It was heaven in her mouth. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, and then, inexplicably, a tear slid out of the corner of her eye.
That was weird.
Chocolate didn’t usually make her cry.
Of course, she’d never had chocolate this good.
She took another bite, and another tear formed. What was going on? She rarely cried. Even when she had a reason to, she often didn’t cry. And she was crying now? But why? She looked at the half-eaten chocolate in her hand. What was in this stuff?
She decided she didn’t care and popped the rest of it in her mouth. Then she leaned back again.
More tears came.
Maybe they were backed up from all the times she had reason to cry and didn’t. Maybe the dam had let go.
Whatever. She decided it didn’t matter. No one could see her.
She ate another chocolate and then remembered the card. She panicked for a second, thinking it might have flown off with the purple escapees, but then she saw that it had slid down between her seat and the console.
Both nervous and excited, she opened the card, expecting more indecipherable Shakespeare, but that’s not what she got.
Would you do me the honor of having dinner with me?
If yes, please meet me at The Loft, Saturday at 5 pm.
The buffalo reappeared in her chest.
It was Brent, right? It had to be. She sure hoped so. If it wasn’t, she didn’t really want to have dinner with some stranger, despite his lavish and sweet gifts. So she would go, and if it wasn’t Brent, she would thank him and say no, thank you.
Whoa. She had a plan.
It was a good plan.
And she was suddenly terrified.
So many things could go wrong. Brent had left her. He had crushed her. What made either of them think it would work if they tried again?
She needed a drink.
She couldn’t have one.
She needed a meeting.
She had to go to music team practice.
First, she needed to get out of the car.
For the first time, she worried about getting the balloons backoutof the car, but that proved to be a much easier task than getting them in. She managed to get all ribbons wrapped around her hand without losing a single balloon and then, purse slung over her shoulder, balloons in one hand and her precious jewelry box full of chocolate clutched in the other, she headed toward the front steps of her building.
She saw neighbor Bob staring at her, and she smiled, but he shook his head in dismay and looked away. What? How could he be disgusted by a bunch of balloons? Maybe he thought they were full of vodka.
As soon as she stepped into her apartment, she let go of the blasted balloons and watched them beeline for the ceiling as if that’s where they’d wanted to get to all along. They stayed clustered, like children on the playground, so she traveled around the room, swatting at them to spread them out.
Soon she had a colorful ceiling with fun ribbons dangling down all around her apartment. There, she thought. They can stay there bringing me joy until they run out of helium.
Joy.
What an odd thing to think about.