…

I stood on the front portico and looked down at the array of cars parked, waiting to take guests home.  A lot had already left, and both Darcy and I were among the stragglers.  I had let her say goodnight to her new friend.

“So, the car hasn’t turned into a pumpkin yet.”  She came up behind me, perhaps hoping her sudden arrival would scare me.

It might have if I had not had thoughts about the last dance with Emily.

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I saw you with the lass on the dance floor.  You should take up the competition ballroom dancing.  You two would kill it.”

“Or it would kill us, probably by one of the other contestants.  It’s worse than rugby.”

“It was nice to see you enjoy yourself.”

“That wasn’t enjoyment, Darcy, it’s bloody hard work.  I don’t know where this is going, but she’s going to be impossible, incorrigible, irritating, and in… well, I need a dictionary to find the word.”

“The joys of being a woman, Roger.  We’re here for the specific reason to make your life impossible, to be incorrigible, and irritating beyond words.  I’d be disappointed if she wasn’t”.

If and when I got the time to reflect on what just happened, it was going to be somewhere between living in a fairy tale and being caught up in a nightmare.  My father had once told me, love, was one of those things that happened when you least expected it, usually with a woman that is way out of your league and is full of highs and lows, mostly lows,

But, he added, when there were highs, they could take you into the stratosphere.

I was still coming down.  The morning was going to be like the night after a very alcoholic party.  A morning that was going to be in about five hours.

The car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and the chauffeur got out to open the doors.

“Our ride,” Darcy said.  “And no, when I get home, I will not be singing, I could have danced all night.”

I looked at the bedside clock and it said it was 3:22 am.  I couldn’t sleep.

It might have been the endless twirls of the Viennese Waltz, or I might be still dizzy from being so close to Emily.  It might also have been that stolen kiss in the alcove on one side of the ballroom.  The image of her in that ballgown was burned into my brain.

Why on earth did I go?

How could she possibly like me, let alone love me.  I still had a feeling all of what happened was another of her dastardly plans to cause me grief.

And then, in the very next moment, I felt the exact opposite about her.

God, I was happier when I simply hated her.

My cell phone vibrated with an incoming call. ‘Private Number’.  The torment begins.

“Who is it?”

“You know who it is.” 

Emily.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.  “I’m lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.”

“It was the waltz.  I can’t sleep either.”

“What are we going to do.  I feel like I’m on a runaway train.”

“Haven’t you been in love before?”

I suspect she had, many times, but who knows what love is, until the actual ton of bricks falls on you?

“Not like this.  I don’t even know what this is, other than I feel sick, great, dizzy, sad, happy, sometimes all at once.”

“Don’t worry, when reality sets in you’ll hate me again, and everything will be back to normal.”  Did I want that?  What did I want?  She had described almost exactly how I felt, and it bothered me that someone could do that to me.

It was better when I loved her and she didn’t know how I felt.  That way I could suffer in silence, generally mope, and lament my station in life.

“Things can’t go back to the way they were.”

“I’m not going to treat you any differently, Emily.”

“I don’t expect you to.  I realize now all the simpering suck-ups were only after one thing.”

“How do you know I’m not the same as all the rest?”

Xavier had made it quite clear when we first started University, one of the principal aims of all young men was to sleep with as many girls as possible.  It was, he said, a rite of passage.  Along with the parties, drunkenness, and acts of stupidity.

I tried to avoid all of them, except for two girls who for some inexplicable reason, seemed interested in me.

But, my university studies were over, and we were all about to graduate, some in better shape than others.  I had concentrated on studies and achieving and had the opportunity to choose a job rather than be offered one.

“You know why you’re not.”

Perhaps not asking her to take me up to her room to show me her doll collection, yes, she really had one, with other ideas in mind had moved me up in her estimation.  In fact, I had not tried to kiss her, either, and that solen moment was something that just happened, which made it all the more poignant.

It was how my mother said love would happen, suddenly, out of left field, and I would be totally unprepared for it.

“OK, so I’m a little slower than others.  I think, tomorrow, we’ll just avoid each other, and see what the wagging tongues have to say.”

“There was a reporter at the ball.  She saw us together.  And she doesn’t like me, or my family.  I’m sure you’ll get ambushed.  It’s the price of having anything to do with us.  We’re not going to say anything.  You just be your usual grumpy incommunicative self.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

A flash of memory, an article I read several weeks back, decrying the vanity, selfishness, and stupidity of the city’s wealthy offspring who brought no value to the city, and who set a bad example to others.  Emily had been at the top of the list, a character assassination, one that postulated her worth given her wasted time at university, and easy ride into her father’s business, starting at the executive level, when there were others, out of work, and far more qualified.

It was a bandwagon my father had jumped on, too.  It was a surprise he allowed me to sup with the devil.  Perhaps he had wanted me to see how the other half lived, and that it would make me contemptuous of them.  It made me wonder what the Ball had been in aid of, other than just to bring together the rich to indulge in their privileged position.

“I forgot to ask, what was the Ball for?”

“Some charity things.  All the people donated a few thousand towards a special children’s wing at the hospital, or something like that.  Every year someone comes up with a good cause, and everyone contributes.”

More likely to ease their consciences after taking advantage of their workers, and charging extortion for products and services.  My father explained it all once, and I couldn’t believe they were that cynical.

“A good cause.”

“Some don’t think so.  Anyway, I’m tired now.  I’ll try not to run into you.  Night.”

Dealing with the reporters, and Angela Simpkin no less.  I knew her, we spent a few days together, and it didn’t work out.  She didn’t hate me, but now I was associated with Emily, and that could suddenly change.

I sighed.  Going to the Ball was going to change my life forever.

…

©  Charles Heath 2023