Joannie was not certain how the date was going. She had not been on a date for a very long time. Not since her divorce seven years ago. And then, of course, not during her ten years of marriage. She had never been on a proper date with her ex-husband even before they were married. He had just sort of worn her down, so clearly in love with her.
And that was a big chunk of her life.
Her marriage.
Years and years of her life. Stolen. Not only the opportunity to date, but to lead her life, spend her days the way she would have liked, instead of always trying to placate someone else. She did, of course, have a marvelous child. Lucy.
So, she was on a date. Joannie had met him not on an app but in real life, at a block party on a very fancy block around the corner from her not-that-fancy apartment. Her daughter had a friend who lived on this block. At the party, Joannie had gotten pleasantly drunk and accepted a hit from a joint, even though she did not like to smoke pot, because she figured, why not? Some people made friends through their dogs. Joannie met people through her daughter. The man she’d met had a son the same age as her daughter, and her daughter said this boy wasn’t awful.
Johnny texted her the next day, asking her out, and when Joannie replied that she did not have a babysitter, he wrote back that she should come to his house, bring her daughter, and the kids could watch a movie in the basement. He promised a nice meal, and Joannie loved free dinners. Nothing, of course, could ever happen between them because of their names. Joannie and Johnny.
Joannie realized very quickly that she was not attracted to Johnny. He was not unattractive. Attractive, even. He had money, too, which was important after being married for so long to a man who did not. He liked good movies. He read books. He had made her dinner. She knew, however, that she was not attracted to him, because after the meal, he had kissed her. They had gone outside to watch the sunset. The sky had turned pink. The light sparkled over the lawn, onto the swimming pool that Joannie did not know he had. She returned the kiss. It started out fine and then became unpleasant—oppressive, even—with Johnny’s tongue in her mouth, his arms wrapped around her so tightly that it was difficult to extricate herself. It was a kiss that did not end. Joannie was realizing that she would have to forcibly end this kiss, because she would soon require oxygen, when a hot air balloon came veering down toward Johnny’s very large backyard. “Holy fuck!” Johnny yelled, letting her go, looking up at the sky, while Joannie gulped for air.
The hot air balloon was heading straight for the swimming pool. It was crazy. Joannie decided she was never going to kiss this man, Johnny, again.
This made her sad, because during the meal, she had begun to imagine their life together, and already it had come crashing down. Like a hot air balloon. She had thought about the flowers she would plant in the yard, the coffee she would drink in the morning, sitting outside in one of the Adirondack chairs beneath the oak tree. The basement had a fully equipped playroom with a floor-to-ceiling movie screen. She would be a stepmother, which was tricky, but how hard could that be? It would be nice to have a playmate for her daughter. But now she would never find out.
There was a man and a woman in the basket of the hot air balloon careering from the sky, and they were screaming, not out of fear, but in anger. They seemed to hate each other. They were all dressed up.
“Make way!”
“We’re coming down!”
“I will kill you, if we don’t die!”
This was startling, to say the least.
“They are going to land in the pool!” Johnny said. He and Joannie ran for the pool, but the hot air balloon landed on the lawn, right at the edge of the pool.
“Thank God!” Johnny yelled.
“We’re okay!” the man yelled.
And then the balloon tipped over, falling into the pool with a poignant splash. The man went under, headfirst. Joannie watched the bottoms of his leather shoes go under last. She had never seen anything like this.
Joannie was grateful not to be kissing Johnny anymore, and a man had fallen into the pool and needed saving. Joannie dove in. It was mid-May. The water was cold. She grabbed the man, putting her arms around his chest, and brought him up to the surface, kicking with her legs, and there at the end of the pool was Johnny and the woman in an evening gown, who had somehow climbed out of the basket onto dry land, and they were helping her pull the man out of the water. He began spouting water. Not dead. Not in need of CPR, which was a relief, because Joannie did not know how to give CPR. He was wearing a tuxedo.
Joannie pulled herself out of the pool on her own, while Johnny and the woman from the hot air balloon tended to the not-drowned man. Joannie could not believe how alive she felt. She felt amazing. She had saved a man’s life. She had jumped into cold water. It was a tremendous combination. She could feel the grin on her face. She saw Johnny looking up at her and her smile extended to him. Maybe she would try kissing him again. Maybe she had been wrong.
“That was incredible,” she said.
Joannie wondered about her daughter, wondered if she had seen the hot air balloon go into the pool, but the kids were in the windowless basement, watching the third Harry Potter movie.
á
The man in the tuxedo looked familiar to Joannie. She did not think that she knew him. Possibly he was famous.
“Joannie?” he said.
Joannie blinked.
She did know him.
From the news, yes, but also from sleepaway camp, a long time ago. He had been a dick. She had hated him.
“It’s Jonathan,” he said. “Jonathan Foster. It’s been a long time. We went to camp together.”
Joannie’s first kiss had been with this man, when she was fourteen, when he was not the CEO of a major tech company. The kiss had taken place on the first day of camp. They were waiting for an activity to start and somehow instead took a walk around the camp, and they were behind the dining hall when he asked if he could kiss her. He was so good-looking, and he liked her, and it had been a good kiss, even—Joannie had felt her skin tingle—but that had been it. They never kissed again; they did not even hang out. They barely talked to each other. Jonathan had his group, the popular kids, and Joannie had hers, the oddballs and losers. Camp had been a lot like school that way. He never acknowledged that they’d ever kissed. It left Joannie doubting herself, wondering if it had ever happened. Had he kissed her? Had she imagined it? She was surprised that he remembered her name.
“You just saved my life,” he said. “Oh my God. Joannie Nelson. Can you believe sometimes I still think about you?”
He said it like it was a gift, like this would mean something to her, which seemed crazy. His ego was astounding.
“That’s weird,” Joannie said. “I don’t ever think about you.”
The moment that followed felt awkward.
How were you supposed to behave after a hot air balloon crashed into a swimming pool on your first date in many years? This was new territory for Joannie. As a rule, Joannie didn’t like rich people, but she thought that could change if she were to become one.
“My name is Jonathan, too,” Johnny said. “But people call me Johnny. Welcome. Way to make an entrance, man.”
The woman in the evening gown took off her high heels. She did not join the conversation. Instead, she walked over to the table where Johnny and Joannie had taken their drinks outside, picked up the bottle of red wine, and took a long slug. The group collectively stared at the hot air balloon that had sunk to the bottom of the pool.
“I have always hated anniversaries,” the woman said. “But this one was too much. Seriously, Jonathan, I’m done.”
Jonathan sighed.
“I was trying to make a grand romantic gesture,” he said.
“And you failed,” his wife said. “Miserably.”
“You told me you liked this idea.”
“So it’s my fault.”
The wife had straight shoulder-length brown hair. She had bangs. She had blue eyes. She looked, honestly, a little bit like Joannie.
Jonathan, for that matter, resembled Johnny. They were middle-aged white men in decent shape. Maybe they were all interchangeable. Maybe, Joannie thought, this date was getting interesting.
“Would you have anything dry that I could change into?” Jonathan asked.
“Seriously,” the woman said. “That’s what you care about?”
“I am wet,” Jonathan said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Where are my manners?” Johnny said. “Of course I do. Give me a second. I’ll gather some clothes.”
“I think I had better go home,” Joannie said. “I need dry clothes, too.”
“No! Don’t go!” Johnny cried. They had been kissing, Joannie remembered. She had not liked the kiss, but maybe he had. He did not seem particularly perceptive. “I’ll find something for you, too, Joannie. This night is just getting started. This is a night like no other! I have a hot air balloon at the bottom of my swimming pool! And unexpected guests! I’m going to find some dry clothes for everyone. We can check to see if the kids are okay, and then keep the party going.”
“I don’t think this can be considered a party,” Joannie said, regretting how unkind she sounded.
It was possible that Johnny was an idiot.
It was possible that Jonathan and his wife had suffered some sort of trauma. But they seemed fine. Johnny and Jonathan went into the house together in search of dry clothing.
Copyright © 2025 by Marcy Dermansky. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
