Joy

Joy tapped hers against his and took a gulp. She stared at her laptop again. The Word document was riddled with ideas, unfinished conversations between her characters, references, and theme reminders. She should consider herself lucky; at least she loved her work. It was just too bad she didn’t get paid according to her level of passion. Even worse off were people like Loyal who had corporate desk jobs; they were simply working to live and living just to work. Joy knew that was a large reason why Loyal was so supportive of her creativity and never pressured her to get a different, more lucrative, job.

“I love my boyfriend,” Joy said with a quiver in her voice. She sipped her champagne. “Like, so much…”

“He’s a good man,” Darius agreed. “It’s just a shame he hasn’t managed to introduce me to any gay guys from his office.”

Joy put her arm around his shoulders. “Don’t lose hope! Aren’t you on a couple of those dating apps?”

Darius groaned. “Trash! They’re all trash! Half of them only want to hook up. Some of them are still in the closet and the rest of them are just as dumb as a bag of potatoes.”

“I’m sorry, sugar plum…” Joy refilled her cup with the last of her champagne. “Maybe we should go out somewhere tonight and hunt for some hotties.”

“We can go out as soon as you’re done with my two hundred pages.”

Joy pouted. “Spoil sport.”

Darius motioned for her to get to work. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to see if there’s anything in your closet that’ll fit me.”

Joy rolled her eyes and settled her fingers onto her keyboard. There was a dull tingling sensation in her cheeks- the telltale sign of intoxication- and a small smile spread across her lips. She began to type to the rhythm of an old Elliott Yamin song and by the time Darius had come out of her room to model three different outfits, she had written at least twenty pages. She saved and emailed them as she went and Darius walked around the living room in a pair of black leggings and a crop top as he read what she was sending to his phone. It must’ve been exactly what he was looking for because he cheered her on and promised to get some more bubbly once she reached seventy-five pages.

Which she did about three hours later.

Joy set her laptop on the coffee table and nearly knocked it over as she stood to stretch her arms over her head. She bounced up and down on her toes and clapped her hands together. She wore the most content smile on her brown face and just knew that all the champagne had turned her cheeks red. “I feel great. Let’s break for lunch and get back to it.”

“Or,” Darius said, without taking his eyes off his phone, “We could bring your laptop with us and make it a working lunch. Yeah, that sounds better. We really don’t want you to lose your momentum.”

Joy grumbled but didn’t protest as she got herself ready to be seen in public. Her quick shower sobered her up a bit but she still stumbled while she tried to get dressed. She put on a pair of black leggings to match Darius but when she walked back out into the living room, she saw that he had changed back into his gray sweat suit. Her heart saddened at the sight. It had been a while since the ‘incident’ and although Darius seemed like his normal happy self, it hadn’t gone unnoticed that he hadn’t worn any of his girly clothes since then. Sometimes, the hurt didn’t even know that they were hurting so Joy tried to be supportive without pushing any boundaries until he was ready but it had been so long since she’d seen him put on a pair of falsies. She was really beginning to miss the flamboyant antics of his alter ego, Candi ChaCha.

Joy purposefully looked at herself in the mirror in the foyer, primped her curly black hair. “Maybe I should put some make up on… What do you think?”

Darius looked up from his phone and smiled. “Oh, honey, we’re just going to lunch. You don’t have to look cute for me.”

“Well, you’re the one that has to be seen with me. If you don’t think I look like death, I guess it’s okay…”

“Yeah, it’s fine. The Uber should be pulling up in a minute.” Joy grabbed her jacket from the small closet and followed Darius out the door.

Their working lunch turned into a champagne marathon once a guy at the bar across the restaurant came over to introduce himself. His eye was on Darius and he took it upon himself to buy them a bottle of whatever they were drinking. Watching Darius flirt with a handsome and obviously well off stranger made Joy smile from ear to ear; she never noticed the end of one bottle and the beginning of another but she did notice the moment she reached one hundred and forty pages.

She jumped up from her seat with her arms raised in victory, swaying just a bit. “Victory is within my reach,” she slurred. She pointed to Darius’ new friend. “You sir, Mr. Higgins are a true gentleman for fueling my creativity with copa- compl- what’s the word? Con… Carnivorous? Copious! Copious amounts of booze. Thank you!”

“Actually, it’s Harrison,” he said gently.

“I would also like to thank the bestest friend and editor a girl could ask for,” Joy continued loudly. The few patrons that were left in the dining room were all looking in their direction at this point.

“Maybe we should see your friend home,” Harrison suggested gently.

Darius was equally hammered and had never heard a more outrageous suggestion. “Home?” He snorted. “She still owes me sixty pages. Chop chop, you clever lush, before our friend becomes too embarrassed to be seen with us.”

Joy dropped back into her seat and waved lazily in Darius’ direction. “Geez, you’re so damn needy. Is life all one big deadline to you Dariusssss?” she dragged out his name and looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “Is the value of our friendship only measured by the pages I produce? Has all the champagne we’ve drank, drunken, dranken… drunken together turned sour in your mouth already? Is that it, Darius? Hm? Am I to be replaced by some new bitch who’s younger and smarter and prettier? Hm?”

Darius took Joy’s hands in his and gazed drunkenly into her eyes. “Absolutely not! I can’t think of a single girl out there more fun or clever-er than you. I love you so much!”

Joy wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. She pulled away and sighed happily. “I have to pee.”

The next thing Joy knew, she was waking up to Loyal tucking her into bed. It was pitch black in their room but Joy still tried to focus on his handsome face as he pulled her against his body. She hoped he wasn’t disappointed in her; she held up her end of their agreement by not drinking alone that day but she also couldn’t remember what happened between lunch and that very moment. Her hands were tied, though, because she was also obligated to get those pages done and her creativity came with certain conditions.

Her borderline alcoholism settled like a weight on her chest, gaining more and more weight as she recalled her cervical problems, her dwindling bank account, and the guilt of not being the person that Loyal thought she was. Heat crept into her cheeks and her ears and she felt tears beginning to well up. Joy closed her eyes, trying to shut out the darkness of the room and to keep herself from suffocating beneath the weight of the world she’d built around herself. The small gray cloud of doom had dissipated in her champagne-induced stupor but reality was crashing down all around her and it was back with a vengeance. Thunder rumbled from behind the cloud and Joy was waiting for the lightning to strike her down.

“If I die young, it’ll be the world that killed me,” she said quietly.

“I won’t let that happen,” Loyal said, kissing her forehead.