by Gina Holmes
As her Buick rattled into the sparsely occupied lot, I stepped out of my car and waited for her to park. When the brightness of the sun suddenly faded, I glanced upward, surprised to see that a blanket of clouds had blown in, when just moments ago there had been none. It never ceases to amaze me, Manny, that life, just like the weather, can change on a dime. Mama used to say, hope for sunshine, but pack an umbrella.
Fatimah pulled alongside me, waving as if we hadn’t seen each other in days.
“Nice of you to show up,” I said as she shut her door.
“Why is that nice? I tell you I come.” With a twist of her key, she locked the door.
“It’s just a joke,” I said.
“A not funny joke.”
Eyeing the clouds, I rubbed my arms to warm them from the sudden chill.
She just stood there staring at me as if I were the one who’d been here before and should take the lead.
“Well,” I said, “we’re here.”
She blinked at me dully. “Very good. You are as wise as you are beautiful.”
Considering she’d just called me a fat pimple-face the other day, I was beyond the ignorance of taking that as a compliment. “And you’re as . . .” When I couldn’t come up with anything witty to finish my sentence with, she laughed.
“I’m glad I’m so amusing.”
This made her laugh harder. “I am glad too. You make days shorter.”
She walked to her trunk, opened it, and pulled out a pair of bowling shoes. Slamming the trunk, she said, “I do not make use of shared footwear. My aunt become very ill from foot worms.”
I’d never heard of such a thing, and still haven’t, but I figured they probably dealt with all sorts of things in Africa we didn’t have here. “They spray the shoes with Lysol or something to kill the germs,” I said, mostly to make myself feel better since I’d be the one renting.
She wrinkled her nose. “I do not make gamble with my health.”
I could have said not using a doctor for her pregnancy was a bigger gamble, but I was in no mood for listening to her make loud yelping sounds with her fingers stuck in her ears.
When she started toward the building, I followed. We passed a group of white-haired men in matching polyester team shirts. When one of them smiled at me, I looked away.
Fatigue was hitting me more and more often each afternoon, and that day was no exception. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of mentioning it to Fatimah.
She turned around and pooched out her bottom lip. “Poor Princess Peeny. You should not have to work so hard. Please, have a sit in your car and rest. I will roll your ball for you, then bring you here a snack and return with news if you have won the game.”
I stopped abruptly, planting my feet on a painted white parking line. “Oh, I knew you’d understand, Fatimah. Thank you. If they have burgers, I take mine well done.”
She swung around. “You cannot sit in car!”
Finally, it was my turn to laugh. “See, Fati, you’re not the only one who can be funny.”
Her eyebrows dipped and then she shocked me by plopping down right there on the pavement. As I gawked at her, she set the shoes she carried on her lap and crossed her arms in defiance.
I glanced around to see if anyone was watching, then looked down at her. “What are you doing?”
She turned her face toward the road, away from me.
Sitting there like a child, in the middle of the blacktop, she looked ridiculous. “Get up. You know how stupid you look?”
She jerked her head toward me, her eyes full of fire. “I will get up after you make apology.”
Someone honked from the road. I turned, relieved it was aimed at another vehicle rather than us. “What do I have to apologize for?”
“For insulting me,” she said coldly.
“Insulting you? I was only making a joke, just like you did.”
She shrugged. “My joke was funny. Yours was unkind.”
“It was not unkind. It was funny.”
“The most not-funniest joke I have ever been told,” she said. “When I was a child, my schoolmates ridiculed me, and now you do so too. You are no friend of mine, Peeny Taylor. I will not bowl with you or work with you ever again. Leave from my sight.”
Stunned, I stared down at her, unsure what to do. I needed this job. She’d worked under Callie Mae for years. If one of us had to go, it was going to be me. Still, I’d spent most of my adult life telling Trent I was sorry for things I didn’t do. The thought of doing so now to her was more than I could bear. “I’m not apologizing.” I sat down beside her, crossing my arms right back.
She said nothing for a moment, then finally stole a glance at me. Red veins marked the outermost corner of her eyes. “Look at yourself. You are like baby.”
“And how do you think you look?”
She slapped her knee and grinned. “Ha! I got you again, Peeny. I am the winner. You cannot beat me, true!”
I felt like the biggest fool when I realized she’d been joking. I squinted at her. “I hate you.”
Pushing herself off the ground, she said, “I do not care so long as you hate me while you bowl.” She reached out her hand to help me up.
With a spring in her step, she practically skipped to the entrance. We hadn’t seen Callie Mae pull up, but somehow she was already inside, opening the door for us.
“How did you get in here?” I asked, confused. “We didn’t see your car pull in.”
Third Eye Blind belted out “Semi-Charmed Life” from the loudspeakers while balls hitting pins sounded like cracks of thunder in the background.
“Side entrance. What were you two clowns doing out there?”
The place smelled of Lysol and feet. I gently elbowed Fatimah. “Determining I was funnier.”
Fatimah voiced her disagreement with a “Ha!”
My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness as I surveyed the long row of lanes. A family with two small boys occupied one lane, another two were taken by college-age couples, and the final being used was by a group of half a dozen guys about my age.
Callie Mae’s gaze settled on me. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get into a spitting contest with that woman. She can’t stand to lose.” She nodded toward an empty lane in front of us. “We’re number eleven.” I glanced over at where she indicated. The lane was lit and ready to go, with a long black bumper spanning the length of each gutter. My eyebrows lifted. How bad did she think I was?
“You will pay me for a full day,” Fatimah demanded rather than asked.
Callie Mae rolled her eyes. “Fine. Now I’ve sunk so low I have to pay friends to play with me.”
I cringed at the thought of losing part of a day’s pay, but it wasn’t like it was Callie Mae’s fault that lady cancelled last-minute. I couldn’t let her think she needed to buy my friendship. “You don’t have to pay me for the last house. It wasn’t your fault.”
The smile she gave me melted my heart because I could see in her eyes that I’d touched hers.
“I knew you would say that, sweet Penny. Do you know how I know? Because we’re cut from the same cloth, you and me.” She turned to Fatimah. “That goes for you, too. That means we’re the same.”
Fatimah twisted her mouth. “Yes, clearly we are twins of three.”
Callie brushed something only she could see from her jeans. “They’re called triplets, Einstein, and I mean on the inside.”
“You barely know me,” I whispered around the lump trying to form in my throat.
She set her soft hand on my cheek the way my mother used to. “Believe me, Penny, I know you.”
For reasons I couldn’t wrap my mind around until much later, my eyes began to well. Manny, no one had even pretended to know me in a very long time. The Bible says in heaven we’ll know just as we’re known. Guess that desire he created in us makes us all long to have someone really “get” us, or at least try to.
She gave my cheek a soft tap. “You two pick yourselves out a ball.”
After getting my finger stuck in half a dozen, I finally found a medium-weight black one that fit well enough. When I brought it over to the lane, Callie Mae was standing there looking as serious as I’ve ever seen her with a sweatband across her forehead, gleaming white bowling shoes, and a hand towel shoved into the back pocket of her jeans. She rolled her head and shook her arms like she was getting ready to either run a marathon or remake Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical.” “Ladies, go grab your shoes; I’m going to warm up. Mama’s fixing to bust a rack today.”
Feeling like I was in the twilight zone, I walked over to the shoe rental counter. An oily-haired girl asked my shoe size without so much as looking up from her magazine. Before handing over my ugly red-white-and-blue size sixes, she pulled out a large aerosol can and sprayed the foot holes so long a cloud shrouded her. I had to turn my head to keep from choking on the fumes. I set the tennis shoes I’d been wearing on the counter for collateral.
As I picked up the rental shoes, someone grabbed my wrist and I jumped.
“Listen, Peeny,” Fatimah said, looking over her shoulder like someone might be listening. “You must let Callie Mae win. She is crazy for this game, but she plays more awful than someone born with no limbs. I tell you the truth, she must win.”
“Why?”
She let my hand go. “For same reason my Edgard sends poetry to magazines. She does not know she is no good.”
“That’s silly. She’s a grown woman—she can handle the truth.”
One of the men from the group of guys asked to exchange his shoes for a half-size larger. When he winked at us, Fatimah gave him a lemon face and ushered me farther down the counter away from him. “Why must she know? She spends up her life making for other people’s happiness. This makes her happy. Understand?”
I didn’t really. It seemed out of character for Callie Mae, and downright bizarre, but I certainly didn’t want to upset someone who’d been so good to me. “So, the bumpers aren’t for me?”
“She thinks they are for me.” She headed back toward the lane, and I followed. Twenty feet or so from Callie Mae, she stopped and turned around. “Tonight, neither of us will make fifty.” She gave me a severe look. “True?”
I paused to do the math. That would be about four pins a frame. It would take some really bad bowling to pull that off. “I’ll do my worst,” I said.
Fatimah and I set our balls on the holder and sat down at the small desk in front of the lane. While Fatimah typed in our initials on the digital scoreboard, I watched Callie Mae’s ball ricochet wildly from bumper to bumper and take down the center pins leaving a 7-10 split.
Fatimah smiled. “Wonderful!”
Callie Mae blushed. “Well, it wasn’t a strike, but I’ve done worse.”
When she walked over to us, Fatimah gave her a high five so loud it had to have stung.
Callie Mae slid a small pouch of chalk from her front pocket and rubbed it between her hands. “Okay, Penny, warm-up’s over. You’re up first.”
I hit the reset button, then picked up my ball. Not only did I have to manage to hit half the amount of pins I normally would, but I’d have to do it without the option of a gutter ball. Without bothering to put my fingers in the holes, I bent my knees like a child would do and rolled it as softly and off-center as I could. What seemed like a half hour later, the ball finally crept its way to the pins. It barely tapped them when the front two slowly teetered back and forth and eventually fell. Relief filled me. Two. If I could keep that up, Callie Mae would have to beat me.
The Bee Gee’s “Night Fever” started to play as I aimed to take my second shot. Hands slipped around my waist, and I screamed. I turned to find the same guy from the counter standing behind me. “Easy there.” Dimples sunk deep into his cheeks as he smiled. He reeked of cigarettes and beer. “I was just going to help you improve your aim.”
Manny, I didn’t see a flirtatious young man who might have only drunk once a year at his get-together with old college buddies. I saw Trent. I thought of all the times he was out with his friends, and how he probably came on to some unsuspecting woman just like this man was doing to me. “Get your hands off me,” I said. “You think you can just smile at a girl and that gives you the right to touch her?”
He backed up. “I was just trying to be helpful. You look like—”
I gave him the dirtiest look I could manage. “I don’t care how I look to you.”
That poor guy slunk back over to his group of friends, who were now howling with laughter.
My heart beat a mile a minute as I turned to sneak a glance at Fatimah and Callie Mae, who both stared at me, unblinking. Feeling ashamed and more than a little frightened at my reaction, I licked my lips and threw my ball gently against the bumper. By the grace of God, I managed to knock down the farthest pin, rendering me a total of three for the frame.
Callie Mae squeezed my shoulder as I sat. “That was quite a reaction to Casanova.”
I couldn’t look at her. How could I explain it? “I don’t know what came over me. I should probably go apologize.”
She hooked my chin, forcing me to look her in the eye. “You could have said it nicer, sure, but you weren’t wrong. You bet he’ll think twice about touching a woman without her permission again.”
It made me feel better to hear her say he’d crossed a line in touching me that way. Setting boundaries was something I hadn’t done a whole lot of before then. Changing the subject, I said, “Good thing we have those bumpers or I wouldn’t have gotten any pins.”
She pulled the towel from her pocket. “You’ll get better. I’ve been at this for years. It takes time and practice.”
I bit my tongue. “It’s not really my game.”
She chuckled. “Obviously it’s not mine either.” With a nod of her head, she motioned to the bumpers.
Fatimah jumped up. “Yes, it is your game!”
A devilish grin slithered across Callie Mae’s lips. “You think you’re the master prankster, but guess what, Fati? The laugh’s on you this time. I’ve been pretending to be terrible all these months just for this moment.”
Fatimah’s eyebrows dipped in disbelief. “You lie.”
After Callie Mae scored her fourth strike in a row, Fatimah was livid. “You play the most horrible joke I ever had seen.” Her lips disappeared into a thin line. “I will get you for this.”
With a wink in my direction, Callie Mae laughed. “Why don’t we just call it even? You’ve been getting me for years, after all.”
“I have something to admit too.” I stood to take my turn. “I’m actually not pregnant, and my husband isn’t blind.”
Callie Mae’s and Fatimah’s jaws hit the floor.
I walked to the arrows and lifted the ball in front of my nose to aim. “Just kidding.” When I threw the ball, I managed to get a strike of my own, making my joke seem a little less lame. I looked back over my shoulder at them. “Who’s the master now, ladies?”
After five games, my arms were ready to fall off. Callie Mae had broken 200 each game, Fatimah averaged just under, and I came in last place, only breaking 150 once.
The three of us walked to the parking lot together. Callie Mae stopped and turned around. “Leaving this place always makes me feel like I’m burying Matthew again.” She looked at me. “This was our place.” Her gaze moved to Fatimah. “I really miss him.”
“I know you do. He was good man.” Fatimah held her arms out.
When Callie Mae stepped into them, Fatimah waved me into their little huddle. We hugged Callie Mae as she quietly wept. After a moment, she rubbed her eyes against the shoulder of her shirt, leaving a dark streak of wetness. “It’s silly, I know. He’s been gone three years. It’s really time to let the poor man rest in peace.”
“We should bowl someplace new,” Fat
imah said.
With a grimace, Callie Mae nodded.
Fatimah patted her shoulder. “I think is very good idea. It is time to say good-bye.”
I felt a little like an interloper, knowing Fatimah was privy to so much of Callie Mae’s life I hadn’t been around for. I comforted myself with the thought that I’d been around for this moment and, God willing, would be for all the rest, too.
Callie Mae wiped her eyes again and looked up at the gray sky. “See you on the other side, Matthew.”
“You make right decision,” Fatimah said, looking at me for agreement, then back at Callie Mae. “You cannot grab hold of tomorrows when you hold the past with both hands.”
FOURTEEN
AT LAST the weekend came, and I was off for two whole days. I probably should have been resting, but I had a compulsion to begin turning the spare room into your nursery. When we moved into that house on Abraham Street, the previous owners had left a few gallons of paint down in the root cellar.
After I peeled off the latex skin from the top, mixed the layers of goo back into one solid color, and got over the stinky-foot smell, they, and I, were ready to go. I wasn’t crazy about the lime-green color, but the price was right. Besides, I read infants liked vivid colors. If the paint was half as bright dry as it looked wet, I should have the happiest baby in town.
Wearing one of the face masks Callie Mae had given me to work in, I painted like a woman possessed as I rolled out the final coat on the last wall. My arms were sore from reaching over my head, but the closer I got to being done, the easier it was to ignore the pain. Ignoring your father was another matter entirely.
I figured by now he would have forgotten all about his drunken proclamation to be a better man and go back to treating me like a doormat. But once again, he surprised me. Having come in for the tenth time to check my progress, he stood leaning against the doorjamb staring in my general direction. “You shouldn’t have to be doing this in your condition. What was wrong with the way it looked before?”
I set the roller back in the pan, letting it soak up what little paint there was left clinging to the aluminum ridges, and rested my aching arm at my side. “You may not remember, but the walls were full of nail holes and scuff marks. Our baby should have better than that.”
