Joy Moore Twenty Months Ago
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
Twenty Months Ago
Our feet-wetting shows were small on a relative scale but huge for us novices.
A few hundred people on weekdays at local comedy clubs.
If you were among those in attendance for that first show, you know how nervous I was.
The moment Benny and I stepped through the curtain, I started giggling like a fool because who did we think we were?
How was this our life? When we took our onstage seats, I thought I might be able to play it cool, but unfortunately I’d opted to lead.
Turns out, when you’re holding two pages of research in one hand and a microphone in the other, it’s impossible to disguise the quakes.
Lord help me, I was an amateur. My mouth was dry. My lips stuck to my teeth. Bizarre sounds escaped my mouth, and the more it happened the more nervous I got.
“Someone bring Joy a cocktail,” Benny shouted, interrupting me.
I giggled—more giggling—and fanned myself with my printouts. “I might be better off with a diaper.”
“That I cannot help you with.” Benny tossed me an encouraging wink, and I allowed myself a moment to look deep into his eyes. There, I found it: my footing.
“That reminds me of the time I peed in a diaper when I was fourteen.”
Benny didn’t miss a beat. “I have so many questions.”
“I was at my friend’s house, and her older sister was hogging the only bathroom. And we’d just downed, like, an entire liter of Pepsi.”
“I’m here for this.”
“You know that science experiment where you drop Mentos into soda? Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Where it makes a geyser?”
“Exactly.”
“Are you the geyser in this scenario?”
“Exactly.”
Benny laughed. “Okay, walk us through this. You grabbed a diaper and then what?”
“Well. This is where the story gets complicated.”
Put in a nutshell, friends, don’t relieve your bladder in baby diapers when you’re past the age of two.
Potty humor. Never gets old. And in this case, it saved me from certain failure.
After we wrapped the show, I was buzzing. “I am never going to be able to fall asleep.”
Benny grinned. “Better than drugs.”
“But seriously, I don’t think I’m going to be able to fall asleep.”
First lesson learned: don’t book the shows too late at night. Narcolepsy be damned, it took hours to come down from that high.
The next lesson was even trickier: how to travel cross-country with your best friend and your husband and have no one threaten homicide.
PODCAST TOURS ARE interesting beasts. Someday, Benny and I will devote an entire episode to the myriad stories resulting from our grand nineteen-city tour.
Like when Xander went ahead to make sure our Portland venue was ready, and Benny and I took a detour to Voodoo Doughnut and ended up getting so lost we arrived fifteen minutes after curtain call.
Or the night all three of us got food poisoning from our room service fried chicken in Charleston.
Or the time I fell asleep on the subway between our Park Slope Airbnb and our SoHo venue, and they had to carry me off the train.
To ensure I was able to remain on schedule in light of possible extenuating circumstances (jet lag, flight delays, food poisoning), we padded extra days onto each city.
Still, this wasn’t “safe” enough for Xander.
He wanted every second accounted for. Every tourist stop, every dinner reservation, naps, bathroom breaks, you get the picture.
It was Very Responsible, and it got old. Fast.
By the time we landed in our twelfth city, Savannah, the mood had grown tense.
We were in desperate need of a team-building exercise, and I decided a ghost tour was just the ticket.
Specifically one that included booze. Out of an abundance of caution, I hadn’t indulged in a single sip since we left Los Angeles, and I was due for a beer.
We all were. I booked us without asking and announced it over lunch.
“Get your money back,” Xander said. “We have a sound check.”
Benny raised an eyebrow. “You mean, like, testing one two three?” We didn’t do sound checks. And this supposed sound check was more than twenty-four hours in advance.
“They said it was necessary,” Xander said.
“Can’t we reschedule?” I asked.
“It’s too late. I said we would be there.”
I tried not to make a face, but I made a face. Xander was being ridiculous, and I wanted Benny to be happy. Needed him to be happy. Also, I love ghost stories. “Do we all have to go?”
“Meaning?” Xander crossed his arms. He knew what I meant.
“It’d be good fodder for our show if Benny and I did this.”
We didn’t need permission. There was no point in all of us showing up to tap a mic. But it wasn’t about reason at this point. We waited for his answer like two children begging their parents for ice cream money.
“Go, then,” Xander said, surprising us all.
So we did. We rode bikes in the rain, pausing between tales of hangings and yellow fever to drink beers in cursed taverns and haunted pubs.
It was the most fun we’d had together in ages.
We were in beautiful Savannah. Life was good.
Superb. We were the luckiest people alive.
By the time we returned to the hotel, soaked and happy and a tiny bit drunk, I was ready to show Xander how grateful I was for making all of this possible.
But he wasn’t in our room. Nor was he in the bar downstairs or the business lounge or the rooftop pool. He also wasn’t picking up his phone.
I knocked on Benny’s door and he answered in his towel. “Oh. I thought you were room service.”
“This is how you answer the door for room service?”
“This isn’t how you answer the door for room service?”
I looked him up and down. “Have you lost weight?”
“Since you last saw me ten minutes ago?”
“You know what I mean.” He usually wore baggy T-shirts, which was probably why I hadn’t noticed, but he was definitely leaner than usual.
He shrugged. “Food poisoning.”
“I had food poisoning too.” I gave one of my love handles a dramatic squeeze. “Touring is supposed to make you fat.”
“Sorry, I didn’t get the memo. Maybe you can ask Xander to resend it.”
“Speaking of. Have you seen him? He’s not in our room.”
Benny shrugged. “Nope.”
The elevator dinged and a man came out pushing a silver cart. He stopped at Benny’s door. “Room service?”
I followed the attendant inside and watched him set up the plate on Benny’s table. Salad, cheeseburger, french fries. It smelled good.
A signature. A tip. The cart rolled out, and Benny slipped into the bathroom with a pair of shorts. “You’re eating my fries, aren’t you?” he called over the whirring fan.
“No,” I said through a full mouth.
He was still shirtless when he joined me at the table. I smiled as he cut the cheeseburger and handed me half.
“I love you, Benny,” I said around my first bite.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You know I love you too.”
We finished the food, and I shuffled happily across the room to turn on a home makeover show.
“When’s Luna joining us?” I lay stomach down on his bed, facing the TV. “I thought you said she’d visit when we hit the East Coast.”
“I said that, yeah.” He set the tray outside the door and joined me on the bed.
“And?” We were both propped on our elbows. I bumped my shoulder against his and he bumped back.
“And I don’t think she’s gonna make it.”
The way he said it made my eyebrow shoot up. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it work? She can’t get away?”
“That’s part of it.” Again, that tone.
“Did you have a fight or something?”
His head bobbled ambiguously. Yes. No. Maybe.
I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her.
She came to our LA shows, but it had been a while since we’d hung out socially, all the way back to when Xander first brought up the tour, after which there’d been months of scheduling and hyping and planning and selling of tickets, and then more planning.
Benny had mentioned she was busy a few times.
Lots of new clients, lots of messy divorces.
“Dude.” I wasn’t going to let up until he gave me more.
He consulted the bedspread. “I guess the time away has gotten her thinking, and she wants to use these last few weeks to reevaluate.”
“Reevaluate what?”
“You know.” He averted his eyes. “Marriage.”
“The institution?”
“Specifically ours, but yes.”
I was floored. How had I not seen this coming? How had I not noticed something was off? Had he said anything I’d misinterpreted? Anything I’d ignored? I racked my brain but found myself at a loss. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really, no.”
“That wasn’t supposed to be a question. What I meant to say was, talk about it.”
He looked at me then like I was a kitten who’d scratched up his favorite chair. Cute, but annoying as hell. I was fine with that. “Tell me everything,” I said, “or I’ll keep nagging.”
It took him a second, but he gave in. “We’ve been disagreeing about a lot of things, that’s all. Work. Life. Babies. All the usual stuff.”
One of these words was not like the others. “Babies?” I said quietly.
Maybe he saw my face. Maybe he never intended to talk about it. Either way, he waved it off. “Among other things.”
“But you want babies and she doesn’t?”
“It’s not just that. It’s about whether or not we’re … you know. Meant for each other.”
“Oh.”
“She seems to think we’re not.”
“Oh. Oh, man. I’m sorry, Benny. Are you freaking out?”
He nodded. “A little bit.”
“You guys will come around,” I said, perhaps more confidently than deserved.
“I’ll bet this happens to all divorce lawyers.
Imagine how many people go into her office complaining about the way their husbands, say, clip their toenails.
And then she goes home and you’re clipping your toenails, and it’s like… ” I paused. “PTSD.”
“PTSD.”
“Post-toenail stress disorder.”
This got the desired laugh.
“She’s married to the best human on the planet.” I bumped his shoulder again. “She probably just needs some time to remember what true love looks like.”
“I think that’s what she’s trying to figure out, yeah.”
We were quiet for a moment.
“Would you mind not telling Xander? I don’t want to talk to him about this.”
I understood. “Can I ask one more question?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope.”
“Go on.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He flattened himself, cheek on the white down comforter, facing me. “I don’t know.”
I mirrored him. His eyes searched my face before his gaze fixed on my nose.
I swiped at my nostrils. “Do I have a booger?”
“I was thinking about the night we met.”
“Did I have a booger then?”
He smiled and shook his head, infinitesimal movements rustling the fabric.
I waited. When he didn’t continue, I said, “What about it?”
“You were so you.”
I scrunched my boogerless nose. “I hope this ends in a compliment.”
“That is the compliment,” he said quietly. “There is no bigger compliment.”
My heart fluttered. “Weird. That’s basically what I thought of you.”
We stared at each other for so long my eyes grew heavy.
The next thing I remember is the snare drum.
It became the backbeat of my dream, a sharp staccato tap tap tap as Benny and I danced to rock songs at the Echo.
Someone nudged my shoulder, and I told them to go away, and then the shouting began.
It took a second to understand I was no longer dreaming.
When the voices finally registered with the waking part of my brain, Xander and Benny were at each other’s throats.
“She was looking for you.”
“On your bed?”
“You’re kidding, right? She has narcolepsy. She fell asleep. Would you rather she sleep on the floor?”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“Then don’t come in here making stupid accusations. Maybe Joy wants a minute without you. So what?”
I was too disoriented to step in. Was that my Benny with the balled fists and beet-red face?
I almost laughed because no, it couldn’t be, my best friend didn’t lose his cool.
When Xander led me from the room a few minutes later, I tried catching Benny’s eye.
I wanted to wink at him, or exchange some other meaningful glance to show him I was on his side, but he was already facing the window, staring out at the moonless night.
“I couldn’t find you,” Xander said when we were alone in the hallway. His tone was quieter now, more guarded. “I was worried.”
Still coming out of my fugue, I said, “I ate half a cheeseburger.”
Our room was four doors down. He swiped us in with the hotel card, shut himself in the bathroom, and didn’t come out for an hour.
I thought often about that night over the next few weeks.
I wanted to follow up with Benny, ask if there were any developments between him and Luna, but I found it difficult to secure any time alone with him.
We were busy, yes, but my husband was always, always around and I wanted to honor Benny’s request to not discuss the problem in front of him.
The more time passed, the more obvious it was: he wasn’t happy.
He managed to go onstage and be funny, but I could see the heartache brewing beneath the surface.
I confronted him about it before our last show during a rare ten minutes alone.
Ten minutes that turned my world upside down.