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"Walk Like a Man"
Walk like a man,
Talk like a man
- The Four Seasons
When the door jingled behind her, Joyce was hanging the big sale banner Donald was hoping would draw in all the people who never came to Main Street anymore. She wasn't surprised when it was Hopper who walked through it—he was half her customer base these days, it felt like. Sometimes she worried about how much longer she was going to have a job, but today she decided to give that particular thought process a rest. "Hey," she said to Hopper, glad to see him.
"Hi. You busy?"
"You're our first customer, so …" She let him answer that one for himself.
Hopper nodded. He knew as well as she did what the mall had done to downtown, but based on how antsy he looked, he hadn't come to talk local news. She was willing to bet it was about Eleven. Or, more specifically, Mike and Eleven.
"What now?" Joyce asked, and Hopper rolled his eyes, confirming her suspicions.
"He was over again last night. For hours. Stuck in her room, listening to weird music—"
"What was it this time?"
"I don't know. Does it matter?"
Joyce shrugged. "I like some of their music. It's catchy."
"Right. I don't know, some song. Mike sang along to it, which … That kid cannot sing."
"Oh, like you can? I remember when you wanted to be Elvis."
"I was way better than he is," Hopper grumbled.
"Right." Joyce moved past him and grabbed the sticker gun. Might as well get some work done while Hop ranted.
"So they're in her room, and I look over, and he's on her bed. So I politely reminded them of the rules—"
Joyce just bet he had. Hopper's version of 'polite' wasn't exactly the same as other people's versions, especially not where Mike was involved.
"And El, she just slams the door! Right in my face."
"Uh-huh."
"You know, it is that smug son-of-a-bitch Mike. He's corrupting her, I'm telling you."
Mike was a lot of things, but smug? That wasn't exactly the word Joyce would have used. And she highly doubted that he was doing anything Eleven didn't want him to.
"And I'm just gonna lose it. I mean, I am gonna lose it, Joyce," Hopper was saying, his voice growing louder and more strident.
On the one hand, Hop as a frustrated father of a teenage girl was pretty funny. On the other hand, if he boiled over, someone might get hurt—and given El's powers, it might be him. "Just take it down, Hopper," she told him.
"I need for them to break up!"
Typical Hopper—he always thought he could just lay down the law and people would do what he wanted them to. "That is not your decision," Joyce said.
"They're spending entirely too much time together. You agree with me about that, right?"
Joyce thought Eleven should get out more, was what she thought, but she knew where Hopper stood on keeping her hidden for the full the year Owens had asked for. "Well, I mean, they're just … kissing, right?" She tried to imagine how Hopper would react to the elaborate pantomimes Nancy and Jonathan went through to try to keep Joyce from realizing how often Nancy slept over.
"Yeah, but it is constant! It is constant, okay? That is not normal, that is not healthy—"
"You can't just force them apart. I mean, they're not little kids anymore, Hop, they're teenagers. If you order them around like a cop, then they're gonna rebel. It's just what they do." She shrugged.
"So, what, I'm just supposed to let them do whatever they want," Hopper said, clearly wanting to tell her she was out of her mind.
"No, I didn't say that. I think you should talk to them."
"No. No. 'Cause talking doesn't work."
She knew perfectly well what he meant by 'talking'. "Not yelling, not ordering. Talk to them. You know, like a heart-to-heart."
To Joyce's surprise, that caught his attention. He stopped pacing, stopped playing with things he'd grabbed off the shelves, and stood looking at her. "A heart-to-heart? What is that?"
"You sit them down, and you talk to them like you're their friend. I find if you talk to them like you're on their level, then they really start to listen. And then, you know, you can start to create some boundaries."
He leaned his forehead against the wall as though she was describing something really difficult. Which, to be fair, for him it was. "Boundaries."
"Yeah, but Hop, it's really important that no matter how they respond, you stay calm. You cannot lose your temper."
He rolled his eyes. She could see he was trying to listen and take it all in, but neither of them had much faith in his hold on his temper. He'd never been good at that. "Uh … maybe you could do it for me?"
For a moment, she considered it. It would be easier on Mike and El if she did it—but in the long run, better for everyone if they all learned to communicate. "No."
"Yeah, you could, yeah, you could. You could come over after work. Yes."
"No," she repeated firmly. "It only works if it comes from you. But—"
"But?" He followed her to the counter as she grabbed a pencil and a pad of paper.
"Maybe I can help you find the right words."
Hopper frowned at the paper. "This is stupid."
"No, it isn't. This is important. Come on, how do you want to start?"
There was a long pause, and then he threw up his hands and turned away. "I don't know! If I knew where to start, we wouldn't be in this mess! Can't you, please, just write me up something to say?"
"Okay, I'll give it a try. Give me a minute."
He paced back and forth while she wrote out a little script for him, and then she handed him the pad.
"Read that, like you really mean it."
Hopper read it over silently a few times, then out loud once or twice.
"Now, from memory."
"From memory?"
"Yeah! You can't be talking to them if you're stiffly reading off a page. This has to sound like it's coming from the heart."
"Fine." Hopper frowned at her, reading the page once more before he started, "'I know this is a difficult conversation to have. I hope you know that I care about you, very much. And I know that you—'"
His delivery didn't exactly ring true. Joyce pointed at her eyes. "Eye contact."
He made eye contact with her, letting her know exactly how dumb he felt doing this, and she looked back, letting him know that he needed to try anyway. Hopper continued, "'And I know that you both care about each other very much …' This does not sound like me at all."
It really didn't. "Just keep going. Come on."
"'Which is why I think it's important to establish these boundaries … moving forward,'" he glanced down at the paper.
"No looking! You know this, come on."
"'So we can build an environment, uh, where we all feel comfortable and … trusted … and open—'"
He got hung up on the next bit so Joyce prompted him, "To share our feelings …"
"'To sharing our feelings.'" He got up from his chair. "This isn't going to work. It's not going to work. It's not gonna work."
"Yes, it will! I promise. Oh, come on."
Hopper sat down next to her on the edge of the prescription counter. "Maybe I'll just kill Mike. I'm chief of police, I can cover it up."
Joyce put her hand over his and shook it a little. "You got this. I promise."
Immediately she recognized her mistake. He got that look that he was getting more and more often when they touched casually, the look that used to make her knees weak back in high school—still did, if she was honest with herself, which she tried not to be. "You want to have dinner tonight?" Hopper asked. "You could give me some more pointers."
She did. But she also didn't. As she thought about having dinner with Hopper, she remembered putting the picture Will had drawn of Bob back up on her refrigerator. How could she start something new when she still mourned what she had lost? "Um … um …" Withdrawing her hand from Hopper's, she shook her head and lied. "I have plans."
He knew it, too. He'd always known her too well. "Okay. Sure."
To her relief, the bell jingled. Saved by a customer. But she wouldn't always be, and Hopper's unexpected patience with her would wear out. She knew him too well, too. Someday she was going to have to either say yes, or tell him no for good … and she wanted to do both and neither simultaneously.