Page 2 of Dropping the Ball

They’ve been trying names a few weeks at a time. Last month, it was Mae, and before that, Ivy.

Daisy deigns to give me a glance over her shoulder before she goes back to kneading.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I ask.

“She’s keeping her claws in,” Madison says.

“Do your cats do that at home?”

“You know Tabitha won’t mess with anyone but Oliver. Smudge, on the other hand, won’t leave me alone. The second I sit down, he’s on his back with his ear on my belly. The theory is that he can hear Harper’s heartbeat.” She scratches Daisy’s head and offers me a tired smile. “You ready to do this?”

Thisbeing “take over Madison’s massive job” of being the interim director of our nonprofit, Threadwork, for seven months so she can have a long maternity leave. We’re meeting to go through her project binder. “I could have come over to you to review all this. I’m sure I have more energy than you do.”

She grins. “Can’t argue, but I wanted to see the progress on your new place.” Her smile fades as she glances around the bare walls of the house I closed on two months ago.

“An Armstrong with ulterior motives? Weird.” My tone is drier than the white paint she’s frowning at. “I’ll tell Mom to hire someone to decorate it. I don’t have time, and I won’t have time. Definitely not while I’m running Threadwork and studying for the bar exam. Maybe ever again, as long as I live. And I like it like that.”

She tsks. “Mom is too busy with the gala, and you will be too starting next week. But lucky for you, I’m about to have a month off before my life changes forever, and I can thank youfor stepping in for me by spending this month on this nekkid house.”

Madison and I have been rebuilding our relationship over the last four years, and I’m used to her theatrics.

“Counteroffer: You’ve already said thank you four thousand times, so how about you worry about Christmas?” I say. “You have to make it extra special since it will be Harper’s first one.” I give her an angelic smile. “Doesn’t that sound like more fun? Establishing all your own Christmas traditions? Picking out her perfect stocking? Oh, and her Christmas dress? You should do that.”

“What am I, an amateur? Look at this!” She spends the next ten minutes showing me pictures of the stocking and dress she already ordered, plus an adorable tiny pink Santa hat and a small, flocked Christmas tree for the nursery already decorated with gold and pink ornaments for the baby. “I even have ones that say Harper, Mae, and Ivy so we’re ready to go as soon as we decide on the name.”

“I can’t. It’s so cute!”

“I know. Now about your house—”

“Yeah, but Halloween.” Still trying to divert her. “She’ll be a month old. You’ll need a costume.”

She shows me a picture of a baby in a hedgehog costume.

“Stop it.” It really is so cute, I can’t stand it.

“No, you stop,” she says. “Stop avoiding this. We’re talking about your house.”

“I don’t want to talk about wall paint. I want to talk about New Year’s and the gala. I want you to bring me up to speed, so I can tackle itnow.” I clap my hands onnowto match her theatrics, and Daisy flinches and glares at me.

“Get off Harper’s head, and I won’t do it again,” I tell the cat.

“I think that’s her bum, not her head,” Madison says. “But believe it or not, because I’m brilliant even as this fetus drainsmy energy like an adorable baby vampire, your drab house and the gala are about to intersect in a way that can only be described as fate.”

See? Dramatic. “Is this a trick to make me talk about paint color?”

“Nope. In fact, let’s start with the New Year’s gala, and you’ll see.”

I flip open my portfolio—a ridiculous Tom Ford design, the leather embossed to look like crocodile—and pull out the Montblanc pen my parents had included when they gifted me the set after my law school graduation in May.

I settle into my chair and nod, ready to take copious notes. “Go.” I’ve been working part-time at Threadwork since the beginning of the year, but my focus has been on operations. Madison started Threadwork two years ago to rectify the wrongs done in the past by our family’s ready-made garment factories in Bangladesh, and that’s where I spent the summer, getting up to speed on what we fund, like microloans for entrepreneurs. But the biggest thing was learning the ropes at the Marigold Institute, our job retraining center for factory workers who want to advance or change careers.

“Mom is a beast,” Madison begins. It’s a compliment, something I wouldn’t have thought possible a few years ago. “She’s pulled in her best people from the symphony and museum boards. They’re busy making it the prestige event of the holiday season and selling out their hundred-thousand-dollar tables. Sami and Pixie Luna will do an acoustic set.” That’s her best friend whose band is wrapping up their first summer stadium tour. “You’ll never guess who we got to emcee.”

“Give me a hint.”

She puts on an announcer voice and says, “The star of stage and screen, she’s broken your heart performing her bluegrass-infused songs of love gone wrong onAustin City Limitsandmade you laugh from the soundstage of her smash sitcom, ‘Country Comes to Town.’ It’s—”

“Sara Elizabeth is doing it?” This is huge. Madison nods, and I cheer. “That’s amazing!”

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