Hidden Bodies

Love says she makes the Pantry playlists that Joe likes in the store. She also names the quirky aisles in the store, which she explains as she gives him the history of The Pantry. Her parents were high school sweethearts and are still “nauseatingly in love” (123). Love has been married twice. She was married to a man named Michael Motorcycle for eleven months. Then she married Dr. Trey Hanes, eight years prior to meeting Joe. Trey drowned after getting diagnosed with cancer.

Joe looks at the search history on her iPad, which she gives to him so he can Google her. Her search history is all about dogs and boots for dogs. She says that Forty has never been married. Love is thirty-five-years old, and Joe is thirty. She tells him that she was miserable in law school and had been asking God for a sign that she should quit on the day of the 9/11 attacks. Love worries that it was narcissistic to interpret the terrorist attacks as a sign for her, but she quit law school and never regretted it. She buys Joe a jacket at the Gap for that night’s dinner.

Joe likes Ray and Dottie, Love’s parents, particularly when he learns that Ray doesn’t like Henderson. Joe spends the dinner feeling that he has never been so nurtured. Forty arrives and his family berates him for not having a relationship. Producer Barry Stein arrives, then Bradley Cooper. Joe doesn’t like Barry, or a man who arrives named Milo, who approaches and sits with them. Joe immediately knows Milo—a TV producer who has a history with Love—is a liar. Milo has made a short film that received mild acclaim. Joe knows that Milo downplays his achievements so that people will gush for him and allow him to look modest. He is Barry’s godson.

Joe sees Ray, Dottie, and Love as proof that money can buy happiness. Love says Ray is obsessed with the Fast and the Furious movies, which is a happy serendipity; so is Joe. As he listens to them, Joe thinks that Ray wishes he hadn’t had kids. Dottie has a book club that became a movie club. Joe suggests Portnoy’s Complaint as a book they should return to.

A waitress hands Joe a napkin that says the following:

Order: Joe Goldberg

Deliver to: Suite 79

When: Now (136).

When Joe knocks on the door of Suite 79, Love answers. She leads him to the bathtub. It is filled with champagne, which Joe hates. He hates that she is treating herself like a servant and tells her to get out of the tub. He slams the door and goes into the other room. When she comes out, she is furious, but he tells her they are going to play a game called Joe says. He tells her to fellate him, and she says she doesn’t do that, although she plays along in other ways. After she is asleep, Joe finds her panties in the trash and realizes she only wears them once. She says her mom told her that she has problems with oral sex. Her mother didn’t do it and said that a man who loves a woman doesn’t need it.

Love says that at their 16th birthday party, Ray’s masseuse gave Forty oral sex and said she’d done it for his father every week. The more she tells him, the less Joe wants her to know about him. They watch bad TV then swim in the pool. He drops his phone into the pool and her butler puts it in rice to dry it. Joe thinks everything prior has been worth it because it all resulted in meeting Love.

When he turns his phone back on in the morning, there is a string of erratic texts from Delilah, then a nude photo of her, concluding with a message that says she’ll never speak to him again. Calvin also texted to say a girl is there with Portnoy’s Complaint; this time it is the book.

Joe asks Calvin to get her to wait for twenty minutes. He leaves Love a note and takes a cab. He sees Amy in the shop with Calvin and runs as the driver yells for him to pay. He sees Amy run out and get into a car; she sees him and looks frightened. Calvin says he flirted with her and got her address. However, he says he can’t give it to him because it’s the property of the improv group. Joe crushes three Percocets and slips them into Calvin’s drink. After Calvin is asleep, he gets the address. He buys violets at The Pantry, drives to Amy’s apartment, and breaks in, only to find someone else is in the bed. It is a woman who jumps up and kicks Joe in the head, causing him to lose consciousness.