“Taliah! Please!” he shouted after me.
I waved my hand over my shoulder to let him know I needed some space. I walked quickly away from the farmhouse. So quickly that I was almost jogging, which made me winded, which made me not notice Toby until he called out to me.
“Hey there,” he said. “I know you’re dying to see me, but there’s no need to run.”
I laughed a little as I caught my breath. I put my hands on my sides. “Sorry. It was just a lot back there.” I gestured toward the farmhouse.
He nodded solemnly. “I imagine.”
His sincere look of understanding made me feel like an ass. “I’m actually not talking about Tom.”
Toby raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“Yeah. My mom’s here.”
“Oh,” Toby repeated, but this time as a declaration instead of a question.
“Yeah. And she and Julian have been … I don’t know.” I was about to say more, but I stopped myself. “But never mind. I don’t know why I’m going on and on about it.”
“Hey,” he said, and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You aren’t going on and on.”
When I didn’t say anything else, he said, “Hey, you want to get out of here for a little?”
I did. I so did.
“I do,” I admitted. “But am I awful if I leave right now? You know, with everything that’s going on?”
He gave me a mischievous smile. “I bet they could do without you for a few hours.”
“You really think so?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay then,” he repeated, and motioned for me to follow him.
II.
“Bertha?” I asked.
He laughed. “Can you imagine any other name for her?” He was referring to his bright red pickup truck.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m not very well versed in the naming of pickup trucks.”
“Oh. Well, it’s an art.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that.”
“Please do,” he said, glancing over at me. His eyes were warm, and the farther away we got from the Oliver farmhouse, the better I started to feel.
“You’re always outside,” I said.
He looked amused. “Is that a question?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And an observation.”
He pressed down on the brake as we came to a red light. “I don’t really know how to answer that.”
“Why? I mean, what do you like about being outside?”
“Everything,” he said.
“No. Seriously.”
The light turned green and Bertha lurched forward. Her engine let out a low rumble. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. Yes, you do.”
“You’re right. I do. But you’re going to make fun of me.”
“No, I won’t. Give me a chance.”
“Simplest answer is: I like trees.”
I fought back a laugh. “That’s your answer? Trees?”
“See? I knew you’d poke fun at me.”
“It’s not that there’s anything wrong with trees, I just thought you’d have a deeper answer. Like something philosophical and transcendentalist.”
“Naw,” he said, his cheeks a little red. “Best way to explain it is I like trees.”
“And what do you like so much about them?”
“They’re good listeners. And they know how to let go.” Toby parked Bertha in front of a building with a neon sign that read OAK FALLS CLASSIC LANES.
“Explain?”
He took the keys out of the ignition. “The way they lose their leaves in the fall but then regrow them in the spring. I think we could stand to learn a lot from trees. They’re resilient. And they’re always growing. You see, I lost my dad in October. I remember sitting by the window, watching the trees slowly lose their leaves. And then I remember a sad, long winter. But come spring, I watched as the trees sprang back to life, and it gave me hope. I learned a certain type of grace from the trees. The way they just let things go, knowing that there is always something new on the horizon. I know that sounds cheesy, but when I was six, it really had an impact on me.”
I smiled at him. “I like that.”
“Really? I figured you would have some smart reply to make about it.”
I shrugged. “Nope. I like it. I really do. It sounds like I could stand to learn a lot from trees.”
He gave me a smile. “I think you could.”
“So,” I said, focusing my attention on the neon sign. “Where are we?”
“The best bowling alley in Oak Falls.”
“Bowling?” I let out a dramatic sigh. “Really? I’m not athletic at all.”
He got out of the car and quickly slid around to my side to open the door. He held his hand out to help me with the high step. “You don’t have to be athletic to enjoy bowling. You just have to be a good sport and enjoy greasy pizza.”
I took his hand and a slight jolt went through me. I stepped down from the truck. “I can get into greasy pizza.”
We walked inside and Toby got us set up with shoes and helped me select a ball.
“The trick,” he said, “is to pick one that’s heavy enough that it will do the job, but not too heavy that you won’t be able to get a good spin on it.”
“So bowling is another thing you love? How does it rank compared to trees?”
“Below,” he said, smiling. “But not that far below.”
We had our lane to ourselves. He typed my name in as “TAL” and put himself in as “TOBY.”
“Hey,” I said. “Why do I get an abbreviation and you get your full name?”
“Because I wasn’t sure I knew how to spell Taliah correctly.”
“Am I the first Taliah you’ve ever met?”
He nodded. “I hope you won’t hold that against me, though.”
“Not as much as I hold your no-swearing rule against you.”
He laughed. He picked up his ball and bowled it down the lane. He knocked down an impressive number of pins. Toby was clearly no stranger to the bowling alley. He grabbed his ball off the ball return and bowled his second turn. A spare. He did a goofy dance in celebration.
“Stop,” I said. “You’re gloating before you even see how bad I am.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Carter and Brady are some mean bowlers. And you have those Oliver genes. I wouldn’t count you out yet.”
I didn’t actually perform as badly as I thought I would. Toby still squarely beat me, but I managed to not make a complete fool of myself. After we’d bowled one game, Toby went to the concession stand to get us the greasy pizza that he had promised. He returned with two large cheese slices on paper plates.
He handed one of the plates to me. I took an appreciative bite, chewing through the melted cheese.
“See?” he said. “Told you the pizza was good.”
“You said it was greasy. You never said anything about good.”
“Greasy is basically synonymous with good.”
“I don’t know if that can be universally applied,” I said, and took another large bite. “Probably just with pizza.”
“With pizza for sure,” Toby confirmed. He took a bite of his pizza and then asked, “So your parents are fighting?”
I set my half-eaten slice back down on the paper plate. I blotted my hands with a napkin. “It feels weird to refer to them as my parents.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let me rephrase. Julian and your mom are fighting?”
“I don’t know if ‘fighting’ is the right word. My mom is doing everything in her power not to talk to him.”