Joyce Gets Caught (big deal)

So meanwhile what’s been going on with Joyce?

I’ve been seeing her a couple times a week lately. We go out to dinner then we go back to her house… No, it’s not like with Monica. (I don’t have to pay for dinner for starters lol.) When we get to her house, Joyce goes in and locks up the stupidass cats (I still haven’t told her that I always take a Claritin before going to her house), she brings me a Stone IPA and… Ok, we don’t just sit and talk. But we do sit and talk some.

We don’t watch Netflix or any TV at all…and…it’s weird. I’ve told y’all plenty about fucking Monica, but there’s something about Joyce that makes it hard to write that we go back to her place and… See? I can’t write “fuck” – so I reckon I gotta say something else. I’m just not sure what.

(Yeah, y’all read that right. I may not know what happened the night she made me that awesome dinner, but I do know what happened the next night I was over there.)

I haven’t spent the night…at least not yet. Turns out she bought the baseball mug just for me for when I was there and wanted coffee, so I guess I’m taken care of for breakfast lol. And she didn’t throw out the toothbrush and comb she gave me the night I did wake up in her bed…so I’m taken care of there too. (I didn’t tell her, but I always keep a toothbrush in the car. If you’re going to pack condoms, you might as well pack a toothbrush. You never know.)

We did have something kinda weird happen this weekend. We were out at a restaurant we go to pretty often – it’s a nice place on South Lake without being too fancyass. We ordered, and then this woman who knew Joyce came over to our table.

You meet all kinds of people working retail, and this woman was exactly what some of the chicks I work with call a “Pasadena rich bitch.” It’s hard to tell that they’re so rich, since they don’t go out in a ton of jewelry or expensive clothes, but I can recognize the type. Y’all know rich Persians? Ok, Pasadena rich bitches are the exact opposite.

So she came over to the table all surprised to see Joyce and they started off the way chicks do.  You know:  “what a surprise to see you!” and “I didn’t know you came here!” and “I’ve been meaning to call you” and “you look wonderful!”. (Yeah, right. Like any chick means that when they say it lol.)

I stood up when the woman got to the table.  And stood there.  And stood there.

Finally she noticed me.

I knew I looked real nice that night. It was a Sunday and I’d shaved and I’d put my church clothes back on when I went to meet Joyce.  The woman looked me over like she was using one of the price scanners we have at the store.

“Is this one of your nephews?”

Ok, I don’t care how much older than me you are or how much money you have.  I ain’t no this.

“No, ma’am. I’m not her nephew. Pleased to meet you, though. My name’s Hunter Block.”

Remember how I said that Joyce isn’t good at hiding her emotions? She’d turned redder than a fire engine at sunset and kinda like she wanted to crawl into the nearest hole.

“I’m Muffy Byrne.  Joyce and I are on the board of the Pasadena Lyric Opera.”

Ok, I was totally dying to say that I’ve been to the Opry and start telling her about how Chris Young had killed it that night…but I didn’t think Joyce would see the joke. There ain’t nothing wrong with opera…unless you go around thinking it’s so much better than the Opry.

Instead I told Mrs. Byrne how interesting that sounded and a bunch of other dumb shit.  I was raised to be polite to my elders (even when they’re rude to me) and Joyce was looking worse, not better.

I was very glad to see the waiter show up with our appetizers.

“It was nice meeting you, ma’am. But you’ll have to excuse us. You have to eat asparagus fries while they’re hot. Or else they get mushier than the tar on a Georgia highway in July.”

Mrs. Byrne went back to her table. And looked back at us. Twice. And not like she thought we made a cute couple.

I turned back to Joyce and started laughing.

She wasn’t in a laughing mood.

Dang was she not in a laughing mood.

“C’mon Joyce…don’t let that rudeass bitch bother you.”

“The whole board is going to know about it by tomorrow. And every woman in Pasadena will know about it by the end of the week.”

“Know what?”

“That we were here together.”

“So you were having dinner with a young guy with a Southern accent.  Big deal.”

“Not just a young guy. A very good-looking young guy. She’s going to tell everyone…”

“Tell them what? What’s true anyway? She ought to mind her own biscuits, as Meemaw says.”

I could tell I hadn’t said the right thing. So I tried again:

“Should I have acted all gayass so you could say I was your decorator? I can put on a good gay act. It’s a good way to get rid of girls who won’t leave me alone.”

I got a very small smile for that.

“What’s the Pasadena Lyric Opera board anyway?”

I reckon the name makes it pretty obvious. They put on operas and concerts…but from what Joyce said, they spend most of their time raising money and gossiping. Pasadena’s not a big place, and it somehow got out that she’d come into a lot of money. She’s getting asked to be on a lot of boards. Since she likes opera – remember the CD she gave me of that Andrea Bocelli dude – she decided to give them some money and be on their board.

I got over being called a “this” – but Joyce was upset for the rest of dinner. I don’t get why. So that woman saw us together. Big deal. What’s the absolute meanest thing she can tell her meanass chick friends?

Joyce has a boy toy lol.

See…if this Mrs. Byrne were a dude, I’d have gone over to her table and punched her in the face.  I don’t like people who upset my friends…and Joyce was plenty upset.

I almost didn’t enjoy my supper seeing how Joyce picked at her fried chicken. (She always orders it at this place and says it’s good. That’s cause she hasn’t tasted Mom’s fried chicken.) But N***’s knows how to do a rare steak, a fucking epic baked potato and a great hot fudge sundae…and I just wasn’t seeing the problem.  Besides calling me a this (and I told y’all I was over that) the woman hadn’t even said anything mean.  Ok, when she gets together with her other rich bitch friends, maybe she does get meaner than a polecat in a bear trap (as Papaw used to say)…but big fucking deal.

I know chicks, though. You don’t tell them that you don’t see the problem because there ain’t no problem in the first place. You gotta sit there and look sympathetic and nod a lot. That wasn’t too hard with Joyce, since I did feel bad that she’d gotten so upset. She kept going on about how everyone was going to know and they’d be talking about her behind her back and making fun of her.  I wish she’d just up and said that she was upset cause she got caught with her boy toy – we could have laughed about it. But she was keeping that inside. No clue why.  And what was really starting to annoy me was that she was getting pissed off about these meanass bitches not minding their biscuits like they should.

I know, I know…

You just gotta ride it out with chicks. And order yourself another beer. Good thing that place has a good selection of fancyass beer on tap. Ok, fine, we go there a lot and I’ve tried all of them, fancyass or not. And even if it is a little gayass, the Epic pale ale comes close to living up to its name.