That Night

by Amy Giles

  “Yeah,” I say, trying to make my voice sound as resolute as possible. “I mean, Dad . . . it’s like . . . I don’t even know if we’re dating yet. I was just trying to make conversation at dinner.” I gesture with my hand out the door. “I didn’t expect to hear that I need my therapist’s permission to like a girl.”

  “I know . . . we don’t know everything, Lucas. I’m sure you figured that out by now. We make mistakes. Lots of them.” He exhales. It’s not a sigh I get to hear often. It’s a white-flag kind of sigh. “Look, if you guys do start dating . . . whatever that means these days . . . your mom and I would like to meet her. Invite her over for dinner so we can get to know her.”

  That’s it? Jason’s arguments about Reggie went on for months.

  Dad reaches over and picks up the picture of Jason and Reggie. Now he fully has his back to me.

  “We gave your brother too much grief over her,” he says, his shoulders collapsing under the weight of pretty much everything.

  Once again, my brother had to take a hit for me to keep on living.

  The bowling alley is full of sensory overload. Bowling balls spin down waxed alleys, pins crash, the air reeks of greasy food and shoe deodorizer . . . but what oppresses the senses most is the grating pop song blasting over the speakers. Reggie seems to be the only one enjoying the music, singing along, “Oh, baby baby . . . Oh, baby baby . . .”

  She admires her shoes as her toes tap against the floor to the beat. “What is it about bowling shoes? They’re so comfortable.”

  Pete holds his ball up to his chest in deep concentration, then storms the foul line in his three-step drop-to-a-knee move his uncle taught him when he was a kid. It’s equal parts highly choreographed and embarrassing but Pete swears by it. The ball races down the center of the lane looking like a strike, but at the last second spins off to the left, leaving Pete with a tough spare.

  He punches his fist in the air. “Oooh! Snake eyes! The dreaded seven-ten split!” He spins around to face us. “Bet you five bucks I got this.”

  I pull a five out of my pocket. “On.”

  Pete rests his hands on his hips and turns to Reggie. She shakes her head.

  “Why? Scared you’ll lose?” he challenges her.

  With a bored expression, she takes a sip of her soda. “Nah. I just don’t give a shit.”

  Pete waits for the ball return to spit out his “lucky” green ball. Then he holds it up to his chest, studying his targets, visualizing the two pins going down (he’s told me his technique). He doesn’t get the spare—the ball slips into the gutter at the last second.

  Pete curses his way back to us. “Game over,” Reggie announces glancing up at the scoreboard. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is blasting, a much better nineties selection. “Anyone want to play another game?” Reggie offers in a voice that begs us to say no.

  “Where’s our food?” Pete looks around for our waiter. We ordered burgers at the beginning of the game and they never showed up.

  I slurp my ice in response, looking around the bowling alley for the umpteenth time, hoping Jess will show up. Reggie’s eyes narrow.

  “Just call her,” Reggie demands.

  “I did. She said she didn’t think she could come but if something changed she’d meet us here.”

  “Call her again!”

  “Why? Obviously nothing’s changed since the last time I talked to her.”

  A group in the lane next to ours are bombed. Our burgers may be MIA, but their waiter hasn’t missed one opportunity to refill their pitcher of beer. Two of them start going at it. Their voices rise, but only a few words drift over to us.

  A tall, skinny guy with a hooked nose and a pronounced overbite stands up from his chair, splaying his arms back and puffing out his chest, more rooster than human. He walks over to another guy, round and pink. Swine to his friend’s fowl, friend turned foe. It’s Animal Farm.

  “It was my shit, asshole. You had no right!” Rooster Man says.

  Pig Face is angry, but cautious. “Phil, you’re being stupid. Sit down and shut up.”

  Next to Phil’s empty seat, a woman is for some reason knitting a blue blanket. Only now she’s just holding the knitting needles and yelling, “What is wrong with you two?”

  It’s the yelling combined with the surreal out-of-context image of that woman knitting in a bowling alley that starts to mess with me, triggers that out-of-body moment where I don’t feel here or there. Like standing outside a window watching my life acted out by someone else.

  Watching their heated exchange, my body tenses, my breathing becomes more difficult, my lungs less obliging to do their job.

  Phil grabs his jacket and shoves his arms through his sleeves. “Go fuck yourself, Nick.” He jabs at Nick’s chest; Nick flinches as if the finger is a weapon. Phil’s eyes are sticks of dynamite ready to detonate.

  After he leaves, Nick shakes his head in disbelief. His group tries to laugh it off, but no one is doing a great job of it. Least of all, me.

  Wiping my damp palms down my jeans, I feel the tightening in my chest. I bolt up out of my seat. Reggie looks up at me. “You okay?”

  I lie. “Yeah. Fine. Just . . .”

  I look at the front of the bowling alley, to the big windows. Outside the entrance, Phil is smoking a cigarette. He didn’t leave. He’s going to come back in and when he does . . .

  “We should go.” My voice is too loud, even in the bowling alley. It echoes in my ears.

  Pete protests. “We didn’t get our food yet.”

  “I don’t care.” I slip my arms through the sleeves of my hoodie. “You coming?”

  Reggie pats the seat next to her. “I see the waiter coming with our burgers. Just wait. After we eat, we’ll all go.” She cranes her neck to follow the waiter’s trek.

  My body won’t let me sit. It’s spring-loaded to flee, to run and hide, before Phil comes back.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry,” I blurt out before rushing out of the bowling alley. I have to pass Phil and for a quick second the logical side of my brain chimes in, telling me his secondhand smoke is probably presenting more of a hazard to my well-being than any retaliation plan he’s hatching right now.

  Inside my car, with the doors locked, my anxiety ebbs. I rest my head against the steering wheel, wondering if I’ll ever really be okay again.

  Then I sit up, turn the key in the ignition, and back out of my spot. I know where I want to be and who I want to be with.

  At a red light, I text Jess.

  Done with bowling. Can I come by?

  Meet me at my window.

  When I get to her house, she’s waiting for me by her open window, biting the corner of her lip. I reach my arm toward her. “Ready?”

  Her face explodes in a grin and any fears I had of her regretting last night evaporate into the warm night breeze. She grabs my hand.

  “Is your mom sleeping?” I whisper, my hands on her waist to help her out her window.

  Her eyes that were just shining with excitement dim. “Yeah . . . finally,” she says. We crouch down low through the narrow alley between her house and Mrs. Alvarez’s.

  “Where are we going?” she asks inside the car as I pull away from the curb. Her barely there scent fills the car, vanilla and some kind of unpretentious flower. Shampoo, probably, but it’s a perfect Jess scent.

  My heart thrums to a different beat than it did at the bowling alley. It’s an excited, hopeful rhythm.

  “I have an idea.” I grin.

  I drive back to the beach, where we were just yesterday. The boardwalk is still bustling with people strolling, soaking up the spring air. As we walk down the steps to the sand, Jess stops to pick up some rocks. We walk over to the lifeguard stand and climb up so if anyone else has the same idea that a night like this needs to be savored at the beach, under the moonlit sky, at least they won’t trip over us.

  Jess points to my feet dangling over the edge. “I see you take bowling very seriously.”

  I flex
my feet, still in the hideous bowling shoes. “I kinda forgot to return them.”

  “How is that possible?” she asks, a tickle of a giggle in her voice.

  I groan, dragging a hand down my face. “Long story. I left abruptly.” Then I turn to her. “So, what happened tonight? Why didn’t you come?”

  She hops the rocks in her hand, watching them bounce. “Family stuff.”

  I wait for more. When she doesn’t say anything, I shoulder- bump her.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey back.” She smiles.

  “Is it something you want to talk about?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and looks down at the rocks in her hand.

  “Okay,” I sigh. “It’s just . . . is it me?”

  Her head darts up at that. “What? No.”

  “You sure? Not to be paranoid but . . . You were all psyched about going until you weren’t.”

  She shakes her head again, her lips pinched. “Not about you. Promise.” She tears her eyes away from her rocks and meets my questioning gaze. “My mom’s been having a tough time since Ethan died. Some days are bad. Today was a . . . really bad day. I didn’t want to leave her.”

  “Oh. Was it okay you left her tonight then?”

  “She was asleep,” she answers. “When she doesn’t want to deal, she sleeps.”

  “So . . . are you okay?” I ask.

  She tilts her head back against the chair and closes her eyes, inhaling. A smile spreads across her face. “So much better now,” she says. I get it. The salt air, the beach. It washes everything away.

  I lean back against the seat. Her hand dangles next to her leg, inviting me to take it, so I do. She threads her fingers through mine.

  The fiery panic from the bowling alley is gone, smothered under the weight of pure bliss. The only thing better than sitting on the beach under the stars is sharing it with Jess. We tilt our heads back up to face the night sky again. I inhale, picturing the therapeutic salt air sweeping through my body, cleansing every vessel.

  “I wish I could live on the beach.”

  “You could get a job as a lifeguard,” she offers, gesturing to our chair like a game show model.

  I laugh. “What? And give up my sweet gig at Enzo’s? You know we get a twenty-percent employee discount there, right?”

  She gasps and covers her mouth with her hand. “Twenty percent? I think someone must’ve forgotten to tell me that during my . . . ‘orientation.’” She lets go of my hand so she can make air quotes with her fingers.

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders, watching her face, how it lifts when she’s happy.

  The waves swooshing in the night are soothing, calming. If there was ever a perfect moment for a kiss, it’s right now. I turn in my seat, pulling her closer. Anticipating my move, she rushes forward to meet me, lifting her face up to mine.

  I want to say in the history of kisses, ours will be the one sonnets will be written about. But that’s not what happens. The word you never want to hear when you kiss someone is “Ow!”

  Our noses don’t just bump into each other, they smash and grind. A sound like a knuckle cracking emits from deep inside my nose.

  We both lean back, cupping our noses. I’m terrified if I pull my hand away I’ll see blood. Jess’s eyes tear from the sudden impact.

  And then . . . she bursts out laughing. Cracking up so hard I grab her sleeve so she doesn’t flail herself right off the lifeguard chair and make a humiliating moment even worse.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her. Maybe I smashed her nose into her brain and did some damage.

  “Oh . . . my . . . God!” She gasps. “I’m so sorry!”

  Pinching my nose to straighten it, because I’m pretty sure our collision knocked it out of alignment, I ask, “What are you apologizing for? I’m the one who nearly took you out!” Now we’re both laughing.

  She wipes the tears before they spill out of her eyes. “I mean,” she gasps, “I knew my first kiss would probably be a disaster, but holy crap!” She stops to catch her breath. “I had no idea we’d both end up wounded in action!”

  I sober, just slightly. “Your first kiss?” I tilt my head. “Really?”

  She shrugs one shoulder and side-eyes me. “Maybe?”

  I wrap an arm around her shoulder again and she nestles into me. We’re both scrunching our faces up, twisting our lips from side to side to realign our noses with our faces. “Well, if that’s the case, there’s an old saying that applies to this situation.”

  Nuzzled up next to me, she asks. “Yeah? What?”

  “When you fall off a horse . . .” I let the rest dangle.

  She giggles. “Oh please . . . go on, Grandpa. I’m intrigued. Which one of us is the horse in this saying of yours? You, or me?”

  I laugh. “I mean if you fall off, you have to get back on again. So . . . just let me know when you’re ready to try again, that’s all.”

  We stare up at the stars for a few minutes, quietly. So quietly that it almost knocks me out of my seat when Jess announces, “Ready!”

  Her face tilts up to mine, expectantly. I reach my hand up to cup her cheek and a snort/giggle escapes from her lips.

  “I’m not kissing you until you stop laughing. I can’t handle any more humiliation tonight,” I tell her, willing to wait this one out.

  She presses her lips together and nods, forcing herself to take this seriously. “Aye, aye, Captain,” she says, and giggles again. She shakes her head like she’s trying to knock the giggles out, then nods. “Okay, now I’m good.”

  I lean in carefully this time, watching as her eyes sparkle. Our lips touch, softly at first. My hand runs through her hair, soft and smooth. Her hand grabs my jacket in a fierce grip, holding on like she might never let go.

  Jess

  Sha la la la la la, my oh my!

  We’ve gotten much better at this kissing thing. No more injured septums!

  Heading to work now but will write more later.

  It’s the last day in April and our Lawn and Garden Department is a hub of activity. Pete says it’s always like this; the first really warm Sunday brings out all the ambitious gardeners. I can barely keep the shelves stocked. Customers keep stopping me to ask where we keep the lawn seed, the fertilizer, the spreaders. It gives me an idea. Instead of taking my break, I arrange a lawn-care display at the end of the aisle.

  A woman comes in, hair in a ponytail, the knees of her jeans covered in mud. She stops to look at my display.

  “Oh, good,” she says, grabbing a small bag of lawn seed. Then she grabs a handheld seed spreader and a sprinkler. “Need these too.”

  A man flanked by two older women rushes through the store a little while later, talking almost as briskly as he’s walking.

  “When we got off the cruise ship, the rain was coming down so hard, lizards were running across the street on their hind legs, like they were holding their skirts up out of the water! I kid you not! Lizards! A parade of them! I’m telling you, it was a deluge, for six days straight. It’s like I took a vacation on Noah’s ark. Then I come back to cockroaches in my kitchen. I don’t know which I hate more: lizards or cockroaches!” He turns to me. “Where’s the Raid?”

  I open my mouth to answer him, but he’s distracted by my display. “Oh, while I’m here . . .” He grabs an oscillating sprinkler and a small bag of seed in the other; then he power walks off with his friends to find Raid.

  I’m restocking the display after a few more people picked it over, when Reggie walks by. She stares for a moment, her eyes sharp, critical. I think she’s about to tear into me for not clearing this with her first. Pointing at the display, she snaps, “This makes so much sense. Why haven’t we been doing aisle caps all along?”

  I didn’t even know this kind of display had a name.

  The best part about working at a small independently owned hardware store is Enzo does whatever he wants. On Sundays, he closes early to spend time with his family. At two, Enzo turns the sign over to CLOSED and
Lucas drives me home.

  “Want to do something later?” he asks, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Maybe,” I say, and nod to the house. I don’t go into too much detail about my mother, but he seems to get what I mean by “maybe” without making it about him. I appreciate that more than he probably realizes.

  The past two weeks have been great with Lucas. We already have our own secret language, the smile, the head nod. Meet me in the back. Timing it so we’re not walking to the warehouse at the same time. “We have to stop running into each other like this,” Lucas said today as we accidentally ran into each other’s lips, repeatedly, then sped off in opposite directions before anyone would notice.

  They noticed.

  Now that I’m home, I feel my shoulder muscles tightening from the mulch delivery. I open my nightstand drawer to find the ibuprofen I bought a week or so ago. Underneath layers of junk—Kit Kat wrappers, flyers from school, a cell phone bill (did I pay this?)—I find pamphlets.

  Not long after the night at the Balcony, Mrs. Walker, the school psychologist, called me down to her office . . . me, and half the student body, each of us allotted an entire period to talk about how we were doing since the shooting. Some kids you couldn’t keep out of her office. Other kids had to be practically dragged out of their classrooms for their meetings. I was, obviously, in the latter group.

  It wasn’t Mrs. Walker’s fault that I didn’t say much. I couldn’t help thinking there was nothing I was going to tell her that a hundred other kids hadn’t already said. I’m sad. I miss Ethan. My best friend isn’t coming back to school. I don’t understand why this happened. Plus, every time I looked up, someone new was peeking in at us through the door window, weepy-eyed and desperate for Mrs. Walker to help guide them through their grief. Their big sad eyes on me made me feel like a bug caught under glass. I forfeited the rest of my time; they seemed to need her more than I did.

  Mrs. Walker told me to make an appointment to see her whenever I needed or wanted to talk. Then she handed me a bunch of pamphlets: “Helping Children Feel Safe in Unsafe Times,” “Coping with Trauma,” and “Starting the Healing.” I’ve read them, a bunch of times, and still haven’t found useful advice that speaks specifically to my family situation: “What to Do When Your Mother Won’t Get Out of Bed.”