Ball: Stories

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I haven’t left the apartment in nine months. My current boyfriend, Paul, has tried. He’s tried to lure me outside with tickets to the Hollywood Bowl or the Greek, lobster dinners on the Santa Monica Pier, a drive to the outlet mall in Camarillo for shoes. He combs LA Weekly in search of compelling events. He seeks to entice me with unmuggy, azure-skied days, with dove-gray rain days, with his twilight-walk-on-the-beach idea of romance. He brought me a kite, a neon-lime rhombus with an optimistic mile of spooled nylon string, and proposed Laguna Beach. He bought me a pair of rollerblades, then he bought me a Jet Ski. Actually, his parents bought it, for both of us. But his parents have always liked me. Paul thinks going outside will be good for me, scrub off dull cells of skin, freshen my blood, inspire bloom. You need some sun, he says hopefully, light and fresh air. A change of atmosphere. You’re pale. You need to go outside. He talks about the necessary vitamin D absorption from ultraviolet rays. He cajoles, pleads, pouts, but in the end I give him shopping lists, and he comes back with everything I’ve asked for.

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