“No, don’t!” Ivy clutches at my arm.
“Guess I’m staying.” I knew as soon as I saw David there that Ivy wouldn’t let me leave.
“Here’s where you get the shoes,” Ethan says, and leads Ivy away.
David says in a low voice, “If we play against them, they can be on a team together instead of bowling against each other. It’s probably better that way—?Ethan can get competitive.”
I nod. Not a bad idea.
After Ivy and I give our sizes to the overweight, balding guy behind the counter, he slaps a couple of pairs of bowling shoes down in front of us. I notice a sign on the wall saying they’re hiring and ask him what the job is.
“You really interested?” He gives me an up and down sort of look.
“Sure.”
“It’s an old sign, but you never know—?people come and go a lot. Something might open up. I’ll get you an application.” He goes into the back room.
“You don’t want to work here,” David says.
The guy comes back with the application before I can respond, so I wait until we’ve moved over to the nearby bench to put on our shoes to ask him why not.
“Well, first of all there’s the noise,” he says.
“It’s probably better in the back office.”
“Maybe. But did you see the way that guy looked at you when he handed you the application? This place would be a daily creepfest for a girl who looks like you.”
“A girl who looks like me? What does that mean?”
“You know,” he says irritably.
“Do I?”
He turns away and asks Ivy how the bowling shoes feel.
“Weird,” she says.
Ethan says, “Are they too small? The first pair I tried on was too small, but the second pair felt okay. I’m usually a ten, but here I’m a ten and a half. Do you want me to get you a bigger size?”
“I don’t know. They just feel weird.” Ivy’s worn the same brand of sneakers for the last five years and hates wearing any other shoes. It’s always an issue when we need her to get dressed up.
“Mine feel weird too,” I say. “But we’re not wearing them for long—?let’s not worry about it.”
“Come pick out your balls,” David says, and leads us to the racks.
I reach for a pretty blue and white one. “Perfect! It matches my shirt.”
“You have to check the weight and finger holes.”
“No! I want this one.” I hug it defiantly against my chest. He rolls his eyes.
Ethan says to Ivy, “I could pick one out for you if you want.”
“Okay.”
“I use a pretty big one, but I think you should have one that’s not as heavy.”
“Girls can be strong too, you know,” I say to Ethan.
“I know!” he says, raising his voice. “I know girls can be strong!”
“Relax,” David says. “Chloe was just joking. Help Ivy with her ball.”
“Okay.” Ethan shoots an annoyed look at me before turning back to the balls. He selects a dark blue glittery one and says to Ivy, “See if this fits.”
She touches the ball uncertainly, sliding her palm over the finger holes. “What do you mean?”
Ethan shows her how to put her fingers in the holes and then loftily declares that the ball is too big for her. He picks out another one that he says will be better. He drops it into Ivy’s arms, and the weight makes her sag forward.
“Too heavy?” he asks.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“It’s the lightest one they have.”
“Then it’s fine,” I say impatiently. The ball selection already feels like it’s taken forever. I don’t want to spend my entire Saturday in a dark noisy place that smells like sweat and fried food. “Just take it, Ivy. And stand up straight. It’s not that heavy. What’s our lane number?”
“Eleven,” Ethan says. “Between ten and twelve.” He leads us over there. “We need to make teams.”
David jumps in. “Chloe and me against you and Ivy.”
Ethan looks delighted, but Ivy says, “Can’t I be with Chloe?”
“No,” I say. I’m worried she’ll hurt Ethan’s feelings. “It’s more even this way—?they’re both better than us.”
She looks like she might cry, and I want to shake her. Why can’t she be nicer to Ethan? She’s not stupid—?she knows that this is sort of a date and that he’s happy to be on a team with her. It’s embarrassing that she’s acting like this, especially with David there watching and understanding far more than his brother.
“Let’s just try it this way,” I say. It’s always best to keep things moving forward with Ivy. Too much time to think, and she finds reasons to feel anxious. “You guys can go first. Who wants to keep score? I don’t remember how to.”
“I’ll do it,” David says. He drops into the chair behind the table, and I nab the only other chair, next to him, leaving the bench for the other two. “Ethan, you’re up.”
“Ivy can go first,” Ethan says gallantly.
“I don’t know how to,” she says.
“I’ll help.” He guides her fingers into the holes before leading her to the bowling line. “Hold it in both hands and then one hand and then roll it,” he says.
She lowers the ball to the floor, pulls her fingers out of the holes, and pushes at it. It rolls slowly into the gutter.
“What we have here,” David whispers to me, “is a failure to communicate.”
Ivy’s next attempt doesn’t go any better than her first one; she doesn’t manage to knock down a single pin with that ball either.
“That’s okay,” Ethan says, patting her shoulder as they watch her ball slowly—?sloooowwwllyyy—?roll along the gutter and eventually vanish into the back.
Ivy chews at her lip. “I’m bad at this. I didn’t get any points.”
“I was bad my first time,” he says.
“When was that?”
“I was really little.”
“Do you want another turn?” David asks her. “It’s fine with us.”
She shakes her head vehemently. “No! That would be cheating!” She and Ethan come back to the table. Her face is bright red, and she’s thumping her hands against her thighs.