Local Artist Is Tired of Your Garbage

“Stand Up Right Now” by DARKRECONSTRUCTION

The problem with Joyce Mailloux was, simply, Joyce Mailloux. Not the girl herself, but the name. Joyce hated her name. It was midcentury and fast falling out of vogue, better suited for elderly women who made casseroles and used the word pocketbook. And it was technically an old woman’s name – it belonged to Joyce’s maternal grandmother, a formidable eighty-eight-year-old who ruled over her assisted living facility like an aging monarch. But there was nothing Joyce could do now. After thirty-two years with one name, it seemed impractical and self-indulgent to ask people to call her something else.

Joyce was bad, as old-fashioned as it was, but then there was Mailloux. She could definitely change that, if she got married, but that prospect seemed as distant as ever and so she was stuck with a name that was foreign, snobby, and put people on the defensive. But it wasn’t fair, she thought, because they weren’t even French. A full century separated Joyce from her old-world ancestors, and the Mailloux family had morphed into nothing except solid, sarcastic New Englanders. Over time Joyce tried to develop a little act, something to ease the transition. Most of the letters are actually silent, she would say. She would point to herself and then the other person, and say, it’s as easy as “my-you”. But the middle-class population of Hartford, Connecticut did not feel the need to accommodate this.

At present, Joyce was not in Hartford. She was outside of Fort Edward, a town of ten thousand in central New York. A far cry from New York City, where she was supposed to be. Joyce was trying to gamely adapt to the situation, but as she left the meager outskirts of Fort Edward and the scenery grew ever more wild and unkempt, she felt unease gather in her stomach. She drove past miles of empty winter fields, the Adirondacks rising dark and ominous in the distance, and then entered a dense wood. She began to worry she was lost, that the publishing company had somehow given her the wrong address, until a wrought iron gate suddenly broke the wall of forest. She peered down the gravel road, a house just visible in the distance. At long last, she had reached Alex Winwood’s mysterious home.

The house looked like something from a magazine, innumerable gabled roofs providing stark contrast to the rolling hills beyond. It was part lodge, part ski chalet, part palace. No one knew how much Alex Winwood had made over the course of her career, but conservative estimates put her net worth at half a billion dollars. It would not be inaccurate to say that Alex’s fantasy series had been read the world over. And besides the books, there were movies, and merchandise, and even an honest to god theme park. The publishing industry was agog at the time, that a young adult series could generate such jaw-dropping revenue figures. More than one opinion piece heralded Alex Winwood as the voice of a generation, though Alex herself was utterly ambivalent about this title. This was just one of the items Joyce planned to discuss, and she felt excitement bloom in her chest as she climbed the steps, crossed the impossibly wide porch, and knocked.

The person who opened the door was not who she was expecting. Joyce had studied Alex Winwood’s author photo more times than she could count, and devised a clear mental image of the woman. Every one of Alex’s books had the same picture, even though she was first published over twenty years ago. It was a black and white photo showing Alex from the waist up, arms crossed over a dark sweater. In person, Alex was significantly shorter and heavier than Joyce had anticipated. She was not overweight, but Joyce was expecting a frail, whimsical woman, an academic wisp. The real Alex was sturdy and dressed in jeans and a sporty pullover. Joyce’s planned greeting evaporated as she tried to reconcile the image of her idol with the woman before her.

“Can I help you?” Alex asked.

“Oh, I’m here for the…”

What was she supposed to call it exactly? A meeting? An appointment? She was standing on Alex’s doorstep because she had won a contest, but to say that out loud struck Joyce as unacceptably juvenile and ridiculous. Like she was a schoolgirl who had written a letter to her favorite boy band. But, as farfetched as it sounded, it was the truth. The contest was run by Alex’s publisher, the goliath company that published all of her books. Joyce had entered the contest on a whim, certain it was futile, and she regretted offering up all that personal information as soon as she received the first marketing email. By the time the winner was announced six months later, Joyce had completely forgotten about her impulsive entry. But then she received the most surprising message of her life.

Alex was still staring at her, her expression guarded as she waited for Joyce to present a case for entry.

“You know, the contest,” Joyce said eventually. Her fingers formed something close to air quotes, as she said, “Win a night with Alex Winwood.”

“Is that how they advertised it?” Alex asked. “Good lord. That makes me sound like a prostitute.”

Joyce remained frozen on the doormat. This was so far from the warm reception she had expected that she could not think of a single thing to say. Alex saved her by bursting into laughter.

“I’m kidding,” she said. “Well, not really, but they did tell me you were coming. I must have lost track of time. Come in.”

Joyce followed Alex through the large foyer, down a hallway, and into a kitchen roughly the size of a cathedral. For all the wealth on display, Alex seemed neither proud nor embarrassed of it. Her movements were efficient as she picked up her tablet. The only thing on the screen was a timer, which Alex paused with a swift stroke of her finger.

“I think they set up something. Let me check,” she said, and then abruptly disappeared.

The silence was overwhelming. Joyce expected the large room to echo with sound, but the quiet was profound, as if she were deep underwater. There should be people in such a home, Joyce realized. Alex had a husband, a modestly published poet and travel writer, though he was nowhere to be found. And, without being able to articulate why, Joyce felt certain that it was only Alex here. After waiting several minutes in the heavy silence, Joyce gained enough confidence to wander towards the windows facing the back lawn.

As beautiful as the house was, it was the view the filled her with so much unexpected envy. This feeling did not plague her often, and she was surprised by the vehement jealousy suddenly coursing through her. But, looking at the sweeping expanse, Joyce couldn’t help but compare it with her own pathetic backyard of concrete, potted plants, and more concrete. It was too much - the wooded, rolling hills, the cumulus clouds somehow pulled from a storybook, soft against the pale blue winter sky. And not an ounce of trash for miles, she thought bitterly.

At last, Alex reappeared and motioned for Joyce to follow. She led her to a library, where someone had arranged an elaborate display. A circular table was positioned in the center of the room, replete with a full tea service and a shining stack of Alex’s novels. The setup reeked of New York publicity, though it was nevertheless quite nice. A three-tiered stand laden with tea sandwiches sat beside a platter of petite cakes and pastries. Joyce felt like she should thank someone, but whoever was responsible for the display was long since gone. Without any pageantry or invitation to Joyce, Alex sat down and began to pour the tea.

“So,” Alex said after a moment. “Where are you from?”

Joyce had expected to feel nervous. She had arranged any number of topics and charming things to say. She even wrote these things down on a sheet of loose-leaf paper back at her house.  She expected Alex to be accommodating, or at the very least offer a sort of feigned, polite interest. But Alex’s tone was resigned, as if this were a task to be finished as quickly as possible, like having your teeth cleaned or your emissions tested.

“I’m from Hartford,” Joyce replied, her voice tinged with childlike petulance.

Alex did not pick up on this, and only absently spread butter over a cinnamon scone.

“That’s a nice town,” she replied. “What do you do there?”

“I work in medical billing.”

Joyce watched Alex’s face carefully. After enough years of telling people this, she could pinpoint the precise moment that someone decided she was boring. There were worse jobs, certainly. But there was something about medical billing that struck people as so humdrum, almost farcically mundane. And, beneath that, lurked the unpleasant suspicion that Joyce was somehow on the wrong side. Was she that person on the phone, they wondered, gouging their friends and neighbors with sky high medical bills? No, that wasn’t her job, Joyce would explain. She worked in a Doctor’s office, and she merely submitted claims to insurance companies or government payors. It was at this point that people’s eyes glazed over. They never bothered to understand the nuance between billing and collections. Joyce took some umbrage at this. It wasn’t like she was a merciless corporate raider. But then again, perhaps they would find that preferable. Better to be an intentional villain than a cog in the machine.

“Medical billing,” Alex repeated thoughtfully.

To Joyce’s surprise, the typical judgment did not cross Alex’s face. She only stirred sugar into her tea, and asked, “Is that what you always wanted to do?”

“What?” Joyce asked.

She studied Alex, looking for any trace of sarcasm. Nobody had ever asked her this. It was implied that she had not intended to work under harsh fluorescent lights, filling in tiny boxes with claim codes. And yet, Alex did not appear to be mocking her.

Alex clarified, “Is that what you studied in school?”

“No,” Joyce replied. “I went to art school, but I had to drop out after a year.”

“Why is that?”

When this question arose, Joyce usually gave a speech about the purity of art, the futility of trying to teach such a thing as style. But something about Alex, her direct manner perhaps, elicited a forthright response.

“It was too expensive.”

“That’s too bad,” Alex said.

“Even worse when you take out loans for a degree you don’t have.”

Alex nodded, but her mouth was too full for a reply. Joyce realized that Alex was eating quickly, not in an overtly rude way per say, but close enough. Indeed, she had poured herself a second cup of tea before Joyce was halfway through her first. The conversation turned to surface level topics - the drive from Fort Edward, the dismal weather of February - other subjects so bland that Joyce felt the little energy remaining in the room evaporate.

 This was all wrong. They were supposed to be in the city, two smartly dressed girls frolicking around Manhattan. That was how the publishing house had advertised it, anyway. When Joyce got the email saying she had won – and once she got over the shock - she had visions of dinner at a little sushi restaurant, drinks at a literary speakeasy. Joyce planned and prepped and shopped for a new outfit. But then the publishing house called two weeks ago. The woman on the phone sounded very young and harried - the ideal grunt to deliver an undesirable message. She said that Alex was unable to make it to the city. At the time, Joyce thought that some sort of conflict or emergency had arisen, or perhaps Alex couldn’t travel easily. But now Joyce understood. She simply wasn’t worth it.

Alex had no doubt been strong-armed into the contest, a clause in the fine print of her contract, and this was her protest. Not for one second had she planned on going into the city. Joyce didn’t know why she ever thought differently. Alex wasn’t a recluse, but she had always been notoriously absent from the literary community. She seemed happy to write her books and hand them over to the publishing house, as though releasing them into the wild. And then, as if reading Joyce’s thoughts, Alex rose and tossed her napkin onto the table.

“That was lovely,” she said, and then looked about the room, as if expecting an emcee to announce the end of the show.

Joyce tried to remain stubbornly silent, though after enough time passed she acquiesced, and said, “Yeah. The food was great.”

With that, Alex turned and headed for the door, stopping only when Joyce cried out a desperate, “Wait!”

Alex paused in the doorframe and stared at her.

“What else?” Joyce asked, unable to find the right words. She gestured awkwardly and said, “I mean, what else is there?”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, “I told them I only had time for a quick tea.”

“But…”

“I told them that,” she repeated, frowning.

They definitely assumed you were kidding, Joyce thought. “Should I leave?” she asked, mortified by the question, though angrier that she had to ask it.

But Alex, of all things, seemed surprised by this. “Not at all,” she said. “Make yourself at home. You can go for a walk if you want. There’s no fence but I guarantee you won’t leave the property.”

Joyce wanted to say something else, but by the time she opened her mouth Alex had already disappeared. She sagged into her chair, the last of the adrenaline draining from her body. That was Joyce Mailloux for you. Not even interesting enough to hold Alex’s attention for twenty minutes. Joyce pushed her plate away, so underwhelmed and embarrassed she felt tears brimming.

The problem was that Joyce had built this visit up too much. If she were to be honest, she knew why she was so very disappointed. She had been gearing herself up for some sort of revelation, for Alex to examine her life and pick it apart like an early draft of one of her stories. The elements we need are here, Alex would say. Talent, yes, and some ambition, but so much confusion. Alex would then reorder the narrative - polish the good stuff, shave away all that maddening uncertainty - and Joyce would emerge with purpose and direction. But it was hardly Alex’s job to serve as motivational life coach.

As underwhelming as the visit was, Joyce couldn’t bring herself to leave just yet. Every so often she marveled anew at the fact that she was sitting in Alex Winwood’s house. She eyed the glossy stack of books. On top, of course, was the series that had made Alex famous. These books meant more to Joyce than she cared to admit. Her friends and family knew she was a fan, but so was everyone else in the world, and they remained oblivious as to the extent of her obsession. They didn’t know that the books had saved her, that they had been a constant companion, her own personal talisman, in a way.

Joyce was seventeen when she first discovered the series, the very age Evelyn, the main character, was when Book One began. Joyce, artsy, lonely, her light brown hair dyed pink at the ends, had seen herself in Evelyn, a similarly lost and quiet girl. When Evelyn’s parents mysteriously died and she was cast into a strange half-world of wizards and warlocks, it felt like Joyce was answering the call to action with her. Together, she and Evelyn cast aside their tepid personalities and rose valiantly to the occasion. Joyce felt sometimes that the books had been written just for her. Maybe that was it. If Alex was able to speak to her so clearly and so beautifully through her writing, then surely in real life she could provide double, triple that level of insight. Alex would open her eyes to whatever it was that Joyce couldn’t see. But no. Alex was gone, lost in other lands, with characters far more interesting than the almost-artist medical biller sitting in her library.

Joyce decided to take Alex up on her offer and at least walk around the grounds before she left. She hurried through the front door and headed towards the back of the house. On the way she encountered an unexpected sight – a small field of solar panels, their sleek rectangular faces angled to the same precise degree. They would get little from this weak winter sun, however. As she walked over the grounds, she found other signs of Alex’s eco-consciousness – a large heap of compost, barrels to collect rainwater, and beehives in the distance. The woman was surprising, Joyce at least had to give her that.

She was struck again at how pristine the landscape was. It wasn’t that Joyce lived in a dump. She lived in a quiet neighborhood, in an outdated if perfectly serviceable town home, along with her two roommates. But just outside the neighborhood, where the two main roads intersected, there was the trash. When Joyce was confronted with the sight of the trash, she was convinced that the human race was in decline. Is that how thoughtless we had become, how utterly selfish and impolite? It was the trash of any major road - Styrofoam cups, fast food wrappers, those black, plastic convenience store bags that clung to the road like some sort of malignant moss. It was the detritus of modern-day life, and every time Joyce saw it, she felt angry and ever so slightly depressed.

Her roommates were unbothered by the trash, something that Joyce couldn’t fathom. They told her to get over it, but she couldn’t let it go. She should show them this view, this winter Eden, and maybe then they would share in her anger. Joyce kept to the small stone path as it sloped downward, not daring to venture into the woods. The last thing she wanted was to get lost. She worried – not sarcastically or ironically – that Alex would not notice if she went missing.

Now that she was outdoors Joyce was feeling even more resentful than she had in the stale air of the library. She kicked at the pebbles of the path, sending them cascading into the dead grass. A fleeting burst of satisfaction filled her at this small act of rebellion, before it was replaced with guilt. As if Alex Winwood did the landscaping. But for Joyce, this was a familiar sequence. Frustration, small defiance, and then guilt. And then, following the guilt, snippets of shame. Because weren’t artists supposed to be the bold, fearless ones raging against the status quo? Joyce had always felt, deep down, that she was too much of a goody-two-shoes to be a true artist. She held an ideal in her head, that of a goth, female Dalí. But that wasn’t Joyce at all. She wanted routine and stability. She not only tolerated but actually enjoyed her family. Hell, she liked having dental insurance and a tiny, though growing, 401(k). That in and of itself was a miracle for someone without a bachelor’s degree, though it was about as un-rock and roll as you could get.

She did occasionally, perhaps more than occasionally, feel that this was not enough. She did have talent. Her oil paintings and watercolor landscapes were objectively good. When she was able to set up her materials - when she wasn’t completely drained from commuting across Hartford or navigating the squabbling ranks of the office assistants - she felt the same primal joy she always felt when she picked up her brush. But even during these times Joyce had the nagging sense that they were mere placeholders, little bursts of practice, to stay somewhat prepared for the time when she…what exactly? Had no job and could paint fulltime? Was not perpetually exhausted? Without an answer to any of these questions, Joyce still stubbornly waited for this future. She recognized it might be something close to cowardice, this thing that kept her from diving into her art. But when her mind brushed up against this thought everything in her recoiled, and so she clung to her routine.

Eventually Joyce’s toes grew numb and she turned back to the house. While the publishing company had not given her a specific end time, she was feeling dejected enough to simply call it a day. Although, when she let herself in through the front door Joyce was shocked to find the house in a crisis of sorts. An alarm was blaring from the kitchen, impossibly loud and shrill, and Alex was running down the hallway. Joyce followed her into the kitchen, arriving just in time to watch Alex pick up her tablet and turn off the alarm.

“Sorry about that,” Alex said, her voice echoing in the sudden quiet. “But I can’t have the timer in the room with me. Otherwise I just stare at it. I have to set it that loud or else I won’t hear it. I like to think of it as my own personal whistle, like at the mill.”

“You’re finished?” Joyce asked, unable to hide her surprise.

Alex said, “I end my workday at six o’clock on the dot now. My therapist and I decided it would be best.”

“That’s…nice.”

“Plus,” Alex continued, talking over her, “I wanted to make my second marriage work. I decided it would be nice to actually see my husband.”

 “Oh,” Joyce said, “I didn’t realize he was here.”

“He’s not. He’s in Borneo, working on an article,” she said, as though Borneo were the equivalent of the corner store. “But I don’t want to get out of the habit.”

Joyce went to the island to gather her things. She was wondering how to politely say goodbye when Alex asked, “What are you doing?”

“I think I should probably go.”

“Oh no,” Alex said. “I’m done. You can stick around if you want. I’ve been waiting for tonight for a long while.”

There was new life in Alex’s eyes. The haze from before had dissolved, almost like she had come out of a trance.

“What’s tonight?” Joyce asked.

But Alex hesitated, appraising Joyce with new interest. “I feel like I can trust you,” Alex said finally. “And I’m usually pretty good about people. But can you keep a secret?”

“Sure,” Joyce said, though this answer did not seem to appease Alex.

“This isn’t who my ninth-grade crush was,” Alex said. “This is important. I need to know I can trust you.”

“I did enter a contest just to meet you,” Joyce pointed out.

“True.” Then Alex straightened her shoulders and said, “Come with me.”

She led Joyce into a cavernous wine cellar, selected a bottle from a section labeled Cabernet, and said mysteriously, “I can’t do this sober.”

Then she led Joyce back upstairs and into a small office. The only real piece of furniture in the office was a table, which was covered with a map. Joyce recognized the town of Fort Edward and the southern edge of Lake George. Alex’s home was circled in bright red pen, and there was another property, curiously marked with a red X. Alex poured two large glasses of wine while Joyce studied the map.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“Tell me,” Alex said, “what do you know about Harvey Cochran?”

“The billionaire?”

“Yes, billionaire. I guess that has to come first. Oil and mining magnate. Also, perpetrator of ecocide who is single handedly pushing our planet towards apocalypse. Also, political nut who doesn’t view anybody who isn’t male or white as worthy of an opinion. Also, my neighbor.”

She tapped the red X, and said, “This is his property.”

“Is he a bad neighbor or something?” Joyce asked, mystified at the turn in the conversation.

“Oh no, he’s a delightful neighbor. Truly the best. But I still need to ruin his wedding.”

Joyce was silent for several beats, and then could only manage a flat, “Excuse me?”

“Harvey Cochran is getting married tonight. At his country estate. Which just so happens to be a few miles from here.” Alex took in Joyce’s concerned expression and said, “Don’t worry, it’s his third marriage.”

“But – how are you going to do that?”

Joyce had visions of Alex upending the ceremony, dramatically entering during the ‘forever hold your peace’ part. And so she was shocked when Alex produced an axe. It was not huge, not one of those monstrous things that firemen carry, but it wasn’t small either. For a second she wondered if she were trapped in the country, alone with a madwoman. But Alex only placed the axe on the table and said, “It’s cold outside, right?”

“Sure.”

“And even better, another cold front is moving in. The temperature is dropping like a stone. It’s going to be fourteen degrees in a couple of hours. Right when the reception is picking up.”

This didn’t exactly answer her question, but Joyce was distracted, and asked, “Why would they have a wedding in February?”

“Well,” Alex said in a conspiratorial tone, “Harvey’s lovely young fiancé wanted a Valentine’s Day wedding. Had to have it near V-day, I heard. The peak of romance.”

Joyce had forgotten, but Valentine’s Day – a holiday she usually did her best to ignore - was the coming Tuesday. As it was Saturday, she supposed this was the closest the future Mrs. Cochran could get to the actual day.

“Wait,” Joyce said. “I don’t…why would you want to do this?”

“Because Harvey is doing his best to destroy the world, and I mean that literally, not figuratively. Someone has to stand up to him. I may not be able to stop his company, but I can sure as hell ruin his wedding.” She then lifted the axe and offered Joyce a bright smile. “As for how, I guess you’ll just have to come with me.”

***

Alex said they had to drive to the site. On the way, they passed the entrance to Harvey Cochran’s estate. Joyce could see the house lording over Lake George in the distance, lights ablaze. A steady stream of cars passed under an archway made entirely of red roses.

“Don’t you feel kind of bad?” Joyce asked in a halting voice. “I mean, all these people.”

“When New York City is underwater and your safe inland home is overrun by an angry horde, you can call me and tell me how guilty you feel then,” Alex said.

“But this is some girl’s wedding day.”

“I’m sure ten billion dollars will console her.”

Joyce was quiet after that. Several more minutes passed before Alex turned onto a tiny, unmarked side road, and stopped. With only a mischievous smile, she popped the trunk and then exited the car. Joyce followed, hesitant. She was even more wary when she found Alex lugging a small ladder from the back.

“Can you tell me what we’re doing?” Joyce asked, and then tacked on, “Please?”

She kept forgetting that she was with Alex Winwood. The woman had transformed before her very eyes. She was no longer famous, aloof author. But what she was, Joyce couldn’t pinpoint. Alex placed the folded ladder on the ground and inhaled deeply.

“I think we’re in the teens now,” she said happily. Then, “Joyce, think about all the things that are happening at that house right now. All the things that need electricity. The caterers are cooking their two hundred-thousand-dollar dinner. The band is testing their equipment. The heat is pumping because these lakeside places get damn drafty.”

“So you want to…what, turn off their power?”

Alex’s eyes were impossibly bright in the gloom. “Harvey Cochran should know better than anybody how fragile our electrical grid really is.” She then motioned to the ladder and said, “Give me a hand, will you?”

They walked down the lonely road and emerged at the edge of a field. Joyce caught sight of the power poles running straight to the Cochran mansion in the far distance, and a curious sensation filled her. Fear and unease, but also a strange elation. The ladder was light, practically weightless in her hands. With no map or GPS, Alex still seemed to know exactly where she was going. She stopped at the western edge of the field, where the power lines emerged from the dark trees.

 Joyce saw it before Alex could show her. The oak tree, so very top-heavy. The limb, overgrown, forgotten, positioned just a shade too close to the lines. Alex withdrew the axe from her pack and tested its weight. A brisk wind swept over them, rattling the trees, and Alex seemed to come alive.

“See?” she said. “The universe wants us to do this.”

It hardly seemed a favorable portent, but Joyce didn’t argue. She liked the sound of that so much. Us. 

And then Alex snapped the ladder open, placed it against the tree, and began to climb. Her hands reached the first thick limb and she attempted to haul herself up, though her upper body was too weak, and she landed precariously on the top step. The ladder wobbled, and Joyce hurried forward to steady it.

“No,” she said forcefully. “Get down.”

It seemed like a dream that she was ordering Alex Winwood around. But both she and Alex were overcome with a profound sense of urgency, as though they were diffusing a bomb and every second mattered. They could break for any number of minutes if they needed to, though neither woman seemed to recognize this.

Alex hurried down and pressed the axe into Joyce’s outstretched hand. “If you can get to the branch below it, you can stand and hack it away. Try to make it look natural if you can, like the limb split off.”

The climb was easy. The axe should have made it difficult, but Joyce reverted to her childhood self, the sprightly girl who scrambled up trees after her big brother. It wasn’t until she reached the limb and looked down, gauged the suddenly massive distance, that the fear struck. Her legs grew weak and her right arm, which was holding the axe, appeared to have transformed into rubber. A fleeting thought entered her mind. This, the boldest action of her life, and she wasn’t even doing it for herself. Then the thought dissipated, as breath into the wind.

For a moment it didn’t appear that the limb was heavy enough. When it finally dropped onto the line Joyce found that the wires were unexpectedly flexible, giving under the branch’s weight like a trampoline. She caught a glimpse of Alex’s face, frozen in worry, but then the whole thing went down in a mess of sparks and branches. And the house in the distance went dark.

They ran back to the car, clutching each other and laughing. Alex’s driving was too fast, but they couldn’t bring themselves to care. It was just barely past seven thirty, and yet it felt like midnight.

“Will they be able to fix it quickly?” Joyce asked, as they bounded into Alex’s kitchen.

Alex poured two more glasses of cabernet and said, “It will take hours just for the power company to get there.”

They each took a long sip, and then Alex placed her glass on the counter, and studied Joyce for a long time. Joyce allowed herself to be assessed, standing with her shoulders squared towards Alex.

Finally, Alex said, “I don’t have the secret for you, Joyce.”

“I…sorry…what?”

“All day you’ve been looking at me the way everybody looks at me.”

“And how is that?”

“Like I can solve all of your problems. Like I have the secret to everything. But I’m afraid to say I don’t.”

Joyce was embarrassed that she had been so transparent. But still, she couldn’t help gesturing at the luxurious kitchen. “Don’t you?” she asked in a small voice.

Alex sighed and said, “I’ve thought about this for a long time. Ever since people started looking at me like that. The only thing I have is…you have to be willing to annoy people.”

Without realizing it, Joyce had been gripping the marble countertop. She unclenched her fingers, deflated, and asked, “That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it. Think about what that means. You have to be willing to be rude and selfish. And that means people won’t like you. They’ll talk badly about you.”

“That doesn’t seem so hard.”

“For most people it’s incomprehensible. It’s abhorrent. The need to be liked – it’s in our DNA. We had to get along with the village to survive. And it’s a hundred times worse for women.” Taking in Joyce’s unimpressed face, Alex continued, “Let me show you how this works in practice. Was I a bad hostess to you earlier? Absolutely. Do I feel bad? Not really. I was in line edits up to my eyeballs. I need to finish those edits to get my book done. But you had to end up disappointed, and most people just couldn’t stomach that.”

Alex lifted her glass in mock cheers and said, “Here’s the big, juicy secret. As an adult, most of the time you can actually just do what you want. But you have to be able to stand people thinking you’re an asshole. Or even worse, an idiot.”

“What a terrifying thought,” Joyce joked.

But Alex’s reply was dead serious. “It is terrifying,” she said.

Joyce considered this as she finished her wine. She sensed that the evening was over, sensed too her own desire to be free of the house and think on all that had transpired. Alex walked her to the front door, waited on the porch as Joyce fished out her keys. Joyce felt like she was on a first date, unsure of how to extricate herself, though Alex shocked her by seizing her in a hug.

“Good luck, Joyce Mailloux,” she said, the pronunciation perfect.

***

Local Artist Is Tired of Your Garbage. That’s what the headline read. Joyce still couldn’t believe it. Her mom had purchased several copies of the newspaper and sent clippings to all of their relatives. Local artist. That was the phrase that struck Joyce as impossibly strange and exciting. But when the reporter asked her what she did, the answer simply appeared on her lips, as though summoned by some outside force. I’m an artist, she had replied. And that was that.

It started the morning after Joyce returned. She woke up, she got dressed, and she walked to the intersection. It was ten o’clock, and the Saturday morning traffic was picking up. She carried several neon signs that admonished the litterers. Some were funny, others were scathing. On her favorite sign, beside sketches of various pieces of rubbish she asked simply, ‘Who Raised You?’ She stapled these signs to the utility poles that lined the route of the trash, and then put on her gloves.

The rare car honked, waved in support. But most everyone just stared at her, their mouths slightly open. It was only several hours later, when she was bagging the last of the trash, that she had the idea. She began to work on her mural. Her roommates were furious, all that garbage in the yard, threatened to move out, though they didn’t. Joyce finished her mural of trash, then rented a truck to ferry it to city hall. She placed it by the entrance, somewhat blocking the doors. When it was removed, she made another the next week. The following week, another. That was when the local paper got wind of it, and the interviews began. She talked about throwaway culture; she talked about the decline of great civilizations. She talked about all the things she thought about in the shower, and because she said them into a recorder they were no longer jittery, haphazard thoughts but a treatise on society. She began to paint, and paint, and paint. She painted any number of works, some good, some wretched. She burned the wretched ones in the backyard under a full moon, drinking directly from a bottle of cabernet as Madonna blared. Ritualistic cleansing, she told her roommates. They moved out then.

It was hardly a linear path. Any number of people could have told Joyce to expect this, although it would not have helped. Often during this time, she found herself flagging. When, for example, her roommates moved out and voiced the thoughts they had been keeping bottled up. That was concentrated mean girl energy, that. Or when men yelled expletives at her as she bent over to pick up trash on the roadside. But during these times Joyce discovered that a strange thing began to happen.

She disappeared inside herself, in a way. But she did not stay there. She traveled back over the months, landed on a cold February night. She found herself saying goodbye to Alex on the porch, her breath forming huge clouds in the freezing air. She was supposed to drive straight back to Hartford. But no, Joyce didn’t want to return to the bland highways just yet. She got into her car and tried to remember the route she and Alex had taken to the Cochran estate. She had to turn around, retrace her steps several times. The dark was disorienting, and for several terrible minutes she feared she would never find the house again. Then Joyce realized the problem. She was still looking for that mansion, gleaming on the shore of Lake George like a brilliant yellow diamond. Eventually she found the arch made of roses, a mere dark outline in the gloom. She stopped the car and squinted into the distance. She could make out only a few taillights, miniscule red blips on a radar screen. The rest was onyx, obsidian, darkness like Joyce had never seen before.

about the author

Elizabeth Markley is a writer living in Atlanta, Georgia. She has been previously published in The Write Launch, The Mighty Line, Cleaning Up Glitter, The Feminine Collective, Haunted Waters Press, Castabout Literary Magazine, the Raw Art Review, and Flumes. Her work was a finalist in the 2020 Slippery Elm Prose Competition. When she is not writing she is kept busy by her children, two rambunctious boys under the age of five.

About the artist

DARKRECONSTRUCTION is a nonbinary queer painter from Queens, NY, USA. They have been painting their entire life to express their emotions, hopes, and dreams. DARKRECONSTRUCTION prides themselves on creating dreamlike, frothy, ephemeral compositions on a variety of surfaces including canvas, reclaimed cardboard, and fabric. Their work focuses on the contrast between urban life and nature. They are inspired by concrete walls overgrown by ivy and tree branches, train underpasses covered in graffiti and grass, a strong New York summer rainstorm beating against their window, the decaying Red Hook warehouses, tiny alleys, and the way the air smells on the first few days of September. It is their aim to create paintings that bring a moment of serenity and calm to the viewer. You can connect with them on www.darkreconstructionart.com and on Instagram @darkreconstruction.