The Odd Ballerz (19 page)

“What?” Memphis asked.

“Nothing,” he said, chuckling.

“Okay, thanks,” Memphis said, looking back towards Z’s home. There was still no sign of him. D moved away, headed to the utility building. She turned back to face her sister. “Are you going to be here awhile?”

“Nope, dropping this off and then I’m out, hanging out with Charlotte and the gang. You can stop by after you leave here. Tell us how it all works out.”

“How what works out?”

“You and your talk with Z. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It might work. You asking him to train you?” Alex asked.

“How did you know?”

“I know you, big sister. A problem with a solution and you do what you have to. It’s what you’ve always done for Charlotte and me, and it’s nice to see it finally turned on you. I can talk to him for you if you think it will help,” she added.

“Thanks,” Memphis said.

“Later,” Alex said, moving away.

Memphis turned to face Z’s home again. It was quiet out here when it was free of kids. Kind of relaxing even, she thought, moving toward his back door. It was open. A glass door was the only barrier, she noted as she climbed the three steps to reach it. She could see inside to the hallway, which was empty. She took a deep breath, knocked on the metal part of the glass door, and waited. It was nothing but quiet inside.

She knocked again, harder this time, and received the same silence.

“Jones,” she heard, coming from somewhere behind her. It was Z, walking towards his home, quickly closing the distance between them. He’d come from the direction of his studio and carried papers in one hand and his cell phone in the other. She stepped away from his door.

“Coach,” she said.

“You’re helping Alex and D with the clean-up?” he asked, jogging up the steps to his porch. He was surprised to see her, but glad she hadn’t left before he’d a chance to talk to her.

“No, I was actually looking for you. I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, about what?” he said, coming to a stop outside the door.

“Well… uh… first I wanted to thank you for the award today,” she said, watching him as he opened the glass door and stepped inside.

“You’re welcome. But really, no thanks necessary, you earned it,” he said, smiling as he held the door open for her. A little impatiently, she thought of his demeanor, and maybe this was a bad idea after all. “You said that was the first thing?” he asked.

“Oh, right. I’m here to ask you to consider training me.”

“Come in,” he said, releasing the door as soon as she took hold of it. He had already moved off, the impatience she’d thought she’d seen earlier propelling him down the hall. She followed him inside, allowing the outer door to close behind her. He’d disappeared into the first room on the right. She followed.

“Oh,” she said, after she’d stepped into the doorway. Surprise was too mild a word for what she saw. Paper everywhere was her first thought, followed by why so many unopened boxes. Moving boxes, with the company’s logo on the side of them, with stacks of paper on top. When did he move here? she wondered. There were stacks of paper on the floor, knee high in height. The piles were neat at least, and they just about covered the entire floor.

There was a path, the only clear part of the floor, that led from the doorway over to the desk, where more stacks of paper lay.

“Look through these for me,” he said, pushing a stack of papers into her stomach. He was standing near the door, holding another handful of papers.

“What?”

“I’m looking for an invoice dated May 30, this year. I promised to deliver glasses to this new restaurant in town, and they just called, angry that I missed the deadline,” he said. He had moved over to the desk—his desk, she imagined—lifting a stack of papers, rifling through them. “I suck at filing, as you can see.” His head was down with his fingers moving quickly through his stack.

That’s an understatement, she thought. “What am I looking for again?” she asked instead.

“An invoice for one hundred glasses, for a restaurant called The Harvest Room. The invoice is beige in color. I thought it might help me keep track of the invoices from Sloan Glassworks, color coordinating and all, but it didn’t.”

“Okay,” she said, and started into her stack. There were beige invoices for this one church for wedding bowls; paperwork from some company called Turnkey Relocations, which was purple. Her stack had paper from Sloan Glassworks in beige, Sloan Artisan Lighting in white, and the Elite Football programs were gray, she noted.

“What’s Turnkey Relocations?” she asked, rifling through the last of her stack.

He didn’t answer, handed her another stack instead.

“What are we looking for again?” She had gotten lost.

“Stay focused, Jones. The Harvest Room, a restaurant in town, an invoice for glasses.”

“Right,” she said, looking through her new stack, which was a list of attendees to a camp. Last year was the date. “Nothing in this stack,” she said.

“Damn,” he said, looking around with his hands on those fine hips of his.

“Were you supposed to make glasses for The Harvest Room?”

“Yep,” he said, running his eyes over the room now; thinking, she guessed.

“What is all this?” she said, her hands in the air, moving them around to encompass the room and its unorganized contents.

“My records.”

“And your method of record keeping is…?” she asked, looking at him.

“To throw everything in here until I can get to it.”

“Can’t imagine why that doesn’t work for you,” she said, smiling.

He laughed and turned to face her. “I’m dyslexic. I struggled with it as a kid, not so much now, and that’s part of the reason this room looks this way. Organizing this takes a while for me, so I just throw it in here until I’m ready to deal with it,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, staring at him still. Nowhere in anyone’s universe had she expected him to say that.

“Yes, oh. So are you going to help me or not?” he said, back to rifling through a different stack.

“Is there more I should look through, or just pick one of these?” she asked, waving her hand around to encompass the entire room.

“Look over here,” he said, motioning her to come to his desk. He reached behind him and grabbed a stack that lay on a shelf, partially hidden behind books. “Through these,” he said, handing them to her. He turned away, picked up another stack, and it was back to their search. Ten minutes turned to twenty, and then into thirty before he found what he was searching for.

“Here it is,” he said, a smile on his face, a genuine smile, wide open and beautiful. She loved this smile on him.

“Great,” she said, looking around the room again.

“Give me a second,” he said, his gaze on the cell phone in his hand as he walked over to the door and stepped outside into the hall. She could hear him and yeah, she listened. He was apologizing profusely and promising that they would be ready by the end of the week; free, of course, a full refund, no problem, and again, his apologies. He was laughing at the end, so his customer had been forgiving, she guessed.

# # #

“You’re an artist,” Memphis said when he stepped back into his office.

“And you know this how?”

“The invoices for Sloan Glassworks, but I also looked you up on the web after I started camp. You’re a glassblower.”

“I am,” he said.

“Graduated from the University of Wisconsin, in Madison,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, giving her a little side-eye.

“Art degree?”

“Okay…” he said, chuckling. “Should I be concerned here, Jones, with your knowledge of me?”

She laughed. “It’s on the Internet.”

He nodded. “So back to earlier, before this. You mentioned training.”

“I did. I would like for you to train me, if you have time, that is. I seem to connect with you, to understand your instructions,” she said, her gaze on his. “I was willing to pay you, of course, at first, but now that I’m here, maybe I could help you by organizing this for you,” she said, turning her gaze to the room.

“I have a system,” he said, smiling.

“I can tell,” she said, managing to keep a straight face.

“Are you messing with me, Jones?” he asked, chuckling.

“Yes, but I
can
help you. We could trade services. You’re a good trainer, and I’m a take-charge kind of individual who’s really good at organizing. It’s one of my talents, organizing things and organizing people, and it’s different from my athletic skills. What you see on the field is not representative of all of me. I have issues; however I’m not one big issue.”

“I didn’t think you were. Actually, I was going to offer to train you. I meant to catch you before you left today but I got tied up looking for that invoice. I didn’t think of a trade, but I’m not opposed to the idea either,” he said, taking in the expressions of surprise and then hope on her face.

“Oh,” she said, excited. “I work for you too?”

“Excuse me,” he said.

“I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I meant organizing, my strength to your weakness. Trading skills is what we are doing.”

“Good. I can work with that,” he said.

“So is that a yes?”

“It is.”

“Yes!” she said, moving toward him, hugging him before she could think, arms wrapped around his waist. Dang, he felt good; strong and firm, she decided before she stepped away. She took a breath. “Sorry. Excited,” she said; her explanation for the hug.

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “I thought we could stick to the same training schedule as camp: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, an hour and a half instead of two, which makes it a total of four and a half hours, which you’ll work off Saturday mornings?”

“Yep, I can work with that. Saturday mornings are good. As long as I have my cell and laptop I can work from anywhere. I’ll start tomorrow.”

“Whoa, tomorrow? That’s soon,” he said, surprised, quiet for a second—thinking, she guessed. “Okay, I guess tomorrow’s good. You have to be on time, Jones. You know that’s big for me, right, and it’s strictly helping each other, nothing else, but, yeah, it could work,” he said.

“Of course. I understand, strictly training partners, helping each other, and I hope there is room for friendship?”

“I’m fine with friends,” he said.

“Good. You need me here too, right? I’m not some charity case.”

“No, it’s not only you that could use the help. I don’t consider you charity, although there’s nothing wrong with charity, Jones, giving or receiving.”

“I know, but I don’t want it in this.”

“Okay, it’s not.”

“Good then,” she said, smiling, and it went quiet as they stared into each other’s eyes for a second or two. “Tryouts for the team are when?” she asked, it was something else to talk about, while she retrieved the part of her brain that had slipped out of gear at the sight of his smile and so much for the death of her crush.

“They start in September and run through November.”

“So you’ll have July and August to turn me into an all-star cornerback or safety,” she said.

“Maybe not an all-star. Let’s see how it goes first. See if we can work together. And speaking of that, no drama if for some reason one of us wants out, agreed?” he said.

“Agreed. If not an all-star, then how about a pretty good cornerback? Is that a possibility?” she asked, back to the topic of training, smiling. He was wearing his in-between grin, as she dubbed it, the one between full-out and none at all. “Okay, fine, I can work with average,” she said to his silence.

“Average may be possible,” he said.

“You said I had potential. Was that a lie?”

“You have speed, Jones. We’ll have to see what else there is to you,” he said.

“I’m a hard worker,” she said.

“You’ll need to be,” he said.

“So, all this paper is from your businesses?” she said, looking around the room.

“Yes.”

“And those boxes are filled with papers too?”

“Yes, from before I moved,” he said.

“And you’ve been here how long?”

“Three years,” he said, chuckling.

“Wow,” she said, and not in a good way. “Turnkey Relocations? That’s one of your businesses?” she asked, turning back to face him.

“Yep, I’m a silent partner with two other ex-football players in a company that helps professional athletes with their moving needs. What insurance company are you with?” he asked.

“Foundation Insurance,” she said.

“That’s my carrier,” he said.

“I know, I looked you up,” she said smiling, sheepishly.

“Jones,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. “What to do with you,” he said, chuckling. “Do you have time for a short, down-and-dirty home tour? I teach a class most Saturday mornings, so I’ll be short on time in the morning.”

“Yes, sure,” she said, smiling, ecstatic at how well things were turning out. She was still here, about to tour his home, and so hopeful about more than just football training. She fell in behind him as he started down the hall. “Laundry room to the left,” he said, closing the door to it, but not before she spied laundry piled high in a basket.

“Bathroom,” he said, pointing to the second door on the left. The hallway dead ended at another door, which was locked. “This part of my home has a different lock, an attempt to keep my business and personal life separate,” he said, digging into the front pocket of his shorts for his keys. It took him less than a second to open it and then she was following him into a smaller hall.

“Bedrooms to the right,” he said, before turning to the left. “Living room, straight ahead; kitchen and breakfast room to the left, you remember from before.”

“Sort of,” she said, following along behind him, examining the house again, more thoroughly this time. White tiled flooring started at the back door, and carried through the rest of his home it seemed. Not sure if it went into his bedrooms, but it was everywhere else.

“Front door through there, which you know already,” he said as they walked past all she had seen before.

“Wow,” she said, stopping just outside of his kitchen, a room she’d not seem much of on her first trip. It was pretty
and
functional, painted in the same white and grey as the rest of his home. Well, except for the cabinets. They were more charcoal and different from the light grey of the walls. In the middle of the room was a large butcher block of white granite, speckled with gray. Two backless bar stools were underneath, so it serve as the kitchen table, too. Top-grade silver-finished appliances was the rest of his kitchen, she thought admiringly. He had one of those expensive stoves, gas-burning, found on just about any TV cooking show. “You have a very nice home,” she said.