Having a Ball! Read online

  And every time I thought I had myself back under control, Arrol would draw his eyebrows down over his little eyes with the perma-smile beneath them, and I would get started again.

  “Fine, then,” he yelled over my ceaseless mirth. “It is time for my Emeril. And I refuse to miss the Bam! just for your idiocy.”

  Well, that told me. I laughed harder, which led to a snort that nearly shook the house.

  ****

  About ten minutes later—oh, okay, it was more like thirty—I got myself calmed down. I think my completely unwarranted reaction to Arrol’s belly and our absurd conversation had a little something to do with all the weird stuff I had going on lately and the fact that I, who didn’t like to live or share with anyone, now had not one but two house guests—a house full. I was seriously going stark, raving mad. Can you blame me? Well, Arrol could and did.

  “I am most disappointed in your behavior. This is not a situation that requires that kind of hilarity.”

  He harrumphed, and I kept my response to a mere half snicker out of necessity.

  He pointed one little pudgy finger at me. “Why do I always get the stupid ones? Why must I always be plagued by the ignorant, idiotic, ignoble humans?”

  “Think that’s enough words beginning with the letter I?” I asked, just to get a rise out of him.

  And it worked. “I will not be mocked. I am a mighty gnome from the family Lotar of the House Clan of Gnomes. You will not mock me.”

  Uh-oh. His fair skin was turning a weird shade of red. I’d really pissed him off. Not good. I’d have to apologize. “I’m sorry, Arrol.”

  He gave me a disbelieving look.

  “No, really, you are absolutely right. I shouldn’t have mocked you or laughed so hard.” I tried for a truly contrite look, and I think I nailed it, by his expression. “That must have been horrible to be stuck in the door for all those years. I’ll try harder next time.”

  And since I thought that would soften him up a little, I was a bigger fool than even I had thought. I should have promised to let him meet Phoebe and just worried about her reaction later. I still didn’t think it would work out well, but maybe it would have tempered his response.

  “Your apology is not accepted. I’ve a mind to go find myself a better human. There is a man downstairs, is there not? I can go to him.”

  Somehow I didn’t think Toby would be as…open …to a little gnome guy the way I was. I didn’t know why I was even open to him, when he was such a little bastard and completely out of my normal life experience. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. And I really am sorry.” I started making promises to mollify him, at least a little. It couldn’t hurt.

  “Very well.” He inclined his head at me, king to peasant. I didn’t have a hard time seeing him as hailing from a noble family. “In return for a set of clothes and more of your beer, I will help you with mastering the ball in your possession.”

  “Mastering the ball?”

  “Yes, there is a way to get the ball to respond to you in a satisfactory way instead of the slapdash way you’ve been running around with it.”

  “Really?”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “Well…”

  “I would not lie to you about something that will get me more comfortable clothing and more beer. I also have another request.” He lowered his eyebrows again, and I waited for the other shoe to drop. “I will wait to give you my additional needs after I receive the clothes.”

  “Alrighty, then. As long as you’ll stay in my room.” I wasn’t breaking down on that one. I could see my way to new clothes and beer, but I wanted to make him feel I was giving in to him. “I guess I have to, since you can help me.” I made sure to infuse my voice with chagrin. “Let me know what I can do.” And I’ll just wait until then for the other shoe to drop, I almost said. But we were having a halfway decent conversation, and I didn’t want to ruin the vibe.

  I let him stew on that for a little while and called Caro again. I hadn’t heard from them and had been under the impression they were coming home soon.

  “Jello?” Caro said.

  “Ah, shooters?”

  “Yeppers, my dolly.”

  “And you’re in a booze-induced haze of splendidness?”

  “Always-amundo!”

  I struggled not to laugh again. It seemed to be the night for inappropriate snorting. “Um, is Phoebe there with you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And where pray tell are you?”

  “Home, home on the range!” Phoebe sang in the background.

  I really hoped they weren’t somewhere public. But that left them in Jordan’s car, and I didn’t know how I felt about that, either.

  “We are doing our toenails on the couch at my house.” Caro snorted. “You shouldn’t do green and orange on the same toenail, dork.”

  I figured she wasn’t talking to me. “Is Phoebe staying the night?” Please let her be staying the night.

  “Absalumon!”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yuppers, matey.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you all in the morning, then, if you still have heads.” I thought about telling her I had an appointment in the morning, but figured any information shared at this point would not last for more than five seconds in her brain.

  “Bye-de-bye-bye, fatty chicken.”

  Her phone went dead, and I sighed. At least they were at home and having fun. We didn’t normally drink this much, but I could see how a whole night spent with Phoebe could induce a little extra imbibing. I swiped my own phone off and turned to Arrol.

  “So, Emeril,” I said, trying to make more of the nice conversation we’d had earlier.

  “Don’t you need to go to sleep? I believe you had said before you left that you have a client first thing tomorrow morning. And since your cousin is not going to be here tonight, I will be staying in the living room. We can negotiate other nights tomorrow evening.”

  Ack. Mrs. Benner was coming over in the morning for me to do her quarterlies for the beauty shop she owned in town. I had to be sharp for her. And appropriately dressed, with my hair neatly done. Otherwise, she would take a pair of shears to me in the seat where I sat.

  “Okay, I’m going.” I started down the hallway, then turned back to him. “Where and what will you be in the morning?” I was curious to see if he’d tell me to go stick a fork in it or if he’d tell me about why he’d turned into stone this morning.

  “I will be in the same exact state you found me this morning, and most likely in front of the fireplace. I will be the same every day during daylight hours until I can find…well, it’s no matter.” Some shadow had passed over his eyes. He snapped them back to me and lifted his chin. “I will always be in this position. Just leave me a blanket and be on your way to bed, human.” He turned back to the television, effectively dismissing me. He concentrated very hard on watching Rachel Ray make a meal in thirty minutes.

  Nice. I hoped he wouldn’t start getting any ideas about having me cook him dinner instead of ordering a pizza.

  ****

  I tossed and turned in my bed two hours later, listening to some History Channel show about witches and spells. Arrol didn’t have the TV turned up loud, but I wasn’t used to having anyone in the house with me, after living alone for almost ten years. Last night, I didn’t even remember falling asleep, thanks to the over-consumption of alcohol. But tonight I was stone cold sober.

  How had my life gotten this bizarre? My mind hopped over to the store where I’d purchased the ball. No way did the owner know what she had sold me. Or maybe it only worked with me. Maybe I was the catalyst for the ball speaking. That could be cool. I’d never been a catalyst before.

  Since sleep was obviously eluding me, and I was tired of thinking about what a colossal jerk Toby was being lately (I’d exhausted that the first hour), I grabbed the ball.

  Arrol had said he would help me master the ball, but only when I got him some new clothes. Heaven only knew wh
en that would be. And I wasn’t willing to put it aside until I had met his conditions.

  No reason why I couldn’t mess with it myself and see what I could get it to do. But what to ask first? I decided on asking some baseline questions to see how accurate it was before I got down to the good stuff. I was very happy Phoebe had decided to stay the night with Caro, giving me at least one more night on my own. All I had to say was that when she did come here to sleep, she’d better not snore. End of story.

  I cradled the ball in both hands and felt it getting warm. It had done that before. I didn’t know if it meant anything, but OCD Danner made me want to get out a notebook to record all pertinent data. (I’m rolling my eyes at myself here; feel free to join in.) I popped out of bed and got a sketch book I’d meant to do some figure drawing on but somehow never got around to it. Well, it could do other duty now. I also pulled a special art pencil from my drawer. It wasn’t doing anything, either.

  I scribbled (no, I don’t even have very nice handwriting) down all the things that had happened so far and bit the end of the pencil when I tried to remember what date I’d bought the ball and who I’d seen since then. Oh, and when the ball had first talked to me. Can’t forget the heart palpitations when I saw that first glowing WHAZUP DANNER.

  Once I had as much as I could remember on the paper. I palmed the ball back and forth between my hands. I needed to come up with some kind of question that I could get a definitive answer to. Something I would know the answer to but would show me how far the ball could stretch when I asked it to.

  It would probably help if I was polite first. Mom always said you could get more sugar with honey than flies. At least she had when she thought beyond her next showing. “All right, bally ball. Hello and good evening. How are you on this fine night?”

  GOOD. YOU?

  “Very nice,” I said. “Um, I’m doing good. Thanks for asking.” I sat there thinking and thinking. What to ask first?

  The ball vibrated in my hands, and I almost dropped it. I glanced down, and the cube was trembling. Maybe I needed to be a little quicker with the questions.

  “What is my name?”

  DANNER ANNALIESE TENLEY.

  Wow, hadn’t seen that in a while. I always shortened the middle name to Anna.

  “What is your name?”

  It rolled and rolled and rolled, like it was thinking. I waited for what seemed like an eternity before it flashed to a stop.

  I CANNOT SAY.

  “Cannot or will not?”

  CANNOT.

  “Okay. There must be specific things I can’t ask. Will you tell me when I have overstepped my boundaries?” I waited.

  MOST LIKELY.

  Well, crap. That could get me into a lot of unnecessary trouble. I always worked better when I knew my limitations.

  “Is Toby an ass?” I couldn’t wait to see the answer.

  NO.

  “But he was before. Why not now?”

  DIFFERENT.

  “Can you expand on that?” Please expand on that. I did not need some vague ambiguity right now.

  NO.

  “Crap!” All right, I could do this. I would think of it as fun. “He’s different now than before?”

  SIGNS POINT TO YES.

  You know what? I wasn’t going to waste all my time trying to figure out what was going on with Toby. I had better things to work on and a ball to help me out. Why use my questions on someone that I had no intention of getting physically close to anyway?

  “Do you know Arrol?”

  YES.

  “What’s his deal?”

  ASK AGAIN LATER.

  “Oh, no, you don’t! Please don’t go back to that answer.” All right, I was losing the ball. Time to ask my biggest hitter. “Is there a limit to the amount of questions I can ask you?”

  THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

  Yes!

  Chapter Ten

  The bright light of morning hit me square in the eyes five hours later. I groaned and turned over to read the clock. Eight a.m. Great. I had about an hour to get presentable for Mrs. Benner and her beauty shop account. Our visits were always strained, as she tried every time to talk me into some kind of hairstyle that required two to three hours’ worth of combing and hair drying along with forty-two different kinds of hair product I’d have to slime into my hair.

  At least in the hair department I was very low-key. The blow dryer and I were not friends, even on my best days. And today was not my best day.

  Twenty minutes later, fresh out of the shower and standing in front of my bathroom mirror in a robe, I despaired of ever getting my mop to even lie down, much less look nice. I had the blow dryer in one hand and a round brush in the other. I divided my hair at the side, whacked my arm on the wall as I tried to get the brush positioned right, and sucked a towel on the rack next to me onto the back of the blow dryer.

  The smell of burnt cotton rose from the blow dryer. In my haste to get the towel off the back of the instrument of death, I snagged the brush in my hair and couldn’t get it out. I tugged and tugged but only managed to make it a worse mess. I hadn’t thought that was possible, but I should never underestimate myself.

  Since that wasn’t working…first things first. I shut the dryer off, removed the very hot towel from the back, and sat down on the closed toilet lid (another benefit to only living in my fantasies: no worries about the toilet seat being left up. See? Perfect). I dropped my head into my hands and ended up cupping the horrible snarl of hair around the brush. I would have cried—tears were trembling on the edges of my eyelids—but I had my appointment to get ready for.

  “Okay, I can do this,” I said to my reflection when I stood up. “No brush is going to get the best of me.”

  I really should have asked the ball before I made that pronouncement. You’ll see why in just a moment.

  ****

  “Mrs. Benner, how nice to see you!” I stood in the doorway of the small building next door to Toby’s house. When he bought the property a year ago, the building was part of the deal. It had originally been a beauty salon in its own right. (There were a lot of beauty salons in this part of Pennsylvania.)

  But after Toby had gutted it of sinks and those sitting hair dryers that look to me like life-sucking monsters, he asked if I had any idea what to do with it.

  At the time, I was doing taxes out of my bedroom and taking appointments at the local diner or at client/business owners’ offices. Not always very professional. So I asked if I could rent it, too. He had no problem with that after I offered to help him paint the ten-by-ten space and bring in my own furniture.

  And now I was the proud renter of my very own office space. It had a desk, some chairs, a few bookcases, and a bathroom all its own, along with the lovely coffeemaker. It wasn’t much, but it was mine as long as I handed over that check every month.

  And I’m totally avoiding saying what happened with Mrs. Benner.

  All right.

  She stared at me in horror and didn’t return my greeting. Her fingers fairly itched to get on me, I could tell. Her hand grasped at the voluminous purse hanging on her arm. I knew from previous experience that she did indeed have a pair of shears in that purse, and she wasn’t afraid to use them.

  “Now, Mrs. Benner, there’s no need to—”

  “Honey, what in the living hell did you do to your hair? This here is an emergency. We need to get right on this. Now, you don’t worry your little head at all. Marcia will take care this.”

  “Panic,” I finished, but she wasn’t listening anymore. Instead she was circling. Like a vulture.

  Always be wary of people who refer to themselves out loud in the third person. I only ever did it in my head, so I was okay. Promise.

  I found myself womanhandled into my desk chair and draped with a cape before I could draw a breath. Marcia Benner might be a whopping five-foot-nothing, but she could move like a steam engine when properly motivated.

  Apparently a big round brush sticking out f
rom the side of my head was proper motivation. I had tried to cover it with a fashionable scarf, but no dice.

  She twittered around me; there was no other word for it. I was completely ignored when I asked her to just take a little off the top. Hair started flying all over the place, and my blood pressure spiked with the flurry. I’d had the same haircut for years. Just a nice fringe of longish bangs and a blunt shoulder-length cut. No muss, no fuss. No hair product.

  “I really think we should get to your taxes.”

  “Oh, nonsense, child. I have plenty of time this morning. I always try to set aside a little extra when I meet with you, in hopes you’ll finally let me get my fingers in your hair.” She paused, and I heard her sniff. “This is one of the proudest days of my life.”

  Oh, brother. I was afraid she’d start bawling at any moment and stick her shears in my forehead by accident. So I sat back and let myself be (gulp) transformed. The whole while, I ran numbers through my head, trying to stay calm and peaceful.

  I will say this for her: she was quick. Less than ten minutes later, my hair felt lighter, my neck bare. At least the agony hadn’t been prolonged.

  “Do you have a mirror around here, Danner?”

  “No, sorry.” I breathed a sigh of relief. Even if I did I wouldn’t look into it just yet. I needed to think my way through the hair thing before I actually saw it.

  But I didn’t get that opportunity.

  “All right, then, let’s just take a little side trip to that cute little apartment of yours upstairs, and I’ll show you what I did and how you can style it.”

  Oh, agony!

  I’d always had what I called polyester hair. Wash and go. I was deathly afraid I would now have dry-clean-only hair that would need specific and very involved care instructions. I had to make myself get dressed in the morning by bribing my poor tired body with coffee. What would it take to make me do my hair every day? I shuddered to think.

  Mrs. Benner had to shove me from behind to get me out the door. “Don’t make me drag you the whole way up. I promise you aren’t going to hate this.”