Career Tip # 4 - Choose your battles wisely.
With the numerous people you will interact with in the work world, you likely will encounter plenty of frustrations, concerns, and conundrums. To maintain your sanity and productivity at work, it will be helpful for you to discern between challenges you need to deal with vs. the ones you can overlook and move on from.
Three weeks later
"It's a mountain," Pacey says, glancing up at the pile.
"It's a hill at best," replies Joey.
"Why must you disagree with me on everything? "
Reaching on tiptoes, Joey extends her arms for the highest box, inches it off the summit, and brings it down.
"Because you are mostly wrong," she delivers with a smile, disappearing behind the curtain to the counter, where she gently puts the box down.
Keith has tasked them with sorting the storeroom, the endless collection of boxes housing titles that are doubled up, damaged, or unrentable. All salvageable items were to be cataloged and priced for sale.
Settled dust on the cardboard moves in a puff and Joey sneezes as she pulls back the packing tape to reveal titles such as the 1984 classic ThrillKill and the family favorite Ernest Scared Stupid.
"These are truly terrible. If people weren't going to pay rental money for these, they're hardly going to purchase them to keep in their collection," Joey says, eyes scanning the blurb of Meatballs 4.
Pacey's box has enough packing tape to survive an apocalypse. He peels it back, piece by piece, winding each strip of tape around itself until it forms a ball.
"What sin did we commit to earn ourselves this task?"
"I'm going to guess that Keith glanced in the window one night, saw our study sessions, and thought we could make better use of company time," says Joey, taking Pacey's packing tape ball and adding long strips from her box onto it.
"At least I'm up to a C now, so technically we can temporarily halt my studies."
"One C will not pull you from the depths of summer school despair, Pace."
He shrugs, begrudgingly snorting agreement.
Three weeks of chemistry revision under the exacting tutorage of Josephine Potter had Pacey bursting in the door at four o'clock on Thursday, test in hand, to show her his handiwork. She'd whooped excitedly and delivered a breathtaking smile as they celebrated with a hard candy from the bowl on the counter and an evening free of studies.
"What did your parents say?" Joey asks, finding a dusty collection of duplicate My Little Pony copies, sun-bleached and scratched.
"The usual. A grunt and a reminder that even a C is unforgivable."
"Ignore them. You worked hard. You should be proud."
Pacey stifles a smile. "I never asked you what your grade was."
Joey brushes it off. "It's not important."
"So it was an A?"
She doesn't reply.
"What does Bessie say with all your A's? Do you get a special dinner each time? Or are there so many of them it just becomes an academic overachieving blur?"
"Bessie has enough on her plate," Joey snaps one of the pony videos into the rewinding machine.
"Enough that she doesn't celebrate every A you get or enough that you don't even tell her?"
"What's the point?"
"The point?" Pacey is confused.
"A's don't make money, they don't solve problems. They are insignificant."
"If that's how you feel about an A, what does my C mean?"
Joey tries to explain. "We are a few weeks away from an infant descending upon the household. The Ice House is barely paying the bills. This is the life when your mom's gone and your dad is in the lockup. When the dinner table discussion is grades or how we're going to buy food next week, food wins."
Considering her, Pacey's brows dip. "I didn't realize things were so bad."
"Well, they are," she won't make eye contact.
Pacey wipes the dust from another box, then sprinkles it from his fingers onto the ground. "If you won't tell Bessie about your grades, will you at least tell someone? You're the smartest kid in class. If it were me, I'd be announcing it on a megaphone."
"Who else am I going to tell? Daddy isn't exactly on speed dial."
His arms are buried in the box, hauling out stacks of titles. "Dawson?"
"Did you miss the memo? I'm lacking the amble breasts required for his attention right now."
Pacey hesitates before speaking. "You could tell me?"
"You?"
"Yeah. None of us are running to inform the adults in our life. I could tell you, you could tell me. Fair to say, I'll always be impressed by your capacity for As and I'm sure you will be amazed by anything I can offer other than an F."
"Mutual cheerleading?" She asks.
Pacey nods, then presents his best spirit fingers.
She laughs, "I want pom-poms, at the very least."
He switches his movement to invisible pom-poms. "I'll give you pom-poms if you give me high kicks."
Joey rolls her eyes. "Unlikely. You'll have to settle on a congratulatory remark and a stolen peppermint from the jar."
Pacey puts his pom-poms away. "I'll take that."
The boxes keep coming out from storage and the ball made from an accumulation of old packing tape keeps growing. It goes from a golf ball to a baseball and then warps into a misshapen orb the size of a large, ripe mango.
When the final box has been collected, its tape stripped and wound tight, Pacey throws the tape ball at Joey. She isn't ready for it, but whips her hand out at the last moment, volleys it between palms, and catches it.
"Nice!" says Pacey.
She throws it back, aimed directly at his head, but he ducks and outstretches his arm, collecting it one-handed.
"I thought we'd moved past physical harm, dearest co-worker," he returns the pass.
"You were wrong," Joey attempts another headshot, but he is ready this time and collects it from the air with ease.
It makes a dozen or so more trips across the aisles of Screen Play Video as they get a feel for its weight and movements. With each throw, Joey's ponytail sways playfully as though it's dancing. It flops against the exposed nape of her neck, mingling with the tiny tendrils of hair that have escaped.
Pacey catches the ball, throws it back, watching her hair all the while. Big throws, small ones, trick shots, and spinners. They started a game with no end that pauses temporarily for customers and operates in conjunction with the day's tasks.
Videos are sorted for sale.
The ball is thrown.
Joey stops to serve a customer.
The ball waits in Pacey's grip until the moment the door is closed.
The ball is thrown.
Pacey prices discounted videos.
The ball ricochets off Drop Dead Fred and lands in Joey's hand.
It etches an invisible journey around the store, over aisles and the computer.
Tape Ball is interrupted when Jen and Dawson enter, lured by the prospect of cheap ex-rentals advertised on the sidewalk.
"Ahh well if it isn't Capeside's cutest couple!" Pacey teases, while Joey launches the ball in his direction.
"I could say the same about you two," Jen retaliates and Joey sticks a tongue out at her friend.
Tape ball whips across the room, close to Dawson's face. Joey catches it one-handed.
"Over here," Dawson calls out, hands open.
Joey shakes her head, throwing it back to Pacey. "That's not in the rules."
"What are the rules?" Dawson asks.
Pacey shrugs, rolling the ball between his palms. Tape Ball rules aren't written, but he knows they involve the ball never touching the ground, and they certainly don't include Dawson Leery.
"Look at you two. Ask me a month ago and I'd never believe you could be friends. Now you won't even share a ball," says Dawson, glancing between them.
Joey shakes her head vehemently.
Pacey holds up his hands, "Woah, Woah, Woah. Friends? Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
He throws the ball to Joey; she catches it with ease.
Joey explains, "We're more like coworkers who have a mutual non-verbal agreement to withhold murder."
"Now we throw a ball of packing tape, instead of knives. It's called growth," Pacey adds.
"Sounds precarious," says Dawson.
"It is," Joey throws Tape Ball, an impish smile across her lips. "At any moment, our truce can collapse."
A slight overshoot means that Pacey almost drops it. It bounces off his palm, he panics but recovers just before it makes contact with the floor.
Joey glares at him. He gives her a Cheshire cat grin and places it safely on a stack of labeled videos in the SALE section that Dawson is thumbing through.
"What does your Saturday night entail, apart from the usual video selection and scavenging through the discount section?" Pacey asks.
"You have just listed all the things we are doing," Jen says before she and Joey share a glance.
Shaking his head, Pacey says, "Riveting stuff really. Who needs marriage when you can be fifteen and already tied to the monotony of Saturday Film Nights? What's next, family vacations in Bermuda? Securing a good price on a retirement condo in Florida? You guys certainly fast-tracked to coupledom."
Dawson pulls Meatballs 4 out of the sale rack and puts it in his 'to buy' pile.
"And what do you propose we do instead?" Dawson asks Pacey, "Capeside isn't exactly flush with options."
"Um. A picnic on the beach?" Pacey offers.
"It's November!"
"A fancy restaurant? I don't know! You're Mr. Romantic."
When Dawson bristles, Jen comforts him with a gentle rub on his back. "Movies are fine."
It's Joey's turn to offer a suggestion. "Why don't you spice up your movie selection? Pick something you wouldn't normally watch. A trashy thriller, a B-grade comedy?"
In a burst of excitement, Pacey canters down the aisle. "What you need is a foreign film!"
"We watch foreign films all the time," says Dawson.
"Not your regular Academy Award nominated foreign film. I'm talking about the kind that will put some fire in your Saturday night."
A blush rages over Dawson's cheeks. "Don't be ridiculous."
Joey shakes her head. "What is your fascination with foreign films?"
"Breasts," Pacey replies, deadpan. "Lax nudity clauses. Shall I go on?"
"Please don't."
Pacey chuckles knowingly, "Have you ever actually watched one of these foreign films, Potter?"
"No!" she replies, affronted.
"Well then, there is your answer," he strolls to the aisle, glances back and forth, before selecting a video and passing it to her. "Don't knock it till you try it. Most of them even have good storylines, if you're into that kinda thing. This one's a favorite. I'll even cover the rental fee."
She holds it in her hand, reading the blurb.
"So it's like porn?"
"No," says Pacey.
"Yes," corrects Dawson.
Shaking his head, Pacey explains. "Porn is like porn. With foreign films, you get the steaminess without the gratuitous close-ups. You might get some breasts, some backsides, and a bit of moaning if you're lucky. But it's in French, so it's classy."
Jen, curious, wanders down the aisle to Pacey and he passes her some options, which she inspects diligently. Dawson wants no part in this discussion and disappears to the furthest corner of the store.
The case in Joey's hand has a semi-blurred image of a couple about to kiss with the Paris skyline in the background. She shakes her head and tries to put it back on the shelf, but Pacey stops her.
"Come on, you work here. Shouldn't you know your product? You love to make fun of the people who rent these out, but you don't really know what it's about. It's all in the name of research."
"How am I supposed to research with a pregnant sister and her boyfriend loitering around the home?"
Jen takes the video from Joey's hands. "We can watch it for our girls' night tomorrow? I'm game if you are."
Cringing, Joey isn't sure. "How is Grams going to feel about French women moaning on her television?"
"She's at Parish bingo night. The TV is ours, uninterrupted."
Joey sighs, unconvinced. Pacey puts his head on her shoulder, making a pouty face. "Guess you're fresh out of excuses, Potter."
She swats him away.
Observing their interaction, Jen gives a sideways glance to Joey before baiting Pacey, "And with Grams gone, we can watch it either before or after our pillow fight in underwear."
Joey laughs at the suggestion.
Pacey bites down on his knuckles and puts his hands together in prayer, the debate about video selection long forgotten.
"Please. Please let me come to girls' night."
Chuckling, Jen throws back, "Sorry Pace, if you want to see Joey in underwear, you're just going to have to ask her out."
Joey and Pacey freeze, a silence settling across the Foreign Film section. The front door opens, the bell chimes, and Joey makes a bee-line to the register to serve the customers. Pacey goes back to price-tagging old videos.
"That was a low blow, Lindley," he says in a lowered voice.
"I was just teasing. Same as you do with Dawson and me. Why is it not allowed between you and Joey?"
"Because this balance we've struck is delicate. It wouldn't take much to derail this arrangement."
"So I can't point out the obvious?" Jen asks.
"What obvious?" His speech is almost inaudible now. Joey is making small talk with the customer, tapping away on the computer. She can't hear, but Pacey isn't willing to risk it.
"Relax Pacey, I'm not going to confess to Joey your feelings."
"Feelings? What feelings? Are you insane?" his eyes are bulging, his arms are flailing.
Jen regards him, unbothered by this outburst, reaches out, and steadies his arms.
"You need to calm down." Her tone is soothing, like a hypnotist dangling a pocket watch. "Or you're going to make it worse. You know the saying thou' dost protest too much?"
"I am simply claiming my innocence in the matter!"
"You act as though dating Joey would be the end of the world."
Pacey stares at Jen, "Umm. Welcome to Capeside… it would be."
"Why? Enlighten me."
Holding up five fingers, he pushes a digit down for each explanation. "Because she hates me, because of Dawson, because of history, because she despises me, because of my parents, because she loathes me."
"Solid reasons, but I note that none of them had to do with the fact that you don't want to date her ."
Pacey levels a steely gaze at Jen. "I was getting to that one."
"Slipped your mind, did it?" Jen's grin is knowing and patient.
"Why are you going on about this? Do you know something I should know?" Pacey enquires with an arched brow.
"Are you asking me to betray the confidence of my newest, and only female friend in this entire town?"
Pacey considers his answer. "Yes. That is exactly what I'm asking."
Jen shakes her head, "Tut tut, Pacey. I know nothing. I am merely suggesting a gentle nudge between friends so that our double date options open up to a more varied crowd."
Pacey turns away from her, agitated. He fumbles with the pricing labeler, drops it, picks it up again. "Go rent your foreign film, Jen. I'm very busy with work right now."
Jen stifles a laugh and finds Dawson, whose collection of videos to purchase is so large that it involves him using a discarded cardboard box to carry them.
On the computer, Joey tallys up the total and they leave while Pacey is still fanatically labeling.
The store falls blissfully quiet. It's grown dark outside.
"Heads up," Joey calls out and Tape Balls careens through the air toward him.
Pacey catches it, swiftly forgetting about his task. He throws it back over the top of the aisles and it lands in her open palms.
Tape Ball has the power to overcome even the most awkward of Video Store encounters.
Despite Pacey's discount pricing and Joey's hand-drawn bubble font SALE sign, customers aren't lured to the pile of VHS rejects. Dawson remains their only taker of the evening.
Once the last box is crushed flat, they marvel at the space now offered in the storage closet. Tape Ball is thrown through a crack in the curtains numerous times if only to punctuate the ample space clear-out out has afforded.
9 pm rolls around with ease and vests hang on their hooks, side by side. The My Name Is Pacey badge rests against My Name is Joey .
The lights go off; the store goes dark. Joey throws Pacey Tape Ball, experiencing its first foray into the world outside. He throws it back before unlocking the car doors.
"Maybe not while we're driving. Not sure how I'd explain the packing tape ball to the insurance company if we have an accident."
Joey nods, holding it safely in her hands.
With his thumb on the key, Pacey makes a silent prayer that the Wagoneer won't start, but the ignition turns and it runs as smooth as the day it exited the factory.
It's been weeks since Joey has thought about counting seconds to speed up their drive. She molds into the leather seats, hits play on the tape deck. It begins where they left it on Thursday. Eddie Vedder serenades them home with Alive.
Pacey joins in with the guttural baritone, and while he isn't willing to risk playing ball, he takes his hands off the wheel for an air guitar solo.
The Wagoneer has, since that first ride home, become a safe place for memories to be shared. A vessel itself of nostalgia, each trip becomes a moment to reminisce a childhood memory, once suppressed.
Summer days spent diving into the creek, Halloween frights, and the barrage of times Pacey pulled pranks on Dawson and Joey, during his awkward trickster phase where he wore camouflage for six months because he was sure it made him invisible.
It's Joey's turn to select a memory tonight.
"Do you remember Will Krudski's twelfth birthday party?" Joey asks.
Pacey lays down his air guitar. "You mean our first foray into truth or dare?"
"Where you ate a habanero chili on a dare and hurled into his mom's pot plants?" Joey teases him.
He shakes his head, "You would hurl, too."
"Then you jumped off the roof and sprained your ankle in Will's mom's heirloom tomato bush."
Pacey groans. "Do we need to talk about appropriate memories to share on our drives? You know, I thought the vibe was the kind that gives warm and fuzzies, not the kind that makes you want to forget your entire childhood."
Undeterred by his comment, Joey continues while picking at the nodules of tape that stick out from the ball. "Why do you always pick dare? Why not throw a truth in every now and then?"
"Because dares are easy," he says matter-of-factly.
"How are vomiting and x-rays easy?"
"I don't know. They just are. Maybe doing something stupid for thirty seconds is easier than a forced confession in front of a group of your peers."
"What do you think a bunch of twelve-year-olds is going to ask you?"
He shrugs, sitting on the tail of a ridiculously slow driver. Joey glances at the speedometer. They're barely going twenty miles an hour.
"For memory, you chose dare that day too. I may have plunged off a roof, but you kissed Dawson Leery."
"On the cheek!" Joey exclaims.
"It still counts," Pacey turns down Joey's road, glad to be rid of the slow driver. "The entire sixth-grade class got to witness your first kiss."
"That was not my first kiss," Joey shakes her head.
"Yeah, yeah. You kept claiming a cheek kiss doesn't count."
"It doesn't," she is adamant.
"So then, who was your first kiss?" he asks, purposefully not looking at her, hands at ten and two, focused on the road.
Joey doesn't answer.
Pacey doesn't ask again. He doesn't want to know.
The yellow glow of the Potter porch light signifies the end of this Saturday's brief stroll down memory lane.
With the car safely in park, Joey throws him Tape Ball. "You keep it."
"Wow. Are you sure?" He teases. "A whole ball of packing tape, just for me?"
Joey screws up her face and pretends to punch him but doesn't make contact. He doesn't flinch anymore. Maybe he even leans into it.
"Goodnight, Pain-In-The-Ass-Pace."
"Au revoir, Perpetually-Painful-Potter."
Joey screws up her nose. "If alliteration insults are all we can muster after a day of working together, maybe we are, in fact, friends?"
Pacey laughs, throaty and with his whole body. "I'd never admit to such a thing!" He thinks for a moment. "Prude! There. Is that better?"
Delivering a breezy smile in return, she fires back with "Jackass!" while exiting the car and giving him the finger through the glass.
Pacey chuckles in the Wagoneer's dark interior, watching her walk up the stairs. Then he ejects the tape so that Joey doesn't miss the next song.
Pacey walks into the front door of his house, closing the door as quietly as possible. Light from the television illuminates the room in pale blues. His father, John Witter, is in his chair, head to chin. An accumulation of crushed Keystone cans sit to his left.
Pacey creeps by, dodging the notorious floorboards that scream his arrival. Steady steps and he's past the loudest ones, past the dining table. As he comes to the chair, he dares to glance at his sleeping figure. His eyes fly open, regarding Pacey with hollow irises. A chill runs down his spine.
"You're late," he snaps.
"I was working."
John's laugh is empty of humor. "Sure."
"Whatever." Pacey is about to walk away when John leans forward in the chair.
"I'm going to remind you, one final time, about that girl," he says.
Pacey freezes.
" That girl? You mean Joey?"
"You know goddamn well who I'm talking about!" His voice raises, warbling with sleep and alcohol.
"We work together. We're not hanging out. It's paid employment."
"I was in Main street this afternoon, dealing with a shoplifter at the grocery store. I saw you two in the video store. It didn't look like work to me." John shakes his head, 'You know how I feel about that family."
Pacey balls his fingers into a fist. "You realize that because Joey's dad sold a bucket load of drugs, it does not, by parental lineage alone, make Joey a drug dealer? He's in jail, you know, the Potter house is free of nefarious activity."
John glares at Pacey. "He's up for parole in three months. Your little girlfriend tell you that?"
Pacey blinks, hiding his surprise at that information. "What does that have to do with me?"
Standing, John makes his way toward Pacey. His foot kicks the cans. "I'm reminding you." His finger touches Pacey's sternum. "You just work with her. I know you two have a fiery relationship. That can easily turn into something else."
Stepping back, Pacey puts space between them.
"Joey tolerates me for the allotted time each shift, and nothing more."
John lists to the side, an arm reaching out to grab a wall that isn't there. He reeks of stale sweat and the open packet of jerky beside the chair.
"You're pathetic," Pacey says under his breath, anticipating the blow that follows. It doesn't come. Either John didn't hear him or is too drunk to care.
Pacey goes to his room, closes the door, and collapses on the bed. He stares at the ceiling, replaying the conversation in his head.
The floorboards squeak. The television goes quiet, staggered footsteps sound to his parent's bedroom, murmurs of chatter vibrate through the thin walls. Pacey pulls the pillow over his head. There is nothing he wants to hear, especially not his parents talking about him, about Joey.
When all falls quiet, he takes off his clothes, keeps his boxers on, and brushes his teeth. Laying on his bed, Pacey reaches down, unzipping his backpack. His hand fishes around for the ball and pulls it out. Its surface is ridged and sticky. Parts of the decaying tape are starting to detach and hang off in flaps. He holds it above his face, turning it over and over in the lamplight.
He throws it high into the air, and in his mind, Joey Potter catches it, and her ponytail dances.