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"You're wasting time. Better hurry, Dani."
"This is ridiculous. I don't even know how to play. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Ask for a tutorial? Watch some YouTube videos?"
"You better watch a lot of them. Because I may have told the guy with the clipboard that you were an expert player and looking forward to crushing everyone on the court."
Her jaw drops. Breathless. Stupefied. It's beautiful. She's beautiful.
"You what?"
"Come on, what do you have to worry about? I'm sure it'll be exactly like softball. If it isn't, maybe some of the people you're competing against can give you some pointers. The clipboard guy mentioned that some of the older ones had been playing bocce longer than you've been alive." I grab another beer from the fridge. It opens with a satisfying crack and the liquid inside tastes sweet. I raise the can in her direction. "Forty-two minutes, now. I'll see you down on the courts. They're out back."
There's a smile on my face as I leave the room. A big, anticipatory smile, because I'm going to watch Danielle Green get humbled. It might even be enough of a humbling that I get a good night's sleep. On the floor, still, but that doesn't bother me — I have slept in worse places — the only thing I need is for Danielle to be quiet and stop throwing her panties all over the place.
On the way to the bocce courts, I finish my beer. Fortunately, there's a passing server with an entire tray of them, already poured into a pint glass. I take two.
Then I find a seat with a perfect view of the courts and settle in, ready to watch Danielle get her mouth shut.
It's not long before she makes her appearance.
The woman that my eyes register nearly makes me spill my beer all over myself; clad in a pair of tight-fitting yoga shorts that cover nothing, a loose Van Halen shirt that covers everything, and wearing her brown hair in a ponytail out of the back of a beat-up Costa Oscura High baseball cap, she is every bit the image of the girl I had a crush on when I was younger.
I stare.
To my left and right, comments get whispered in Italian by an elderly couple. I don't speak the language, but I know the tone; they're just as struck by her as I am.
She sees me, and she nods in my direction. It's a friendly gesture, but I can see the message behind her eyes:Fuck you, Owen.
I raise my beer in reply and give my best shit-eating grin.
"You got this, Dani," I call out.
She smiles. It's a smile that tells me she wants to cut my abdomen open, rip out my intestines, and use them to hang me from a tree so she can beat me with a baseball bat like I'm a human pinata.
Clipboard man comes through the crowd, now wearing a black-and-white umpire’s cap. He clears his throat.
"May I have your attention?" He calls out, and instantly, the crowd quiets. "The matches shall be played one-on-one, with a single loss resulting in elimination. We will use the rules as they do in the old country, none of those bastardized variations like they have in Argentina or in Eastern Europe. Which means..." While the clipboard-carrying man goes on explaining the rules of the tournament and doing his best to sound like a Roman emperor announcing the commencement of the gladiator games, several of the eldest competitors sidle up to Dani. Like predators circling their prey, they surround her, whispering to her, even nudging her with the occasional elbow, all with sly, carnivorous grins on their faces. They must recognize her inexperience, her weakness, and I revel in the thought of her being beaten by an eighty-year-old man who definitely is wearing Depends. This loss will not just humble her, it might even kill her.
I'm going to enjoy this.
"Any questions?" The clipboard man says at the conclusion of his commencement.
Dani shakes her head along with the rest of competitors. She's too proud to admit she's in over her head. Fortunately for her, she's not first up. Two men who look like they just stepped off a cruise ship are.
I grab another beer and zone out while they bat their balls around for everyone to see.
Dani watches them intently, and I don't blame her. She's desperate to learn anything she can about the game she's about to lose.
The match ends.
Then Dani's up, facing off against a guy who looks like he's only a year or two away from needing a walker.
"Good luck, honey," I call out.
Dani gives me a smile that, to anyone else, would look like an expression of love, but which I clearly recognize as being a wish for me to spontaneously combust.
"Thanks, dear," she replies.
I can't wait to see her lose.
