Having a Ball! Read online

  “My makeup was perfect, and I hadn’t gone to sleep, so no morning breath. But to answer your more important question, yes.” Another sigh. “It was beautiful. The sky was a palette of incredible colors—red, yellow, blush, orange—all tinged with a delicate blue as the sun peeked over the horizon. It was like staring at one of your paintings from very far away.”

  Nice. I sagged farther into the couch. “Since when has your vocabulary included the words sunrise and walking? You don’t even know what six in the morning looks like, and you don’t own a single pair of sensible shoes.”

  “Well, I do know those words now, and hopefully I will again if I can convince Ethan to take me out tonight. I thought we’d go for some more conversation and coffee at the diner. Then he can walk me home again, or maybe walk me in. I even have plans to go buy some designer sneakers today.”

  “Well, good luck with all that.” It was the only thing I would allow myself to say at this point. I could handle the harem. I even thought it was funny sometimes and convenient when we needed a ride somewhere. But when she got mixed up to the point where she was buying sneakers, things looked grim.

  I told her I had to go and I’d talk to her later after her nap. Was everyone sleeping but me?

  And now that I was awake, I had the whole day in front of me. I had nothing planned until my one o’clock meeting with Mr. Herkowitz and didn’t have to prep for that since it was his usual standard appointment. Fill out the same old employee forms, get a check for taxes in the mail, and receive my check from him for services rendered. All very boring.

  Since it sounded so boring, and I wasn’t even experiencing it yet, I decided to liven up my day a little bit beforehand and get out my paints.

  I stayed inside the house this time. I didn’t want to come back in and find that Arrol (or whatever his name was, if he even had a name) had moved himself around the house. I didn’t think my poor heart could take that. And I wasn’t ready to face the ball just yet, either, though it would have been nice to ask it if I was wasting my time with the watercolors.

  I set up a drop cloth in the living room, put up the easel, retrieved my lovely watercolors, and went to work. I brushed, I stroked, I dipped, I blotted. An hour later, I had another weird, crazy-ass set of blobs with no cohesion and no theme. Sigh. I had this deep-down feeling watercolors were not going to be my artistic medium either.

  So I cleaned up after myself and went to visit my friend Malcolm at the Art Depot in town. Might as well make someone’s day a happy one.

  I took Arrol with me. (I couldn’t stop thinking of him as Arrol, so I decided to just go with it.) I left the ball in the house. I didn’t think it could get into too much trouble on its own without someone to ask it questions.

  After I jumped into my little four-door sedan (even my car was boring), I put Arrol on the seat next to me and headed out. It was a short drive; nearly everything in town was a short drive. Malcolm saw me coming and almost waved himself into a seizure before I’d even gotten out of the car. Ah, what a difference a sale makes.

  “Danner!” He even roused himself enough to come and open the store’s door for me, ushering me in like I was visiting royalty. I suppose that’s good customer service, considering I paid for his last vacation with my charcoal purchases.

  “Hey, Malcolm. How’s it going?” I may have sounded grumpy, but I was actually very interested in the display he’d set up in the front window.

  “Very well. Very well, thank you, now that you’re here.” His smile was big and bright inside his dark brown face.

  “And how’s Becca?” His wife of thirty years gave the absolute best massages, right upstairs. It was an all-around great building to come to.

  “Becca will be really pleased to hear you came by today. Are you going up to see her?”

  I laughed. “Really, I can only afford you today.”

  He laughed right along with me, knowing what that meant. “Watercolors not going so hot for you?”

  “Eh, not as bad as the charcoal, but I’m still not feeling the ‘Yes!’ vibe there. What is that set up in the window? Looks like the oils my mom uses.”

  “Good eye. They’re a new oil that just came in. Great pigment and smooth color. I did this painting last week.”

  And what a great painting it was. He’d perfectly captured the movement of clouds in a thunderstorm, the exact way I’d wanted to capture the sky the day Mrs. Fink said “doody” about my painting.

  I’d thought about taking lessons from Malcolm but was embarrassed that I completely lacked talent. I didn’t think he would laugh at me or anything, but it’s hard in a town where most advertisements and building murals are done by your parents to admit you have a horrible time making a stick figure not look like a demented stack of previously chewed toothpicks.

  I’d already had to ask him not to tell anyone I painted. I did not want my family to know about my failed attempts. He’d been nice enough not to ask why or think I was crazy, probably because I spent so much money here, money I didn’t really have. But this was important enough to let Toby cook for me and not have to buy so many groceries. I’d never really admitted how important to myself, and I wasn’t going to go into it now, either.

  Getting back to the purchase, I said, “It’s really nice, Malc. What am I looking at to get a set of paints like that?”

  Why did I even ask? I should have just laid down my credit card and quietly backed away. I could sign blindfolded if I had to. But forty-five minutes later, I was completely outfitted and ready to sweep the oil-painting crowd to their knees with my prowess.

  I signed the charge slip with eyes wide open, fully aware that I had just made a big dent in Malcolm’s youngest son’s voyage to college.

  “Always a pleasure doing business with you, Danner.” He smiled me out of the store.

  “Yeah, I bet.” I let the door clang shut behind me and carried my enormous bag out to the car. I had specialized brushes, the correct weight of paper, a new paint sheet, and tubes and tubes of paint.

  To be perfectly fair to Malcolm, he suggested I start with only three tubes of paint and one new brush. I was the one who couldn’t seem to stop myself from getting everything in sight once I latched onto an idea. But now I had everything I could possibly need to enjoy my new art medium of creamy oils. I never wanted to stop creating just because I hadn’t bought the one specific brush that I couldn’t do without. That would suck the fun right out of what I was trying to do.

  In the parking lot, I pulled the bag higher in my arms so I could get my key into the car door. It was a precarious balance, but one I’d done before. I could certainly handle it this time. I anxiously counted the seconds until I could get everything into the car and out of my arms. This art stuff was heavy.

  And then I got the door open, swinging it wide so I could bundle my purchases into the back seat. I’d go get myself something to eat and then paint my little heart out. At least that was the plan until someone banged into my arm and knocked me into the roof. Again, funny bone contact. Again, not funny.

  I whipped around and found myself face to face with Toby. “I thought you were sleeping,” I said, scowling and rubbing my arm.

  “No, not in this daylight. I relish the air and the invigorating briskness of the cherished outdoors.”

  Ooo-kay. That did not sound like Toby in any way, shape, or form. Plus, as I’d just said, wasn’t he supposed to be sleeping?

  But then all thought fled from my mind when he loomed close in my vision, so close he took on a faint green cast in the shadow of the parking lot. I couldn’t see anything but his eyes as he leaned over me. He didn’t stop there, though this was probably the closest we’d ever been other than high-fiving after a touchdown.

  No, he didn’t stop moving until he crowded me between my open door and the car. Lowering his head, he put his mouth right on mine.

  Chapter Six

  Holy yowza! It was a culmination of every one of my three hundred sixty-four days of mooning
over the man downstairs. He had actually put his lips on mine and kissed me.

  It only took me about a second to run through a gamut of emotions from euphoria to lust to gut-churning…disgust?

  I couldn’t get his lips off me fast enough. On a scale from one to ten of kissing, that was an abysmal failure. Ick!

  I backed up, turning my head to sever the nasty, slimy attempt at open-mouth seduction. Horrible disappointment lay heavy in my heart, and a gaping pit of revulsion took up residence in my gut. How could I have been so wrong? How could someone who was so damn cute kiss that terribly?

  It was a question for another day. I slammed my car door open all the way, dislodging him and jumping into the car at the same time. “Are you PMSing?” I yelled out through the window as I got the car started and backed up out of the parking space.

  “I do not know what you are talking about, Mort woman. You must come back so that I may ravage you further and turn your knees to gel.”

  As if.

  I’d hurl jelly and savage him before I let him touch me again. And think what this was going to do to my wonderful fantasy life. I couldn’t even consider it right now because it would turn my stomach and really make me hurl.

  I drove just a little bit faster and hoped I wouldn’t get pulled over. After that Art Depot purchase, there was no way I could afford a ticket. But I had to get away and hope Toby didn’t come home for a while. At least until I could compose myself. Say two or three years at least, possibly ten years max.

  ****

  I ran into my apartment and slammed the door behind me. I had about ten minutes to get ready for the Mr. Herkowitz appointment. And as much as I’d said earlier that it would be the same ol’ same ol’, I still needed to be ready for him. I may have thought my job was boring, but that didn’t mean I didn’t take it seriously. I had responsibilities that I always met, and being ready for appointments was one of them.

  I dragged out a pair of sensible low-heeled shoes, a short-sleeved sweater, and a pair of black pants. I twisted my hair into a hasty bun and scraped back the sides. A dash of makeup to my eyes and I was Corporate Danner all over again.

  After I grabbed my keys off the table, I hustled to my office. On my way out, I snatched Arrol off the couch, stuffed him into my bag, and plunked the ball in on top of him. I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Right down the stairs and two steps from the sidewalk was my office, a building that had come with the property when Toby bought it. He’d refurbished it right away so I could work essentially from home but with the professionalism of a real office with its own coffeemaker and desk. He was my hero. As long as I didn’t dwell any longer on that kiss.

  I flipped on the coffeemaker and arranged my pencils on the desk to my satisfaction. Yeah, I was a little anal retentive sometimes.

  Anyway, I left Arrol in the bag and took out the ball to pass the time until Mr. Herkowitz and his shoebox full of receipts showed up.

  I placed the ball right in the center of the desk blotter, next to a manila folder with a neat, white, hand-typed label. With my hands on either side of the ball, I amped myself up to ask a few questions. I had to know if the thing had talked to me last night.

  Closing my eyes, I said a quick “hummina, hummina” and placed my hands on the cold wood. Okay, all I needed to do now was pick it up and ask something.

  I took a deep breath for courage and grabbed the ball up before I could lose my nerve.

  I turned it up, turned it over, and turned it back so I was staring once more at the tree scorched into the wood. I felt it cool in my hand and said, “Am I going to have a good day today?” That was vague enough.

  SIGNS POINT TO YES.

  Well, that was better than YES, DANNER. At least I thought so. I was ready to try again. “Do you like my pants?” No, it wasn’t a typical question, but I figured if it was going to be funky, it would be funky with a question like that.

  REPLY HAZY, TRY AGAIN LATER.

  “That’s more like it!” Now I was getting down to the business of using the ball as I had the manufactured one when I was a teenager. I had asked it for guidance on everything and anything. No question was too small or too big. I loved that thing, and I was ready to love this one.

  “Is Caro a nerd?” I giggled like a naughty little girl.

  VERY DOUBTFUL.

  “Am I a nerd?”

  BETTER NOT TELL YOU NOW.

  Okay, needed to get back to the non-lethal questions. “Should I use the green pencil?”

  MY REPLY IS YES.

  Oh, this was so much fun. I’d really forgotten how cool it could be to have someone to run even the most mundane things by. “Is Mr. Herkowitz going to irritate me today?”

  IT IS CERTAIN.

  Well, at least I knew it was telling the truth. And sure enough, there came Mr. Herkowitz with his shoebox under his arm and a grunt as he opened my office door, stumped in, and threw himself down in my visitor chair. “Ready for me?”

  “Yep.” And yep, the ball knew what it was talking about. I couldn’t wait to quiz it some more.

  ****

  After my mildly frustrating appointment with Mr. Herkowitz, I jammed back upstairs. His receipts had been at least marginally filed, so it hadn’t been as bad as I’d originally thought, but still. I hadn’t yet figured out a way to make the man think an accordion file wouldn’t be a slight against his manliness.

  I fumbled through my keys, thinking what exactly I would ask the ball. I had so many questions. Was I using the right toothpaste? Was this the job for me? Did I look as bad in aqua as I thought I did? The ball was nearly burning a hole in my backpack.

  I slammed into the house, drawing the ball out of the bag. It felt warm in my hand. That was a good sign.

  I flopped onto the couch and settled in for a long chat with my new little best friend.

  And there was a knock on the door. Damn.

  The only person it could possibly be was someone I had no intention of seeing, much less talk to. Caro was at work, and so was everyone else I knew. Except him. And I wasn’t answering the door for him.

  I concentrated on the ball in my hand, ignoring the continuous knocking. A ringing phone might drive me mad, an unanswered door akin to fingernails on a chalkboard, but I had something important to do and no desire to talk with Toby.

  The knocking went on and on and on. I gritted my teeth.

  The knocking went on and on and on. I pulled on my hair.

  And on and on and on. “Christ! Hold on!”

  Apparently I was going to answer the damn door, no matter who it was. I couldn’t ignore someone so persistent and still keep my sanity.

  I whipped the door open and opened my mouth to yell.

  And was enveloped by my cousin Phoebe.

  “Danner!”

  Something banged into my back and something else smacked me in the leg.

  “Phoebe?” My response wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic as hers had been.

  “Danner!” She hugged me tighter, cutting off my air supply.

  “Phoebe.”

  “Danner!”

  “I have a headache. Just come in already. And for God’s sake, stop saying my name.” I opened the door wider and stepped back to let her and her two…three…four pieces of luggage into the living room. Why did I have this sinking feeling in my stomach?

  A little backstory for you. I loved my cousin. I really did. And other than Mel she was the only one who was even remotely close to my age, so we were friends. But she had this awful tendency to make everything a huge fiasco, and if I thought I talked a lot, it was nothing to what she could do with a mere minute. No lie. We’d never been the best of friends, but we had propped each other up during various boring holiday celebrations. That was about the extent of our friendship. She was better friends with Caro, which was something I would bring up in a sec.

  And she only liked pop eighties music, like Tiffany and New Kids on the Block. This was not going to be good, no matter why she was here.<
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  “Jared kicked me out and told me he never loved me.” She sobbed.

  Oh, this was not going to be good.

  “And he said to never, ever come back, even if I was dead and dying.” Her mascara ran in thick, black streaks down her pale cheeks and into the tiny frown lines next to her mouth.

  I highly doubted it was that bad. But it was bound to be worse for me.

  “We had a terrible fight, and he never wants to see me again. Never!” she wailed.

  And my arms were again filled with Phoebe. She wore a cloying perfume and reeked of way too much hairspray. Nice.

  But maybe I was being too mean. She and Jared had been married for only two years. There was no telling what could have gone wrong by now. I wasn’t a big fan of marriage, which I’d told her when she’d forced me into a mint green bridesmaid dress, but I had hoped they’d last a little longer than this.

  I led her over to my couch and moved the coffee table out of the way. I pulled a blanket off the rack on the other side of the room and turned the stereo on low, anything to avoid going back and getting cried all over. And that really was very mean of me.

  Where was my family loyalty? My cousin loyalty? My loyalty to upset women all over the world? I wasn’t sure, but somehow I just knew I was going to have to find it here. And soon.

  “I’m sorry to hear about all your trouble,” I said, gingerly sitting on the end of the couch.

  She flopped down with her head in my lap. “It’s just horrible, terrible—and colossally wrong!” She dissolved into more tears.

  I gave up on the fantasy of trying out anything else with the ball and rested my head back against the couch. I wasn’t going anywhere. And I had a feeling that neither was she.

  An hour later, I was drained, and so was she. She lifted herself from my lap and gave me a sloppy hug. Her makeup was completely gone, and I had a strong feeling it was all on my shirt.

  “Thanks, Danner. You’re the best.” She sniffed and wiped her nose, then gave me the pleading eyes. “You don’t mind if I stay here for a little while until I figure things out, do you?”