Having a Ball! Read online

  And just in time. I heard Phoebe outside calling for me to open the door. She was supposed to call first! What if I had still been painting?

  I hustled to get the door open, since she was standing out there yelling and knocking at the same time. Nice. Thank goodness it wasn’t the middle of the night.

  “Phoebe, please stop,” I said as I whipped open the door. “I heard you, and I was coming. I thought you were going to call before…” I trailed off. Her eyes were swollen, and her skin had a light green cast to it. She wasn’t going to start calling me Mort, was she?

  “I feel sick, Danner. Please don’t ever let me go out with Caro on my own again.” She coughed, and I looked for the nearest trash can. “I need to take a shower and get cleaned up. I have a massage appointment this afternoon in town, to release some of the tension out of my shoulders and brain.”

  I stepped back so she could enter the house. Her skin had resumed its normal peaches-and-cream tone I envied. Still in last night’s clothes, she stomped in and threw herself onto the couch, rocking my end table.

  The ball wobbled, and I dived to save it. I certainly didn’t want “my precious” to crack and leak out its blue liquid. It might not be working for me right now, but I knew it would later, once I got together with Arrol. And speaking of Arrol, I needed to move him back into my room if Phoebe was going to be here tonight. He was not going to be a happy camper. I could tell you that right now. Great.

  While I was down on the floor with the end table legs in my hand, I noticed a stray paint brush. Crap. Could not let Phoebe know about the painting thing.

  I shoved the fan-bristled brush under the couch and made a mental note to get it later. It was one of my more expensive ones and still had paint on it—and I was a stickler for keeping my things neat. Well, at least my painting things, I thought, ignoring the dust tiger (no fluffy bunnies here) currently trying to eat my hand from under the couch.

  “The shower’s free right now,” I said.

  Phoebe draped a hand over the edge of the couch, way too close to me and the paint brush I couldn’t seem to surrender to the dark underworld of the couch. I needed to clean, something fierce.

  “I’ll get into the shower in a little bit. I have some time before my appointment with Sven.”

  We had someone named Sven in town?

  “Then I’m having dinner at your folks’ house. Your mom called me and insisted.”

  My mom invited someone to dinner? Besides her agent? “When are you going over there?” And how was she getting to the house? More importantly, was I expected to attend this little soiree? Because I wasn’t much into going and being on display in front of my parents. Seeing them on holidays could be bad enough.

  “Your mom’s coming to get me about six.” Her hand draped dramatically over her eyes. “I wish she would have invited you too, so I didn’t have to be there alone. But she thought it would be fun if it was just us girls after your dad leaves for some bowling thing.”

  Too much at once. My dad was bowling? My mom wanted a girls-only night? I wasn’t invited? I know I had just said I didn’t want to be invited, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t be. I know I already discussed the whole “I-am-contrary thing,” so I won’t bore you with it again.

  I sat down hard on my butt. My own mom didn’t want me there for a girls’ night?

  “Anyway.” Phoebe rose from the couch and headed for the bathroom. “I better go get ready for Sven to work me over.” She giggled—totally inappropriate. “I probably won’t be home until late tonight, so don’t wait up for me.” She turned at the last minute. “Can you leave me a key so I can get in tonight?”

  A key! Only Caro and Toby had keys to my house. But how else would she get in? This just wasn’t right. And I was being mean again. “I’ll have one on the table for you when you get out of the shower. I need to run out to the hardware store to have it made.”

  “Hey, thanks, Danner. And thanks for being so good to me and putting up with me. I know this is probably not your idea of a good time.”

  I didn’t get a chance to do the whole “Oh, no, of course not” reassurance thing. She walked into the bathroom without another backward glance, and the water started up immediately.

  I grabbed the paint brush from under the couch, washed it, and stuck it in my cabinet. She only yelled for a second when I turned on the water. I had completely forgotten about it changing the temperature in the shower. “Sorry!”

  Then I headed out the door. I could check on Betty while I was out. I hoped she would have on all her clothes.

  ****

  The phone rang two hours later, waking me out of my art-induced stupor. Not surprisingly, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my canvas of oils. Argh! It sucked even worse than the acrylics. It looked like a horrible grease fire.

  At least I hadn’t had any weird nightmares about a naked Betty. Yeah, I was thankful she’d had on all her clothes and wasn’t touching herself at all when I wandered by en route to the hardware store.

  She even stepped out, waved to me, and called me Danner. Very odd, but I was happy to go with it, since it meant less angst for me.

  I was programmed to not allow the phone to ring more than two times if I could help it. I vaulted over the side of the couch and landed flat on the floor instead of on my feet. But I did manage to snag the cordless phone in the process. Bonus.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, Danny-girl, I’m so happy you’re there.” Caro, probably calling to tell me about some new boy toy she had acquired. We hadn’t had a chance to completely rehash the entire evening earlier, and I knew this was coming. “I met the most divine man last night.”

  Told you. “That’s nice.” I was never required to talk much during these conversations. She gushed for long minutes, I made murmurs of approval, and she gushed more, while I usually washed my dishes.

  This time was no different. Except I almost speared myself with the long, sharp knife I’d used to cut my limes. “What did you say?”

  “Weren’t you listening?” She huffed, and I knew I was in trouble if I didn’t talk fast.

  “Of course I was listening. I always listen to your stories. But I missed that one last part—the garbage disposal came on. The one part about what he was calling you.”

  “You don’t have a garbage disposal. You’ve never had a garbage disposal.”

  Argh! “Please, just tell me what he called you. Some weird things have been going on lately, and something you said really caught my attention. Please just tell me what you said. Don’t make me beg.”

  “Do I need to come over there and sort you out?” Worry infused her voice, and I thanked my lucky stars I had such a great friend. Sure, she could be self-absorbed sometimes, but when it was important, she was there. Witness her keeping Phoebe occupied.

  “Hey, I appreciate the concern and know you’d run over at a moment’s notice, but all I need to know is what the guy called you.” I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t going to like this answer.

  “He called me Mort.”

  Chapter Twelve

  No, that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. “Did he by any chance look a little green at all?”

  “What?”

  “I admit it’s an odd question, but just answer it, please.”

  “Green? As in Wicked Witch of the West green?”

  I sighed and reached for the ball. “No, not that green, more like a tinge. Like a…a blush of green.”

  “But a blush is red.”

  “You are being deliberately obtuse.” I worked at not screaming.

  “No.” She laughed. “I’m just pulling your chain.”

  I snorted.

  “And yes, I know that’s nothing new. But this guy didn’t look green. He was very tanned and healthy looking. Interesting, too, if you discount the Mort thing.”

  But I couldn’t discount the Mort thing. Why would he call her Mort? Why would anyone call me Mort? How could they not be related? “Hold on
a sec.”

  Before she could answer, I put the phone down on the couch and turned the ball over. “What is going on with this Mort thing? Please talk to me.”

  ASK AGAIN LATER.

  “Why is the name ‘Mort’ significant?”

  ASK AGAIN LATER.

  Maybe if I asked it differently. “Hey, bally ball, friend, buddy, pal. Who is Mort?”

  ASK AGAIN LATER.

  Argh!

  How did it keep rolling up to that? There were so many other things the twenty-sided cube could say. Statistically, I should have hit on something else by now. Damn. At this rate, I needed to start making a list of everything I needed to ask later.

  “Why won’t you talk to me? Did I make you mad?” I stopped, remembering I could only ask one question at a time. I didn’t remember this ever being so hard when I was a teenager.

  NO.

  No? No, it won’t talk to me? That wasn’t right. I thought about my last question. Oh, I hadn’t made it mad. But then why wouldn’t it talk to me again?

  I really needed to spend some quality time with Arrol tonight instead of gallivanting all over the place. He’d mentioned he knew how to tap into this thing, and I was being stupid to not listen to him if he could help. I felt it was extremely important to master whatever was going on with the ball, because I bet it could help me immensely if I let it. And I needed to know what to do about this Mort thing. I didn’t want someone to hurt my friend, Caro, and I couldn’t shrug off the feeling that there was a lot more going on here than I had experienced so far. But what?

  The questions plagued me. I’d met up with Toby two times when he didn’t seem himself. (That kiss was nothing like I’d thought it should be, with Toby’s prowess in that department.) And the postmistress who couldn’t keep her hands off herself? And now Caro was getting cozy with a man who called her Mort but didn’t have any green tinge.

  Squawking sounded from the couch. Oh, right. I’d left Caro on the phone buried in the couch. Snicker. She was not going to be happy.

  I picked up the phone and put it a small distance from my ear. Caro could be, um, strident when she wanted to be.

  “…and who are you talking to? I am on the phone trying to tell you about a man I met, and you’re talking to someone else. Who’s there?”

  “No one’s here. And I thought you adored manly, rugged Ethan.”

  She completely ignored me, as usual. “So you’ve taken to talking to yourself? I can see it now. You’ll be that little old lady who walks around the town muttering about the price of beans and buys copious amounts of cat food.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. No need to be nasty just because I put the phone down for a second.” I set the ball on the couch next to me and watched the cube roll over and sink into the clear depths.

  “Well, what’s going on?”

  “Huh?” I pulled the phone closer to my ear again since it seemed she was done blasting my eardrum out. That was shorter than normal. She must have really liked this guy despite the Mort issue.

  “I said, what’s going on?” She huffed, and I understood her frustration.

  “Oh, um, a whole lot of nothing.” I tried to distract her with talk of Toby. “Toby and I aren’t talking right now.”

  “So does that mean you’re actually going to be free tomorrow night?”

  Oh, man. Thursday nights were reserved for surreptitiously watching Toby play the piano from the shadows of The Dive. I’d done it for the last three months without getting caught. Was I going to pass up the chance to watch him tickle those ivories just because I was peeved at him? The answer was no. Actually it might help me get my highly coveted fantasy life back on track. I’d be separated from him, but get to see him in the action that had first struck me as so incredibly hot.

  “No, I won’t be free,” I said, answering her question and knowing at the same time I was about to get blasted. Sure enough, I had to take the phone away from my ear again when she went full volume on my butt, er, ear.

  Sigh.

  ****

  The rest of the afternoon passed in waves of frustration and fits of boredom. Phoebe came home and left again, so I left again, too. Part of me was jealous that she was invited to my parents’ house for dinner, but the other part was happy that she appeared to be doing a lot to stay out of my way and keep herself occupied.

  After I went to the local toy store and bought out all of their eighteen-inch doll clothes for boys, I didn’t have much to occupy my time. And since Arrol wouldn’t wake up until the sun went down, and the ball still wouldn’t talk to me other than to do “Ask Again Later” or give me a couple of “Yes Definitely”s, I wasn’t sure what else to do with myself. I’d pretty much put aside the idea of oils. I sucked. I admitted it. But I wasn’t admitting defeat. I was admitting that I needed to probably find another medium.

  I didn’t usually make that kind of decision so fast, but this time it just didn’t feel right. I’d had enough experience to know oils weren’t supposed to look like mashed baby food against the canvas.

  I must have taken a little tiny nap, because when I blinked my eyes open, Arrol was hovering over me in full color and getting ready to drop a penny on my face. I really needed to stop taking these unscheduled snoozes. “Crap, I was going to make you Punk’d,” he said in a low-pitched voice.

  “Seriously, that is it for the vintage MTV and you.” I took the penny out of his hand and flicked his little hand away from my face. “You are going to be in a whole hell of a lot of trouble if you don’t start watching something with better programming.”

  “Blah, blah, blah.”

  I shot him the Stare of Containment. Yeah, it didn’t work any better this time than it did with Caro. Must work on the look.

  “I don’t have time for all this crap.” He flicked me back.

  “I liked you much better when you were formal.” I flicked him in the belly.

  “Yeah, well, deal, human.” He flicked me in the nose.

  “Hey!”

  “Well, human, stop flicking me, and I won’t flick you back.”

  I grudgingly agreed and rubbed my nose. Ow. Little sucker had some serious finger action.

  “Now, what’s the dealio tonight and when are you going to chirp in my grub?”

  I rolled my eyes at him. I didn’t even know what the hell chirping in anything was. “Fine, whatever, talk like a gutter rat for all I care. What I need from you right now is your help with this ball. It wouldn’t talk to me all day, and I have questions begging for answers.”

  “Looking for love in all the wrong places,” Arrol sang, dancing around the top of the couch.

  A part of me wanted so desperately for him to fall off and bounce on his fat little ass. The other part of me just wanted to muffle him with a blanket. “Okay, that’s enough out of you.”

  He crossed his arms over his round belly and brought his eyebrows down into the eternal V. He tapped his little bootied foot and seemed to wait for something. What, I didn’t know. And I was tired of asking questions and getting no answers. But I tried one last time. He was my only hope for figuring out how to make the ball talk when I needed it to instead of just at random times when it didn’t necessarily matter.

  “Can you please just help me with the ball? You said you could, and I’m waiting.” I gave him a pleading look and realized my mistake when the perpetual smile got a sly lift to it. I used my trump card. “I got you some clothes. They’re in the other room.”

  But he stopped me before I could get up and retrieve his new jeans and striped shirts. “I can help you, mortal. In fact I will help you.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. That was abruptly cut off when he spoke again.

  “The question you should be asking is what will it cost you.”

  “What will it cost me?” I parroted.

  “Ah, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.” He put his chubby fist under his chin and began pacing the back of the couch. He turned at the end of the cushion, and I held my breath as he s
eemed to take an extra step. If he fell, would he break?

  “Have you been watching the Game Show Network?” I should have asked him about the whole stone thing, but got sidetracked.

  “Focus here, human. My viewing schedule is not of your concern.” He sat on the edge of the cushion and slid down to sit next to me on the couch. His little legs poked out from under his pot belly.

  I suppressed a chuckle, knowing it could lead to the big guffaws I’d offended him with last time. I couldn’t afford to make him mad again. What if he wouldn’t talk to me?

  But I couldn’t suppress a smile. Apparently, MTV hadn’t settled that firmly into his vocabulary if he was right back to the formal speech of before.

  “You will not continue smiling after I tell you my demands for my help.”

  The smile abruptly left my lips, falling away just like my stomach. I palmed the ball and cradled it to my chest. Why did I have the distinct feeling I wasn’t going to like this answer either?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I am most certainly not going to be some kind of fairy pimp to you!” See, I told you I wasn’t going to like that demand.

  “I did not ask for your pimping services.”

  “That’s exactly what it sounded like to me.” And I was not hard of hearing like Mrs. Fink.

  “I simply told you that I would like some female companionship in the form of a few fairies.” He stood up and stuck his hands on his hips.

  “You have me for female companionship.”

  He looked me up and down in the worst possible way and then turned his head and sniffed his obvious disdain. The little rat fink.

  “I realize I might not be your ideal woman.”

  He snorted, and I checked myself from throttling him, choking him until his little beady eyes popped out of his big, fat head.

  “I realize I may not be your ideal woman,” I tried again and narrowed my eyes at him. “But I’m all you’ve got. You might want to think about that before you start throwing around your lethal looks.”