A Heart of Gold

It’s just another ordinary day in Payton Joyce’s life. He gets up at eight a.m., takes a shower and tries to clean up the mess his aunt and her boyfriend left behind after visiting him, because apparently they ‘haven’t seen each other for such a long time’. It seems like coming over two days earlier doesn’t count. Ever.

After those futile attempts of even slightly making his apartment seem like a bomb hadn’t gone off in it, Payton grabs something quick to eat on the way to work while cursing the crazy couple. This time they had gone a bit too far with their antics. Seriously, who decides to visit their nephew and take along the fucking entire clientele of their own gay bar and start a party?! And on a weekday! Apparently his aunt is one of the few.

You see, Payton’s aunt isn’t a woman, physically at least; she’s a male to female man, and she owns a local gay bar called Estelle’s with her boyfriend, Dan. Her birth name is Sean, but she calls herself Shawna, and everybody knows her as that. Shawna is in her late thirty’s but looks younger and is actually rather feminine, so people often mistake her as Payton’s older sister or something of the sort. And that’s saying something when the age difference between them is almost twenty years. She likes it though, for obvious reasons.

Then there’s Dan, an almost 30-year-old Scotsman, and an inseparable part of Shawna. He moved to US in his senior year of high school and shortly after met Shawna on an entrepreneur course. Dan fell head over heels for her, and after mustering his courage, he had asked her out. Naturally he had been a bit shocked when he had heard the truth about Shawna, but in the end he didn’t really care. And Dan hadn’t even felt that awkward around Payton, even though Shawna was his guardian.

Payton has never really known his real parents because they died in a plane crash when he was only five years old. He has only faint glimpses of gentle voices and loving faces, but that’s it. Shawna took him in and raised him like her own child, first on her own and then with Dan. So Payton thinks of them as his parents and loves them dearly. It’s just that sometimes they can get on his nerves with their extravagant behavior, like for example throwing a party in his apartment! Payton doesn’t usually mind having Shawna and Dan over, but this time they really exceeded themselves.

When Payton sees his little store, he calms down a bit and smiles. Seeing it makes him feel better every time, especially because under the store’s name, Antiquarius, on small print is his name. He walks to the front door and unlocks it, stepping inside, turning the ‘closed’ sign to ‘open’. The smell of old and newish items fills his nostrils; he just loves that smell, it always makes him feel kind of giddy inside. Owning an antiquarian bookshop has always been his dream, so this is a dream come true. Payton picks up the mail from the floor and walks to the backroom while eyeing through it. There are only few bills, nothing interesting. After he gets to his small office he opens up the laptop on his desk and checks his email. There isn’t anything interesting either, except for a notification about an auction that is held the following weekend. Payton decides to send Becca there; she is the best of them in bidding excellent things for the store to sell.

Payton only has two other employees besides Becca, and they work part-time so basically it’s just him and Becca who take care of acquiring new articles. Becca is actually Payton’s friend from high school, and when he told her he had bought a small shop to start business and wanted her to come work there, she had been overjoyed about the opportunity. It took some time for the store to get on its feet, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Payton’s aunt’s help, and he really is grateful for it. Nowadays the store is managing pretty well, so Payton has been able to employ more people, if only part-time.

Payton walks back to the store and sits behind the counter, waiting for customers to come inside. Today is a Tuesday so there won’t be that much people coming in in the morning, they usually come around noon when they have lunch break or in the evening after work. Saturday is the busiest day of the week, and then all the four of them are working.

Payton decides to clean up and arrange a bit around the store, because it starts to get boring when you don’t have any customers coming in and needing your help. He puts some music on from the speakers and starts his project. He is interrupted though when the phone on the counter rings. Payton walks to it and answers, “Antiquarius, the antiquarian bookshop of your dreams, Payton Joyce on the phone.”

“Oh, hi Payton!” A stuffy female voice says on the other end. “Becca! What are you doing calling the shop?” Payton asks surprised. She has his private phone number so she shouldn’t have any reason not to use it instead that of the shop’s.

“I couldn’t reach you over your own phone; you must have it on silent or something. But anyways, I’m calling to tell you I can’t make it to work today, ‘cause I’m sick if you haven’t already noticed, I don’t know, maybe from my beautiful voice that could make mountains cry,” Becca says jokingly and coughs a little at the end. Payton chuckles and tells her to get better and come to work when she is fully healthy, because she has s bad habit of coming to work only partially recovered. And he doesn’t want her to do so.

After Payton bids goodbye to Becca, he returns to cleaning up the shop. Looks like it’ll be only him in the shop today.



As evening falls, it’s time for Payton to close down the shop. He goes to the back of the shop and shuts down his laptop and the lights, grabbing his jacket and bag with him. He steps out of the front door and locks it tightly, with two padlocks. You never know who might try to get in when they’re not invited.

Payton starts walking towards his apartment, but decides to take a little detour, since it’s a warm summer evening and all. The sun makes his back feel comfortably warm as he heads towards the part of the city where all the night clubs and bars are located. Payton could use a drink after a long day at work, and besides he needs to talk about last night with Aunt Shawna and Dan. Not like it would make any difference; they most likely will pull a stunt like that sometime later. But it’s worth a try, right?

Payton arrives at the front doors of Estelle’s around eight thirty p.m. The bar has just opened but there isn’t much of a line, because it’s so early. Couple hours later, the situation will be a lot different though. There will be close to hundred of gay, bisexual and transgender people waiting to get in, while other hundred will be already in drinking themselves to oblivion or dancing on the dance floor in a huge mass of limbs and sweaty bodies. Shawna and Dan had hit a gold mine when starting this bar, indeed.

Payton himself comes here only once in a while; usually he just gets a massive headache from the flashing lights and overly loud music. And when he comes, it’s like now, when the place isn’t crowded; it’s quite peaceful around the first hours, so he can drink his beer in peace and talk to Dan or Shawna because they’re not so busy preparing drinks or, in Dan’s case, watching that anything out of line doesn’t happen.

Payton walks up to the bouncer at the doors, this time Taylor seems to be on duty, and shows his I.D. The bulky man lets him in while giving him a faint smile of acknowledgement and a booming greeting. Payton smiles back and says hello too before stepping inside the bar. Every worker in the bar knows Payton; he is the owners’ beloved nephew, after all. And that’s a straight quote from Dan.

Inside the club, there are only few people sitting around the tables on the sides of the room, so it’s just perfect for Payton. He walks to the bar and takes a seat in the corner of it. There can be heard faint singing coming from the huge speakers, but it’s a bit distorted. Well, his aunt has a weird taste in music, although she likes to call it unique.

The bartender comes to Payton after taking care of another customer’s order. She smiles brightly and puts her elbows on top of the counter.

“Hello there, Payton. How have you been lately? It has been a while since you were here last time,” Jenny, the perky blonde says and ruffles her hair she has put on a ponytail. She is quite short, actually so that her chest is barely visible to the other side. “I’ve been fine, thanks. Busy with work, that’s all.”

“Oh that’s good I guess. So what would you like?”

“The normal beer, please, and my aunt. I need to speak with her,” Payton answers and looks around but doesn’t see Shawna anywhere. Jenny starts pouring the beer to a glass while commenting, “About last night’s party?” The gossip seems to spread fast around here, for Jenny wasn’t working last night. Payton nods.

“Well, I saw her going to the office a while back, so she should be back soo-. “ Jenny is interrupted by a loud bang coming from the direction of the door which leads to the offices. The door hits the wall and who else but Shawna walks into the bar, in all her glory. She has curled her hair and is wearing a blouse and a pencil skirt. She spots Payton sitting on the chair in front of the bar and a huge smile appears on her face.

“Payton! How lovely to see you! It feels like an eternity since the last time we saw each other!” Her voice rings in the air. She practically runs to him and tackles him in a hug. Payton hugs her back awkwardly, because she nearly toppled him from the chair. “Oh come on, you saw me yesterday. And I came here to talk to you about that, especially about bringing a bunch of complete strangers with you and Dan,” Payton looks sharply at the woman, who has stopped to hug him to death and is ordering a drink while sitting next to him.

She just chuckles, “It wasn’t that bad, and you know I could’ve done worse. Besides, Dan is coming from over there so I’ll be too busy to talk to you.” Shawna waves to Dan and starts to talk to him once he reaches the corner where they are seated. Dan says hi to Payton and ruffles his hair, just like he has been doing for the past ten years. Payton rolls his eyes, but can’t help smiling fondly at the couple. He grabs his drink and takes sip of it.

They are his family, and that is all that matters.