by Amy Matayo
I’ve owned the car for five years now, but I’ve kept the miles down and the condition up. The white Camry is as practical as it is useful, although a far cry from the red Mustang I had been eyeing for a few months. Red is sporty and fun and what I’d dreamed of since earning my license at seventeen, but red is expensive to insure. It’s also a target among the law enforcement crowd—namely the police. And though I would never dream of speeding on either back roads or highways, I didn’t want to chance anything and felt an all-too-familiar need to blend in.
Let your brother have his moment, Olivia.
Fade into the background, that’s my life’s philosophy. It always has been. At least since I was seven and my mother shut down any dreams I’d had to dance professionally. My dance lessons didn’t align with his baseball practice, and something had to give.
Anyway, I went with the white car and I’ve never been sorry.
I’m scrubbing away the last spot when something catches the corner of my eye. Looking up, I feel my eyes go wide at the same time my heart stops. The sun is shining, and the spots are almost gone, but nothing is right with this picture because Perry is walking toward me, his pudgy little legs barely carrying him across the parking lot.
With a strangled cry, I scoop him up and pull him to my chest, holding him close to assuage my own fear more than his. I count to twelve. I always count to twelve. As slowly as I can. It doesn’t matter that he’s happy and cooing and completely unafraid. Or that he appeared so confident in his joyful desire to get to me.
What matters is how he got outside. I look up and see the screen sitting ajar and torn against the living room window that I forgot to close this morning. Lowering myself to the pavement, I press Perry against me and try not to faint from the fear at all the ways my baby could have been hurt.
Will
“We’ve still got that offer from Wilson Sporting Goods that you need to consider.”
“Okay.”
“And then there’s the matter with the Children’s Miracle League . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember that.”
“And then I need you to—”
“Okay, that’s fine. Just let me know your thoughts.”
“Will, are you even listening to me?”
“Of course I am.” But I’m not. I’m busy fishing for loose change in my top dresser drawer because I knocked a big pile of it in here and I can’t live with pennies and nickels floating around inside my socks. That would be uncomfortable in a game. There’s also a lot of money in quarters, and I need them for the toll roads on the way to the stadium. Forever creating chores for myself, that’s what I live for.
“You’re not listening,” Jerry says. “Call me back when you have time to—”
“Okay, I will.” My voice sounds like it’s inside a canyon, hollow and throaty and slightly whiny, but I can’t muster the energy to care. I’m losing everything lately. First the game, now the money, pretty soon my mind. I latch onto a penny and toss it on the dresser. It spins three times before falling on its side. Pennies are worthless. Why were they created, anyway?
“Wait, while I have you on for one more second let me—”
I pretend not to hear Jerry’s voice on the other end of the line, press the off button, then toss my phone on the bed. I love my agent, but I already agreed to call him back and he’s long-winded and wound up tight. A call with him usually lasts upward of two hours, and I don’t have time for that. The guy needs to get off the caffeine or the whiskey or the Prozac or whatever it is that has him going ninety to nothing and then—and only then—we’ll talk. Unless he has good news. Like I’ve just been offered a five-year, fifteen-million-dollar contract to go back to the Yankees. Right now I would give anything to move back to New York. The atmosphere is more my style and—funnily enough—the people are friendlier.
Southern hospitality. What a joke.
If that happens, then Jerry can get hyped up on whatever vice he chooses, even lie there passed out with a contract curled up in his fist, for all I care. But never mind my agent’s addictions. I have to be at the field in forty-five minutes. Before that I have a shower to take, bags of ice to buy for tonight’s party, and an obscene amount of takeout to order. I should have done that last one yesterday, but my mind was on the game and sleeping—pretty much all I have room for lately. Not to complain. I don’t believe in complaining.
For the love of God, my wallet just fell behind the dresser. If the day could end now, everyone around me might be better off. I get down on my knees, fish the thing out, and toss it on the bed. Reaching into my top dresser drawer, I pull out my deodorant and a clean pair of underwear. Everything about this day sucks, including this underwear. My favorite pair is still lying unwashed on the laundry room floor, which means we’ll probably lose again.
I’m passing by my bedroom window when I see her. The very attractive but odd chick from the apartment next door.
She’s in the parking lot, crouching next to her car with what looks like a Handi Wipe in one hand and her purse in the other. She’s facing away from me as she scrubs back and forth, examines a spot, repeats the process all over again, and then duckwalks on her heels a couple of feet in the direction of the bumper. The car shines as though it’s been through a wash more than once today, but she keeps going until she’s circled the entire Camry. Then, just when I think she’s finished acting nuts, a ball of white fur waddles up next to the back right tire.
For one second she freezes—I can see her eyes widen from here, that’s how frightened she is. She looks at the animal, then toward the apartment building, lips moving at a frantic pace. At first I think she has a phobia of cats—maybe she was attacked by one as a child?—but then she lunges for the cat and just stands there with the poor thing squeezed to her chest. I swear her lips are moving; is she counting? She sits down on the pavement for a long moment, then stands and darts for her car in one swift motion. Settling the animal under an arm, she reaches inside her glove box and pulls out something that looks . . . that looks like . . . oh you’ve got to be kidding me.
It’s a leash. She pulls out a leash and wrangles the cat. Her cat, clearly. She works a collar and leash around the poor animal’s neck while it wiggles and fights in her arms. I can hear it wail from here, and I swear a three-inch scratch just materialized on the lady’s wrist, blood scattering in tiny, veinlike streaks across her skin. But if it’s there she doesn’t notice. She just continues to play tug-of-war with the cat and collar, until finally, finally she sets the thing down. The Persian shakes, a full-body shiver that starts at the head and reverberates down its back end with a flick of its tail. The thing is mad, but when I see her point an index finger and shake it at the animal, it practically sighs. Backbone falls, head droops, tail comes down.
Mad, sure. Mad and apparently resigned to this type of insane treatment.
They take off walking, the woman pulling and the white mass of fur dragging behind her like a reluctant snowball that just doesn’t feel like coming apart all over the pavement. I would think about rescuing the poor thing if the sight wasn’t so freaking funny. Plus—I have to admit—the view isn’t bad. The woman has a nice butt, despite her weird ways, and I’m not too blind to notice. I stand and watch them a few more minutes, shaking my head and laughing to myself. The world is full of nutjobs, and—lucky me—a first-rate one lives right next door.
It hits me when they turn a corner and her blonde ponytail disappears from view. I’m wasting too much time. I now have thirty minutes to make practice. Everything else—the food, the ice—will have to wait.
I head straight for the shower.
Chapter 3
Olivia
I was glued to the television earlier, watching news coverage of some horrendous, out-of-control forest fires in Idaho—they are currently destroying so much of that beautiful state, at least it looks beautiful, though I’ve never actually been there—so I’m already exhausted from being awake an hour past my bedtime. And now t
his.
Horrible music—at least I think it’s music, it’s hard to tell with all that screeching and pounding—woke me up fifteen minutes ago, and I’m mad. Don’t we have some sort of apartment complex rules about loud noises after midnight? I mean really, my wall mirror is vibrating because of the noise. With the throb of a drumbeat filtering through the baseboards, I shuffle into the kitchen and open the top drawer—the one by the refrigerator where I store all the junk like paper clips and thumbtacks and loose twist ties and random paperwork—and cringe. Without giving myself time to think about straightening the awfulness that is this particular drawer, I locate our apartment complex guidelines and flip through the section on disruptions. I trace line after line with an index finger, searching . . . searching . . . until there it is. The noise volume should not exceed fifty-five decibels after midnight, at which time the offending resident will be fined a maximum of one hundred dollars for every hour the violation continues.
I sigh. Great. Just great. It’s one a.m. and I’ve heard a rumor that he’s a professional athlete.
Who throws a party at one a.m.? Don’t they know how late it is? Normal people are trying to sleep. I realize I’m tapping my foot to the beat and make myself stop. When did I become such a traitor to my own body?
With a glare at my foot and a hand to my head to ward off an oncoming headache, I look around and spot the vacuum cleaner. It sits dead in the middle of the living room floor. The smell of smoke has gone, along with the machine’s ability to suck anything bigger than a piece of lint.
“Perry, Momma is going to fix this vacuum cleaner if it takes me the rest of the night. Do you want to help me? No? You’d rather sleep? That’s fine, I think I can manage by myself anyway.” My cat is half human, so I treat him that way. Other people might think it’s weird, but other people aren’t here. Of course he doesn’t respond, just moves a paw a little to the left and continues breathing softly. I try not to feel slighted at his lack of interest and pick up a screwdriver.
I’m not sure what to do with it, but something tells me that with one turn of a screw it might—
The vacuum falls into pieces between my legs. I look at the screwdriver in my hand and look at the screw on the floor, wondering which just committed the greater offense and baffled as to how one turn could create such a mess. A giant mound of carpet dust sits in a pile in front of me, and a little blows in front of my face. I sneeze. Then sneeze again. In a rush of panic, I remember the children’s Benadryl on my grocery list earlier this morning—the children’s kind works better, it just does—but I do not remember buying any. I stumble into the bathroom and yank open the cabinet door, then breathe a sigh of relief. A shiny new box, thank goodness. I threw away the remnants of my last bottle because of contamination—you can’t keep medicine after an illness, you know. The risk of reinfecting oneself is just too great. Same with thermometers. After a persistent cold or a rough bout of the flu, it’s vital to toss them in the trash. I open the lid and measure out two teaspoons of the pink liquid, then bring the plastic cup to my lips.
Right as I open my mouth, a wall hanging crashes to the floor. The cup drops from my hands. When I try to grab it, I knock the bottle off the countertop. Benadryl gushes everywhere, all over the newly mopped floor that still smells like Pine-Sol. I love the smell of Pine-Sol, and now all I can smell is cherries.
That stupid man.
That stupid, stupid man.
My picture, shattered. My medicine, gone. My cat, awake.
He glares at me and yawns before flopping backward onto the sofa and closing his eyes again.
“I’m sorry, Perry. Go back to sleep. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I sneeze and pat him on the head, then head for the front door. I’m going to give what’s-his-name ballplayer a piece of my mind. But before I do that . . .
I reach for the screwdriver. I’m going next door to threaten a stranger. Something tells me I might need a weapon.
Will
For someone who loves a good party and all the perks that come with it, even I think this gathering is out of control. I put out a fire a few minutes ago—a literal fire that started when someone knocked over a candle in the kitchen and a nearby hand towel soaked up the flames. I heard a scream behind me, then turned to find some idiot girl just staring at the blaze with a hand over her mouth, watching in horror as the fire began to travel toward a stack of napkins sitting just to the left of a bottle of gin.
What kind of person just stares at a fire and makes no move to extinguish it?
More than a little annoyed, I barked some insult at her that I don’t even remember and swept the mess into the sink with my bare hands—burning my throwing hand in the process, so that’s just great—then turned on the faucet. Within seconds, the smell of ash replaced the scent of burn, thank goodness. I’d no sooner ended that debacle when a loud crash sounded from the living room. Pushing past the helpless chick, I headed into the other room in time to see someone throwing a punch at Ricky Taylor, the backup pitcher that we need in one piece since I keep getting pulled from games. The punch sent him sailing into the living room wall. It only took a second to break up that fight—which apparently started over a flippant comment some guy made about Ricky’s date. I never quite got the story of who was truly at fault, and I don’t care. Nothing important was damaged—neither Ricky’s face nor my drywall—but I’ve just about had enough. One more disturbance and I’m sending everyone home. Ridiculous because it’s only one a.m. Who ends a party this early? Old, boring people, that’s who.
Maybe I’m getting old.
Scratch that. No matter how old I get, I will never actually age. Or become boring. For that reason, the party rages on, no matter how tired of it I might get.
“Will, someone’s at the door for you,” Blake, our catcher and my best friend on the team up to this point, yells over at me.
I glance at him over my shoulder, holding one Solo cup between my teeth, a stack of five in one hand, and three empty soda cans in the other.
“Who is it?” My words are muffled, and I don’t know how he understands them with all the crap I’m currently biting and holding, but he does.
“I don’t know, man. Some girl.”
I toss everything into a nearby trash bag that’s overflowing with discarded bottles, cans, and empty chip bags, then rub my hands on my jeans and turn to face him. The bag needs to go out, but I’ll do it later.
“Is she cute?” It’s a ridiculous question but not without merit. If a lady shows up at my door during a party, her looks make a difference. Especially if she wants an invitation to stay. I don’t give them out to just anyone.
Blake wanders over to me with his forehead scrunched up, eyebrows pushed together. Nothing rattles the man, ever; something about his expression makes my pulse kick up a notch.
“She looks ticked off, dude. And she’s carrying a screwdriver.” He drops his voice to a whisper I can barely hear. “I don’t know, man . . . a crazy fan girl?”
“As long as it isn’t the crazy chick from next door.”
It occurs to me a second too late that I say this louder than I intended. What if it is her and she heard me?
I look toward the front door, but all I can see is a flash of what look like blue flannel pants at the edge of the doorway and the pointed end of said sharp object. It’s aimed straight out as if she’s prepared to stab me upon arrival. I latch onto Blake’s forearm and take a step forward.
“You’re coming with me.”
He shrugs out of my grip. “Dude, we can’t both get stabbed, not this late in the season. Not with the All-Star Game coming up. Besides, she’s here to see you, not me.”
I just look at him a long moment and then roll my eyes. After the fire, after the fight . . . I’m not in the mood to deal with crazy. Not by myself. Not on top of everything else. We lost again tonight, and despite the fact that I didn’t even play, my name keeps coming up on the ESPN sound bites, and not because the announcers ar
e flattering me. Tonight’s favorite line was everything’s taken a turn for the worse since Vandergriff showed up.
Since Vandergriff showed up. As if I just walked on the field with a glove and ball and forced the higher-ups to put me in the game. As if I wouldn’t give anything to go back to New York. As if I’m not spending every waking moment just waiting for a call to send me back down to the minors instead. This trade is quite possibly the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Resigned and more than a little ticked off, I head to the door, hoping maybe the chick on the other side of it just wants an autograph. Maybe just an invite. Maybe she’s normal, good looking, and here to turn my night around. I fight a smile just thinking about the possibilities.
Until I see her.
And the idiot grin drops from my face.
Good looking? Absolutely.
Fan girl? Not so much.
Just my luck, I’m definitely dealing with crazy.
Chapter 4
Olivia
A man I’ve never seen before stands at the open doorway and checks me out from head to toe with an amused grin and zero shame. It isn’t that I underestimated the size of this party or that I arrived with a screwdriver in hand, holding it as though prepared to strike. The man clearly thinks I look ridiculous. And I do.
I’m wielding a hot-pink screwdriver and wearing flannel pajama pants and a cartoon-covered T-shirt to what looks like an intimidating gathering of the more sophisticated crowd. With a frown, I peer over the man’s shoulders to scan the living room. How does this apartment look so much bigger than mine? I know for a fact we share the same floor plan, even if this one is reversed. It isn’t fair. Discount furnishings should not make that much of a difference in how a place presents itself. I peel my eyes away from the expensive decor and take in the people.