Excerpt ~ Dinosaur Ball
Copyright © 2011 Heather Horrocks
CHAPTER ONE
Tuesday, December 31st, New Year’s Eve
Constance Whitley wasn’t born yesterday.
Unfortunately, that was her problem. She’d been born thirty-one years ago and she’d blown out the birthday candles to prove it. Twice. Once at her family birthday party on December twenty-seventh and again with friends the next night.
Being born two days after Christmas had always been an inconvenience, but this year it had changed everything.
A week is only seven short days. Or seven long days, on particularly bad weeks. But this specific week, the seven snow-flurried days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, represented the official end of her social life.
By turning thirty-one, she’d out-lived her singles ward. She’d exceeded her expiration date. She’d moved on (or so she’d been told) to bigger and better (and older) things.
The birthday party her friends from the singles ward had thrown had also served as a going-away party (though it made her feel vaguely like sour milk that had gotten dumped down the sink--glub glub).
When they’d wished her good luck, she hadn’t realized she’d need so much of it. Now, tonight, her friends were at the singles ward New Year’s Eve dance--the young adult singles dance. Out of desperation and an attempt to not stay home and eat chocolate and get depressed, Constance had let her good friend, Toni Marsh, talk her into coming out to the New Year’s Eve senior dance.
She could always count on Toni. Toni, with long black hair pulled back into an elegant bun and her face made up perfectly and who could turn men’s heads by simply walking by. Toni, who’d been her friend for the last five years. Toni, who was only twenty-seven and was actually sneaking into this dance because she wasn’t old enough to get in officially.
When she’d asked Toni, “Why can’t I sneak back into the young adult dances?” her friend had frowned and answered, “Those guys are too young for you, anyway. And as if you’d go back there now that Jeremy’s bringing that...ugly one...there.” Toni was determined to help make the adjustment easier on Constance, for which Constance was grateful.
Toni had put her hands on Constance’s arms and said, “Who did you take home to your family Christmas party this year?”
“You know I took Henry.” Henry was her boss and he’d come with her because his wife had just died and she felt sorry for him. He would fit in well with the guys here, being twenty years older, but he was in great shape.
“You need to make some changes in your life. You want to meet someone and get married, right? Then you’ve got to do something different than you’ve been doing.”
And she’d decided Toni was right. A new year was dawning and Constance was going to make the most of it. So here she stood at nine o’clock at the older singles ward dance, just having arrived, with high hopes and misgivings. The decorations were festive, a Christmas tree still glowing in one corner, streamers festooned around the room in bright colors, hats and blowers resting on the confetti-speckled tables. And, appropriate to the occasion, a number of the men must have thought there was a Father Time look-alike contest.
She realized this was a night for New Year’s resolutions--and she knew she would come up with the right one before the end of the evening. I will meet someone this year. Maybe. I will not care if I don’t meet someone this year. Yeah, right. I will exercise every day. Well, at least twice a week. With her cynical attitude, it was hard to set any resolutions at all.
“Oh, my,” said Toni, who had been trying to help her see that there were good men to choose from at the older dances.
“Like that one,” Toni whispered, poking Constance in the ribs with an elbow and pointing with her other hand.
Constance nodded. She’d already noticed that one. Out of the approximately thirty greatly outnumbered men in this church-gym-turned-dance-hall, Toni was pointing at the only one in the entire place who could possibly be under fifty. He looked not much older than Constance, trim and fit and tanned and, oh, my goodness, did he have an entourage of admirers of all ages eyeing him. A flock of hopefuls wallpapering the cultural hall.
“Look, he’s coming this way. Act casual,” Toni said as she nodded and smiled at Constance, as if they hadn’t been scoping him--and all the other men--out just seconds before.
He was coming their way, crossing the dance floor, weaving around the five or six older couples swaying and spinning and even dipping to the strains of Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable. Oh, my gosh, perhaps this evening wouldn’t be as big of a bust as Constance had thought it would. He had to be six-foot-two at least, and she liked tall men. It made her own five-nine height feel petite.
The strains of Unforgettable faded, to be replaced by Barry Manilow’s Ready to Take A Chance Again. Yes, she was. It had taken her six months to work Jeremy out of her system, but she thought she’d finally done it. The fact that she was even ready to dance with a man again showed progress.
Ten feet away, he dodged a couple doing a fancy swing step. Five and closing. Her heart fluttered a little and Constance started to smile.
The handsomest man in the room nodded and smiled at Constance--and touched Toni on the arm. “Would you like to dance?”
Obviously surprised, Toni tilted her head and looked at Constance, as if this wasn’t supposed to happen.
It wasn’t. But Constance nodded at her friend anyway, and watched her wend her way through the other disappointed ladies onto the dance floor. Watched her glide gracefully around the floor.
She caught movement from the corner of her eye and realized one of the fifty-something guys had moved to close the gap, coming up on Constance’s right.
Oh, no, I’ve got to get out of here.
Constance turned to the left quickly and stepped out, but the old guy must have put on a sprint, because he reached her before she took two steps. “Excuse me,” he said.
Suppressing a sigh, Constance turned to face him, standing in front of the stage with a disk jockey wannabee manning a large boom box connected to the building’s loud speakers. She forced a smile. “Yes?”
He wasn’t that bad looking, she guessed, if you didn’t mind May-December romances. He had to be as old as her dad--at least he was as totally bald as her dad and had the same paunchy stomach and all. He struck a pose, his hand on the wall next to the stage and spoke rapid fire. “Are you new? I haven’t seen you here before. Is it what you expected?”
“Oh, yeah,” Constance said. Unfortunately, this night was turning out to be exactly what she had pictured--in her nightmares. It was the reason she had told Toni she didn’t want to come out to this dance in the first place. And it was true, all of it.
Toni, tucked in Handsome’s arms, danced by and waved, and was whisked away again.
The Father Figure smiled perkily. “Care to dance?”
“Actually,” Constance said, “I was just heading to the refreshment table.”
“I’ll join you,” he said, amicably enough.
“Okay.” What else could she say? Get away from me, you old goat? She was obviously going to have to learn some different skills if she was going to survive the senior singles scene, like advanced tongue-biting. But why on earth would she ever want to return?
They ambled to the table, laden with some flavor of red-colored Kool-Aid punch (what else?) and lots of different cookies. She picked up an empty plate from the stack and chose items to fill it with carefully. If she’d ever needed comfort food, she needed it now. If the chocolate chips were big enough, she could still eat chocolate while she got depressed. In fact, this seemed like the perfect time and the perfect solution.
She glanced at him and wondered what on earth she was doing here. How had she ended up here with this balding, paunchy guy while Toni was gliding around with Handsome? Something wasn’t quite right with this picture.
She could have spent New Year’s Eve at home and been depressed. This didn’t seem like a good beginning to a new year. Less than two hours until midnight and things were looking down. What would she turn into...a pumpkin? Or a woman desperate enough to date a man old enough to be her father? She suppressed a shudder.
When she reached for a Dixie cup, Father Time beat her to the punch and handed her one.
“Thanks.” She sat in one of the chairs, hoping he’d disappear.
Ha. As if. He sat in the chair next to hers. How cosy.
Several older women glared at her from across the room. Hey, I’m really sorry I’m thirty-one, she wanted to yell back. I really don’t want him. You can have him. I want my own friends back.
Not that she’d had a lot of boyfriends or anything at the young adult singles activities. But she’d had lots of friends. Except now that they didn’t have the activities in common, it felt like she didn’t have them any more. She was sure they’d still get together, but she loved to dance. And if she didn’t come to the LDS singles dances, she didn’t have many options left except for non-LDS social functions, which were out of the question--at least for someone who was thirty-one and looking for a potential happily forever after.
These guys were too old. And Toni was right--the guys in the young singles group were too young for her. Even if Jeremy hadn’t started coming again and bringing...her.
So she’d still get together with Kevin and Tammy and Lisa and Matt and all the rest of them whom she’d seen every week or so and laughed with and had fun with. But no more dances. Especially not after this one. Poof. As if an evil wizard had cast a spell.
Not that she’d wanted to stay in the young adult singles scene much longer, what with all those eighteen-year-old babies coming in. She didn’t belong there any more--but she didn’t belong here, either.
She’d hoped to meet other thirty-somethings who were also tired of the now-too-young scene. But most of these guys out-aged her by at least two decades. Supposedly along with age came wisdom--but she didn’t want wisdom in quite this wrinkled of a package.
Poof. And she was sitting with a messier and possibly more decrepit version of her dad, who she could never imagine going to a dance like this. If Mom ever died, she was going to make sure Dad never set foot in a dance like this.
“So,” the older gentleman said after taking a bite of oatmeal cookie and catching the crumbs on his napkin. “You’re new.”
Constance nodded.
“My name is Larry Wicks.” He smiled widely and put out his hand. “And I’d like to welcome you. We’ve got a really nice group of people here. I think you’ll like it.”
“You think?” His hand was clammy and he held her hand way too long. She pulled away.
“Oh, sure. My ex-wife doesn’t come anywhere near this place. Now, Mabel there,” he pointed at the cluster of glaring women, “and Mary Beth and Francine are widows. I’ll introduce you, if you’d like.”
“Maybe in a few minutes.” How had she ended up here? One little birthday, that was all. Thirty-one wasn’t so old. But boy was she feeling ancient now. From the young adult singles ward to the geriatric ward.
“Excuse me.” Constance stood and dropped her plate and cup in the big trash can by the table. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll be here when you get back.” He stood. Of course he was polite and respectful--he’d been raised by someone of Grandma Hamilton’s generation. “I’ll save your seat.”
“Thanks,” she said and stumbled away in a cloud of unreality.
She followed the chairs lining the wall, half empty, and made it halfway to Toni, to tell her she wanted to leave, when a man stepped into her path.
There before her--she wouldn’t lie about something like this--was a guy who had to be in his eighties, pushing an oxygen tank on wheels!
And he hadn’t toppled into her path because of a heart attack or anything like that. No, she could tell by the friendly look and smile on his face and his cheery, if faint, “Well, howdy, missy, don’t I know you from somewhere?” that he had stepped out to catch her with his wiles, if not trip her with his walker, which he must have left at home for the special occasion.
The oldest line in the book--from the man who probably invented it.
That did it. She was out of here. “Excuse me,” she said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
And she dashed out the door, across the hall, and into the bathroom, where she fell back against the wall opposite from the sink and large mirror and laughed her guts out.
An older woman came in and looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
No. Just her life. Glub, glub, glub.
Tuesday, December 31st, New Year’s Eve
Constance Whitley wasn’t born yesterday.
Unfortunately, that was her problem. She’d been born thirty-one years ago and she’d blown out the birthday candles to prove it. Twice. Once at her family birthday party on December twenty-seventh and again with friends the next night.
Being born two days after Christmas had always been an inconvenience, but this year it had changed everything.
A week is only seven short days. Or seven long days, on particularly bad weeks. But this specific week, the seven snow-flurried days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, represented the official end of her social life.
By turning thirty-one, she’d out-lived her singles ward. She’d exceeded her expiration date. She’d moved on (or so she’d been told) to bigger and better (and older) things.
The birthday party her friends from the singles ward had thrown had also served as a going-away party (though it made her feel vaguely like sour milk that had gotten dumped down the sink--glub glub).
When they’d wished her good luck, she hadn’t realized she’d need so much of it. Now, tonight, her friends were at the singles ward New Year’s Eve dance--the young adult singles dance. Out of desperation and an attempt to not stay home and eat chocolate and get depressed, Constance had let her good friend, Toni Marsh, talk her into coming out to the New Year’s Eve senior dance.
She could always count on Toni. Toni, with long black hair pulled back into an elegant bun and her face made up perfectly and who could turn men’s heads by simply walking by. Toni, who’d been her friend for the last five years. Toni, who was only twenty-seven and was actually sneaking into this dance because she wasn’t old enough to get in officially.
When she’d asked Toni, “Why can’t I sneak back into the young adult dances?” her friend had frowned and answered, “Those guys are too young for you, anyway. And as if you’d go back there now that Jeremy’s bringing that...ugly one...there.” Toni was determined to help make the adjustment easier on Constance, for which Constance was grateful.
Toni had put her hands on Constance’s arms and said, “Who did you take home to your family Christmas party this year?”
“You know I took Henry.” Henry was her boss and he’d come with her because his wife had just died and she felt sorry for him. He would fit in well with the guys here, being twenty years older, but he was in great shape.
“You need to make some changes in your life. You want to meet someone and get married, right? Then you’ve got to do something different than you’ve been doing.”
And she’d decided Toni was right. A new year was dawning and Constance was going to make the most of it. So here she stood at nine o’clock at the older singles ward dance, just having arrived, with high hopes and misgivings. The decorations were festive, a Christmas tree still glowing in one corner, streamers festooned around the room in bright colors, hats and blowers resting on the confetti-speckled tables. And, appropriate to the occasion, a number of the men must have thought there was a Father Time look-alike contest.
She realized this was a night for New Year’s resolutions--and she knew she would come up with the right one before the end of the evening. I will meet someone this year. Maybe. I will not care if I don’t meet someone this year. Yeah, right. I will exercise every day. Well, at least twice a week. With her cynical attitude, it was hard to set any resolutions at all.
“Oh, my,” said Toni, who had been trying to help her see that there were good men to choose from at the older dances.
“Like that one,” Toni whispered, poking Constance in the ribs with an elbow and pointing with her other hand.
Constance nodded. She’d already noticed that one. Out of the approximately thirty greatly outnumbered men in this church-gym-turned-dance-hall, Toni was pointing at the only one in the entire place who could possibly be under fifty. He looked not much older than Constance, trim and fit and tanned and, oh, my goodness, did he have an entourage of admirers of all ages eyeing him. A flock of hopefuls wallpapering the cultural hall.
“Look, he’s coming this way. Act casual,” Toni said as she nodded and smiled at Constance, as if they hadn’t been scoping him--and all the other men--out just seconds before.
He was coming their way, crossing the dance floor, weaving around the five or six older couples swaying and spinning and even dipping to the strains of Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable. Oh, my gosh, perhaps this evening wouldn’t be as big of a bust as Constance had thought it would. He had to be six-foot-two at least, and she liked tall men. It made her own five-nine height feel petite.
The strains of Unforgettable faded, to be replaced by Barry Manilow’s Ready to Take A Chance Again. Yes, she was. It had taken her six months to work Jeremy out of her system, but she thought she’d finally done it. The fact that she was even ready to dance with a man again showed progress.
Ten feet away, he dodged a couple doing a fancy swing step. Five and closing. Her heart fluttered a little and Constance started to smile.
The handsomest man in the room nodded and smiled at Constance--and touched Toni on the arm. “Would you like to dance?”
Obviously surprised, Toni tilted her head and looked at Constance, as if this wasn’t supposed to happen.
It wasn’t. But Constance nodded at her friend anyway, and watched her wend her way through the other disappointed ladies onto the dance floor. Watched her glide gracefully around the floor.
She caught movement from the corner of her eye and realized one of the fifty-something guys had moved to close the gap, coming up on Constance’s right.
Oh, no, I’ve got to get out of here.
Constance turned to the left quickly and stepped out, but the old guy must have put on a sprint, because he reached her before she took two steps. “Excuse me,” he said.
Suppressing a sigh, Constance turned to face him, standing in front of the stage with a disk jockey wannabee manning a large boom box connected to the building’s loud speakers. She forced a smile. “Yes?”
He wasn’t that bad looking, she guessed, if you didn’t mind May-December romances. He had to be as old as her dad--at least he was as totally bald as her dad and had the same paunchy stomach and all. He struck a pose, his hand on the wall next to the stage and spoke rapid fire. “Are you new? I haven’t seen you here before. Is it what you expected?”
“Oh, yeah,” Constance said. Unfortunately, this night was turning out to be exactly what she had pictured--in her nightmares. It was the reason she had told Toni she didn’t want to come out to this dance in the first place. And it was true, all of it.
Toni, tucked in Handsome’s arms, danced by and waved, and was whisked away again.
The Father Figure smiled perkily. “Care to dance?”
“Actually,” Constance said, “I was just heading to the refreshment table.”
“I’ll join you,” he said, amicably enough.
“Okay.” What else could she say? Get away from me, you old goat? She was obviously going to have to learn some different skills if she was going to survive the senior singles scene, like advanced tongue-biting. But why on earth would she ever want to return?
They ambled to the table, laden with some flavor of red-colored Kool-Aid punch (what else?) and lots of different cookies. She picked up an empty plate from the stack and chose items to fill it with carefully. If she’d ever needed comfort food, she needed it now. If the chocolate chips were big enough, she could still eat chocolate while she got depressed. In fact, this seemed like the perfect time and the perfect solution.
She glanced at him and wondered what on earth she was doing here. How had she ended up here with this balding, paunchy guy while Toni was gliding around with Handsome? Something wasn’t quite right with this picture.
She could have spent New Year’s Eve at home and been depressed. This didn’t seem like a good beginning to a new year. Less than two hours until midnight and things were looking down. What would she turn into...a pumpkin? Or a woman desperate enough to date a man old enough to be her father? She suppressed a shudder.
When she reached for a Dixie cup, Father Time beat her to the punch and handed her one.
“Thanks.” She sat in one of the chairs, hoping he’d disappear.
Ha. As if. He sat in the chair next to hers. How cosy.
Several older women glared at her from across the room. Hey, I’m really sorry I’m thirty-one, she wanted to yell back. I really don’t want him. You can have him. I want my own friends back.
Not that she’d had a lot of boyfriends or anything at the young adult singles activities. But she’d had lots of friends. Except now that they didn’t have the activities in common, it felt like she didn’t have them any more. She was sure they’d still get together, but she loved to dance. And if she didn’t come to the LDS singles dances, she didn’t have many options left except for non-LDS social functions, which were out of the question--at least for someone who was thirty-one and looking for a potential happily forever after.
These guys were too old. And Toni was right--the guys in the young singles group were too young for her. Even if Jeremy hadn’t started coming again and bringing...her.
So she’d still get together with Kevin and Tammy and Lisa and Matt and all the rest of them whom she’d seen every week or so and laughed with and had fun with. But no more dances. Especially not after this one. Poof. As if an evil wizard had cast a spell.
Not that she’d wanted to stay in the young adult singles scene much longer, what with all those eighteen-year-old babies coming in. She didn’t belong there any more--but she didn’t belong here, either.
She’d hoped to meet other thirty-somethings who were also tired of the now-too-young scene. But most of these guys out-aged her by at least two decades. Supposedly along with age came wisdom--but she didn’t want wisdom in quite this wrinkled of a package.
Poof. And she was sitting with a messier and possibly more decrepit version of her dad, who she could never imagine going to a dance like this. If Mom ever died, she was going to make sure Dad never set foot in a dance like this.
“So,” the older gentleman said after taking a bite of oatmeal cookie and catching the crumbs on his napkin. “You’re new.”
Constance nodded.
“My name is Larry Wicks.” He smiled widely and put out his hand. “And I’d like to welcome you. We’ve got a really nice group of people here. I think you’ll like it.”
“You think?” His hand was clammy and he held her hand way too long. She pulled away.
“Oh, sure. My ex-wife doesn’t come anywhere near this place. Now, Mabel there,” he pointed at the cluster of glaring women, “and Mary Beth and Francine are widows. I’ll introduce you, if you’d like.”
“Maybe in a few minutes.” How had she ended up here? One little birthday, that was all. Thirty-one wasn’t so old. But boy was she feeling ancient now. From the young adult singles ward to the geriatric ward.
“Excuse me.” Constance stood and dropped her plate and cup in the big trash can by the table. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll be here when you get back.” He stood. Of course he was polite and respectful--he’d been raised by someone of Grandma Hamilton’s generation. “I’ll save your seat.”
“Thanks,” she said and stumbled away in a cloud of unreality.
She followed the chairs lining the wall, half empty, and made it halfway to Toni, to tell her she wanted to leave, when a man stepped into her path.
There before her--she wouldn’t lie about something like this--was a guy who had to be in his eighties, pushing an oxygen tank on wheels!
And he hadn’t toppled into her path because of a heart attack or anything like that. No, she could tell by the friendly look and smile on his face and his cheery, if faint, “Well, howdy, missy, don’t I know you from somewhere?” that he had stepped out to catch her with his wiles, if not trip her with his walker, which he must have left at home for the special occasion.
The oldest line in the book--from the man who probably invented it.
That did it. She was out of here. “Excuse me,” she said. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
And she dashed out the door, across the hall, and into the bathroom, where she fell back against the wall opposite from the sink and large mirror and laughed her guts out.
An older woman came in and looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
No. Just her life. Glub, glub, glub.
