Continued from:Â âMr. Melvald,ââ Her voice echoes down the aisles of the General Store. Sheâs busy restocking when Hopper enters. ââwonât be back for a while.â Joyce flashes a grin as to greet the familiar face. This part of town has been progressively closing up since the mall was built, so it made Joyce linger as one of the only employees left. It was unfortunate as she rarely saw customers. Each day she worked, collected a paycheck and went off to her uneventful life. Well, that was an understatement considering what had gone on in the past few months. Things were only just simmering down now.âSo, Itâs just me.â A shrug. It would be better if she fulfilled her duties as soon as possible so that the remainder of the day went smoothly, but she chose to work smarter rather than harder. Exiting the aisle, she crushes an empty box with her foot before returning behind the counter. âHow are you?â
âWell, that makes this pretty good timinâ.â Not that he necessarily disliked Mr. Melvald, but he didnât quite like him either. To be fair, Hopper didnât like many people. Plus, it was a bit more difficult to have conversations about everything that went on to Joyce when Mr. uninvolved Melvald could eavesdrop. Plus, as boss he wasnât exactly the most accepting of conversation while working time. Reasonable, but Hopper wasnât exactly the most accepting of reason.
Things for him had gotten a bit more unusual since he had taken Eleven in. Not that it was a bad thing, but having a teenager was definitely something that was taking awhile to adjust to. Somehow he seemed to have a talent of saying the wrong things, but he didnât just want to let her do anything she wanted. She could get into so much danger and he couldnât lose another daughter.
âThings are up and down.â At least Eleven was seeming to adjust well to school and hanging out with other kids.  âI think I said somethinâ stupid to her again.â He was pretty sure it had to do with something he had said about Mike.  âHow do ya handle two of them?â Kids just seemed to get more difficult as they got older.