IV.
I look back on the Spring and Summer of 2000 as the time when I was forced to grow up. No more excuses. No more mid-life crisis. No more blaming my faults and foibles on the angst of turning the big 4-0. I became an adult 24/7 with a son who would soon have the right to claim that title as well.
You know how they say if you could do it all over again, what would you change? Well, I'd probably change a lot of things. But I'm also really lucky that I had the chance—with my husband as well as my son. I look back on that summer and I have no regrets because I feel I did my job as a parent.
Joey's flight from Capeside knocked Dawson off his feet; he hadn't expected that. I guess he figured she would talk Pacey into staying and that would be that. He didn't expect such a grand romantic gesture. No one did. Certainly not Bessie, her sister and legal guardian.
A very concerned Bess revealed everything when Mitch and I got back from Kauai. She came in for coffee and asked if I had time to sit down with her. That worried me. "What's up?" I asked. She didn't waste time on familiarities. "How's Dawson doing?" she asked. "As well as can be expected," I said. "He's hurt, but he hasn't let that stop him from getting out there and doing things with the gang. Jen, Jack and Andie—they're quite a trio and they don't let up on him." "That's good to hear," she said.
"We did think he'd run into Joey or Pacey sooner or later, but that hasn't happened yet." "Nor will it anytime soon," she said in one of her classic asides. "What do you mean?" "They're not here, Gale. Joey went with him to Florida." One, two, three. "She did what?"
"Not that they had anyone's permission, mind you. I knew when I saw Joey hightail it out of the reception that she was probably going to Pacey. I wasn't surprised when she didn't come home that night. Frankly, my fear was that she would use sex as a means of getting him to stay. But I wanted to trust her and decided to let her work things out. She's been in such hell these last few weeks, I figured she deserved whatever happiness she could grab. I just never thought that she'd…" For a moment, Bessie seemed lost for words.
"What happened? How did you find out?"
"By noon the next day, I started to get worried and I began making calls. Marge Witter knew nothing." "Of course." "She said 'The Sheriff' had given Pacey permission to sail down the coast as long as he stayed within sight of land and checked in every few days. She kept telling me how much she liked 'Jodie.' But here was a surprise: I didn't know that Pacey was now rooming with Doug, did you?" "Yes, Dawson told me." Bessie tossed a pained look my way; she was Joey's sister after all.
"Doug called me back that evening. He said that Joey had come to him looking for Pacey and he told her that the guy was really hurting. He had been so upset about something she said or did…or didn't do…I don't know, something about needing permission to say goodbye. Anyway, he'd decided to pack up and leave that evening. According to Doug, she gasped and turned around, running to the marina as fast as her legs would take her—and that was the last he had seen of either one of them.
"The next morning, I finally got a collect call from Rhode Island. Joey and Pacey were looking for some day work so they could buy some clothes and supplies. I really gave her a piece of my mind and she apologized profusely, saying only that she loved Pacey too much to let him go without her and that she thought it would be good for both of them to get out of Capeside. She felt they might have a better chance as a couple if they could explore their relationship without the consensus of friends and family to worry about."
I hated to admit it, but she was probably right. Smart girl, that one. Still, she was just 16. Bessie immediately echoed my concern. "Joey told me what the Sheriff's ground rules are and they seem pretty reasonable. But she also asked me to talk things over with Bodi. She said she would respect my wishes if we decided she should come home; she hoped that I wouldn't. Yesterday, she called from New Jersey and I had her put Pacey on the phone. I told him that Bodi would personally castrate him if anything happened to her. He laughed and then whispered into the phone, 'I love her. I promise you I will take care of her.' She took back the phone and told me rather dreamily that they would take care of each other, and that was it."
Bessie let out a long sigh. "What do you think, Gale? Did we screw up? Should I have done something different?"
I took a considered sip of coffee. "I think that we've always known Joey to be mature beyond her years…and she's finally getting a chance to prove it. It's a scary thing when they start batting their wings and get ready to leave home. You know that Joey could've graduated this year and been off to college in a few months, but she decided to stick around here for another year. So, in the grand scheme of things, what's the difference between June and September?"
"I can think of one big difference," Bessie reminded me, "Dawson." That sent a chill though me. "Do you want me to tell him?" I asked. "No, not quite. Joey wanted to tell him. But she was afraid she might not say the right things if she left it to a phone call…so she wrote him a letter. Do you think you could give it to him? I think it would be more proper that way."
Okay, big matriarch moment here. Should I be the bearer of these tidings? The answer came without the slightest bit of hesitation. Yes, of course. He's my son and I love him; I should be there for him. "Of course," I said. "Thank you for asking me, Bess." "Actually, it was Joey's idea," she admitted. "I guess Pacey is calling Andie tonight so…" "I should time this accordingly." Bessie rolled her eyes, then began scooting herself out of the booth.
"Let me know how things go," I told her. "If you ever need to talk to someone, I'm always here." "Thanks, Gale. But you're the one I'm going to be thinking about tonight. I'll see you later."
So we both had our dilemmas to deal with. Dawson had gone biking with Jack and wasn't due back until late afternoon, when he'd shower and grab a bite to eat before heading off to work at the restaurant. I thought about giving him the night off so I could sit down and talk to him, but I knew that after reading the letter he'd probably insist on going to work anyway; I didn't want him busing tables with all that letter might wrought weighted on his shoulders. Instead, I invented an excuse for him to take me home after the dinner rush and, against his wishes, we had that talk.
Dawson read the letter very quietly and intently. When he was finished, he folded it up; I later found it in the trash. He didn't want to talk, but I prodded him. He said he felt nothing, that this wasn't like the last time when Joey had trampled on his heart; he knew people cared about him and he was going to hold on to that. As far as Joey and Pacey were concerned, he hoped never to hear their names in casual conversation—he certainly didn't plan on bringing them up.
And he didn't, for an entire summer. Every couple of weeks, he would get a postcard from Joey indicating she and Pacey had traversed further on down the coastline. The openness of the communication allowed an occasional, inadvertent look at the message being conveyed. The only one I know Dawson kept was the one where she mentioned seeing something that reminded her of him and that got her thinking about how much she missed him.
Ironically enough, we all had a really great summer.
zzzzzzzzzz
Some weeks later, the postmarks on Joey's cards began making their way north again. And then they stopped coming. School was just a few days away and no one had heard from her or Pacey yet. One day, without warning, I caught sight of this young woman walking into Leery's Fresh Fish: tall with beautiful long hair, wearing a backless summer top and a fetching long skirt. I couldn't believe it when I discovered her to be Joey.
It appeared that she had already been to the Leery home and, finding no one there, decided to check how things were going at the restaurant. She was looking for Dawson.
After the perfunctory howdy-dos, she finally asked about him. "You know, I think he's doing fine," I told her. "The beginning of the summer was a little rough, but he managed to persevere. He's kept busy, lots of odd jobs and beach time." "Dawson at the beach?" she chuckled. "Dawson with a tan…" Actually, he was still pretty light. I never knew a blonde less inclined to hue golden in the summer months.
"Thanks for asking, Joey. I'm glad you didn't wait to check in. We missed you. Worried about you." Joey seemed to relax. "Speaking of tans, you've acquired quite a lovely one. How was your summer?"
"It was great," she responded immediately, then obviously thought twice about it. "I mean…" "It's okay, hon. You're allowed to have a good time. So where did you go? What did you see?"
Joey began to talk about her trip, still guarded about not appearing too enthusiastic—but I knew. It came to me like an insouciant epiphany: she really loves this guy. Deep down, I know Dawson is harboring some hope that she'll come back to him, but I don't think she is. Certainly not anytime soon.
The mere anticipation of Joey and Pacey returning to Capeside turned out to be the hard part. Though he was loathe to admit it, Dawson's restless uneasiness about the actual event quickly dissipated as soon as they were back. When Mitch confided in him about Pacey's problems at school, he had very little problem going to Joey and sharing that information. And when the two of them were assigned a project in class, he was the first to suggest your place or mine.
That surprised us—but it shouldn't have. Neither one was totally weaned from their co-dependency. And I suspect that although Pacey conducted himself as if his estrangement from Dawson didn't affect him, deep down it did. Mother Nature put those fragile bonds to a test.
Pacey had taken Jen sailing while Joey and Dawson worked on a debate for English class. The skies quickly turned sour and Pacey was unable to return to port in time. According to Dawson, Joey was preoccupied during most of their planning session, to the point where he was ready to take off—until he discovered that she had been distracted by the increasingly grave weather reports because Pacey and Jen were out there. She was nearly hysterical. There had been no communication from the True Love, and the best case scenario was that their radio was broken and they were waiting out the storm somewhere. Dawson thought he knew where. Before anyone could say yay or nay, my son and Joey had taken off in a stranger's boat to try and find them.
Thank God all four arrived back at the marina safely. Grams hugged Jen tightly and chastised the owner of the boat Dawson and Joey had "borrowed" for thinking about money at a time like this; Mitch and I were simply happy to have our son back—clearly drenched, but with nary a scratch on him. Interestingly, no one came for Joey or Pacey, they just clung to each other.
I sat in the car watching my husband and son observe Joey and Pacey. Looking back, I realize it was our first view of them as a couple. They walked up from the docks to her truck and there was a moment there as they moved out of the shadows that I thought I saw Mitch and I as a young couple. I smiled seeing how gentle he was with her, and how much she seemed to be a natural part of him. Pacey opened the truck door for her and they kissed. I looked back at my son, knowing this must be painful for him to watch— why was he, anyway?
Yet I have to admit that I continued watching as well. Part of me was sad because I understood, even if my son didn't, that he and Joey had never been that intimate with each other. I had seen loving, intimate gestures on her part, but Dawson was more conservative and reverential. Pacey, on the other hand, treated her like a woman, and she responded accordingly. Did Dawson even see the difference? Did he get it? It was time to let go of that fantasy coupling—because this was it, this was real life.
zzzzzzzzzz
Ah, the sex question! Eh hem. Frankly, I thought they'd settled that one on the boat. There was nothing about Joey or Pacey's body language when they were around each other that made me think otherwise. Why not? Two gorgeous kids, obviously crazy about each other, alone and unsupervised for months—what were they waiting for? The tenderness and the intimacy and, most importantly, the love was certainly there. Unless it was because…
Well, Joey was a virgin, wasn't she? You forget about that sometimes, forget how important that first time is for most girls. How we struggle with that milestone moment, wanting everything to be right…and how often it's not. Physical intimacy is one thing, sex—most particularly, intercourse—is another. The joy of sex is something you learn later, after you conquer the intimidating fear of sex. Of course, as parents we don't want to hear about our kids having sex at all!
Bessie was disturbed and needed a friendly female ear. Earlier in the day, she had accidentally come across some condoms and birth control information Joey had hidden away in her sock drawer—not very stealthily, I might add. Bessie called the find a virtual "birth control warehouse".
"Maybe she wanted it to be discovered," I enlightened her. "To force open that uncomfortable line of communication. It had to happen. Sooner or later, you were bound to encounter them in a compromising situation or…"
"No!" Bessie insisted. "They're not having sex, not yet at least." "How do you know?" I asked. "Because Joey told me. It took awhile, she wouldn't talk about it at all when they first got back. But she's dropped enough asides that it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out. Last week, she finally admitted it. That's why I was so surprised…"
"What? That she would be thinking about it and actually have the sense be prepared?" "No, that she would…" Bessie paused for a moment in thought. "I guess I always figured that she would come to me first, not rely on some stupid pamphlet from the clinic."
Bessie didn't realize that she had been the teacher most of Joey's life; she was the one who went first. Bess had a rough time in school. Her parents actually worked for a living so that immediately distanced her from the in-crowd; the fact that her mother was a part-time barmaid lowered her another notch, as did her lack of fashionable gear. Unlike Joey, who had a natural intelligence that immediately elevated her, and a feistiness that put kids on notice that she didn't care what they thought (though she actually cared a lot), Bessie withdrew from the high school derby and found her friends on the fringes. I guess she could have been classified as one of those girls you see smoking outside school, but that was too easy a label.
She was her mother's daughter and loyal to a tee. Bess was just out of high school when Lillian began to get sick; Capeside Community College wasn't even an option for her. She worked odd jobs around town, anything that would allow her to be around the house as much as possible for Joey and her mom. Finally, when Lillian became too ill to even sit at the cash register, she took over day to day operations at The Ice House.
She'd had a few boyfriends, but nothing serious until Bodi. Nothing she told her grieving sister about until she walked in on them making love at home in the middle of the day. Joey was shocked but not appalled. What made her angry was finding out a year later that her sister was pregnant. She got real scared then and it was Bodi, not Bess, who was finally able to reassure her that the Potter family would remain intact.
It goes without saying that Joey knew full well the consequences of teen pregnancy, and she was a careful sort. I should've thought of that when I shoved that sex book in her face a year or two later. Shifting into parental mode (read overreaction), I embarrassed her by talking at her instead of with her. She spent the better part of her formative years getting an earful from Dawson and Pacey about what boys wanted and how they thought—she probably could have taught us!
And yet I couldn't help but think about what she thought about all those years sleeping chastely beside Dawson in his childhood bed. Now she had spent an entire summer presumably sleeping next to another boy…and she still hadn't had sex! It makes you question why, in current terminilogy, "sleeping together" is equated with having sex. It's so misleading. Sleeping together is sleeping together, sex is sex; they can exist separately or together or not at all.
Dawson had wrongly accused Joey of "sleeping" with Pacey at Gwen's—which apparently she did in actual fact, but he was reacting to the sexual undertones of the situation (and how charged that night must have been!) and not to the physical reality of it. I just found the fact that we were still talking about all of this months later very interesting. It gave me newfound respect for both Joey and Pacey; they were being considered in their actions and I think that deserves praise.
zzzzzzzzzz
Christmas 2000. The first Christmas of the new millennium and Gretchen Witter had begged Mitch and I to let her make the arrangements for the annual Leery Christmas party. She did a wonderful job. It was a great party. Sometime after nine o'clock, Joey and Pacey made what I can only describe as a movie star entrance to the scene. The couple had been at a dinner for prospective Worthington College students where Joey had been the focus of much attention. By the time they arrived at our little shindig, she was positively glowing, and so was the proud, attentive man on her arm. They looked like one of those beautiful couples you see in People magazine.
Given these recent events, I'm not quite sure how to interpret their symbiotic reactions to seeing Dawson and Gretchen kiss under the mistletoe. Complicated is the only word I can think of. Dawson once told me that it still felt like someone was punching him in the gut every time he saw Joey and Pacey kissing—was she experiencing the same thing? The strangeness of seeing those lips not only on someone else, but on the sister of the boyfriend your erstwhile best friend had denounced.
It was probably territorial. I have absolutely no doubt that Joey Potter was and is deeply in love with Pacey Witter—there's no competition as far as that's concerned. But I suspect, at that time, there was a small part of her that still wanted to keep Dawson her safe, sexless companion. I'm not sure how much Pacey understood that dynamic, which can be an important one in a girl's life—why do you think so many gravitate towards gay companions? Oh my God, I don't mean to put my son in that Will Grace category, but you know what I mean… Oh, forget about it!
zzzzzzzzzz
The day of reckoning arrived in a rather unexpected way, as is so often the case. Exciting news had been eclipsed by the heavy hammer of Fate. Joey had been accepted to Worthington College….only to find out two days later that the financial office had determined she must be responsible for 15,000 a year in tuition and fees. That was 15,000 more than Joey or Bessie had. Sure, she could earn some of it over the summer, but she knew the cost of just keeping up appearances on a campus like Worthington was going to be expensive, and she was too practical a girl to go into debt so early in her adult life.
Dawson rushed in with a solution—Mr. Brooks' legacy, the money that had been willed to him "to do something great". Once again, he offered Joey money without discussing the possible ramifications with his parents first. We tried to tell him this the following evening after he broke the news to us, but Dawson wasn't listening and the fact that Joey had already turned it down made it a moot point. Our son, God bless him, was determined to help and wouldn't accept no for an answer. He went to Pacey hoping that he could talk Joey into it.
The bigger part of me wanted her to accept the money, knowing how much she wanted to go to Worthington—how much Bessie, indeed all of us, wanted her to realize that wonderful opportunity. But Joey is a proud girl and I'm sure she had many good reasons for refusing; Pacey probably knew her reasons better than any of us, and Dawson knew that.
The next day, I went home early because my back was killing me and Mitch had urged me to get off my feet for awhile. I was eight very long months pregnant and felt like an over-inflated balloon. I had just settled on the comfortable recliner in our bedroom when Joey came up the stairs. She stood at the doorway for a moment while Dawson worked at his computer. I could only see a bit of her from the back, but her body language definitely indicated someone lost in thought.
Dawson's voice jarred her into alertness. "From the look on your face, I take it Pacey couldn't convince you," he said. Once again, Joey found herself without the vocabulary to express herself. She urged him to stay on his side of the room while she attempted to impart a difficult story. A story about the compromises she had made along the way to "save" a friendship, only to risk losing it…again.
"The night that I ran into you at the movies, I was trying to make sense of things, too," she said, "and when you asked me that very personal question, you were right. I slept with Pacey over the ski trip."
Okay, news flash. Joey had sex with Pacey? Not surprising. In fact, I wanted to say hooray! But Dawson had the nerve to ask her about it? In what world was that any of his business?
"I wanted to tell you the truth, Dawson, but after all the time we spent together just walking and talking…It's like things are right between us again and it's better than I ever thought it ever could be. So when you asked me that question…I don't know, I thought that you wouldn't understand."
You're right. If I don't understand why he would even feel he had the right to ask such a personal question, I don't think he could possibly understand why a woman would give herself to the man she loved, present day not past.
It was a private moment between Joey and Pacey and entirely up to them whether or not they wanted to share the news with anyone. Joey wasn't ready; the truth had eluded her. Something told me my son played a part in that, giving her 'the look' that evening. That look is a very special part of Dawson's repertoire. All of us have had to answer it on at least one occasion. It's an uncanny way he has of telegraphing his need to stay rooted in fantasy—and, for Joey, it's probably a look imbued with a traumatic history as well. I felt bad for her; she should've told him the truth but he never should have asked in the first place.
Now, this is where it gets intriguing. Why was this act of intimacy tied into Dawson's monetary gesture?
"I know I should have told you the truth," Joey said, with sadness and regret pervading every word. "I know it wasn't fair of me to let you go on thinking that things were still the same…" "That I was the most important person in your life."
Bingo!
He finally got it. Nearly a year after he'd first found out about her affair with Pacey, about a need and desire so great that she had been willing to risk everything important to her, Dawson had to acknowledge that someone else was the significant other in Joey Potter's life. Money would never change that. That had to have hurt.
The coda? This time, Dawson came to us and asked Mitch and I for an opinion. And after we had discussed all the implications, how this would affect Joey and Pacey, not to mention what Bessie and Bodi might think, he went back a third time "because it's the right thing to do".
This time, Joey said yes.
