Bowling Dreams & Cheap Wine

Chapter 10

In the morning, I send Tamara a text.

Call me when you have a chance.

The weather is irresistibly fall. Cool morning. Leaves scattered everywhere. I pay a visit to my faded peach cushions outside and bring coffee and my laptop with me. Way back in the summer, Cami and I started planning for the winter performance at the arena. It happens every year the second weekend in December. 

It's our biggest money maker as far as performances go and last year only one skater broke an arm. The instructors look over the nearly finalized schedule for tryouts and choreography. Thankfully some other patient soul deals with costumes. 

I take a sip of coffee and ignore Cami's plans for a moment. The street traffic carries the noise of car engines and squeaky brakes into the backyard. What Arnie had said stays with me. Did we keep pumping up Tamara to try and work things out? I thought that's what she had wanted, but even I know that the second the wine starts flowing and when Just A Girl plays, everyone wants things to be fun again. And they are, for a couple of hours. 

A door opens and closes from Nate's house and footsteps follow. The rustling of paper can be heard and a quiet, "I can't do this."

I set my coffee down and go over to the fence. He can't see me because the fence is too high. "Nate?" I say, stretching up on my tip toes.

He folds the piece of paper and stuffs it in his back pocket. "Hi."

His dark hair is gelled to the side today, he looks younger than his age with it styled like that. Men don't know that we females associate them with words like cute and adorable that are also used to describe baby animals at the zoo.

"Did you find out who vandalized that door?" my adorable neighbor asks, coming over. I imagine cute little polar bears rolling around in his back yard. 

"Hang on a second." I drag my chair over and stand on it so he's not having a conversation with my forehead. "I definitely did," I tell him outright. "Turns out, the person who graffitied the door had the wrong house. The guy who lives there doesn't have a brother and doesn't know anyone named Teresa, so the cops got involved." The HOA did, too. He's getting fined for that neon disaster he painted his front door, but I can't repeat that to Nate.

Nate chuckles. "The guy tagged the wrong house?"

"He did."

His gaze grows serious. "I guess Teresa will never know how he feels about her having an affair with his brother. Speaking of, any updates on the guy bouncing the basketball up the street?"

"No news yet, but on the community HOA page he's moved onto other streets, which means he'll probably circle back and it will start up again, unless the cops catch him first."

Nate frowns. "I could never be on the HOA."

"It takes a certain kind of passion to enjoy all that goes on. How's Noreen doing in school?"

Hesitation beats in his voice. "She likes the school and her friends, but this time of year is hard. The anniversary of her mother's death is in a few weeks. She withdraws a little during this time."

"I can't imagine losing a parent at her age. My father died when I was younger than Noreen." I shudder to think of how Daphne's life would have been changed if something like that had happened to me. "How did she die?"

"She was diabetic, which she managed fine, even with the pregnancy, but after she gave birth she developed complications. She lived with the complications until Noreen turned 7 and then things got worse fast. The doctors were certain she would be healthy for years but then a combination of things hit at once and her kidneys failed. Right up until she died, we still didn't think it would go that way."