The Winter Ball

The sun shone down, it’s brilliant rays illuminating the whole entire place. Her aunt’s barn wouldn’t have been her first choice for the Christmas ball, but she had to admit, she could see the building all decked out for Christmas, and she was quite impressed. As well, the weatherman reported it would be a beautiful 62 degrees. Unheard of in Illinois at Christmas, but well, she was grateful. There was electricity in her aunt’s barn, recently added, and they had bought some very safe space heaters, but Clarissa didn’t like the idea of space heaters. Not since…It wasn’t worth dwelling on now.

Two of her best friends, Erica and Mallory, walked into the barn just then. “Wow. You weren’t kidding,” said Mallory. “It’s really a-a barn.”

“Yea, what did you think I meant?” asked Clarissa, a bit annoyed.

“Not a real barn,” chimed in Erica. “With… dirt and… everything.”

“Well,” said Clarissa, with a grand sweeping gestures across the whole building. “As you can see, my aunt and I put in a ton of work to get it less ‘dirty’ so it’ll be the perfect place to host the Christmas Ball. After all, Chris would be disappointed if it was cancelled last minute,” she added, knowing that would hook Erica.

Erica didn’t reply merely looked sheepish.

“And if Chris doesn’t go, neither will Jake, and you know it Mallory.”

And that would hook, her.

Both girls nodded their heads in agreement. Of course, secretly, Chlarissa figured the boys would go wherever the girls went, but she wanted this dance to happen, because Ethan promised her a dance.

“Well then, come on! Let’s get this place decorated. We only have six hours, then we all need to go and change for the ball,” she said handing the girls each a box of decorations.

Chlarissa didn’t have enough decorations on her own, so she asked all her relatives and neighbors to donate any Christmas decorations they might not be in use of, or simply wanted to get rid of and donate it to the cause.

Since it was for the local school dance and Taylorville only had one high school, everyone was quite generous, donating three or more boxes full.

Pulling out some old time bubble lights, the teenage girl knew just where she’d put these. She’d carefully wrap them around the poles of the barns, creating a unique focal piece.

Mallory and Erica dug into their boxes, and before they knew it, they only had seven boxes left.

Chlarissa’s stomach growled, and right on cue, in walked her aunt with a tray of sandwiches and juice boxes. Man, how long had it been since she had a juice box?

“How about you three take a lunch break, and eat…” Aunt Loraine stopped and looked around. “Wow! You girls are doing an amazing job!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Parkerson,” said Erica rushing to take the tray from Chlarissa’s aunt.

“Yeah, thanks Mrs. Parkerson.”

“I hope you girls don’t mind the juice boxes. That’s all I had left in the ways of drinks. I have to go to the store I’m afraid.”

“No, you mean I have to go to the store,” said Mr. Parkerson, coming into the barn. “You get to stay here and ah, see to it they finish on time.”

“Oh Jonathan,” said Lorainne playfully punching her husband.

After swallowing her bite of sandwich, Mallory commented. “You two are so cute together. I hope when I get married I can be just like you two when I get older.”

Chlarissa knew she meant it as a compliment, but her friend had just called her aunt old, when in fact, she was only seven years older than Chlarissa. With a slight shake of her head, Chlarissa mouthed the word sorry to her aunt. Her aunt just smiled in response.

Finishing her sandwich, she washed it down with her fruit punch juice box, and dusting off her pants, said, “Let’s go girls. We only have about three more hours to finish.”

Groaning, her two best friends stood up and grabbed their boxes of decorations and continued decorating.

They were about an hour away from being done, when Mallory walked over to Clarissa, a strand of garland in her hands, apparently with the purpose of hanging it, which Clarissa wondered at. What was her blond haired, blue eyed friend thinking? “Hey Clarissa?”

“Yeah, Mal,” replied Clarissa, one eyebrow raised.

Mallory busied herself with hanging her garland, apparently not noticing there was already garland there. “What do you think of Ethan?”

Ah, so that’s what this was all about. Desperately trying not to let her best friend see how much just his name affected her, Clarissa said, “Oh, he ah, he seems to be a pretty great guy.”

“Oh really, well, I heard he really likes you.” Mallory supplied.”

Grabbing some more decorations, Clarissa played it cool, as cool as a steamed hot cup of cocoa. “Yeah, well, that’s cool. l mean, sure, I-I kind of think I might like going out with him, I suppose.”

“Great! I’ll tell Jake to tell him to ask you out.”

Clarissa nearly dropped her decorations this news took her by surprise so. “What? No! No, no, no, no! I-I… Mallory please, let him ask me on his own.”

Mallory smiled a Mona Lisa smile and said, “I never intended to tell Jake, I just wanted to see how you’d react to that.”

Clarissa could kill her best friend right now.

An hour later they were done, and the three girls headed inside to change and do their hair and makeup.

Two and a half hours later, the three girls came down Clarissa’s aunt’s staircase, each girl dressed to the nines. Mallory was in a sleeveless gold lame gown, with a silver white faux fur shawl.

Erica wore a spaghetti strap dress in powder blue, her dark brown, nearly black hair swooped up with matching butterflies, and a white cropped jacket.

Clarissa was the only one who chose a traditional gown in red silk. It had long sleeves, and came to her shins. Faux fur trimmed the bottom of the skirt,, and the neckline of the bodice. Her aunt had made it for her, and Clarissa thought she looked good in it, if she did say so herself.

“Oh-h girls! You look beautiful! Oh lemme get a pic to send to your mother. You know she’d have my head if I didn’t.”

Clarissa just smiled and rolled her eyes. “Oh yes. That she would.”

“Alright, everyone get together and say cheese doodles.”

Laughing at her aunt’s choice of words, the girls said cheese doodles, and allowed Clarissa’s aunt to take their pic.

“Come on girls, let’s go reap the rewards of our hard work,” said Clarissa.

The dance was a huge success. Everyone was having a ball. Techno music, pop music, and a bit of heavy metal played on the sound system Clarissa’s father had rented. Clarissa danced with five different guys, however not once with Ethan. However, she had seen him eyeballing her, and talking to his friends and looking her way for a good thirty minutes now. Maybe that was about to change.

Ethan slugged his friends on the shoulders, said something to one of his buddies, then walked over to Clarissa. “Hey Clarissa.”

“Hey Ethan.”

“You-you really did a good job here. The decorations really look great.”

Clarissa ducked her head. Small talk. She sucked at it. “Oh, thanks. I-I had help.”

“Yeah, but I bet you did more than both girls together.”

Another compliment. She hated compliments. She never knew how to respond. “Yea, well, thanks.”

“Sure.”

A slow song conveniently came on just then, and if Clarissa hadn’t wanted to dance with Ethan so bad, she’d probably would roll her eyes at the irony. “Would-would you like to dance?”

Clarissa couldn’t get the words past her dry lips, so she simply gave him her hand and nodded.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. For the past three years, she had been crushing on Ethan. And now, at last, he was noticing her. Time seemed to stand still for her. Every step out onto the dance floor seemed to take years.

Ethan turned to face her, his brows drawn together in confusion. “What’s that smell?” he asked.

Smell, what smell… and then she smelled it too, smoke? Smoke! She quickly scanned the barn, and saw it immediately. Fire. “Fire! Everyone out the doors! Quickly and calmly! Go!”

The next few hours were all a blur. After they had finally gotten the fire under control, all Clarissa could do was sit and stare at her aunt’s barn, that she, Clarissa, had suggested they use to hold the dance. It was all her fault. This barn had been in their family since-since her great-great grandfather had built it. He raised cows and sold milk to feed his family. His grandson had converted it into a horse stable, where he raised prize thoroughbreds, and when Aunt Loraine finally got it, she simply used it for storage, but still … it stood. Tall and majestic and ever more proud, but that was gone. In the blink of an eye, it was all gone.

Loraine joined her niece as Clarissa continued to stare at it. “You know,” she began, “I know they say mind over matter and I’m a true believer, but I don’t think they meant exactly this situation. It’s not going to magically grow back the more you stare at it.”

“Oh Aunt Loraine, I burnt it down! Great-great-great grandfather must be shooting daggers down at me from heaven.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she said, rubbing her niece’s shoulders. “Besides, you have a visitor,” Loraine said with a tilt of her head in the direction of the house.

It took Clarissa a moment to see who it was, and when she saw, her jaw nearly hit the floor. She immediately picked it up and snapped her mouth shut. Be cool, be cool, she told herself.

“Hey Clarissa, your-your aunt said you were out here.”

“Hey Ethan, y-yeah. I… I feel so guilty, she said turning back to look at the nearly half eaten up by fire barn.

“Yeah, but your aunt told me they were thinking about tearing it down. She said, when you asked to hold the dance there, it made her stop to reconsider.”

Aunt Loraine had never told her that. Probably because Clarissa was so much about that barn, she would be afraid of hurting her—

“Hey, would-would you wanna dance?”

What did he just say?

“Out-out here?”

Ethan just nodded. “Yeah. I… yeah. We never got our dance, so I wondered if you’d like to dance…here. I brought my phone, and I can use it to put on music.”

Clarissa could only nod, and as Ethan took her hand, the two swayed to the music. Huh? Maybe Aunt Loraine was right. Maybe it was time for it to come down, but at least it served one last purpose, to bring she and Ethan together.