CURVEBALL

by Mariah Dietz

  The woman tries to take another step forward, but I don’t allow it. I don’t know whether to allow this conversation to keep going or haul Ella into my house and wait until this woman leaves. Everything is happening so fast, and I don’t know anyone or anything well enough to know what the right decision is.

  “Think anyone’s going to believe you after everything you’ve done?” The woman sneers.

  My gaze sweeps to Ella. I’ve already committed to carrying her inside, just to get her out of this woman’s line of fire, and the pain in her eyes radiates deep in my gut. I step in front of the angry woman, obstructing the glare she’s set on Ella.

  “You need to leave.”

  She bobs to look around me, her ugly mouth already opened to spew more hateful things.

  “I said get out of here!”

  She faces me with a final huff, looking indignant before turning and marching back down my driveway.

  “What in the hell was that all about?” I ask, looking to Ella.

  She’s completely closed off, locking her jaw. The light in her blue eyes burns as she stares off, not bright and promising, but on high alert as though she’s already erected a dozen barricades. “That’s Mrs. Grant.” Her jaw flexes again.

  I wait for more because telling me the woman’s name is nothing. “What happened though? Those kids, what did they do?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sure she’ll make it look like nothing.”

  “Ella!” I say her name firmly, loudly, hoping to surprise her or just remind her that she can talk to me. Still, she doesn’t look at me.

  “I have to go. I’m late for work,” she tells me instead.

  She tugs Shakespeare’s leash and doesn’t offer another word before setting off, disappearing down the block.

  Clearly something happened. Something that might still be going on. First Justin’s wife, Kristy, tells me Ella is an alcoholic, and then this strange Mrs. Grant woman calls her a homewrecker and alludes to her bad reputation.

  Sighing heavily, I turn around and see Rachel’s empty house beside me and wonder if she knows and if she’d tell me. But Ella already confirmed what I knew about Rachel being interested in me, and approaching her to discuss the rumors about her best friend seems like a very slippery slope. I don’t want her thinking I have feelings for Ella.

  I make my way up to my front door, pausing at the top step. I don’t like Ella. Not like that. She lives too close. She isn’t interested in me at all. I just like talking with her and hanging out with her because she’s different.

  Tomorrow I have to go back to work, and my house is still a mess, so I chastise myself for a solid minute for being a woman and overthinking my feelings and trying to label my emotions, and I set to work unpacking more boxes, knowing I’ll be throwing most of the shit away.

  An hour later I’m finishing unwrapping large glass steins and placing them into my dishwasher, swearing at myself because I’m still wondering what in the hell that confrontation in my driveway was all about.

  I pick up my phone and text Ella.

  Me: Want to grab some breakfast? I’m starving.

  Balancing my forearms on the now-empty box, I wait for a response, knowing Ella always replies quickly, and now I know it’s because her phone is always close due to her anxiety and concerns with Hayden.

  I wait.

  And wait.

  And wait some more. Staring at my phone, willing her to reply.

  Thirty minutes pass before I set my phone on the counter and take the box out to my garage to break it down and add it to the stack of recyclables.

  She has a high-pressure job. I’m aware of this without knowing a ton of details. Ella wasn’t secretive about her role with the company, just very casual about it, glossing over the details and only giving me examples when I asked specific questions, but they quickly led me to realizing two things: one: she loves her job, and two: she spends a lot of time working. I try to convince myself she isn’t ignoring me, just busy since it’s only 10 AM.

  Going back inside my focus transitions to box after box, being sure to empty all of the contents and sort them before moving on. It keeps me focused and distracted. Two things I am desperate for.

  Every box is gone by the time the sun falls out of sight, and while it feels good to have accomplished something, it hasn’t sated that itch that has kept me busy all day. I check my phone again to see if Ella has responded and am not surprised to see she hasn’t. I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s avoiding me, and while my strongest instinct is telling me that’s good and that I should ignore her too, it’s not my first instinct. No, that one is suggesting I go to her house and find out what’s going on. Be sure she’s okay. Make certain nothing bad could have happened to her by another protesting neighbor.

  I grab my small wad of keys from the kitchen table and lock my front door before hopping in my truck, suddenly concerned that something may have happened to her and I was too butthurt to consider the fact earlier.

  When I pull up to Ella’s, the house looks dark and empty. No porch light greets me, nor do the lights from the front room through the windows. I hop out of my truck and in a dozen quick strides reach her door, where I knock hard enough that it rattles its protests.

  Several minutes pass before I bang again, louder, harder.

  Still she doesn’t answer, but Shakespeare comes running, barking as she does. I wait, wondering if she had fallen asleep, but Ella doesn’t appear.

  I go around her house and open the gate to her backyard. A light in her family room is on, and I follow it to the back slider door that connects to the room.

  Ella is sitting on the floor, wearing the same clothes I saw her in earlier, but now her hair is pulled up. I knock on the glass door with less force since she can’t pretend she’s not home anymore.

  She jumps, and something flies out of her hand and lands on the couch beside her, making me laugh, though I feel guilty for doing so. I try to open the slider, but it’s of course locked. I wouldn’t put it past her to have a wooden dowel on the track as well. I point to the door handle, reminding her she needs to let me in since she hasn’t yet moved from the floor. With great reluctance, she does, and then removes a wooden rod from the track before she pulls the door open.

  “What are you doing?” she cries. “You just took ten years off my life.”

  “You weren’t answering your door.”

  Her eyes grow. “It was a hint.”

  “I took it as one. To try harder.”

  Her chin drops, failing to see the humor.

  “What happened with Patrick?”

  As expected, Ella’s eyes widen at my abrupt question. “Who told you?” she asks.

  I shake my head, realizing what I had assumed is correct: everyone in this town knows something about her history with Patrick. Everyone but me.

  Her throat moves slowly with a painful looking swallow. Slowly, she parts her lips, but it’s several seconds before she says anything. “I met him when I was in high school. Some friends and I were out bowling. Bowling,” she repeats the word with disdain, her brows heavy with the memory. “We were both there with friends, and when mine went to get food, his went to get drinks, and there we were—alone. We hit it off right away.” Ella’s focus is across the room, and I wonder if she’s seeing the memory play out as she retells it. “He was funny, charming, handsome, and so sure of himself. They say women love that, and I did. I totally fell for his confidence. The way he took charge and placed his hand on my lower back though he hadn’t earned the right to do so. The way he smiled at me like I was amusing and amazing though I hadn’t earned that either. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. But I thought I did. I thought he did.” She bites the inside of her cheek, her eyes glazed with memories.

  “How old were you?” I can do the math myself. I know Patrick because I’ve worked with him and his station before. Know him because I have respected the man this town has loved for years.

  “Sevente
en and stupid,” she tells me.

  “And he was…”

  “Thirty-one.”

  My eyes widen. I want to be grossed out because I’m still eleven months from turning thirty-one and can’t imagine flirting with a seventeen-year-old, then I look at Ella and her full lips, the line of her jaw, the fire in her eyes, the length of her neck—and wonder if I’d seen her at seventeen if I would have even cared to ask how old she was.

  “I was infatuated,” she admits. “He was cultured and successful, he knew how to flirt and he called me ‘dear’ like my grandfather did my grandma, and it just felt so right.”

  “What happened?”

  Her lips move to form words and then close, and her eyes finally move to mine, and I can see a myriad of thoughts forming and colliding, revealing my question was too broad. It’s evident that much has transpired. “You guys began dating?” I ask instead.

  She nods once and then shrugs, confusion and embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “I thought we were. I thought we were in a relationship,” she scoffs, “back then I thought all sorts of things.

  “We saw each other a few days a week and then sometimes not for a month. I thought it was because he was busy. I had only dated a couple of guys in high school, and thought it was normal.” She raises her brows that frame blue eyes containing a dizzying combination of fear, vulnerability, and anger. “I blame my parents for that. I grew up without cable.” Ella laughs, and I can tell she’s doing it to calm herself, so I work to smile too, understanding the need to punctuate the moment with something funny. “When he’d go on business trips, I’d sometimes go with him, telling my parents I was going to a friend’s house.”

  “They didn’t know about him?”

  She shakes her head. “They would’ve killed me.”

  “And then you got pregnant.”

  “And then I got pregnant,” she repeats. “They were angry at first. Livid.” Ella scoffs. “But then their anger transferred from me, to the situation, and then to Patrick. They hated him. Wanted to press charges, which in turn made me angry with them. I was in love with him and having his baby!” She pauses, biting her bottom lip. “It was legal. I mean, here in North Carolina, the age of consent is sixteen, but they knew I was too young, knew it was going to end badly. But, I took all my savings that had been intended for college and moved into a small one-bedroom apartment so I could be near him.”

  13

  Ella

  I’m expecting Coen to ask me for more. To dig into the how and why this town hates me so much that they literally hold no respect for me. I need him to ask me since volunteering the information is too difficult. I don’t even know where to begin. At least when a question is asked, I can focus on that specific piece of the puzzle.

  “What is all of this?” he asks instead, looking over the new mess I’ve made in my living room.

  “Memories.”

  “They look painful.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if your heart can ever love someone again,” I admit. “I mean, can you ever really stop loving someone when your heart essentially molds itself to another person’s? Is that even possible?” It’s a rhetorical question that reveals more than I initially intended. But when I look up, Coen isn’t looking at me but the image I have cradled in my lap.

  My gaze falls to the picture of Patrick and me sitting on a bench in Virginia. “There was this jazz band playing near us. Some small festival was in town.” I shake my head to rid the details that are sidetracking me from the story. “I wanted to dance, but he hated dancing, so he pulled me down beside him and buried his head against my chest, and we just sat there in this moment of perfection. I never wanted that moment to end.”

  “But you wanted to dance.” His tone taints the memory.

  “But look at this moment. Even as a cynic, you can clearly see how happy we were.”

  “But you wanted to dance.” Coen enunciates the words like I need him to explain it to me again.

  Shaking my head, I glower at him. “You’re missing the point!”

  “You’re missing the point. All you wanted was a dance, and he couldn’t even give you that.”

  Rearing my head back, I stare at him. Rage fills me. Embarrassment heats me. Resentment taunts me. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to admit that he didn’t really care? That he didn’t choose me? That he never had chosen me because all along he was with another woman, and I was too blind and stupid to see or even care? Because there it is. We had fun. I was a good time. There was no commitment, no checking in, no phone calls every night before bed to see how the day had been or what my plans were. I didn’t receive flowers on my birthday, or a special weekend for Valentine’s Day, and I was okay with that. I felt special and content because he was Patrick Webb, and he worshiped me while we were together. He listened to every word I spoke like they might blow away if he didn’t catch them fast enough. He made me laugh so hard I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be anxious. And while half of this town thinks I tried to trick him and steal him away from his wife, that was never the intention. I didn’t know he was married. I was too dumb and caught up in all that was him to think his vanishing acts were because he already had a family. I was young and thought that’s just what adults did.”

  “So why did you move here then?”

  “I moved here to make the ultimate sacrifice for him. I was giving up my life, my friends, my family, school, all to be close to him and have our baby. I stayed because…” My gaze drifts back over evidence of our affair. “…I wanted him to choose me,” I admit. “I really thought he would initially. Then, I met her … his wife … and I knew there wasn’t a chance, but it was too late. I had to stay because if I ran away with my tail tucked between my legs, I knew I would never forgive myself.”

  Coen’s questions are clear as his forehead creases and his eyes slant.

  “He did it all willingly, not me. My child deserved a father and support, and so did I. I don’t want to care about him. I don’t want to remember the way he made me feel like I was worth everything and then nothing. I don’t want to deal with him at all, but I do, and it isn’t for me.”

  It’s for Hayden. I don’t say the words aloud, not wanting sympathy or pity because I have thrown myself a gazillion pity parties, and the only thing they ever have accomplished is making me realize how stupid I was for not having questioned more when I should have, and coming to the same conclusion that while I hate what Patrick did, he still gave me Hayden. I would never even for a second wish to take that back.

  Coen remains still and silent for several minutes, and I wonder what he’s thinking. What he’s thinking of me. Finally, he shakes his head, and his brown eyes focus on me. “I can’t believe you’ve put up with this shit for so many years.”

  I shrug. “It was harder when I cared.”

  Coen stares at me, and I stare back, proving to him how little I care.

  He takes a deep breath through his nose, and while I can tell he wants to discuss this further, going into the bowels of the whys, he grabs a handful of old pictures and places them back into the box. His move is borderline hasty, but he doesn’t try to harm or destroy them, knowing that isn’t his place.

  “He never deserved to take so much from you,” he says, swiping more pictures that he adds to the box. “He still doesn’t.”

  I take another long look at the photo I’m holding, and for the first time notice the wistful look in my eye is not directed toward Patrick, but the people dancing. I hold the picture up and tear it in two before tossing both halves into the box.

  Coen watches me from where he’s gathering the last of the stuff that is laid out on the couch, but he doesn’t say a word.

  “I’m hungry,” I say, changing the subject.

  “That’s because we never went to breakfast.”

  Guilt has me scrunching my face. “Sorry about that. I was kind of in bitch mode after this morning.”

  “I can’t imagine why.” Coen folds the corners
of the box to secure it. “Want to go get something or order something in?”

  “I can make something,” I offer.

  He looks at me. “Not tonight. You need to let things be simple and easy tonight.”

  I don’t mind cooking. In fact, I prefer it most of the time, especially with Hayden’s allergies, but the idea of having a sink full of dishes, and the time and energy to both think of something and make it is becoming less appealing by the second.

  “Can we order in? I don’t really feel like putting pants on.”

  “Sure. But you can go out like that if you want.”

  “My reputation’s bad enough. I really don’t need to fuel the fire.” I stand from the floor and head over to the kitchen cabinet where we keep a file of menus from the best takeout places in town. “We have Chinese, Mexican, Italian, pizza, Korean, Thai, American-Chinese, more pizza, and more pizza.” I hand Coen the folder to look them over. “Take your pick.”

  “You decide,” he says, not reaching for the file.

  “That’s okay. I would actually prefer you to. I feel like I’ve made too many decisions today, and it would help me to just have one be made for me.”

  “I think that’s already happened too much in your life,” he says but accepts the folder.

  I know his words aren’t meant to hurt or judge me in a negative manner, but I feel a wave of shame wash over me for the first time in years.

  “Who has the best pizza?” he asks, holding up several menus.

  “Depends. What kind do you want?”

  Coen’s brown eyes look up from one of the menus. “I’m Italian.”

  “I’m not, so I don’t know what that means.”

  He laughs, and I do too, and with the pictures all neatly packed up with every other trace of evidence of my night, I don’t feel the same gloom that had been hanging over me like a heavy fog before Coen arrived and nearly gave me a heart attack.

  I devote weekend mornings to Hayden. It’s our time to snuggle on the couch and watch cartoons or a movie, and weekends that I don’t have him I spend the time wishing I did.