Career Tip #15
Most people experience seven career changes in their lives! Know when it's the right time to leave - don't draw it out. If you feel the job isn't right for you - maybe it's time to put in your two weeks' notice.
Months pass in stolen seconds and hidden glances, stitched beneath the surface of ordinary days.
At school, they maintain a carefully curated friction—eye rolls and sarcastic quips well-rehearsed and flawlessly delivered. Jen secures a permanent spot back at their lunch table, her sharp observations dulled by Dawson's endless chatter about his next film project. His healing heart and a new screenplay absorb so much attention that neither Joey nor Pacey draw scrutiny. Beneath the table, Pacey's knee sits comfortably against Joey's, unnoticed. On ambitious days, his hand ventures to rest on her thigh.
Every moment of privacy they claim greedily. The hallway between periods becomes a battlefield of restraint and desire—a reckless kiss when no one's looking, a brush of fingers near the lockers. An empty classroom door left ajar is an invitation. Pacey slips inside, pulling Joey into the shadows.
He is her oxygen, and she seeks him in desperate breaths.
Capeside aids their deception. Providing the rear redbrick walls of the Rialto as they pass on the walk to work. Red maples planted for the centenary of the town's founding in 1867 lend their wide trunks as hiding spots, accepting the crush of Joey's back on bark.
Each encounter is brief. Enough to keep them tethered through the ache of separation, the secret growing heavier each day.
On a Thursday in Screen Play Video, a boy leaves a packet of green army men on the floor, unopened beside the children's videos. Pacey collects the bag, rips it open, lining the counter with fifty inch-high men in various battle poses.
Joey protests. "You can't claim his toys!"
Leaving the toys and whipping behind the counter, Pacey heaves the lost and found box across the floor.
"In your many months of employment here, hasanyonereturned to find a misplaced item?" His hands rake through the dusty items. Reading glasses, sets of keys, a lost doll.
"No."
"Exactly. If the kid returns for his toys, I'll be the first to spring the two bucks to replace them at the dollar store." He repositions the box back to its place. "But right now, I'm going to respect the age-old proverb of 'finders keepers, losers weepers'."
Throughout the evening, he arranges them around the store. Sniper fire by the Thrillers, a frontal attack dotted by the popcorn stand.
Joey resists the play, trying not to trip over the tiny soldiers as she places returns on the shelf. When it's time for closing, he stuffs them into his backpack. And it isn't until Joey is safely dropped at home she realizes that a kneeling green man with a bazooka in his grip is hidden in the bottom of her bag.
Every night spent together at work, each afternoon they can escape unseen, she arrives home to find another of those army men in her bag. On the dresser drawers in her bedroom, she lines them up. Saluting, crawling, shooting. Twenty-seven of them now sit, plastic reminders of their time together.
He takes the long way home after work. They watch out the windshield, vigilant for police cruises in their periphery. Seeing none, Pacey puts the Wagoneer into park, beyond the copse of pines en route to the Potter house, escaping into headlight-off darkness.
Flashing red lines of the digital clock in the Wagoneer count their reprieve. The time between the end of their shift and the drive home. A brief, precious space. Since Mike Potter's release, there has been a heightened vigilance. Fathers scrutinize, test, and question late arrivals.
Joey unclips her seatbelt. She pushes the tan leather armrest into the seat pocket and slides closer.
"Fifteen minutes," Pacey says, noting the clock reads 9:11 PM.
"Got it. I have until…" She calculates quickly, "9:26."
He glances at the clock, a sly grin tugging at his jaw. "It's 9:12. You've just wasted a minute running numbers."
"Shut up," she breathes into his mouth, silencing him, covering her lips with his.
The windows fog, blurred by their breaths, as lips and tongues explore. It's a familiar waltz, tangling themselves together after hours of working side-by-side and trying not to let a single glance between them show.
Joey grips his hair in her fists, holds him tight. Hands stay above clothes in these time sensitive encounters. But it doesn't stop her from straddling him, the press of the tan steering wheel in her back. Fifteen minutes is all she has to take what she can of him with her. Fifteen minutes of touch, fifteen minutes of his lips on her neck. Fifteen minutes to grind and yearn and build the desire to bursting. Enough to get her fill, to get her through the night, until their next fifteen minutes.
She has her eyes closed. Avoiding the clock. But Pacey watches, always. A menace at home counts his minutes too.
Time beckons, and they succumb to the inevitable and part. He starts the engine, driving to the Potter house, dimming the headlights.
There is a tape playing, the newest in their rotation, but Joey's barely heard a song.
"9:27," he sighs. "As promised."
"You have exactly three minutes to get home before your questioning commences." Joey gets her bag from the back seat. She's careful to check under the seats for an errant scarf or jacket, erasing all evidence of herself.
"I'd much prefer to resume our previous programming."
"Home, Pacey." Her gaze is serious. She doesn't want him pushing the limits, inviting examination into his schedule.
He salutes. "Night, Jo." A smile creases his mouth as tires crunch the gravel.
"Night, Pace."
She puts his smile in her pocket and carries it inside, keeping her warm.
In the Potter house, her father sits sentinel on the couch, awaiting her return. He pretends to watch syndicated sitcoms.
Joey can't bring herself to speak to him. In purgatory for sins against her mother. She cannot look at him without seeing his deception in plain sight.
He serves penance by bringing home leftovers from the Icehouse in takeout containers with 'Joey' scrawled in uppercase Sharpie. She doesn't eat them and they become a battleground in the refrigerator, blooming green mold as she ignores the peace offering and he keeps adding to the pile.
So they skirt around each other, and Joey becomes a recluse, bound to her bedroom. But as she passes him tonight, her father halts her steps. "Can I give you a ride to school in the morning?"
"No. I'll walk."
"It's supposed to rain," he begins.
"Then I'll get wet."
"Geez, Joey. You act like I'm some kind of monster."
"Most people consider ex-prisoners and adulterers monsters, it should hardly come as a shock to you," she looks him in the eye, words slicing.
"You havenoidea what was happening in mine, or Mary's marriage back then. None. You don't understand what we went through, what I went through."
"Whatever it was, did it give you license to carry on an affair for years? To lie to Mom, to lie to your children, to people who were once your friends?"
"Joey…" he starts, but she cuts him off.
"And the prison part? Are you going to attempt to explain that away? Because after a couple of years inside, and coming back into the family home, I've never once heard an explanation or an apology. Sorry, Bessie. Sorry, Jo. Sorry for dealing drugs at the exact moment you needed a parent the most. Or are you just sorry you got caught?" She slams her bedroom door before he can reply.
Opening her backpack, Joey delves a hand into its open cavity. And there, at the bottom, beside her calculus homework, is tonight's army man. He is pointing to an unknown enemy, rifle strapped to his back. She places him beside the others.
Number twenty-eight.
Lying on her back, legs against the posters on her wall, Jen picks at the edges of her chipping fingernail polish. Joey has textbooks spread open before her on the patchwork quilt. A yellow highlighter sits in her grip, but she isn't reading or studying.
"A tad distracted today, are we?" Jen asks.
Joey's eyes drift back to the page, searching for her place. "One finds it easy to be distracted when the question is to analyze George Washington's Farewell address and how it relates to modern political doctrine."
"Joey Potter, once upon a time you would have been positively titillated when asked to dissect the speech of one of our great presidents."
Pushing away the textbook, she sighs. "George Washington isn't quite doing it for me today."
Jen snickers, her feet descending from the wall. She turns to face her friend, chin cradled in her hands. "I'm not surprised."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, I'm sure it's hard to delve into the psyche of our perfectly powdered leader of the Revolutionary War when you have distractions aplenty."
Joey puts her head up. "What distractions?"
"Oh, I don't know, a certain quippy tall brunette who captures the majority of your spare time."
"Pacey isn't a distraction." Joey closes her book carefully. Keeping their secret from Jen had been the hardest of all.
"Hmm… I'm not so sure about that."
Rolling her eyes, Joey re-opens the book and attempts to find the place, if only to prove Jen wrong. "Aren't we supposed to be studying? Isn't that why I'm here?"
Jen shrugs, glancing at her unopened textbooks. "Wecouldstudy. Or youcouldtell me if Pacey is a good kisser."
Without glancing up from the page, Joey replies. "How would I know?"
"Well," Jen tilts her head to examine her friend. "On Tuesday, you asked for a bathroom slip, and not two minutes later, Pacey asked for one. You both returned, at carefully spaced intervals - but your hair was down, and when you left, it was tied in a ponytail."
"Am I not allowed to change my hairstyle throughout the day?" Joey's protest is firm, brows raised.
"On Wednesday, you sat beside each other at lunch, and Pacey barely ate, keeping his left hand below the table the whole time."
"So...?"
"Thursday, I walked into Screen Play and you both emerged from the back room. Your lips were flushed, and Pacey had to stand behind the counter the entire time."
"We were stacking videos." There is a wobble to her voice.
"Friday," Jen leans in, a prosecutor delivering her final address to the jury. "I watched him kiss you, squarely on the lips, during the break between fifth and sixth period. It was in the art building, that small corner beside the dark room. If my eyes didn't deceive me, you kissed him back. With fervor, I might add."
Joey freezes, mouth agape.
Through a satisfied smile, Jen continues. "I'm all for you kissing Pacey. Hell, shout it from the rooftops! But I'm going to assume that on account of the persistent denials and the fact that you haven't told me, or Dawson, or anyone really is that you're proceeding with a covert relationship?"
Hands cover Joey's face, peeking between split fingers. "No one can know, Jen."
"Hey, your secret's safe with me. But…" Jen shrugs. "If you want to keep it under wraps, you need to keep your hands—and your lips—away from each other in public."
"This is embarrassing." She buries her face against the cool pages of the book.
"Kissing a cute boy's embarrassing?" Jen raises an eyebrow.
"The way you describe it makes it sound like we're all over each other."
"And why shouldn't you be? You're young. You're in love." Jen enunciates in an exaggerated French accent.
"Jesus, Jen, you saw us kissing and you're already talking about love?"
Jen laughs. "Okay, okay. But seriously, let's get back to the pertinent information. Is he a good kisser?"
Joey bites her lip, meeting Jen's eyes. "Incredible…"
Lies are told. They slip easily from practiced lips.
Joey tells Bessie she is with Jen.
Pacey scrawls a note on the kitchen counter to say he's at Dawson's house.
The ruins are theirs alone for the day. Crumbling concrete and marble structures, browned vines making way for the green bloom as spring wins it's battle over winter.
They set up beneath the rustling skirts of a willow. She hides them well.
On the ground, still damp from recent rains, Pacey lays out a blanket, and from his backpack comes an assortment of containers and bottles. Sandwiches, strawberries, homemade brownies.
"I was unaware I was walking into a picnic extravaganza," she considers the spread before them.
"Can't a guy go to a little effort?"
"When you said you'd bring snacks, I kind of figured a Funyuns and Jolly Ranchers situation."
"What kind of man do you take me for? This is our first date, Potter. It's official. You can't escape now."
"What about all our other meet-ups? It's been almost two months now."
"Hanging out at Screen Play and Wagoneer fondling does not a date make."
"Even our sleepover at the store? You said it was close to a date."
Pacey shakes his head. "I've reconsidered. This is the official one."
"If I'd have known, I would have dressed up a little."
"I like you however you come, Miss Potter."
They eat and lie on their backs, grass making indents on skin, eyes at the peeking sky. Sunday time is a gift, wrapped in a bow. Joey left her watch at home.
She bites the sandwich. Turkey, Swiss, and cranberry on rye. "You should be a chef."
"It's a turkey sandwich, Jo."
"But it's not just a sandwich. I can make a sandwich and it's just stale Wonder Bread and peanut butter. This -" she chews. "This is art."
He chuckles.
"Don't laugh. I'm being serious. You always bring the most incredible treats to work, making us dinner. I can imagine it, you being a chef. In the chef whites. All cute with the long hat."
"The hat is actually called a toque," he says.
"See! How do you know that? I think it might just be your destiny."
"From sandwiches to the pages of Bon Appétit?" Pacey is skeptical.
"Don't discount the possibility."
"That sounds an awful lot like ambition, Jo. And I'm going to tell you now, it is Witter lore that I'm destined for such career aspirations as gas station attendant or janitor. The closest I'll ever get to being a chef is flipping burgers."
"Since when do you conform to Witter lore? Do you really think that your destiny should be decided by your parents? How much do they know about you, really?" She fires questions before he has time to answer. "Don't let John Witter tell you who you are."
It's a term of their arrangement, unspoken, that no one mentions his father's name, but it slips from Joey's lips before she can swallow it. Pacey lets it pass and instead crawls toward her on the blanket. Joey drops the sandwich crusts into the Tupperware.
"And who am I?" he rises above her on the strength of his arms, holding his nose and body an inch away from hers.
"You are determined, you are smart, you are loyal, you are protective … and, on occasion, you can be a pain in the ass, but, on account of your good looks, I'm going to let that one slide."
His arms drop toward her, just a little. "What was that last one again?"
"Pain in the ass?" She grins up at him.
"The one before that." His arms tremor from holding up his weight.
"Protective?"
"No. In between protective and pain in the ass."
He inches toward her, nose against nose, waiting for her to say it.
"Good looking?" she says finally, and he collapses onto her, face in her neck.
"That's the one," he breathes into her ear, biting at the lobe.
On borrowed time, all they've had is kisses, timed and brief. But now, hidden in the canopy of leaves, a rush doesn't weigh upon them. Pacey can kiss her and she is burned. Crumbling ash beneath his fingertips.
The skin of his neck under her lips, the bulge of his pants against her center. It's as far as previous explorations ventured, clothes against clothes grinding.
But spring carries their secret, disguising it in sunlight, and birdsong and frogs croaking from the algae-tinged ponds.
From beneath, she pushes Pacey onto his back, straddling him as he lies on the blanket. Eyes all over her, he reaches up and tucks a tangled flop of her hair behind her ear. "You, Josephine Potter, are beautiful."
She smiles, lopsided, and leans down to kiss the fingerprint-sized hollow beneath Adam's apple. When she rises again into a sitting position, she pulls the sweater over her head. Pacey hands crawl upward, finding the lace of her best bra, pushing himself up on his elbows to lay kisses at the top of her breasts.
His erection throbs between them, Joey presses against. Their connected jeans purr as she moves her hips against him.
Pacey groans, mumbling an obscenity.
In response to his pleasure, Joey continues the movement. Finding herself lost in the friction, a ball of heat growing between them.
She leans down and kisses him, and his hand slips beneath her bra, fingertips grazing on the bud of her nipple. Joey moans into his mouth and he unconsciously bucks his hips upward toward her.
Joey's fingers reach for the cup of her bra, pulling it down over her breast, exposing herself to him. Pacey's eyes open wide as she leans into him, inviting his mouth to her pale flesh. On the milky skin beneath her breast, his lips hover, raising to seek the blush of her areola. Skin hot from contact, she rubs against him with fervor, quickening the pace.
When he finally takes the bud of her nipple in his mouth, Joey's eyes loll closed. Pacey's tongue is hot and wet against her. She leans into him, feeling herself slipping away, towards something she can't quite reach.
He doesn't stop, angling the bulge of his erection at her warmest parts and she rides it through underwear and jeans.
It comes as a surprise, the eventual fall. When the heat between them peaks and tingles flood through her insides, shivering down to her toes. Joey Potter falls limp onto Pacey's chest, catching her lost breaths.
"Are you okay?" He asks into her hair. "Was that okay?"
She searches for words. "I don't know what happened, or how that happened."
He kisses the strands. "It's completely normal."
"Nothingabout that was normal."
They drive home with the windows open, the afternoon mild on their skin. Words can't capture the teenage-first moments beneath the willow. Even the end of the day can't damper their smiles.
She claims a final kiss when he puts the car in park at the end of the Potter driveway. Her lashes flutter across his cheek with their goodbyes.
Joey Potter floats through the door and into her room.
That evening she lies in bed in darkness, drawing with fingertips on her skin. Careful circles around the places he touched.
Her arm.
Her neck.
Her stomach.
Her breasts.
A gentle knock sounds on her door. She pulls the covers tight, disguising the fresh smell of Pacey's touch on her skin.
When she doesn't answer, the door opens a crack, and her father's eyes peer at her. "Can we talk?" he asks.
"I'm sleeping," she snaps.
He walks in, glancing around the room as if it's foreign land. "You avoid me all day. I figure at least, here in bed, you can't run from the discussion."
"I don't want to talk."
"Well, then just listen." Mike Potter sits on her bed, smoothes the sheets beneath his hand. "It's getting busy at the Icehouse. Summer isn't far away."
"What does that have to do with me?"
"Bessie has her hands full with Alexander. I could do with another waitress."
His words, delivered with lightness, are deceptively heavy. Each syllable falls from a cliff.
"But I'm still at Screen Play," she stutters, sitting up.
"Bessie tells me that was always temporary."
Joey holds her breath. The day was always going to come when she would return to the Icehouse, an agreement made between sisters long before. She can't imagine going to bed without the smell of popcorn in her hair.
"I need you there, Joey." The discussion, like all their discussions now, is terse. He's not her father, he's a stranger at arm's length.
"When?" She looks at the ceiling, not at him.
"As soon as possible."
Mike's eyes are soft with recognition. Without query or confrontation, he knows. He knows where his daughter has been. It wasn't study dates with Jen, it wasn't the movies with Dawson.
It's in the brimming of tears in her eyes, afraid to blink in case they spill. The loss of the lifeline that justified hours spent together with Pacey each week.
He is going to take it all away.
Mike stands to leave the room. Before he closes the door, he says. "It's our family business, Joey. I'm not doing it to make you speak to me again or to take you away from your friends at Screen Play. I'm doing it because it's your job."
He closes the door.
It takes a minute, until she hears his footsteps disappear down the hallway. When it's silent again, she lets the tears fall freely, wet circles on her pillow.
Without Screen Play, she's without Pacey. Without him three times a week, without the plastic aroma of perfectly lined up VHS tapes, without his smile, without his respite.
Joey Potter stares at the army men on her dresser. The figure from today - number thirty-one, stands at the end of the line, in fatigues beside his comrades. A straight back, a salute.