Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Cousin movie night sometime next week?
Joey looked at Harry’s text, already feeling a bit overwhelmed with her schedule. She wasn’t sure why; she’d been working the two jobs, helping her grandparents, and hanging out with her cousins for months now.
She passed the sign welcoming her to Dog Valley, and Joey suddenly knew why she felt overwhelmed.
She hated coming to Dog Valley. She didn’t enjoy her time with her mother that much, but her sense of duty would not allow her to simply stop visiting.
She had no set schedule for when she needed to be here, other than before the trick-or-treaters came. So Joey pulled over and picked up her phone. It would be far easier if she could have a dynamic conversation with Harry, so she tapped to call him.
“Hey, Joey,” he said jovially, and why shouldn’t he be? He had an amazing fiancée, millions of dollars in the bank, celebrity status, and a brand-new house. Yes, everything seemed to be coming up roses for Harry and Belle.
Joey bit back on the bitterness, knowing that Harry had worked incredibly hard to be where he was, and Joey truly did not resent any of his success. He just seemed to have so many things figured out that Joey didn’t.
“Hey,” she said. “I just thought it would be faster if I could call.”
“You’re the busiest of us,” he said. “That’s why I asked you first.”
She nodded, feeling a bit guilty. “I usually work every evening except Wednesdays,” she said.
“That works for us.” He paused, and then hissed, “I’m not going to ask her that,” clearly not talking to her.
Joey’s heartbeat tensed inside her body.
“You ask her.”
Scuffling came through the line, and then Belle said, “Hey, Joey,” in her sweetest, kindest voice.
“Hey, Belle,” Joey said, smiling because she liked Harry’s fiancée a lot. “What do you want to ask me?”
Belle hesitated, and then said, “Um,” in such a way that Joey already knew what would come out of her mouth. She waited anyway, because if they wanted to know what was going on with her and Adam, they did have to say it out loud.
“Harry said he saw you and Adam last week when Morris and Leigh were moving, and…and I guess we’re just wondering what’s going on there.”
Joey sighed. “Yeah, I guess I’m wondering that too.”
“So you’re not seeing him?” Harry asked.
“Am I on speaker?”
Harry only chuckled, and Joey laughed too. “You’re supposed to tell someone when they’re on speaker, Harry.”
“You’re on speaker,” Belle said.
Joey looked out her side window and then through the windshield again. “I don’t really know if I’m seeing Adam or not,” she said. “I definitely wouldn’t say we’re dating, though….”
“Oh, boy.” Harry chuckled. “There’s a though?”
She smiled at the incredulity in his voice. “We got coffee last week. He said he was going to explain about how he came to be the band manager, but he never really did, and then Grams got her hooks into him and invited him for dinner.”
“Oh, Grams will do that,” Harry said with a chuckle. “That’s not really a date.”
“That’s what I said,” Joey said, feeling vindicated. “He did ask me out for brunch on Saturday. And I said yes, but I obviously haven’t gone yet. So seeing him? Dating? I would have to say no to both of those.”
“But you have a date with the man,” Harry said, and he sounded pretty happy about it.
“I have a date,” Joey said.
“Do you like him?” Belle asked.
“Would I go out with him if I didn’t like him?”
“She’s not like that,” Harry said. “That’s exciting, Joey.”
“Is it?” she asked. “Are you okay with me going out with him?”
Harry full-on belly laughed, and the longer it went on, the more foolishness Joey felt. “Why are you laughing like that?” she asked.
“Adam’s a grown man,” Harry said. “He can do whatever he wants. He doesn’t need my permission to go on a date.”
“Even if it’s with me?” Joey asked.
“Even if it’s with you,” he said. “You’re my cousin, not my sister.”
She smiled and ducked her head. “How many dates have I told you about?”
Silence answered, and Belle finally giggled. “I’m guessing none,” she said.
“Zero,” Joey said. “I have told Harry exactly zero times about the men I go out with. I just want you to know that that tradition is going to continue.”
Harry huffed, clearly not happy with that answer. “Okay, fine,” he said. “But cousin movie night on Wednesday?”
“Cousin movie night on Wednesday,” Joey confirmed. “Thanks for asking me first, Harry. I really do like coming.”
“I know,” he said. “I like having them.”
“We’ll talk to you later,” Belle said, and she and Harry started a mini-argument about whether they should have asked Joey about Adam at all before they managed to hang up.
Joey giggled to herself, looked out the windshield, and with a much lighter heart, continued to her mother’s.
She’d recently turned fifty, which wasn’t that old, and yet she’d been chronically ill since Joey was eight years old.
She didn’t leave the house, and her own mother had moved in to help care for her about a decade ago now.
Heaviness settled over Joey’s shoulders as she got out of the car and walked up to the front door.
The sky had turned a menacing shade of gray, and Joey wished she was home in her pinkified room with a good book.
Then Adam would text about the houses he’d seen that day, and she’d be warm and safe and flirting with him.
She didn’t know why her mom couldn’t simply put a big bowl of candy on the doorstep, and call it good. Apparently, she’d done that last year, and the candy and the bowl had all been stolen.
Joey didn’t know why she cared. She could just turn out all the lights and not answer the door. How many people would really come trick-or-treating anyway?
The truth, which neither of them ever really spoke, was that Joey’s momma knew she didn’t like visiting. So she came up with reasons to get Joey to the house—something that would keep her busy, something where they didn’t have to talk the whole time, something with a time constraint on it.
Joey could admit that she’d done similar things in the past, agreeing to come for the duration of a movie, or the Fourth of July concert broadcast on TV.
She’d come to bring her mother dinner and cake for her birthday, but she had another appointment she needed to get to a couple of hours later.
Their unspoken agreement had become two or three hours together, and not much more.
Handing out Halloween candy satisfied all of that, and Joey hitched a smile in place as she pushed into her mother’s house.
“Hey, Momma,” she called. “It’s just me.”
“Oh, Joey’s here,” Mom said fondly from the kitchen. Joey closed the door behind her, unsurprised to be greeted by a cat brigade. Her mother owned five felines, and they acted like her bodyguards whenever anyone came over, which, of course, no one but Joey ever did.
She crouched down to say hello to all the kitties, which gave her mother time to shuffle out of the kitchen. Joey straightened, shock running through her. “Wow,” she said. “You cut your hair.”
Her mother had resisted getting her hair cut for years now. She reached up and brushed her hand self-consciously down the back of her head. “Yeah,” she said. “It was time, and I actually don’t hate it.”
“I love it,” Joey said, with every sincere bone in her body. She took the two steps to her mom and took her face in her hands. “It looks so good. Did she color it too?”
She got all of her white-blonde, blue-eyed genes from her mother, who nodded. “You don’t think it’s too brassy?” she asked.
Joey shook her head, still marveling that her mother had made this change. “No,” she said. “I think it looks great.” She hugged her mother tight. “You look so good, Mom. It’s so good to see you.” And she meant it, when sometimes in the past she hadn’t.
She stepped back, feeling sparkly and springy, and asked, “What did Grandma make for dinner?”
She had inherited her love of cooking from her grandmother, and growing up, she had enjoyed coming here because she always got to make something new and learn family recipes.
“She made your favorite, of course,” Mom said. “Chicken pot pie with no carrots.”
Joey grinned as she moved into the kitchen, where she found her grandmother tenting the tops of the individual chicken pot pies she’d made. “They’re almost done,” she said. “They’re just getting a little bit too brown.”
“They smell amazing,” Joey said. “You didn’t have to take the carrots out.”
“You don’t like the carrots,” she said.
Joey couldn’t deny that. “Who does like cooked carrots?” she asked, because she didn’t think anyone did.
Grandma smiled and scanned Joey down to her puffy boots. “You’re not wearing a costume.”
“I brought it with me,” Joey said. “I just need to change real quick.”
“About fifteen minutes on the pies,” her grandmother said, who also wasn’t wearing a costume. “We’ve got the candy here, but your mother says you like to sort it.”
Joey grinned, because she so did. Sorting things brought her far too much happiness, but she’d decided to embrace it.
She hurried down the hall to the bedroom that was still made up for her, though she hadn’t stayed here in a few years.
She stripped out of her leggings and sweater, which she’d worn to work this morning at Cake Bites, and stepped into the black cotton dress that had angry, triangular fringes along the arms and hem.
With a witch’s hat and a little dab of black eyeliner to simulate a mole, Joey was ready to answer the door and hand out candy for the next couple of hours.
Back in the kitchen, she cut open the bags of mini Kit Kats, Snickers, and peanut butter cups. Her mother had bought good candy, and no wonder there would be kids at her doorstep.
Joey loved a Kit Kat as much as almost anything, and she got out a long rectangular serving tray with three compartments.
She’d used this at Thanksgivings and Christmases past for cheese and crackers or veggie plates.
Tonight, the Kit Kats went on the left, with the peanut butter cups on the right, as they both had orange packaging, and the Snickers went in the middle.
Satisfied with her arrangement of mini candy bars, she smiled over to her mother. “So what’s new with you?” her mom asked.
Joey’s first thought was Adam, but just like Harry, she’d never told her mother much about her love life. “Same old, same old,” she said. “Though I’m catering Kimberly’s wedding this weekend. On Friday.”
Her mom shook her head sadly. “Can you imagine?”
“What?” Joey asked, her smile dissipating. “Getting married?”
“She’s twenty-two years old,” her mom said. “She’s far too young.”
Joey smiled. “Mom, you weren’t that much older when you married Dad.”
“No, I know,” she said. “I just can’t even imagine you getting married.”
“No?” Joey asked, something defensive rising up inside her. “Because I’m so immature?”
“No, of course not,” her mom said, suddenly backtracking. “That’s not what I meant.”
Joey certainly wasn’t going to tell her about Adam now.
No one had been happy when she’d dated Tim at Wyoming State, and she couldn’t blame them.
There was a known serial killer at large with that name at the time, though Joey hadn’t realized that her mom thought she was too young to date and get married at all.
Thankfully, the doorbell rang, and then smaller hands knocked on it.
Joey swept the platter of candy bars into her arms and said, “That’s my cue,” before she went to answer the door.
Hopefully, this would be the start of a steady stream of trick-or-treaters, and she’d barely have time to enjoy her chicken pot pie with only peas before she had to leave.
After all, she didn’t want to talk about how Kimberly was too young to get married, though she’d literally graduated from college a few months ago. Joey hadn’t managed to do that, and she wondered if her mom thought she was as big of a loser as Joey thought she was.
Then a hissing, whispering thought in her mind reminded her that Adam had not graduated from college either, and he certainly wasn’t a loser. Warmth filled her even as the icy early evening air hit her in the face when she opened the door.
College was overrated, and so was waiting to get married when you found the love of your life.
She wasn’t sure if Adam could be that person.
They hadn’t even had their first date yet, but as she let the kids take as many candy bars as they wanted, Joey decided that dreaming had always been good for her soul, and Adam made her dreams that much better.