Joy Moore Excerpt from Untitled Joint Memoir
Joy Moore
EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT
Two Months Ago
Thankfully, the photo of the hug didn’t gain traction.
A few people liked it but none reposted it, and as quickly as it wreaked its havoc, it was buried in the graveyard of social media nonstarters.
It was not, however, forgotten in my home.
“It’s not what you think,” I told Xander over and over.
“Please believe me.” But his anger was a burning ember.
He drove around for hours in his MG to “cool off,” only to return home just as hot.
I hated being around him, but I also felt guilty for making him that way, even though I knew I’d done nothing wrong.
It’s odd how all these conflicting emotions can share the same space in your brain.
Throughout all of this, we maintained our recording schedule. Negotiations were finally beginning to wrap up, and heaven forbid Apex Plus believe something was wrong.
“I know who it is,” Benny said, charging downstairs two weeks after our hug.
“What are you talking about?” I asked irritably. Benny was twenty minutes late, and I was tired from fighting with Xander. I doubted I would last through the whole recording.
“Your stalker. I think I know who it is.”
For the first time since the photo posted, Xander looked him in the eye. “What do you mean?”
“I just talked to my neighbor—the squirrel guy? Ted? He’s a paparazzo. All this time I’ve been living next door to a fucking paparazzo and I had no idea. He’s the only person who could’ve gotten a shot of my backyard. It has to be him.”
“Oh my god.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “Did he admit it?”
“He tried to claim he’s never heard of our podcast, but like I’m gonna fucking believe that.”
This broke my brain. How did Ted know where I was at all hours? Did he have tracers? Hidden cameras? These were questions we’d asked before, but now I was picturing a sixty-year-old man with a squirrel on his shoulder, and it didn’t add up.
Xander, however, was all in. “We’ll sue him.
We’ll sue him for every penny he’s got.” He looked alternately relieved and infuriated—the same expressions that were cycling across Benny’s face.
For a moment, as they stood there staring at each other, grappling with this turn of events, I thought they might actually make up.
“I’ll call our lawyers right now,” Xander said, and left the room.
This was the last day of July.
ON THE FIRST of August we learned we had other problems.
“A recall?” I asked Xander, stepping out of the shower.
I tightened my towel but remained on the pale green bath mat, hair dripping onto my shoulders.
I’d had several gnarly sleep hallucinations the night before and woken in a funk, and the hot water did nothing to clear my head. “The energy shakes?”
“It’s bad.” His cheeks were mottled, gelled hair standing on end.
The protein powder found in Shake Awake’s all-day-energy products had been linked to severe illness in hundreds of consumers.
People were landing in the ER with extreme dehydration following weeklong bouts of nausea and vomiting.
Half a dozen consumers had already needed their gallbladders removed.
A handful had even gone into liver failure.
“It’s a disaster. We’ll have to issue a statement. There was no way we could’ve known.”
I remembered then, face tingling from the sudden loss of blood: the email. My eyes darted around the bathroom before landing on my stricken reflection. I wasn’t going to be able to hide this.
“Joy.”
I didn’t respond.
“Tell me you didn’t know.”
“Not exactly…” I crossed my arms tightly and tried to explain that the email came through anonymously, without any supporting evidence. “We googled it, I swear, but nothing came up.”
“We?”
“Me and Benny.”
His jaw tensed. “When was this?”
“A few weeks ago.”
“And in all that time it never once occurred to you to mention it?”
“I forgot. You weren’t there, and then—” I cringed as the order of events came back to me in full color. That was the day of the hug.
Xander must have done the math. My equilibrium shifted and I pressed my back to the shower glass.
“It’s like you’re trying to sabotage our negotiations.”
Pulse racing, I shook my head, sending rivulets of water down my chest and back. “I would never.”
“Do you know how stupid I felt when our lawyers called me just now? And you’ve been sitting on this information for weeks?”
“It’s not my fault,” I said. Although it was beginning to feel like it was.
He let out an unnerving laugh. “It’s never your fault.”
WE ISSUED A statement, a carefully worded apology, saying we were devastated that our partnership with Shake Awake might have put anyone in danger.
The energy products contained ingredients that were “generally recognized as safe” by the FDA, but their protein powder was being used in a different capacity than originally intended.
More than one person threatened to sue us and everyone else associated with the Shake Awake brand.
“But we read the ads for free. They can’t sue us for reading a free ad,” Benny said.
Per our lawyers, they could. Whether or not it would hold up in court was another matter, but these people had every right to be angry.
We’d given an unsafe product a very big platform; it was entirely possible the men and women suffering from toxin poisoning wouldn’t have heard about Shake Awake if it weren’t for our podcast. The fact that we were unaware the product was harmful was a nonstarter.
Listeners trusted us. Our brand was survival, for crying out loud.
Benny and Xander fought every time the topic came up. Benny blamed Xander for putting us in this position—Xander was the one who did the research, the one who vouched for Shake Awake. “We trusted you,” Benny kept saying. “You told us to trust you.”
Xander wouldn’t stand down. Benny had been there with me when the anonymous email came in. Like me, he had assumed it was a scam and let it slide.
There were no winners here, only losers. And if anyone hit us with a lawsuit, it would delay negotiations even further. The longer the whole debacle dragged on, the more furious Xander became.
Benny eyed me curiously as all of us tiptoed around one another one afternoon. “Bad period?”
It was scorching outside, and yet I’d put on a sweatshirt. “Yep.” I said it too quietly, so I nodded for emphasis.
BY MID-AUGUST, I’D finally hit my limit.
“What are you reading?” Mallory said when she arrived early to record one morning.
“Oh.” I stopped short as I came out of my bedroom.
Xander had a meeting; I’d thought I’d had the house to myself.
My heart thudded irrhythmically as I returned to my laptop, where an article titled “Starting the Divorce Process” was up on my screen.
“I read once that divorced people are more likely to die from preventable accidents than married people, so I just thought … it might be an interesting topic. For an episode.”
“Huh.” She tilted her head but said no more.
After that, I researched only in incognito mode when I was certain I was alone.
I said nothing to Benny because I needed our recording days to go smoothly.
Or as smoothly as possible in what had become an incredibly tense environment.
No matter what I did, it was going to be messy, and that alone was enough to give me pause, even on the worst days.
The tricky part was the impending contract.
It promised life-changing money. Money I would need to start over.
And while I would’ve rather left Xander immediately, it didn’t seem wise to do so before the deal went through.
Our negotiations were too fragile. Xander was too intertwined.
I had to tread carefully. Wait until the deal was inked. And then serve him with papers.
It was an exhausting time, all of the acting I had to do. I required a lot of naps.
One late afternoon, waking up, I smelled something delicious wafting down from the kitchen. It had been ages since Xander had cooked one of his special meals. Ages since we’d shared a table. I treaded warily upstairs, unsure what to expect, and found him in an apron at the stove.
“Scallops and delicata squash,” he said with a timid smile.
I stared at him.
“I know what you’re thinking. I know things have been bad.” He averted his eyes. “And I know I’ve been…” Running a hand down his mouth, his gaze shifted back toward me. “Are you hungry? Dinner’s about ready.”
I was not. I nodded anyway and took a seat at the table.
I watched Xander finish cooking. Watched him plate our dishes. Light candles. Pour wine. I watched with the guardedness of someone who’s upwind from a wild animal.
To my surprise, I came to only one conclusion: he seemed different. I couldn’t pin it down, but it was as though he’d peeled off an ugly mask. He seemed like—I was almost afraid to hope—his old self.
“Did something happen?” I asked, forking a sliver of silky scallop.
“In a manner of speaking,” he said slowly.
I waited.
“I’ve been”—he cleared his throat—“I’ve been seeing someone.”
My fork clattered to the plate.
“No no no, not like that.” He waved a hand and let out an uneasy laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I mean a therapist. I’ve been seeing a therapist.”
My heart pounded. I took a second to let his words in. “A therapist?”
“It’s still early days, obviously, but …
I want to be better for you. I’ve been difficult to live with, I know, and I don’t want to be that person anymore.
” He pushed his seat back and knelt at my feet, gently cupping my knees.
“I will do everything I can to make it up to you. I don’t know if you have it in your heart to forgive me, but if you do…
” He lowered his head. “I’m so sorry, Joy. I’m so, so sorry.”