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"Cherish"
You don't know how many times
I've wished that I had told you
You don't know how many times
I've wished that I could hold you
- The Association
The bell jangled above the door and Joyce looked up instinctively. In the months since Will's disappearance, she had not yet gotten past worrying that something terrible was hanging over their heads, and she still startled at the least thing. Of course, it didn't help that Will was still coughing, still thin and pale and not sleeping well. None of them were. Something about knowing what lay on the other side of reality was hard to get past.
Still … Will was better than he had been, and his treatments at Hawkins Lab were going okay. The doctors there assured her everything was fine, and she was trying to believe them. She was trying not to see poor Eleven's scared little face every time someone from the lab spoke to her, but it wasn't easy.
To Joyce's relief, the person coming through the door was completely normal and not at all connected to anything that had happened. Little cheerful Bob Newby from high school, who had taken to coming in on his breaks from Radio Shack to make sure she was okay.
They hadn't talked a lot since high school, mostly shy hellos in the street until she went into Radio Shack at Christmas to get Will's Atari, but his concern touched her.
"Hi, Joyce."
"Hi, Bob. How's business over there at Radio Shack?"
"Cruising right along, one cable at a time." He smiled.
Joyce smiled, too, although she wasn't sure why everything needed so many cables all of a sudden. The Atari she had gotten Will for Christmas—with a lot of help from Bob—had been a real challenge to hook up, Joyce and Jonathan and Will all on the floor with the manual, arguing and plugging and unplugging things.
"How are you today?" Bob asked. His eyes were on her, gentle and kind, like he really saw her and really cared how she was. That was a rare sentiment in her experience.
"Tired. But good."
"Will's feeling good? Back in the swing of things at school?"
"Yeah. He and his friends are trying to reach—China," she said quickly. They really were trying to reach Eleven, wherever she had gone, but of course, you couldn't say that.
Bob shook his head, smiling. "China. Holy cow. Nice to go there sometime, don't you think? Or … New York, or even Chicago."
"It would be." Truthfully, Joyce had never given much thought to travel, or any kind of life outside of Hawkins. She thought she would be afraid to go somewhere new. Especially now, after what she'd seen.
"Or … maybe even just to that new Chinese place out near the highway."
"Sure. If you can't go to China you can …" Slowly Joyce's words faded as she recognized the hopeful, hesitant, almost frightened look in Bob's eyes. "Oh."
"I mean, if you'd rather not, I'd understand," he said hastily.
Joyce couldn't remember the last time a man had asked her out on a date. She hadn't been interested in so long, with the boys to raise, and she'd been such a mess no one would have looked at her twice, anyway. When she'd been with Lonnie, he had never asked. He'd just assumed she wanted to go wherever he wanted to go. Come to think of it, Hopper had never asked, either. Back in high school he would pull up beside her in his car—or his mom's car—open the door, and say, "Want a ride?" She usually had.
But this—Bob wanted her to want to go out with him. It mattered to him what she wanted.
She had thought, what with spending all that time at Hawkins Lab with Will, and everything they had been through, that maybe she and Hopper would … Would what, though? Hopper had been weird lately, jumpy and standoffish. He clearly wasn't ready for anything serious, and she had her boys. Which meant she should say no to Bob, too, she told herself—but she wasn't sure she wanted to. He was sweet. And thoughtful. And he liked to tell her little jokes. Dumb ones, really, but they made her laugh, and she needed to laugh.
"I … That sounds nice," she said, making up her mind, and the smile that lit up Bob's face made it more than worth the risk. She couldn't remember the last time someone other than her sons was that happy to be spending time with her. "I don't know if I've ever had Chinese food. What if I don't like it?"
"Then we can go out for ice cream after," Bob said, looking at her sideways to see if that was too much. "Everybody likes ice cream."
Joyce smiled. "They do, don't they?"
"So I'll see you Friday night? I can pick you up here if you're working."
She didn't really want the boys to see her coming home from a date, so she was glad he had suggested doing it this way. "I am, so that's a good idea."
"Great." His grin widened until it took over his whole face. "Great! I can't tell you how long I— I mean, I can't wait."
"Me, either."
And as the door jangled again when Bob left, she found it was true—she really couldn't wait. What did you know. Maybe this would be a better year than last year after all.