“It’s fine,” he says as he pulls out his wallet. “After Ethan was diagnosed, she said she’d always thought there was something wrong with my father, and now she knew why, and that since my dad was the reason their kids weren’t normal, he should have to deal with us, not her.” He starts to feed a dollar bill into the slot. The machine rejects it, and he says irritably, “These stupid things never work.”
I get the sense he’s done with the topic, and I don’t want to push—?it’s got to be painful even if he acts like it isn’t. As weak as my mother is, I can’t imagine her abandoning us. I leave him to his struggles with the soda machine and move over to the snacks, where I buy some peanut butter crackers. Once David finally manages to coax a couple of Cokes out of his machine, we change places, and he gets chips while I get drinks.
Booty cradled against our chests, we make our way back toward our lane. Four middle-aged women have been bowling in the alley next to ours for the last half-hour. I sort of registered that they were there and constantly talking to one another, but otherwise was too focused on our game to pay them much attention. Now, as we walk behind their bench, one of them says to another, “I’m surprised they left those two alone.” She nods in the direction of Ethan and Ivy. Her back is to us. “Clearly there’s something wrong with them,” she says. “I think the other two must be the caregivers—?they look normal. Why they think it’s okay to leave them alone like that is beyond me. It doesn’t feel safe.”
“I know,” her friend says. She tucks a strand of her chin-length hair—?bright red except for a thick gray stripe lining her part—?behind her ear. “I’m worried that they’ll damage the floor—?the girl is throwing the ball all over the place. She doesn’t have any control at all.”
“And the way the boy talks . . . He’s so loud. It’s disturbing.”
David suddenly pulls his arm back and hurls a bag of chips into the air, way up high in an arc that lands it on the floor right in front of the two women. They gasp in unison and turn to see where it came from.
One’s face is rounder, and her salt-and-pepper hair is brutally short, and the other has that badly dyed hair and a longer face . . . but their expressions are identical: confused and uncomfortable.
“Have some chips,” David says, his voice calmly hostile.
There’s a pause while the two women glance at each other nervously, and then the red-and-gray-haired woman leans forward, picks up the bag, and tosses it back.
“No, thank you,” she says as David catches it neatly in his free hand.
“I insist,” David says, and whips it back at them. It can’t possibly hurt anyone—?I mean, it’s a bag of chips—?but the gesture is violent, and they both cower away from the Lay’s with little noises of distress. He adds politely, “It’s the least we can do when we’ve added so much stress to your morning.”
The contrast between his pleasant words and angry action seems to render the women speechless. They clutch each other’s arms, leaving the chips untouched on the floor, while I hastily tug David toward our alley. I don’t want them to get so freaked out they call the manager. Or the police.
“Sometimes I fucking hate people,” he mutters as I drag him the few steps over to our lane.
“I know what you mean.”
“No, you don’t.” He shakes off my hand.
One good thing about Ivy and Ethan: neither of them seems to notice David’s change in mood.
We play another game, sisters against brothers this time. Other than encouraging and reassuring Ivy, I don’t say much, and neither does David or Ivy.
Ethan on the other hand . . . He talks and talks, mostly about TV shows. Apparently he’s been binge-watching a bunch since Ivy told him last weekend that she likes TV more than movies. He’s studied the Wikipedia and IMDB pages for every one of the shows and proceeds to tell us pretty much everything he’s learned from them, at an impressive volume. Our friends at lane number ten keep glancing over at him, then exchanging raised-eyebrow looks with each other.
Makes me furious. What’s their problem? Were they expecting a quiet morning at the bowling alley?
And then Ivy, who’s getting tired—?you can tell from the sag in her shoulders—?nothing wears her out so much as being social—?aims a ball so carelessly that it pops in and out of the gutter and onto the next lane.
The women whisper to each other, and then the red-and-gray-haired one calls from a safe distance, “You really should be using bumpers, you know.”
“We’re almost done,” I say, responding because she’s looking right at me and only me—?not at David (who probably scares her) and not at the other two (because they also probably scare her, just in a different way). “Sorry about that.”
She moves closer to the bench that divides their lane from ours and beckons to me. I’m curious enough to get up and go over. She leans forward and lowers her voice. “I just think you should make it easier for them, cut down on the frustration. It might be . . . you know . . . safer.”
“We’re doing fine,” I say stiffly. “Thanks for the suggestion.”
Ethan has overheard. He edges toward us. “I don’t need bumpers! They’re for little kids. I got a one-sixty in the last game, and I could get a one-seventy in this one if I bowl only strikes from now on.” His voice, as always, is a little too loud.
“Oh, okay,” the woman says, with a big fake smile. She takes a step back. “That’s fine. I just wanted you to know it’s an option.” She flees back to her friends, who are huddling on the other side of their lane, as far from us as possible. Staring. Staring.
“Let’s just go now,” Ivy says, her face stricken. “I don’t want to bowl anymore.”
“We’re not done,” Ethan tells her. He doesn’t seem bothered by the woman the way Ivy does. But then, she was the one who just flung a ball into the other lane and she knows it.
“It doesn’t matter,” David says, standing up. “We don’t have to finish.”
“You guys were destroying us anyway,” I add. “You definitely get the win.”