“Did he just call you doll face?” Ramirez asked, coming up behind me. His eyes narrowed as he popped the top on a Heineken.
“Okay, everyone! Piñata time!” Molly yelled.
Kids poured from every corner of the yard toward the oak tree, nearly knocking the grown-ups over in the process. Johnny barreled through, loot sack in hand, and pushed his mohawked self to the front of the line.
“Birthday boy first, ” Molly declared, extricating the tiny wooden baseball bat from her oldest and handing it to Connor. At first his chubby little arms could barely lift it, but then, as she tied a bright red blindfold over his eyes, he seemed to get the hang of it. He lifted it over his little bald head like a miniature caveman.
“Can you see anything, Connor?” she asked.
“Maabaaagooo!”
“Oh, this can’t end well, ” Ramirez murmured in my ear. He casually rested one hand at the small of my back, and I suddenly couldn’t care less what Connor did with that bat. I tried to tell myself it was inappropriate to get turned on at a child’s birthday party.
“Okay, here we go, honey. Swing for the piñata.” Molly gave Connor a nudge in the general direction of the blue dog. The other kids danced on their tiptoes, poised to make a dive for flying candy. Connor toddled forward and swung, missing the piñata by a good two feet.
“Lower, Stan, they can’t reach it.”
Stan let the slack out on the piñata as Connor took another blind swing, this time barely missing Faux Dad.
“Lower, Stan!”
Stan lowered the piñata again. This time Connor swung so hard the momentum spun him around and he knocked into the clown (who seemed to have refilled his glass yet again).
“Lower! For heaven’s sake, no one’s going to get the candy like that. Lower, Stan!”
Stan lowered.
I backed up as Connor went in for another shot. He took a swing that came nowhere near the piñata. (Though it almost knocked Johnny in the shins.)
“Uh. Maybe we should take the blindfold off…” Mom said.
Too late.
Connor took one more Barry Bonds-worthy swing and came in direct contact.
Unfortunately, not with the piñata.
I saw it happen in slow motion. Connor spun around, wielding the bat like a club. Faux Dad jumped back. Molly lunged for the Terror. Mom yelled, “Look out, ” and Ramirez turned around just in time to catch Connor’s wooden bat squarely in the groin. The sound of Ramirez’s groan echoed through the yard, and everyone made a collective scrunched ouch-face.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” I asked as Ramirez doubled over.
He gave me a dazed kind of look. “What happened?”
“Connor hit you with the bat.”
Ramirez glanced over at Connor. He was giggling and blowing more spit bubbles.
“Let’s not ever have kids, ” Ramirez mumbled.
At the moment, I had to agree. Mostly because the way Ramirez’s face was going white, I wasn’t even sure whether he still could have kids.
Mom ran into the house and came back with a bag of frozen peas, which she promptly stuck on Ramirez’s lap. I settled him in a deck chair next to my grandmother, who was clucking disapproval about how kids in her day were lucky to get a pair of underwear for their birthday, let alone a piñata.
“I’m so sorry, ” I mumbled, sitting next to Ramirez.
He gave a pained grunt.
“I had no idea Molly would give an actual bat to the Terror.”
Grandmother arched an eyebrow in my direction.
Oops. “I mean, Connor.”
“Uh-huh, ” Ramirez grunted again.
“Is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?”
Ramirez shifted the peas and groaned. “Another beer would be a start.”
“Right.” I popped up and crossed the yard, thinking that more booze wasn’t altogether a bad idea. I grabbed another Heineken from the cooler for Ramirez, and I flipped the little plastic tab on the pink box for me.
“That one’s running on empty, doll, ” Drunkie the Clown said, appearing at my side. “Try the other one, ” he slurred.
Great. The clown had beaten me to it. I managed to squeeze a couple of drops out of the pink and half a glass from the merlot. I know, sacrilege mixing wines, but was it really going to make much of a difference? It came from a box.
I took a big gulp…then choked on it as I felt something pinch me from behind. Ohmigod. Did that clown just grab my ass? I whipped around.
Drunkie was grinning and swaying on his feet. He waggled his painted eyebrows up and down at me suggestively.
I opened my mouth to give the fresh clown a piece of my mind.
But I never got the chance.
Before I could speak, I caught a glimpse of Ramirez out of the corner of my eye, rising from the deck chair, frozen peas in one hand, look of death on his face.
Uh-oh.
Ramirez lunged for the clown-who, by the way, was pretty quick for a guy who’d just drained a whole box of wine. He ducked, sliding his oversize red feet to the right. But Ramirez was a trained cop. Even with his battered family jewels, a guy in a red nose and squeaky shoes was no match for him. He lunged again, this time hitting his target. I watched in horror as Ramirez’s fist collided with Drunkie’s white-painted jaw. The clown’s head whipped around and he tripped backward, stumbling over his too-big shoes. He knocked into Connor, who fell flat on his diapered bottom, then careened to the right, straight into-you guessed it-me.
“Unh.” I reeled backward from the impact, flailing at the air for balance. But it was too late. I was a goner. I slammed face-first into the dessert table, upending a plate of cookies, sloshing punch to the ground, and doing a ten-point face-plant right into the blue icing of Connor’s birthday cake.
For a second I couldn’t breathe, my life flashing before my eyes as frosting went up my nose. I heard Molly scream, the clown groan, and Connor do another delighted giggle.
Was it wrong to hate a one-year-old?
“Maddie, are you okay?” Mom came rushing to my side, pulling me out of the ruined cake.
“I think so, ” I said. Only since I had a mouthful of blue icing it came out as, “I ink o.”
“My cake! My beautiful cake!” Molly screeched. “You ruined the cake.”
“Sorry, ” I mumbled, wiping raspberry-cream filling off my sundress.
“This can’t be happening. I planned the perfect birthday party. This was supposed to be Connor’s special day! We never even got a picture of the cake. What am I going to put in the scrapbook?” Molly was starting to hyperventilate.
I looked down at Connor. He giggled and drooled.
Then gave me the finger.
I did my best to wipe the majority of vanilla cake chunks from my sundress before getting into Ramir-ez’s car, so by the time we finally pulled up in front of my studio (me looking like I’d lost a food fight with Betty Crocker and Ramirez still walking funny), I was relatively sure I hadn’t left raspberry-cream butt prints on Ramirez’s leather seats.
“Well, that was fun, ” I said as he pulled into my drive and cut the engine.
Ramirez gave me a look. “I think that kid flipped me off.”
“Yeah, he’s charming like that.”
I got out of the car and started up my steps, leaving a Hansel and Gretel-like trail of cake crumbs in my wake. Ramirez was one step behind me and almost plowed into my back as I paused at the top step.
My door was open a crack.
Ramirez spotted it too, silently slipping his gun from its holster and pushing in front of me.
“Go back downstairs, ” he whispered, his jaw tense, his body instinctively going into cop mode. I stood rooted to the spot as he slowly pushed the door open, his gun straight-armed in front of him.
Go back downstairs. Good advice. I’d do that.
Just as soon as I saw the asshole who’d broken into my place. I tippy-toed in behind Ramirez, trying to make myself small and unnoticeable.
I had to stifle a gasp when I saw my studio. It looked like the big one had hit. All my kitchen cupboards were opened, plates broken, food on the floor, box of Cap’n Crunch tipped upside down. My futon cushions were strewn across the room, mixed in with drawing pens, clothes, shoes, and my very nonthreatening hair dryer.
I covered my mouth with my hand and bit back tears as I spied my favorite pair of silver slingbacks, both heels broken off. Who would do such a thing?
“Shit.”
Ramirez had finished his quick walk-through of the apartment, and his gun now hung loosely at his side as he stared into my bathroom.
“What? Oh God, please don’t tell me they trashed my makeup. Do you know how expensive that Lancôme moisturizer is?” I rushed to his side, then looked up at the bathroom mirror and felt the blood drain from my face.
Written in bloodred lipstick across the vanity were the words I’m going to kill you, bitch.