not now, nor would she ever, understand men.

  “It was on her list.” He explained about the list, and about how he’d used it to persuade her to go out with him again. Or, in this case, stay in.

  “Oh. And you’re hoping to tick off the pasta box and then move on to some things lower on the list,” Louise said.

  Nix felt a rush of annoyance that he was so transparent.

  “I kinda doubt we’re going to get to anything else if the pasta sucks.”

  “Fair point. But why are you calling me?”

  “Don’t you know how to make pasta?”

  “Why would I know that?”

  “You’re Italian.”

  Louise made a scoffing noise. “That just means I know how to eat it.”

  “Oh.” He tried not to sound disappointed. “Well … I’ll try YouTube.”

  “Not so fast, Noodle Boy. My mom makes great pasta. I’ll give you her number.”

  Nix had met Louise’s mother a few times—in Cambria, it was hard not to run into people—but he wasn’t sure he knew her well enough to impose on her.

  “Are you sure she won’t mind?”

  “Are you kidding? She’ll love it. I’ll call ahead and tell her she’s going to hear form you.”

  Nix waited until he’d gotten a text from Louise saying her mother was on board. Then he called the number he’d been given.

  “Mrs. Lombar
di? This is Nix Landry. Louise said—”

  He barely got a word in after that.

  Mrs. Lombardi talked about Louise, cooking, Cambria, dating, the necessity for “a nice boy” like him to find someone, and how he really needed to put on a few pounds. Then she insisted that he needed to come to her place for a practice run—something he wasn’t sure he’d have time for, given the fact that he still needed to plan the menu, buy ingredients, and make Otter Bluff suitable for female company.

  Mrs. Lombardi didn’t wait for him to say whether he actually planned to come—she simply assumed he would. She gave him her address and said she’d be waiting.

  “And bring your own machine,” she told him. “It won’t help if you learn on mine and then don’t know how to use the one you’ve got.”

  She hung up before he could protest.

  Fortunately, Nix had brought the pasta machine to Otter Bluff with him along with his other belongings when he’d moved out of the tiny house. It was in a box in the garage, and he didn’t know which one.

  He had so few belongings that it didn’t take long to find it at the bottom of a carton marked MISCELLANEOUS.

  He’d intended to donate it to a local thrift store for the sake of minimalism, but now he was thankful he hadn’t.

  When he arrived at Mrs. Lombardi’s house, she opened the door, grabbed his arm, and pulled him inside as though she thought he might flee if she wasn’t fast enough to catch him.

  “Pasta is the perfect food for love!” she declared.

  He considered that, his eyebrows raised. “Is it? I’d have thought seafood, what with the oysters and all.”

  She waved off the comment. “Pasta is sensual. You twirl the fork, you accept the food into your mouth. Then you gently suck the stray noddles in through your lips, feeling the textures on your tongue.…”

  Thinking of Joy doing all those things, Nix started to feel a little warm. He cleared his throat. “I can see your point.”

  Over the next hour or so, she showed him how to make the dough directly on the granite countertop, making a well in the center of the flour and cracking an egg into it; how to set up his pasta machine; how to roll out sheets of pasta; and how to cut those sheets into fettuccini noodles.

  “This is important.” She held the newly cut noodles draped over her hand. “You have to hang it to dry, or it’ll stick together.” She hung the noodles over a gizmo apparently created for that purpose.

  “I don’t have one of those.” He pointed at the gizmo.

  “You can borrow mine. Now, let’s see you do it.”

  By the time Nix got back to Otter Bluff, he’d been given thorough lessons not only for making the pasta, but also for making a simple sauce with fresh tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. He’d considered trying a more complex sauce, but Mrs. Lombardi had wisely counseled him against it, saying he’d have enough to deal with as it was.

  He already knew how to make an excellent salad from organic vegetables, and that would round out the meal nicely.

  He went to the market, gathered the things he needed—including a good bottle of wine—and paid. Louise was behind the register.

  “So? Did Mom take care of you?”

  “She did. I’m pretty sure I’m expected to be married by next Christmas.”

  “And you’ll be expected to bring the wife to Mom’s place for Christmas dinner,” she added.

  “Tell her thanks from me, would you? I mean, I already did, but …”

  “You got it. Good luck!”

  Joy pondered how to dress for a night eating pasta at Nix’s place.

  Pre-Cambria, she’d have worn something upscale with a designer label—something that looked casual but that said she’d paid hundreds of dollars to put together the look.

  But this called for something different.

  She browsed through her meager wardrobe and selected a pair of jeans that made her ass look great and a soft cable-knit sweater that was just low-cut enough to be sexy but not low-cut enough to be slutty.

  She’d rescued a pair of soft leather boots from her storage unit, and those completed the casual-but-attractive look she was going for.

  She brushed out her hair, letting it fall loosely around her shoulders, and took care with her makeup, shooting for a level of glamor she thought of as casual plus; the idea was to look at first glance like she was wearing nothing on her face, but to appear just a little more vibrant, just a little more there.

  Once she was satisfied, she used her Google Maps app to navigate her way to Otter Bluff.

  She was nervous, she could admit that. As she drove, she picked apart the reasons for her anxiety.

  One: He’d read her blog, so she couldn’t present the usual persona she used with men. Nix knew more about the real her than was standard in these situations.

  Two: She was going there to eat pasta, something she’d never done in front of a man until she’d met Nix. What if the sight of her feeding her hunger repulsed him? What if she moaned again and it made her seem out of control, like some ravenous beast who couldn’t rein in her impulses?

  Three: What if the pasta led to sex? Usually, she’d have been encouraged by that thought, but in her experience, sex led to goodbye, and she really liked Nix. If the goodbye was going to come, she’d rather it be later instead of sooner.

  And four: Liking Nix made her feel vulnerable, and she hated vulnerability.

  Well, she couldn’t do anything about items one, two, and four, but three? That she could control. She promised herself there would be no sex tonight.

  Though the right pasta dish might feel just as good.

  By the time Nix opened the door for Joy, he figured he was as ready as he was going to be.

  He felt a certain amount of anxiety, but he felt good and hopeful, too. Introducing someone to homemade pasta was God’s work, so he had that going for him.

  Looking at her as she stood on the doorstep at Otter Bluff, it occurred to Nix that she’d already changed since she’d gotten to Cambria. She was less polished but more relaxed. Less upscale, more natural. He liked the change, and he couldn’t help smiling like an idiot.

  “So … can I come in?”

  Nix had been so wrapped up in taking her in that he’d neglected to invite her into the house.

  “Oh. Right. Of course.” He stood back to let her pass.

  First, there was the small talk about Otter Bluff.

  “Oh, my God.” Joy stared out the bank of windows in the front room that looked out onto a close-up and unobstructed ocean view. “You really live here now?”

  “For another few months.” He’d already explained about the house and Evan and his agreement to renovate the place while he lived there, so he updated her on his progress. “I finished the master bathroom,” he told her. “Want to see?”

  He led her into the bathroom and stood back, feeling proud of what he’d accomplished.

  “This is really nice,” she said, and it seemed like she meant it.

  He pulled out his phone and brought up a photo of what the bathroom had looked like before, in all of its chipped-tile, powder-blue-bathtub glory.

  Her mouth fell open as she looked at the before shot. “Now I’m even more impressed.”

  Nix reflected briefly on the manly pride that came from being complimented by a woman on home improvement tasks.

  “Well … should we get to the pasta?” he said.

  Nix led Joy into the kitchen, where he’d laid out the ingredients and equipment for the pasta.

  “Did you renovate the kitchen, too?” she asked. “It’s really nice.”

  “Nah. I wish I could take credit, but the kitchen was the one room the previous owner had redone before she sold the place.” He leaned his hip against the counter, one hand tucked into his pocket. “I … ah … wondered whether I should have everything ready before you got here, but then I thought it might be fun to wait so we could do it together. I hope that’s okay.” He looked uncertain, and Joy thought it was cute t
hat he was nervous, too.

  “It’s great,” she said. “I don’t really cook, though.”

  “That’s okay, I know what I’m doing,” he assured her. “I got lessons from my friend’s Italian mom.”

  Chapter 19

  They worked together, side by side, to make the dough and roll it out with Nix’s pasta machine. They hung the noodles on the rack Mrs. Lombardi had loaned him, and then Joy chopped tomatoes on a cutting board at the kitchen island while Nix put a big pot of water on the stove.

  Joy had worried about the possible sexual repercussions of the date, but this was just … fun.

  Working together, making a mess with flour, talking about this and that … it was different than any date Joy could remember. Usually, the entire date was focused on the guy trying to impress Joy so he could get her into bed. But this was companionable. Low-key. She found herself relaxing, her self-consciousness fading as she became absorbed in the tasks and smells and textures of cooking.

  By the time they sat down to dinner, she was hungry and happy. Nix poured her a glass of pinot noir, and they settled in at a small table he’d set up on the back patio, the waves crashing into the bluffs below them.

  “This is amazing,” she said, indicating the ocean, the horizon, and their front-row seats.

  “Usually it’s too windy out here in the afternoons and evenings for this kind of thing, but today we got lucky.” He shrugged.

  She took a sip of the wine. “Okay. Time to check off that list.” She twirled some pasta onto her fork, put it into her mouth, and drew one stray noodle in slowly between her lips, her eyes closed.

  Then she moaned, “Oh, God.”