“Sure,” Lilith said. “No big deal.”
“It is to me.” She nodded at the money in Lilith’s hand. “Have some fun. Take Bruce with you.”
So she did.
“Where are we?” Bruce whined, scratching his forehead where the blindfold was tight.
Taking his hand, Lilith pushed through the tinted door into Lanes, Crossroads’s only bowling alley. She was hit by the blast of air-conditioning; the smell of cheap, oregano-heavy pizza and pungent nacho cheese; the flashing lights above the lanes; the sugar-fueled shrieks of a hundred kids.
And then, rising above everything else: the crackle of a bowling ball knocking down ten pins.
“Striiiike!” Bruce shouted, still blindfolded, fists raised in the air.
Lilith yanked off the blindfold. “How did you know?”
Her brother’s eyes widened. He staggered forward, then froze, resting his elbows on a ball-polishing machine. “I didn’t,” he finally said. “I was pretending.”
Then the wind was knocked out of her as Bruce slammed into her with a full-body hug.
“I’ve wanted to come here my whole life!” he shouted. “I’ve begged Mom to take me here every day! And she always said—”
“I know,” Lilith said.
“?‘If you ever get well, son,’?” Lilith and Bruce said together, imitating their mother’s tired voice.
Since Bruce’s last trip to the hospital, their mother had had moments of brightness, even kindness, like the night before. But this morning, when Lilith had invited her to join them at Lanes, she’d snapped at Lilith for not remembering she had agreed to pick up a shift at the night school.
“Now I’m better.” Bruce laughed as if he still couldn’t believe it. “And so we’re here! Thank you!”
“My pleasure. Mom’s pleasure, actually,” Lilith said, showing Bruce the cash.
“This is amazing!”
Lilith blinked back happy tears as she watched her brother take it all in. He was mesmerized by the sight of a girl his age staggering under the weight of a glittering bowling ball, by the kids chewing pizza, waiting for their turn to bowl. He got to be a normal kid too rarely.
She glanced around the bowling alley and was surprised to spot Karen Walker from her bio class bowling in a lane on the far side of the room. She was with a few girls Lilith recognized from school, all of whom cheered for Karen as she celebrated a strike.
Karen was shy, but she’d never been rude to Lilith, and she was going to prom with Luis, which earned her points in Lilith’s book. Plus, she had to be a little interested in music, because she’d agreed to be Chloe King’s guitar tech. Lilith had never considered that she might be friends with Karen, but now it seemed silly not to go over and say hello.
“I’ll get us some shoes,” Lilith said.
“I don’t want to bowl,” Bruce said, shaking his head.
Lilith gaped at him. “You don’t?”
“Duh.” His eyes lit up as he pointed at a dark doorway past the vending machines. Red, yellow, and green lights blinked above its cavelike entrance. “The arcade.”
Lilith smiled. She looked toward Karen Walker’s lane again, but this was Bruce’s day. Maybe she’d talk to Karen tomorrow.
“Lead the way,” she told her brother.
She followed Bruce into the game room, surprised at how comforting it was. There were no windows or overhead lights. No one looked anyone else in the eye. Everyone was free to focus on his or her own fantasy, be it blood-soaked or checker-flagged.
Bruce examined each of the games, spending a long time looking at a frightening green demon painted on the side of a game called Deathspike. Soon they were standing before an air-hockey table. Bruce picked up one of the glow-in-the-dark paddles and slid it around, making slashing noises.
“Come on,” he told Lilith, sliding the other paddle her way. “Let’s play.”
She slid quarters into the slots beneath the air-hockey table. Bruce squealed as the cool air rushed from the tiny holes.
“Are you ready to get your butt handed to you on a plate?”
“You did not just ask me that,” Lilith said, snatching up the other paddle and taking her position behind the goal. Bruce was so excited; Lilith found the feeling was contagious.
“I’m not sick anymore,” her brother said, “so none of this letting-Brucey-win crap, okay?”
“Now you’re asking for it,” Lilith said.
Neither of them had ever played air hockey before, but there seemed to be two methods of serving the puck: dead straight or banked off the side. Bank the puck and your opponent had to lunge and jerk like a fool. Shoot straight and humiliate him when the puck slapped the back of the goal.
Bruce was a banker. He tried three times to score off his serve, then switched to shadier tactics. He kept the puck in his corner an uncomfortably long time, then pointed over her shoulder and called, “Hey, what’s that over there?” just before striking the puck her way.