Dropping the Ball: a Holiday Rom-Com
Dropping the Ball: Chapter 17

The cooler weather holds through the weekend, and when I pull into Katie’s driveway on Saturday, even though it’s still light out, there is a nip in the air, and I suspect many of the kids out tonight will be complaining about the jackets their parents make them wear.

I’m ready for my not-a-date with Kaitlyn, and when I ring her doorbell a minute later, she opens it and her jaw drops.

“Micah?”

“Were you expecting someone else on your doorstep with twenty pounds of candy?” I growl in my best Batman impersonation.

“What is that voice? Are you sick?”

“You’re hopeless,” I say in my normal voice. “That’s how Batman talks. Please tell me you at least recognize the costume.”

“I don’t live under a rock,” she says. “I recognize the costume. I just didn’t know that Batman suffered from chronic emphysema.”

“Where’s your costume?” I ask.

She looks down at her outfit. “No costume. I decided to go festive instead.”

I push my mask back on my head. “How is that festive?” She’s wearing a pink sweater that hugs her body before ending in long sleeves that fall to her fingertips in a bell shape. It’s the kind of cut and fit that screams designer. Probably costs more than my truck payment. She’s paired it with black pants. “Not that you don’t look nice,” I add when she frowns.

“It’s orange and black. Pumpkin colors.”

“You think your sweater is orange?” I’m happy to check it out again, but it’s not any more orange than the first time I looked.

“I don’t think it is. It’s orange. That’s why I bought it.”

I point to the pink sky behind me, the crest of the setting sun barely visible behind the house across the street. “Your sweater is the same color as the sky over there. What color would you call that?”

“Orange.”

“That’s the pinkest orange I’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t look good in pumpkin orange.”

Yeah, right. She would look good in anything. “Can I come in and put this candy down?”

She steps aside and waves me in. I set the flats of candy bars on the accent table in her entryway, which is easily the size of the office in my house.

I turn to look at her again. “Unless you want to be a Real Housewife of Austin, you need to get less trendy and more cringey.”

“Just because you went with foam muscles—” She reaches out to poke one, but her finger meets actual muscle, and she stops talking.

“You were saying?”

She makes a miffed noise. “I guess I’m going to be a Real Housewife because I don’t have any costumes.”

“I’m kidding. Your hair isn’t high enough for Real Housewife. But we can pull together a costume. You have a pair of cowboy boots, don’t you?” Her family owns Copperhead Boots. She may not wear them, but I bet she has some.

“Yes.”

I open the door and pop my head out, scanning the street. “The trick-or-treaters aren’t out yet, but we don’t have long.” I shut the door and turn to her. “This will go faster if I can look at your closet, see what we have to work with. I might have an idea.”

She opens her mouth like she wants to object then pauses and sighs. “Let’s go.”

I follow her upstairs to the end of a hall, trying not to gape at the idea of one person living here by herself, let alone one person my age. I don’t even work on houses like this for clients yet. The most ambitious project Dan has given me has been a freestanding pool house behind a wealthy client’s mansion.

She leads me to the main suite, and I pause to admire the vaulted ceiling, a series of three mission-style wooden beams cross-sectioning it to meet a perpendicular support beam running down the center.

“You’ll have to come through my bathroom,” she says. “Promise not to judge.”

I promise and she leads me through it. I want to take in every detail, but mostly what I notice is that Madison confined most of her work to the first floor. Upstairs, everything still has a model home feel with the builders’ choices in gray and white, and if Kaitlyn ordered her own linens, she went with even more gray and white.

She’s classic, yes. But her outfits always have some small detail that gives away more about her if you’re paying attention, like the sleeves of her sweater tonight. I expected her house to contain subtle-but-revealing details too, but that all stopped the second we climbed the stairs.

Her bathroom counters are bare, no clutter to hint about her beauty routine. Only a potted white orchid tries to soften the space, but I’d bet the hundred dollars in my wallet that it’s silk, not real.

It’s hard not to go slack-jawed when we step into her closet (twice the size of my office). It’s immaculate, but the sheer volume of clothes overwhelms me. It makes sense for someone whose fortune comes from the fashion industry, but I didn’t expect to walk in and replace the equivalent of an exclusive boutique in her house. There’s so much color and texture that I can’t take it all in.

“You said you weren’t going to judge.” Kaitlyn sounds defensive.

“I’m not. I’m strategizing.” There are shelves full of shoes. Shelves. Many shelves. Of only shoes. It’s like being in a movie. “You said you have boots?” There’s a whole bay of nothing but boots, and she walks over to grab a pair from the bottom shelf.

“These are Western.” She holds up a pair of intricately stitched and patterned suede boots in a fawn color.

“Are those Copperheads?”

She shrugs, like that’s answer enough. Of course they are. I glance around the closet, seeking and not replaceing denim.

“Jeans?” I ask.

“What kind of costume are we talking here?”

“Cowgirl. Easy, fast, and you probably have everything you need.”

She goes to a long drawer and slides it out to reveal at least a dozen pairs of jeans, all folded like an origami expert did it. Did she do that? Or does she hire help? She reaches for a pair near the back and shakes it out.

“Wranglers, if you can believe it,” she says. “My brother-in-law made me get them when I visited his family’s horse ranch.”

“Did he happen to make you get a cowboy shirt too?” I ask. “Plaid? Do you have plaid?”

She turns to survey the closet before she walks over to a section and pulls a shirt off the rack. “This is my only plaid shirt.”

“Uh . . .” I have to fight not to laugh. It is shiny, maybe satin, although I don’t know much about fabrics. It’s also a green-on-green plaid but kind of . . . avant garde? I squint, trying to figure out how I’d even describe this interpretation of plaid. “If you have a plain T-shirt you could throw on and meet me downstairs, I have something that could work.”

“I can do that.”

“Meet you by the candy bars.”

A couple minutes later, I’m back in her foyer with a flannel shirt retrieved from my truck, staring down at a cat who has decided to sit on my foot.

Kaitlyn comes around the corner. “Oh. Daisy Buchanan. Now you show up?” She says it with mild consternation.

I look up. “Oh, Katie Armstrong.” I say it with a strong thirst. I can’t help it. I don’t care. What is it about a woman in a white cotton T-shirt and jeans? Is it this woman? I’ve seen her in a dress sewn to fit like it was made for her, but this, this is what has actual drool pooling in my mouth?

“Daisy, please don’t sit on the company.”

“She’s fine.” I lean down to scratch the back of her neck. “Nice to meet you, Daisy.” Her tail twitches and she stays put. I straighten and hold out my flannel to Kaitlyn, hoping my face is saying Please enjoy this offer of a shirt to borrow and not Please put this on before I back you up against that wall and show you how hot you look right now.

She takes it and slips it on, buttoning it from the bottom. “This doesn’t feel like much of a costume.”

“For you it is. It’s like watching you pull out an alter ego from your closet. But for most people, no. Do you have makeup that would make dots?”

She looks up and wrinkles her nose. “Dots? What are you talking about?”

I wave at my face. “Freckles. Those kinds of dots.”

“You want me to draw freckles on my face?”

“Yes. Freckles. Do that. Be right back.”

I run back to my truck, noticing a group of trick-or-treaters about five houses away. I grab the rest of my supplies and pick a spot halfway down her driveway, setting everything up. When I go back to the house to get the candy, Kaitlyn is holding a pencil in her hand.

“Like this?” She tilts her head so I can inspect her freckles.

“Very mindful. Very demure. So no, not exactly.” I hold out my hand for the brown pencil. “May I?”

She hands it to me, and I look at it closely then make a mark on my palm so I can get a sense of its resistance.

“Okay, ready. Chin up, please.”

“Are you going to make me look ridiculous?”

In my Batman voice, I say, “Ma’am, I’m a trained artist.”

She lifts her chin. What a canvas.

I rest my drawing hand carefully against her cheek, my thumb brushing against her lip as I go over each of her demure freckles and give them the cartoon treatment, making them big enough to show even when the light dims. I could do this quickly. I should do this quickly with trick-or-treaters incoming. But I work slowly, appreciating the softness of her skin against my fingers as I fill in her spots.

She’s very still, which is very Kaitlyn. She’s not a fidgeter, not a perpetual tornado like Madison, who whirls through a space. Kaitlyn, no matter what speed she’s moving, or even now when she’s motionless, is a soft breeze. No one ever gets tired of a soft breeze.

I reach the last freckle as I hear the sound of voices near the sidewalk, moving our way. I lift my hand and step back.

She blinks and swallows. I affected her. Being that close, it wobbled her balance. Good. I give her a slow smile as I hand back her pencil. I understand the feeling.

“Am I done?” she asks. Her voice comes out husky.

“Almost, but we can do the last part out there.” I pull down my mask and open the front door as the doorbell rings. Two ladybugs, a princess, and a pirate stand on the porch, all small girls.

“Trick or treat!” they yell, but I think only two of them can say their Rs. I’m not good at guessing ages, but I’d bet they’re probably not in school yet, the parents doing the early shift on candy collection like my buddies are, knowing their kids will want to go home after only a few houses.

There’s a gasp beside me, and I look over to see Katie staring down at them with wide eyes, as delighted as if a pack of puppies just frolicked up to the door.

“You’re adorable,” she says.

She gets a chorus of thank yous from three of the girls, but the pirate scowls. “I am scary.”

Kaitlyn jumps behind me. “There’s a pirate, Batman,” she says in a loud whisper as she cowers.

Three small voices giggle, but the pirate only gives a pleased nod.

“Aye, therrrre is,” I say as Batman. “I’ll give them their loot and she’ll go away.”

I drop a candy bar into each of their bags while Katie periodically peeks around me and ducks back every time she sees the pirate.

“Thank you,” three little voices say when I’ve dropped in the final candy bar. The pirate leans forward, looks me dead in the eye and says, “POOP DECK.” She makes every consonant count. The princess gasps, the ladybugs giggle again, and an exasperated adult in the entourage behind them calls, “Gentry Lynn! Apologize.”

Gentry Lynn’s eyes form slits. “Dead men tell no tales.”

It takes everything I’ve got to keep my stern Batman face, especially when I can feel quivering against my back that tells me Katie isn’t even trying.

The pirate leads her boarding party back to their parents while a mom calls an apology to me, and I give a single grim nod to let them know I will not be visiting vengeance on them for Gentry Lynn’s threats to Batman.

When they reach the sidewalk, I finally let my laugh out, and Katie emerges, grinning and unrepentant.

“I understand now why I couldn’t opt out. You were right. Imagine if I’d left the porch light off but they’d seen another light on in my house?” She shivers. “Thank you, Batman.”

“You’re welcome,” I rasp, but it makes me cough, and she grins at me again. “You’re a natural, by the way. You’re going to ace Halloween.”

She plucks a candy bar from the box I’m holding and flips it in her hand a couple of times. “I’m going to win Halloween.”

“Not with that stupid costume, you won’t.”

She frowns and glances down. “Oh, yeah. What was your big plan? Because I might be giving just-came-in-from-my-fancy-stable vibes, but I am definitely not giving cowgirl.”

I pick up the rest of the candy and lead her to the driveway, where I set up two camp chairs with a cooler between them. I divide the candy boxes into even stacks in front of the chairs and pick up the trucker hat resting on the cooler. I show her the front with the Herbert Metalworks logo on it. “Hat from the job site,” I explain before I settle it on her head. Hmmm. “Nope. That’s not it.” I turn it around. “That’s not cowboy either. That’s not even country boy. That’s just hot girl at the sports bar.”

Her lips part but she just stares at me. I pretend not to notice and step back to study her, thinking.

“What?” She reaches up to touch the cap. “What do I need to fix?”

“Shhh. I’m getting inspiration.”

She snorts, forgetting to be self-conscious. “I cannot take you seriously while you’re in costume.”

“In character,” I tell her. I loop my thumbs through my Batman utility belt, cop style, while I consider the possibilities. Her eyes drop to my belt and there’s that hard swallow again before she pulls her gaze up, right as I figure out a solution. I break character to grin. “Got it.”

Cradling her face, I smear the pencil I drew on. Her eyes go wide. “Trust me,” I tell her, smudging until I’m satisfied. “You need a couple more accessories.”

I go back to my truck and grab a wrench from my toolbox and the chamois I use to dry my windows at the car wash. I hand her the wrench. “Front shirt pocket.” And the chamois. “Back jeans pocket.”

She tucks them each where I tell her. “What am I now?”

I pull her over to look in the truck’s side mirror. “Batman’s mechanic.”

She stoops and laughs at her reflection. “Grease monkey. I get it. All right, Croft. Points for improvising.”

“Am I winning Halloween so far?”

“You got cussed out in three-year-old pirate, so let’s call it a tie.”

“Come on and I’ll finish your Halloween orientation.” We walk back to the chairs. “Pick a seat. A neighborhood like this, you want to sit out and enjoy the show. Otherwise, you’re running to the door every two minutes.”

She claims the left chair, and I take the other one, setting a battery-operated lantern on the ground between us and turning it on. “You need enough light to enjoy the costume parade.” I set the open box of candy bars on her lap and open another box for mine. “Have your candy ready to go. You’ll have to choose your handout philosophy.”

“My handout philosophy? As the interim head of a nonprofit, I’m pro-handout.”

I love that she’s so quick. I’d always sensed that she held back far more than she shared in class discussions. Sometimes I’d catch a glint in her eye or a twitch at the corner of her mouth as she listened and watched, and I’d wished I was in on her private jokes. I’d had no doubt they were funny. For those couple of months where we’d almost hung out, every now and then she’d crack one for me, and I learned another secret almost no one at Hillview knew: Kaitlyn Armstrong was the funniest kid in school.

“Settle down, grease monkey. Are you going to drop each candy bar into each bag yourself? Or will you hold out the box and let them choose?”

“Well, Batman, this sounds like psychological profiling.”

“I can tell you what you’re going to choose. I’m texting you. Don’t look until I tell you.” I tap out a message and send it. In Batman’s voice I say, “I am the world’s greatest detective.”

A gaggle of boys who look like they would absolutely be smashing pumpkins if their parents weren’t right behind them come up the driveway. They’re at the pillowcase age where they’d rather be caught dead than carrying a Halloween tote, and they’re all in NFL jerseys and eye black.

“Watch this,” I tell her. “They’re wearing the fifth grade special, the minimum costume you can wear and still expect candy. They will mumble, not make eye contact, talk only to each other until their parents make them say thank you, which they will yell over their shoulder while they race each other to the sidewalk.”

They reach us in a jostling squad of crew socks and skinny elbows. “Trick or treat,” a couple of them mumble, eyes on the candy bars. Kaitlyn pauses before extending the box. There are a few exultant calls of “Bro!” or “Yes!” as they reach over and around each other, hands scrabbling. Within a few seconds, they spin and split for the sidewalk, yelling “Thanks” over their shoulders when one of the adults reminds them, and I turn to look at Kaitlyn.

She looks from them to her box and starts trying to reorganize it. “It looks like it was attacked by badgers.”

“Check your phone.”

“Oh, yeah.” She pulls her phone from the cupholder and reads her text. “‘You want to drop the candy bars yourself. You don’t want me to guess right so you let them pick their own. You regret it.’”

She sets her phone down and relaxes into her chair. “Good to know we’ve reached the disrespect-your-boss phase of this project.”

I can’t answer until I hand out candy bars to a brother and sister dressed as Spiderman and Black Widow.

“You’re not my boss,” I say as they leave. “You’re my client.”

“Which means I can fire you.”

“You won’t.”

She sighs. “I won’t.”

“In fact, if I quit you would be—”

“Sunk faster than that preschool pirate could yell ‘poop deck’?”

“Well said.”

“Let’s not fire each other,” she says.

“Deal. But only because I already deposited the check.”

“Works for me.”

We greet more and more trick-or-treaters. At first, I have enough time to finish explaining the rules for Halloween, including the selection of beverages in the cooler ranging from apple cider to hard cider, the foam jack-o-lantern I brought as an emergency measure because “you should always have real ones unless you waited too long before they sold out,” and a spray can of black hair color, which I hand to her.

She flinches away from it like it’s a hot coal. “I can’t put that in my hair. It won’t wash out.”

“It’s for your cat. So we can have a black cat. It’ll give us some ambiance since you don’t have a full setup.”

Kaitlyn shoots straight up in her chair but has to drop four candy bars into the bags of a ghost, a fairy, a strawberry, and a Jedi before she can object. “Daisy Buchanan would never,” she says. “Are you crazy?”

I take the cap off and press the nozzle. She squeaks and tries to wedge herself into the back of her chair before she realizes it’s only hissing air.

She resettles herself like a boardroom CEO, which looks hilarious with her grease monkey costume. “You will pay.” Her voice is low and deadly calm, scaring the two NFL players holding out their bags into skittering away with nervous glances over their shoulders.

“Can’t wait.” It comes out silky even though I meant to do my Batman voice.

Soon the foot traffic is so heavy, every driveway on the street has a small traffic jam, and I’ve never had so much fun on Halloween. Not even the handful of times in college that I went to a party or club where pretty girls wore tiny costumes and my buddies made sure my cup was never empty.

Sitting here and laughing with her, watching her chirp over the smallest trick-or-treaters, handing out candy and batting good-natured insults back and forth about our distribution technique, keeping fake score of who’s winning Halloween . . . I can’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed. Relaxed but also . . . on high alert. It’s the paradox of Kaitlyn. All my senses are tuned to her, capturing every laugh, each rustle of movement, the way the light catches her eyes as she turns to tease me or lean forward to compliment a costume.

There are a handful of people in my life I’m this comfortable with, and all of them grew up on my block. But I want to whip her cap off and explore her lips with mine to confirm whether they’re as soft as they felt against my thumbs. No one on my block has ever inspired that impulse.

The thought won’t let me go. When she’d literally bumped into me at Remix, it shook all that loose inside me, like those feelings had been sitting unsecured on a shelf where I’d stuck them since high school, unsure what to do with them.

I know now.

The stream of kids slows to a trickle, and my anticipation builds as the candy bars dwindle.

When the candy is gone and my mask comes off, I’m finally going to do what I should have done ten years ago.