Joy
one
It was going to be another dreary day, Joy could tell. The sun was just barely shining through the blinds of her window, giving everything in her bedroom a cool blue tint. Joy nestled into her pillow and gazed up at the ceiling. She tried to look past the paint and plaster, up through the three floors of her apartment building and past the old roof. Her mind wandered up through the gray skies where a flock of black birds flew by and called out mockingly to her; miles and miles past the menacing gray clouds and soared up into the stratosphere. Joy’s black-brown irises grew and shrank as her pupils dilated and contracted in their search for the mesosphere and then the exosphere. Even further still, she sought out the seventh level of Heaven, past the angels, the Garden of Eden, the archangels, and through the glorious pearly white gates where Peter stood watch. Joy could finally see it: the throne of Heaven. It was splendid to behold but there was something wrong, something was off. All around was gilded gold and wonderful white clouds, sunlight, and splendor but as magnificent as this throne room was, God was not there.
In a blink of an eye, Joy was back in her room and, somehow, the furniture and walls seemed even bluer than before. With a sigh, Joy grabbed her phone from the nightstand beside her bed to check the time. It was hardly after eight in the morning but if she didn’t get moving, the day would pass her by. Joy pushed aside the covers and sat up tentatively, being sure not to upset the pinching she’d felt below her navel since last night. She would feel this pinching feeling during sex at certain angles. It was a small leap to connect it to the abnormal pap smear she’d taken a few months ago that resulted in her diagnosis of HPV. In fact, her follow up appointment was in two weeks and a small gray cloud of doom had been following her around as the date drew nearer. It wasn’t the examination itself that had Joy on edge; it was the bill that would follow. This year marked her twenty-sixth birthday and, as such, she had been booted off her parents’ health insurance. Her last doctor’s visit had cost a few hundred dollars with the insurance and it made her nauseated to think how much it would cost without it. Unfortunately, there was no way this course of logic would diminish her libido, much less that of Joy’s boyfriend’s since she hadn’t shared her financial woes with him. As a result, Joy had had to stop several times during last night’s copulation to find pleasurable positions for them both.
The cold from the tile of the master bathroom seeped through Joy’s cashmere socks but she ignored the chill as she brushed her teeth. The mirror didn’t reflect the exhaustion that she felt and that could be considered a small win. Joy left the bathroom feeling more human with a clean face and mouth and ventured down the hall to the kitchen to find another small win: Loyal had left her some coffee in the pot and a bowl of already-cut fruit on the counter. Joy made a mental note to send him a text with a kissy face emoji.
Steam from the mug of hot coffee trailed through the air as Joy padded softly over to the seat in the nook behind the couch in the living room. The space was just big enough to fit her body, two pillows, and her laptop. Last year, Loyal installed a shelf along the three walls and she’d since stored a plethora of books on top, with a small gap to fit her coffee mug. She set her mug in its place and started up her laptop. The goal for the day, as unrealistic as it was, was one hundred pages. Her editor needed two hundred pages since yesterday but Joy’s creativity had been stifled by the winter storm that raged through town last week. It was still cold and gloomy outside, as if nature didn’t want to heal itself in case the storm decided to come back. Joy wrote her best material on one of two occasions- bright sunny days or when she was drunk.
After staring at her incomplete novel for another ten minutes, Joy’s coffee got cold and her right foot began to fall asleep. She stood and brought the mug with her back into the kitchen. Her cellphone was on the counter and she unlocked it. She sent Loyal that kissy face emoji and then brought up her call history to dial her editor’s number.
“You got my pages?” Darius barked, foregoing any pleasantries.
Joy smiled through his impoliteness because her editor also happened to be her best friend of fifteen years. “I’m working on it but I need something from you.” She paused to let him sigh heavily. “I promised Loyal I wouldn’t drink by myself any more but if you want these pages, I would suggest you come on over here and grab a bottle of champagne on the way.”
“You want me to drink with you at nine o’ clock in the morning?” he asked. Joy chuckled. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
Joy ended the call with quick thanks. While she waited for Darius to arrive, she nuked her coffee and drank it while assembling a playlist on her laptop that would get her further inspired to continue her sci-fi romance story. By the time Darius was buzzing to be let in, the playlist was sixty songs long. Darius waltzed into the small apartment in a gray sweat suit with a black plastic in one hand and his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. He dropped his messenger bag on the couch and set his bottle of champagne on the counter in the kitchen.
Joy smiled as he kissed her cheek. “You didn’t need a coat on out there?”
“It looks worse than it is.” Darius looked worriedly at the lonely bottle of bubbly. “Maybe I should’ve gotten two.”
“Oh, no, honey. That’s for you,” Joy said as she produced a similar bottle from inside the fridge. “This one is for me.”
Darius laughed. “Smart girl.”
The corks popped. At first, like the champagne, their conversation was light and bubbly and Joy was gathering ideas to advance her book’s plot. Darius turned to his friend and business partner in the middle of a Rihanna song.
“Why aren’t more things in life free?”
Joy pulled her attention from her laptop. “Because as people grow, the good in them gives way to greed. Like, why would someone give a complete stranger an ear of corn they toiled and slaved over for free? To feel the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes along with philanthropy? Nah, friend, you’ll come off that dime please and thank you.”
Darius sighed. “Just thinking about my monthly grocery bill… It’s crazy.”
“Food, education, housing, healthcare… It’s enough to make you want to stop living just to be free of the damn bills.”
“You remember last month when I was changing banks?” Darius asked as he refilled his glass. “Well, I’d forgotten to change the account numbers on one of my bills that I had set up for auto-pay. Obviously, I had cleared the account out so I got an email about it being overdrawn and guess what?”
“What?”
“Those bastards charged me a thirty-five dollar overdraft fee!”
Joy rolled her eyes and snorted derisively. “Typical.” She put her hand up to her ear like a phone and put on a British accent. “’Ello, Darius this is Judy from the bank. I was just calling because we noticed you didn’t have enough money to pay for this bill and, well, we think it’s only fair to charge you more money for not having enough money in the first place. So instead of being just ten dollars in the red, you’ll be fifty dollars in the red.”
Champagne threatened to slosh out of Darius’ glass as he laughed. He held up his hand and put on a British accent too. “Please be advised that if you can’t deposit some money into your account within twenty-four hours, we’ll have to double the fine.”
“And we’ll keep fining you until you pay up. Thank you so much for your business.” Joy’s eyes were wet from a combination of laughter and the prickling feeling of reality come to haunt her. She spoke in her normal voice again, “What a fucked up system.”
“And then they had the nerve to email me a customer service satisfaction survey ten minutes later! I’m so glad I closed my accounts with them.”
“I think I’m going to stop using banks altogether. I’ll cash my checks and shove it all under my mattress. It would never charge me no overdraft fee.” Joy laughed at her own silliness but stopped abruptly because, to her slightly intoxicated brain, it was kind of a brilliant idea.
“I’ll clink to that, honey,” Darius said, raising his glass.
In a blink of an eye, Joy was back in her room and, somehow, the furniture and walls seemed even bluer than before. With a sigh, Joy grabbed her phone from the nightstand beside her bed to check the time. It was hardly after eight in the morning but if she didn’t get moving, the day would pass her by. Joy pushed aside the covers and sat up tentatively, being sure not to upset the pinching she’d felt below her navel since last night. She would feel this pinching feeling during sex at certain angles. It was a small leap to connect it to the abnormal pap smear she’d taken a few months ago that resulted in her diagnosis of HPV. In fact, her follow up appointment was in two weeks and a small gray cloud of doom had been following her around as the date drew nearer. It wasn’t the examination itself that had Joy on edge; it was the bill that would follow. This year marked her twenty-sixth birthday and, as such, she had been booted off her parents’ health insurance. Her last doctor’s visit had cost a few hundred dollars with the insurance and it made her nauseated to think how much it would cost without it. Unfortunately, there was no way this course of logic would diminish her libido, much less that of Joy’s boyfriend’s since she hadn’t shared her financial woes with him. As a result, Joy had had to stop several times during last night’s copulation to find pleasurable positions for them both.
The cold from the tile of the master bathroom seeped through Joy’s cashmere socks but she ignored the chill as she brushed her teeth. The mirror didn’t reflect the exhaustion that she felt and that could be considered a small win. Joy left the bathroom feeling more human with a clean face and mouth and ventured down the hall to the kitchen to find another small win: Loyal had left her some coffee in the pot and a bowl of already-cut fruit on the counter. Joy made a mental note to send him a text with a kissy face emoji.
Steam from the mug of hot coffee trailed through the air as Joy padded softly over to the seat in the nook behind the couch in the living room. The space was just big enough to fit her body, two pillows, and her laptop. Last year, Loyal installed a shelf along the three walls and she’d since stored a plethora of books on top, with a small gap to fit her coffee mug. She set her mug in its place and started up her laptop. The goal for the day, as unrealistic as it was, was one hundred pages. Her editor needed two hundred pages since yesterday but Joy’s creativity had been stifled by the winter storm that raged through town last week. It was still cold and gloomy outside, as if nature didn’t want to heal itself in case the storm decided to come back. Joy wrote her best material on one of two occasions- bright sunny days or when she was drunk.
After staring at her incomplete novel for another ten minutes, Joy’s coffee got cold and her right foot began to fall asleep. She stood and brought the mug with her back into the kitchen. Her cellphone was on the counter and she unlocked it. She sent Loyal that kissy face emoji and then brought up her call history to dial her editor’s number.
“You got my pages?” Darius barked, foregoing any pleasantries.
Joy smiled through his impoliteness because her editor also happened to be her best friend of fifteen years. “I’m working on it but I need something from you.” She paused to let him sigh heavily. “I promised Loyal I wouldn’t drink by myself any more but if you want these pages, I would suggest you come on over here and grab a bottle of champagne on the way.”
“You want me to drink with you at nine o’ clock in the morning?” he asked. Joy chuckled. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
Joy ended the call with quick thanks. While she waited for Darius to arrive, she nuked her coffee and drank it while assembling a playlist on her laptop that would get her further inspired to continue her sci-fi romance story. By the time Darius was buzzing to be let in, the playlist was sixty songs long. Darius waltzed into the small apartment in a gray sweat suit with a black plastic in one hand and his laptop bag slung over his shoulder. He dropped his messenger bag on the couch and set his bottle of champagne on the counter in the kitchen.
Joy smiled as he kissed her cheek. “You didn’t need a coat on out there?”
“It looks worse than it is.” Darius looked worriedly at the lonely bottle of bubbly. “Maybe I should’ve gotten two.”
“Oh, no, honey. That’s for you,” Joy said as she produced a similar bottle from inside the fridge. “This one is for me.”
Darius laughed. “Smart girl.”
The corks popped. At first, like the champagne, their conversation was light and bubbly and Joy was gathering ideas to advance her book’s plot. Darius turned to his friend and business partner in the middle of a Rihanna song.
“Why aren’t more things in life free?”
Joy pulled her attention from her laptop. “Because as people grow, the good in them gives way to greed. Like, why would someone give a complete stranger an ear of corn they toiled and slaved over for free? To feel the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes along with philanthropy? Nah, friend, you’ll come off that dime please and thank you.”
Darius sighed. “Just thinking about my monthly grocery bill… It’s crazy.”
“Food, education, housing, healthcare… It’s enough to make you want to stop living just to be free of the damn bills.”
“You remember last month when I was changing banks?” Darius asked as he refilled his glass. “Well, I’d forgotten to change the account numbers on one of my bills that I had set up for auto-pay. Obviously, I had cleared the account out so I got an email about it being overdrawn and guess what?”
“What?”
“Those bastards charged me a thirty-five dollar overdraft fee!”
Joy rolled her eyes and snorted derisively. “Typical.” She put her hand up to her ear like a phone and put on a British accent. “’Ello, Darius this is Judy from the bank. I was just calling because we noticed you didn’t have enough money to pay for this bill and, well, we think it’s only fair to charge you more money for not having enough money in the first place. So instead of being just ten dollars in the red, you’ll be fifty dollars in the red.”
Champagne threatened to slosh out of Darius’ glass as he laughed. He held up his hand and put on a British accent too. “Please be advised that if you can’t deposit some money into your account within twenty-four hours, we’ll have to double the fine.”
“And we’ll keep fining you until you pay up. Thank you so much for your business.” Joy’s eyes were wet from a combination of laughter and the prickling feeling of reality come to haunt her. She spoke in her normal voice again, “What a fucked up system.”
“And then they had the nerve to email me a customer service satisfaction survey ten minutes later! I’m so glad I closed my accounts with them.”
“I think I’m going to stop using banks altogether. I’ll cash my checks and shove it all under my mattress. It would never charge me no overdraft fee.” Joy laughed at her own silliness but stopped abruptly because, to her slightly intoxicated brain, it was kind of a brilliant idea.
“I’ll clink to that, honey,” Darius said, raising his glass.