“Looking up, she watched the balloons dance at the tops of their strings. Hanging by a ribbon at the end was a little white card.She wouldn't even open it, she told herself.She knew who they were from anyway. Who else? No,she wasn't going to open it.In fact,she was going to find a pin and pop every last balloon. What were they but a bunch of hot air? It was ridiculous.To prove a point, Shelby let the strings go so the balloons drifted up to the ceiling. If he thought he was going to win her over with silly presents and clever little notes...he was absolutely right, dammit.Shelby jumped up, swearing when she missed the strings by inches.Hauling over a chair,she climbed into it and grabbed the card.The yellow's for sunshine, the pink's for spring.Share them with me.Alan."You drive me crazy," she muttered, standing in the chair with the balloons in one hand and the card in the other. How did he know,how could he know just the sort of thing that would get to her? Strawberries and pigs and balloons-it was hopeless. Shelby stared up at them, wishing she didn't need to smile.”

“Gloria watched the swollen white orb of a hot-air balloon rising over Navy Pier and knew she had to break it off with Oliver, for he was the type who would never enjoy hot-air balloons, Van Morrison songs, or mess, whether from orgasm or otherwise. But who was she to be dreaming about mess today?”

“He chuckled. “Most girls want jewelry. Instead you want a balloon. How did I get to lucky? Which color do you want?”“That one,” I pointed to a pale blue one.The gray haired man running the balloon cart seemed to find Caeden and me very amusing.“Mommy! Mommy!” A little kid behind me shrieked. “I want one! Boon! Boon!”“No,” she said, from the tone of her voice I could tell she was exhausted. “Boon! Boon!” the little girl cried as the mom picked her up and balanced her on her hip. I looked over at Caeden and saw him holding two balloons. He grinned. “What? I heard someone else wanted a balloon and I just can’t resist a damsel in distress.”

“My name is Olivia KingI am five years old.My mother bought me a balloon. I remember the day she walked through the front door with it. The curly hot pink ribbon trickling down her arm, wrapped around her wrist. She was smiling at me as she untied the ribbon and wrapped it around my hand.“Here Livie, I bought this for you.”She called me Livie.I was so happy. I’d never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloons wrapped around other kids wrists in theparking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have myvery own.My very own pink balloon.”

“Listen, kid. This is what happens: Somebody-girl usually-got a free spirit, doesn't get on too good with her parents. These kids, they're like tied-down helium balloons. They strain against the string and strain against it, and then something happens, and that string gets cut, and they just fly away. And maybe you never see the balloon again. It lands in Canada or somethin', gets work at a restaurant, and before the balloon even notices, it's been pouring coffee in that same dinner to the same sad bastards for thirty years. Or maybe three or four years from now or three or four days from now, the prevailing winds take the balloon back home, because it needs money, or it sobered up, or it misses its kid brother. But listen, kid, that string gets cut all the time." "Yeah, bu-""I'm not finished, kid. The thing about these balloons is that there are so goddamned many of them. The sky is choked full of them, rubbing up against one another as they float to here or from there, and every one of those damned balloons ends up on my desk, one way or another, and after awhile a man can get discouraged. Everywhere the balloons, and each of them with a mother and father, or God forbid both, and after a while, you can't even see'em individually. You look up at all the balloons in the sky and you can see all of the balloons, but you cannot see any one balloon.”

“She was not filled up with the sight of him, the way she had seen her sisters fill up, like silk balloons, like wineskins. Instead, he seemed to land heavily within her, like a black stone falling.”