Sondra pushed all the thoughts and worry from her mind, and she covered one of her ears with her hand. “That is loud. Very loud.” She winced, wondering if her ear drums were going to burst and realizing how very old she’d gotten.
“Okay, who wants to be on the Dance Cam!” the DJ (who was responsible for this loud ruckus) called out. He wore shades and an oversized jean jacket, retro 80s style. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and sat at a high podium with a microphone in one hand and a small video camera in the other. His body bobbed along to the beat, letting everything loose and encouraging all of them to do the same.
Sondra watched on the small overhead monitors (which normally screamed out how low her score was) as the Dance Cam fixed on a beautiful African-American woman who was standing near the lanes. The spotlight moved to her, and the woman beamed. She lifted her arms and shook her hips in an adorable way. Oh, what would it be like to feel so unencumbered, so free, without worrying all the time what others thought?
“Get on the Dance Cam and get some free bowling, just like Ashlee,” the DJ called to the crowd. The crowd cheered again. “Look at the lady out there, busting a move.”
Ashlee threw back her head and laughed. And even though Sondra couldn’t hear the laughter over the sound of the music, the transformation on her face was clear.
“Everyone give it up for Ashlee!” the DJ said as the spotlight dimmed.
Izzy finished her sashay across the bowling alley, and sat down across from Sondra with a huge plate of nachos covering with everything they had in their kitchen . . . including pickles.
Sondra eyed Izzy’s plate of nachos. “Okay, so how far along are you?” She’d been around enough women to know how a pregnant woman acted. Izzy had thought no one had seen her sneak that appetizer earlier, but Sondra had. And now this. That was the role of a pastor’s wife. To notice everything and to, most of the time, look the other direction. But it was hard to deny Izzy’s pregnancy when she was sitting here scarfing bowling alley nachos as if she was a beggar who’d just sat down to a banquet table.
Izzy paused and glanced up at Sondra, as if pretending she hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”
There was worry in Izzy’s gaze, and Sondra guessed that she’d just found out. This pregnancy was most likely a surprise, but Izzy would come around. Marco would freak, but Izzy would come around eventually.
“Well, you’re—” Sondra pointed to the nachos. The normal overhead lights went out and black lights flashed off and then back on. A cheer rose up from the people surrounding them.
“Pregnant? What, no.” Izzy shook her head. “Because if I was I would be freaking out that my husband would be whimpering in the fetal position like he did last time.”
Izzy’s mouth kept moving, she kept talking, but Sondra couldn’t make out her words.
Sondra leaned forward. “I have to be honest with you. I didn’t get any of that!”
The music increased in volume, and she wondered how this had happened. She’d prepared herself for a nice, quiet dinner . . . and now this. She covered her ears again.
Of course she couldn’t let Allyson know how disappointed she was. Poor dear. Allyson had tried her hardest. That was another role of a pastor’s wife. To applaud everyone’s honest efforts, despite the results. And to hide her own disappointment. Always hide her disappointment. Always hide.
***
Allyson strode up to Sondra and Izzy with a little dance and a hop to her step. They were sitting across from each other at the small table. The two women leaned in close, trying to carry on a conversation. Seeing that, warmed Allyson’s heart—or maybe it was the heat from all the sweaty bowling people. Either way, she was warm . . . and she liked seeing her friends together.
So this wasn’t the night she had planned. It wasn’t quiet. They didn’t have a plate of fine food in front of them, but they were together. Tomorrow they’d most likely be laughing about how things turned out. They’d make fun of each other: “Do we want to go to the park
next
Saturday or
this
Saturday?” And they’d brag about their bowling scores, no matter who won.
Allyson laughed as she swayed her hips and kicked one of her bowling shoes up in the air behind her. “Six pins down, ladies. Beat that, Sondra!”
Allyson danced to Izzy’s side with a bounce in her step, her shoulders pumping up and down to the music.
Sondra rose and paced for the lane with a determined look on her face. She was going to have fun if it killed her.
Allyson moved to sit and she noticed something—someone serving a table six lanes down.
Bridget!
Bridget had gotten a job here—at this bowling alley. Of all the luck!
She whipped around, wondering if she should say something to Bridget. She still felt guilty for not being able to watch Phoenix. She was supposed to be someplace with her friends, getting her oxygen, and here she was, living it up, breathing hot air, and sort of flaunting her fun and friends in Bridget’s face.
The music continued its loud beat and the quickening of Allyson’s heart followed.
Izzy must have noticed Allyson’s panic. Izzy looked up at her. “What?”
Allyson pressed her lips together in a tight, thin line. The muscles in her neck cinched down, and she slightly shook her head. “Moral dilemma.”
Allyson couldn’t hear Bridget’s footsteps behind her, but she sensed her nearing presence. Her shoulders tightened up.
“Ally!” Bridget called to her.
Allyson turned, her black skirt swished around her legs as she did. She ran her fingers through her mess of ringlets, trying to act natural.
Bridget approached with a tray of empty beer bottles and cans and placed them on their small table. “Hey, what are you guys doing here?”
Allyson forced a smile. “Hey, Bridg.” She shrugged her shoulders. “You know, glow-in-the-dark bowling?” She sweeps her arms wide, exaggerating her words for Izzy’s sake. “Which is just SO fun!!” Allyson rolled her eyes up and grinned.
Bridget didn’t look that impressed. “It’s actually not that fun.” There was a weariness about Bridget. Even though she was young it seemed she always had dark circles under her eyes, most likely from balancing all she did with work, school, and baby.
Guilt pounded a stake back into Allyson’s heart. She bet Bridget would love to be out with friends, even if it was bowling, and even if it wasn’t fun. When was the last time she’d done something like that?
***
Sondra sauntered up from bowling. She hadn’t wanted to be here, but she had to admit she was starting to have fun. This time she’d stuck her fingers into the bowling ball, and she swung it like she’d seen the others doing. When her hand fully extended, the ball had dropped off her fingers and it rolled straight down the lane and hit six pins. She did a small hop and looked back, but Izzy and Allyson weren’t watching. Instead, Allyson was taking to a young woman. Sondra thought she recognized her. Yes, she believed that was Sean’s half-sister, Bridget. Sondra had seen the young woman only a few times over the years, but she had said many prayers for her. Ally had been heartbroken so many times when Bridget had made one bad choice after another. They couldn’t fix the messes that Bridget found herself in, but they could pray, and they had done that often.
Sondra’s ball popped back up, and she hurried back to tell the others to watch. “Did you see that?” she called to the others. Then she saw it. Bridget had placed one of the trays she’d been using to clean the tables on THEIR table, and that tray was filled with beer bottles and cans. Sondra didn’t take the time to look over her shoulder to see if Mattie Mae Lloyd had already spotted the bottles. Instead she rushed forward.
“Oh, no, no, no . . .” Sondra grabbed four beer bottles with one hand and two beer cans with the other. They clinked together, and she walked toward the trash can, as if using her body to shield what was in her hands. “Oh, we can’t have this. Oh, this doesn’t look good . . .”
“Okay, anyone else who wants to be on the dance floor?!” The DJ shouted over the microphone. Loud, too loud.
“Oppa Gangnam Style!” the music blared. She hurried, looking for the trash can, and then . . . like a light beaming down from heaven, the spotlight landed on her.
Sondra spun around. She clutched the bottles and the cans to the front of her, and she shifted from side to side trying to figure out which way to go to escape the lights.
A cheer rose from the crowd and then she looked up. There she was . . . on all the monitors . . . with beer bottles in her hands!
“Dance! Dance! Dance!” The people call out.
Dancing was the last thing on her mind. She froze. Her knees grew weak. Her head grew light and she told herself to breathe. Waves of panic grew higher and closer within, and no matter how much she told herself to move—to escape the light—nothing happened.
“Dance!” the DJ called.
“THESE ARE NOT MINE!” she called out. No one heard. Between the loud noise of the music, and the DJ over the microphone telling her to dance, her explanation was lost—even to her own ears.
“Wiggle, do anything,” the DJ called.
She turned to the side, paused, and wondered how to escape this. Not only escape the light but escape the moment, the sight of her with beer bottles in her hands. Surely this had to be a bad dream—no make that a horrible nightmare.
Swallowing hard, she looked across to where Mattie Mae Lloyd sat. There was enough light to see Mattie Mae, her bright sweater, her hair perfectly in place, and her condemnation.
“These aren’t mine. I don’t drink. Oh, no. Oh, no, no . . .”
Mattie Mae stood, her mouth circled in an O, and then she turned and ran the other way. She seemed too excited as she rushed off. She couldn’t wait to find someone she knew and tell them what she’d seen—what Sondra had been doing at the bowling alley. Sondra had no doubt that, by the end of the night, phones would be ringing off the hook as dedicated ladies called each other on the church prayer chain, and urged each other to offer prayers for their backslidden pastor’s wife.
The light stayed, but the only jiggling happening was the erratic heartbeat within. “Okay, I’m just going to throw these away—”
Then, as quickly as it shone on her, the light flashed off.
“Boo!” the crowds around her called out. She scanned their faces and saw their disappointment.
She lifted up the bottles again. “These are not mine.” Her voice was no more than a whisper.
Did anyone care?
A loud buzzer sounded. DANCE FAIL popped up on the monitors. She focused on the second word, and the word pounded in her head to the beat of her heart: fail, fail, fail.
“Now that was embarrassing,” the DJ called over the sound system.
Embarrassing . . . is an understatement.
Sondra hurried away, into the glowing darkness, seeking out the trash.
***
Wiggle, shake. Do something!
The words replayed in Ally’s mind and she had to admit that she’d called out too, telling Sondra to do
something.
They were here, so they might as well make the most of it. She’d seen the panic and the fear on Sondra’s face, but Allyson didn’t understand why she worried. Everyone could see she was just cleaning up the table. Anyone who knew Sondra knew that not one drop of alcohol would ever touch her lips. More than anyone Allyson had ever met, Sondra stuck as close to the straight and narrow as she could. If the straight and narrow was a shoulder-wide path, Sondra treated it as a 3.9 inchwide balance beam.
Sondra, her face pale in the black light, hurried off toward the nearest trash can.
Bridget pointed to the place where Sondra had stood. “Uh, that’s a dance fail.”
Allyson looked back over her shoulder to the monitor. Her lips lowered into a frown. She wrinkled up her nose and scratched the back of her head. “But she tried. She tried though. She tried hard.”
Allyson watched as Sondra slinked by with the bottles and cans in her hand.
“Fail,” Bridget whispered, pointing up to the monitor.
“But she tried. But she tried. But she tried,” Allyson said one more time as Sondra slinked away toward the trash can.
Bridget nodded, hurried to her tray, picked it up, and then hurried away. Seeing her go, Allyson rushed after her. “Hey . . . um, actually, I was just wondering . . .”
Bridget paused and turned, waiting with tray in hand.
“So who did you wind up getting to babysit Phoenix tonight?”
Bridget stroked her neck. “Oh. I just asked Joey to do it.” She smirked. “You were right. He owed Phoenix some daddy time.” She lifted her eyebrows and her eyes widened.
Panic struck Allyson’s heart. “Joey, Joey, as in your ex-boyfriend? That Joey?” Her hands flailed around as the panic tried to escape. She’d just seen him. On a date . . . and without his son.
“Yes, yes, that Joey. Why?”
Ally looked from Bridget to the other women, and back to Bridget. “No, um.” A sinking feeling hit her gut and she wanted to tell Bridget anything but the truth, yet she had to know. She had to know that Joey didn’t have the baby. And . . . where was he? That’s what worried Allyson the most.
“Why?” Bridget asked again.
Allyson froze. Her mouth opened, and she felt like the most horrible person. First, for not watching Phoenix, and then for having to tell Bridget the truth.
“What’s going on?” Bridget’s face took on a panicked look.
Allyson swallowed hard. “There’s something I need to tell you, Bridg.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bridget stormed into the fancy restaurant, looking all around for Joey. She’d never been in a place like this. Joey had never taken her out, hardly ever, and now he was here . . . with another woman. And he didn’t have their son?
She stalked up to the hostess, looking past her. “Hey,” Bridget managed to mumble. Fear grabbed hold of her gut and wouldn’t let go.
“Welcome to Chez Magique.” The hostess waved her arm, welcoming her in. “Your journey awaits you—” The woman was smiling. Pretty. Annoying. In her way.
“Great. Okay, thanks.” Bridget hurried toward the dining room.
The hostess rushed up to stop her, her high heels clicking on the tile floor. She stood before Bridget, stopping her. “Oh, wait!” Bridget considered pushing her, getting her out of her way.
Phoenix. Where is Phoenix?
It’s all she could think about.