Dropping the Ball: a Holiday Rom-Com
Dropping the Ball: Chapter 6

I’ve learned not to doubt my sister. Her first wedding is urban lore in Austin, and her second wedding—to the same guy—is still spoken of reverently by the good people of Cleveland County, Oklahoma, where they held it at her in-laws’ horse ranch.

But my faith in her stretches to the breaking point as she pulls into the nondescript parking lot of a commercial warehouse off Highway 183 where she plans to stage the gala. Besides a Tacoma pickup with a matte blue-gray finish, there’s no other sign of life. No trucks waiting to be loaded with freight. No vehicles of other workers.

“Scared yet?” Madison asks, grinning.

“Of what? Mafia guys waiting to kidnap me for ransom? No. Pulling off an event to raise a million dollars? Yes.” It is blander than I could have imagined. This place doesn’t have spooky vibes, which is almost a shame, because at least that would be atmosphere. It’s just an empty warehouse with a boring off-white stucco exterior, no romance to it. Not even graffiti to keep it interesting. It is the instant rice of buildings.

“Micah is here,” she says, cutting the engine. “You’ll see.”

“This is not the type of building I’d expect an architect to be into.”

She climbs out of the car, and I follow suit. Micah gets out of his truck at the same time.

It’s a much different Micah today than jeans-and-ratty T-shirt Micah from Saturday. Madison warned me that the A/C wouldn’t be on in the warehouse, so to dress comfortably. Early September temperatures in Austin are approximately the same as my gym’s sauna, so I chose a tailored sleeveless sheath. Micah is in black pants and a short-sleeved buttoned shirt with a black vintage map print on it. They’re not tailored, but he’s chosen the right size and cut for his athletic build. He’s on the lean side but well muscled.

Pecs, remember?

I don’t know if he’s feeling the ninety-degree heat like I am, but he appears cool and collected, offering a smile as we meet up at the warehouse door.

“Good to see you, ladies,” he says. “Has Madison told you what to expect?”

I nod. “I’ve seen the plans.”

He laughs as I cast a skeptical look at the industrial gray paint on the windowless door. “Not a visualizer? Isn’t that what you said, Madison?”

“Yeah,” Madison agrees. “Don’t take it personally if she’s not catching the vision yet.”

Micah’s easy smile doesn’t waver at all as he punches in a code on the door’s electric key pad, then swings it open and waves us ahead of him. “We’ll jump right into the event space.”

We walk into a big, concrete box. It takes me two seconds to take it all in. Concrete floor. Aluminum walls. No shelves. Nothing to break up the grayness but support poles painted in safety orange.

Madison and Micah watch me, expectant looks on their faces.

“Madi, I know we’re saving on hotel costs, but . . .” I trail off, glancing around again. It’s an empty Armstrong Industries warehouse. I knew it had been leased for a few years by a company that manufactured roofing shingles, but it’s been vacant since the spring. Open industrial ceiling, exposed beams, rows and rows of fluorescent lights. “Free might be too expensive for this place.”

Madison throws one arm around my shoulder and stretches the other one wide. “It helps if you think of it as a blank canvas, not an empty warehouse. Micah will explain.”

“I’ve been dying to know how an architect gets pulled into decorating for a gala,” I say.

“Because your sister is a genius,” he says, laidback as ever.

“And what are Armstrongs good at if not exploiting people’s talents for cheap labor,” she adds.

“Madison!” We can both have a dark sense of humor, but it seems incredibly insensitive to joke about exploiting Micah—especially in front of him.

But Micah laughs. “Let’s look at this from the center of the room, and I’ll paint a picture for you.”

I’d dressed for battle today, wearing four-inch heels so I could chip away at his height advantage, and my shoes tap-tap-tap with a slight echo in the cavernous space as I follow him across the concrete floor.

“Did Madison show you her inspiration?” he asks, sliding his phone from his pocket.

“Church gym glow ups,” I say.

“Basically,” Madison says. “You know how wedding planners can make them over with tulle and lighting? I was pricing out hotel ballrooms, and every time I found myself getting furious that hotels will force you to use all their vendors and charge five times as much as things cost, I would think about those church receptions. I knew we had a big square space, so I started asking around.”

I smile, knowing how Madison gets once she’s set on a course of action. “What exactly were you asking around for? How did we get from wedding planner to architect?”

“People won’t cough up money for church gym tickets. Definitely not warehouse tickets. We needed something buzzworthy. I watched a documentary about art installations, and it all clicked,” she says. “I contacted the city arts council about locals who specialize in large-scale art installations. Then I emailed them and requested proposals, and Micah submitted his.”

“Art installations?” I tilt my head, studying him. I can’t decide if this fits with my high school image of him. “You didn’t take art at Hillview.” We weren’t in every class together, but the Hillview upper school wasn’t that big. Most of us knew each other’s schedules without trying.

“My uncle chose my electives,” Micah said. “He didn’t want to pay for art, so I learned from this guy at my community center and took classes in college.”

I’d known two of his cousins at Hillview, but Micah hadn’t lived with them, so what did his uncle paying have to do with anything? Micah was a Croft. The Crofts had money.

As if sensing my confusion, he meets my eyes, and his hold a challenge. “I told you, Katie. There’s a lot you didn’t know about me in high school.”

“Kaitlyn,” I correct him. In college, friends had started calling me Katie, and now Madison does too sometimes. But at work, I’m Kaitlyn.

“Right.” His smile fades. “Kaitlyn.”

“When did you do art installations?” I press. Is Madison sure he has the experience to do something on the scale it will take to impress Austin’s wealthiest residents?

My phone vibrates, and I ignore it, but Madison says, “I sent you a text so you can see it.”

It’s a picture of an outdoor tunnel running the length of a city block. It’s formed by brightly colored arches in painted shades of blue, yellow, and orange. Origami birds hang from wires across the top and down the sides, forming the tunnel. They’re arranged in a wave of color, a full rainbow gradient that makes the whole thing look like it’s undulating.

“It’s wild, isn’t it?” Madison asks. “How they look like they’re flying?”

It is. It’s both epic and beautiful.

“You really like birds, huh?” That’s what I say. That is what I say to this man whose work has once again moved me. I hear how snotty I sound, but it’s not what I intended.

Madison shoots me a warning glance, and I clear my throat, adding, “It’s cool.”

“Thanks.” Micah’s tone is polite.

“I mean it. I didn’t say that well. I’m not always the best with words.” At least, not when I’m outside of a work environment. “Would you tell me about it?”

“That was my senior year at UT,” he says. “The city wanted to do an art installation that reflected the diversity in Austin, so I submitted this design.”

“More pictures,” Madison says as my phone buzzes again.

These are closeups of the birds, and I realize now that they’re made with all different kinds of paper, mostly from newspapers and magazines.

“Are these doves?” I ask Micah.

“Yes. On the nose, maybe, but it’s a symbol everyone understands, and it’s a simple fold to teach.”

“This must have taken lots of birds to fill in,” I say. There are thousands.

“Swipe,” Madison says.

I do, and now it’s a picture of the structure before the birds were added.

“First day it opened,” he says. “I only made one dove.” He leans over my shoulder to point at the screen. “If you enlarge it, you’ll see mine. It’s the green one right there.”

I see it, a single origami bird, midway down the tunnel. His chest touches my shoulder, barely the brush of a dove feather, and he straightens and shifts away.

“People could only fold one,” he explains. “We asked them to choose a piece of paper that represented something about who they are. We had newspapers and magazines from all over the world, old books, cookbooks, office memos.” He gives a small, tired laugh. “I collected every paper I could replace from construction demolition sites for months. Then we let people choose a piece and showed them how to fold a dove.”

He’s close. Close enough to smell. It’s not Acqua di Gio anymore. It’s better. Fresh and musky at the same time. Whatever it is, the scent is hijacking my concentration.

I focus on my phone and swipe again. The tunnel is about a quarter filled in, birds hung by color, the idea taking shape.

“More people came every day,” he says. “Volunteers helped them make their bird and then chose where to hang it. It was pretty cool.”

“That’s my favorite part,” Madison says. “Random passersby made the art, and you end up with this one massive thing built a person at a time. Do you get it now? Why Micah is the artist for this?”

I let my screen go dark and look at Micah as I slide my phone back into the pocket of my dress. “I do.”

He gives me a slight nod, and I wonder what it means. Was it curt because my “you really like birds” comment annoyed him? Efficient because Micah isn’t a wordy guy? Was that a “cool guy” nod?

“I solicited proposals for a gala-worthy installation for a soulless industrial space.” She gestures to Micah. “His won. Easily.”

“I was the cheapest,” he says.

Madison narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t even. Micah dug so far into the theme that his design came alive, even as a digital drawing. When I realized he wanted to use only reclaimed materials, I couldn’t offer him the contract fast enough.”

Micah shifts, and I swear if he’d been wearing a tie, he would have reached up to loosen his collar. “But she’s not telling you that a big part of my appeal is that the architecture firm where I work is allowing me to use twenty hours a week to focus on this, starting in October.”

“It’s a generous subsidy, and we’ll recognize them as gold sponsors,” Madison tells me. “But it’s not why I picked him.”

Had it always been this hard for him to accept praise? I’d always thought of him as disengaged, but that’s not what I’m seeing now. I’m already reinterpreting the “cool guy” head nod.

“Paint the picture, Micah.” Madison’s eyes are bright as she waits for Micah to do his thing.

“Think a canopy of marigolds, like you had a whole field of them but then lifted it to the ceiling.” He walks us to different areas of the cavernous warehouse, showing us the illustrations for what he has in mind in each section.

Every few minutes, he stops to check with Madison, asking her the first time if she’s good in the hot warehouse, checking in on her with a glance after that.

She insists she’s fine, and after twenty minutes, we’ve covered every section of the open space, Micah explaining which materials he already has, which ones he’s still sourcing, and when the installation itself will begin.

“First of October,” he says.

I give him a knowing look. “Is that so Madison can’t come bother you because she’ll have her baby?”

“Hey,” Madison protests, but Micah’s eyebrows go up.

“Wait,” he says, staring at her form-fitting cream knit dress. It looks like it’s going to split and eject a pumpkin any second. “You’re pregnant?”

His delivery is so deadpan that it takes Madi and me a beat to realize he’s joking, and then her laugh echoes through the empty warehouse. I couldn’t keep a straight face if I wanted to, but I try, giving him back his “cool guy” nod. That’s what makes him break, a laugh rumbling out. It’s almost more of a feeling than a sound.

“I better not still be pregnant by October first,” Madison says. She looks at me. “You got this gala, right? Because I don’t want to come back until this thing is a freaking Met-level wonder ready to make us a couple million dollars.”

She’s not really asking. Her faith in me is as complete as mine is in her, but I tell her anyway. “I got this.”

“Good, because I’ve had to spend so much time with Micah lately that we almost put his name into the baby name rotation.”

“It is unisex,” he says.

“So is Merle,” I tell him. “Doesn’t make it a great choice. Kaitlyn, on the other hand . . .”

Micah frowns. “You have an unfair advantage if we’re competing for who your sister should name her baby after.”

The word “competing” reminds me who I’m dealing with, and my humor fades. I wouldn’t have put it past old Micah to try to win that competition for real. I know he’s joking now, but I’d be an idiot not to watch for the ways in which he will try to one-up me.

I’m the boss, I remind myself. I make my tone brisk and professional. “Will we need to meet again this month?”

“Depends on how hands-on you want to be,” he says.

Evil glints in Madison’s eyes, and I cut her off before she can make a “hands-on” joke. I say, “I manage people only as much as they need to be managed. How often have you and Madison been meeting?”

“As needed,” she says. “Depends on which phase of the project we’re in.”

“I’ll supervise as much as I need to.” I choose the word supervise to remind him of our roles here. I expect him to bristle and tell me he doesn’t require supervision like he’s a kid on a playground, but he doesn’t say anything. “If it looks like you have everything running smoothly, I’ll leave you to it so I can focus on the fundraising side.”

He nods. “I’ll be in touch.”

Does he have to keep using words like hands and touch? Is he doing it on purpose? Keeping me off-balance was the only hobby he’d seemed to have in school.

“You can let me know if we need to adjust the communication,” he continues. “I’m sure we will.”

My gaze sharpens at the last words. Something in his tone I can’t quite name tells me this is a subtle dig. It’s polite but also . . . not? I’m used to him laughing at me. This is not that. There’s almost a weariness? boredom? irritation? in his tone. It’s like the way less-seasoned sales associates in department stores sometimes handle my demanding mother. They think she won’t notice their disdain—until she demands a different salesperson who will suck up to her, and they lose a massive commission. But whatever the undercurrent in his tone is, it’s subtle enough that I can’t call him on it either.

“Great,” I say, already turning toward the exit. “I’ll look forward to your updates.” See? It’s not that hard to avoid words about hands or touching.

“You’re a genius, Micah,” Madison calls behind her as she follows me to the exit.

I don’t look back, walking out of the warehouse and over to the passenger side of her car, a Porsche Cayenne she upgraded to from her smaller Mercedes because she needs a “mom car” now.

The heavy steel door clangs shut on the warehouse, but she doesn’t disarm the car. I glance over at her and sigh. She’s standing with her arms crossed, her eyebrow raised.

“It’s hot. Open the car,” I say. Austin women might break out our sweaters and boots when August ends, but only because we’d have to wait until November to dress seasonally if we went by the temperature. It’s almost ninety degrees right now. Rude.

“You aren’t getting in this car unless you promise to tell me exactly what your problem with Micah is.”

I tug at the door handle. “You already know it.”

“No. This goes beyond him beating you for valedictorian.”

“He’s annoying. He’s always been annoying. It’s not that deep.” I tug on the door again.

“You lying liar who lies,” she says, her tone pleasant. “He’s adorable and funny.”

“To you, sure. And how nice for you. Can we go?”

Madison says nothing, only twirls her key ring on her finger and watches me. I glance past her to the door. Micah will walk out any second now, and I don’t trust her not to ask him about our friction. Who knows what version of events he’d give her?

I drop my head. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

Click click. The door unlocks as Madison walks to her side.

We get in, and after starting the car and turning on the air, she gets us on the road, then flicks a glance at me.

“Now talk.”

I shake my head but give in. “It was his first week at Hillview, freshman year . . .”