Benny Abbott - Day Two
Benny Abbott
Day Two
“Do you remember the time I thought someone was living in my attic?” Joy asks halfway through the creepy doll episode.
Past Me snorts. “Hold up, this is a good one. Let me set this up for our listeners. This was, what—twelve years ago?”
“Something like that.”
“Back when we were living in the same apartment building. Joy was sick with the flu, so I was surprised when she came thumping down the stairs past her bedtime. Do you remember what you said when I opened the door? The first thing you said?”
“I’m not alone.” This Joy delivers in a voice reminiscent of Gollum.
I hit pause and make a note of this. I’ve combed through all three episodes in Joy’s XYZ folder twice now, and I’m still not sure what I’m looking for.
Logic dictates the password to the PDF must be somewhere in these tracks—at least, I assume that’s what she meant by “piece together”—and yet nothing is popping out at me.
Either way, I don’t like this casual reference to not being alone.
Not after a stranger has been following her every move for months.
I rewind five seconds and press play again.
“I’m not alone.”
“Just like that. You’re lucky I didn’t shut the door in your face.”
“There was someone in my attic!”
“A detail you could’ve led with.”
“And what would have been the fun in that?”
“Anyway,” Past Me says, moving on. “This was not the first time Joy had quote-unquote heard things in her sleep. It happened all the time.”
“Hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations, for you wordsmiths out there. Auditory, visual, sensory, or tactile hallucinations that occur at the beginning or end of a sleep cycle. Very common in narcolepsy.”
“So I’m thinking, Okay. No big deal. I just have to prove the attic is empty so Joy can go back to bed. So I get my flashlight. Go upstairs. Pull down the ceiling ladder. And then I hear it too. I don’t know how to describe it. Like a—like a man army-crawling across the floor.”
“With an axe,” Joy adds cheerfully. “So Benny’s halfway up the ladder, and he’s like…” Joy starts cracking up. “He’s like, ‘Listen, it’s late. How about we do this in the morning?’”
“You mock, but I seem to remember you frantically banging down my door five minutes earlier.”
“Touché.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird that neither of us suggested calling the cops?”
“Because I had you,” Joy says.
“But if you didn’t have me?”
“But I did.”
“Great. Glad we worked this out on the air. Long story short, I poke my head up there, real quick.”
“So brave.”
“And what do I find?”
“Not an axe!”
“Not an axe. Just two creepy-as-fuck glowing eyeballs.”
“Listeners, the way he shrieked!”
We had to cut the next minute for the published version because Joy couldn’t stop laughing. A full-fledged giggle attack. I remember how pleased I was to see it, how long it had been since I’d seen her so unguardedly happy.
When she returns to the mic, Joy’s voice is still full of laughter. “In case you need further explanation, there was a raccoon in my attic.”
I pause again and lean back in my chair.
Is this really what Joy wants me to do? I feel like I’m missing something.
A part of me wants to ask Mallory what she thinks, but Joy didn’t share this folder with her, or Luna, or Xander, or any of our outside team members.
Just me. And I can’t bear the thought of opening this up to others and having them tell me I’m wrong.
I need there to be a clue here. I need there to be something to hope for.
Starving, I take a break and order delivery from Beto’s Tacos down the hill.
While I’m waiting, I filter through my messages again.
People are coming out of the woodwork from all over.
Every contact we’ve met through the podcast, old friends we haven’t seen in years.
There are two voicemails from our lawyers.
They want to discuss how to formally address the situation so as to not lose footing with the distribution deal.
There’s also an email from our editor at Macmillan: “Can’t believe it.
Sending all my good energy. Obviously don’t worry about deadlines. ”
I haven’t been worrying about deadlines.
But it’s true that one is looming. Joy and I have barely discussed the memoir beyond the pitch and sale.
The idea was to combine our “how we got here” stories into one “inspirational book”—our agent’s words, not ours—and I only went along with it because Xander was convinced it would galvanize our negotiations.
But then the book contract took months, and the ensuing announcement was drowned out by Ted’s viral video.
Since then, I’ve had a hell of a time convincing myself to compose a single chapter.
It occurs to me, however, that my schedule-following best friend has likely started writing hers. On her computer, I do a spotlight search for “TSMSYL book” and “memoir” and “Macmillan” and “nonfiction.”
I’m beginning to wonder if the password-protected PDF is the file I’m looking for when I find a Word document titled “I Can Sleep Anywhere.” I open it.
And there it is.
Three chapters. Not as much as I’d hoped, but still. Twenty-six pages of Joy.
IT’S LIKE REVERSING time, meeting Joy at the Echo, singing along to the cover of “Lovesong.” I knew from that moment she would be an important part of my life.
Walking her home, I kept thinking, Don’t fuck this up.
Don’t fuck this up. Because I was a fuckup.
After my mom died, I’d practically made it my motto, and when I found Joy at the Echo I was still climbing out of my pit.
I didn’t want to drag her down with me. I wanted to meet her at the top.
And so I treaded lightly. Told her I wasn’t in a good place.
That we should just be friends. I did what I thought was best.
I overcorrected.
When my dad died, I realized what I’d done.
For weeks, I mulled over the fiction of fairness as my sister and I boxed up photo albums in the attic and found new homes for Dad’s taxidermied busts.
Some nights I came upon Sarah cross-legged in the bedroom closet crying into our parents’ clothes.
Other nights she found me weeping on the hood of Dad’s old beat-up pickup truck.
Both of our parents died in cars. Both of our parents were dead.
When my parole ended, I realized I was out of excuses. Life was nothing if not uncertain. If not short. I was done treading lightly. I was going to tell Joy I wanted more. None of this “best friend” business. I wanted all of her. But the conversation had to be in person.
Seeing her face was like opening a window in a stuffy room. After months of feeling fractured, I was whole again. We ate pizza, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
I had to squeeze my legs to stop my hands from shaking. “I kinda have something to tell you too.”
“Okay, but me first,” she said. And that was when I learned about Xander.
I was too humiliated to explain why I was upset.
How could I have gotten it so wrong? How could I have let myself believe I deserved a happy ending?
I stewed about it for days, and only upon meeting Xander was I able to relax.
I liked him—I could begrudgingly admit it—but he wasn’t her type. It wouldn’t last. I was certain of it.
I was wrong.
The chapters end when Joy moves in with Xander. I wish there was more. I wish there were answers here. But there aren’t. I close Joy’s laptop and rest my head on my arm, and the next thing I know the doorbell is ringing.
Tacos. I wipe the drool from my face and shake off my limbs. Walking to the door, I tell myself it’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. But when I answer, it’s not dinner. It’s Keller and Price.
And I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be okay.