We waited in line at the snack bar, monitoring the image as it developed in Casey’s palm. It was overexposed, compromised by the flash bouncing off fake jewels in the treasure chest. Two women who might as well have been strangers, standing so carefully apart from each other, gingerly holding opposite corners of the treasure chest lid as if it contained uranium instead of ten-cent necklaces. My smile was tight and Casey was scowling.
If we were in the mood to write a caption in the wide white band at the bottom it would say this: What the hell are we doing here?
But I knew the white plastic would remain empty. That space was reserved for summing up happier shots.
“It’s a good one of you,” Casey said, examining the photo.
I prepared my automatic denials. I’m ten pounds heavier, I can’t wear my hair as long now, I have three lines on my forehead and a third of my left eyebrow simply vanished overnight... “Oh, please, I...”
“Stop. Can we not do that, please? Can we just agree not to do that?”
“Do what?”
“That thing some women do, looking for reassurance. That whole repetitive, tiresome thing. You look fantastic, and I look fine, and we’re thirty-five. Done.”
“Fine. So you think Alex is here? In a Farrah Fawcett wig?”
“Wouldn’t put it past her.”
We carried our burgers and Cokes to tables with little swinging chairs attached. Everyone ate while either pushing off from the table base and letting their chair return, over and over, or pivoting side to side. Even the adults did it; they just did it less vigorously. It was impossible not to. Casey was a side-to-sider and I was a pusher-offer. These chairs had probably absorbed a million man-hours of nervous energy over the decades.
“Have you seen your mom yet?” I pushed off from the table and returned, glad to have something to do with my legs. I tried to pretend I was looking for Alex, a lock of her red hair peeking out from under a blond, feathered wig. But I was looking for someone else. Someone tall, with shiny black hair and brown eyes.
Casey took pity on me. “He’s not here much. He owns a miniature golf course in Tahoe City and a couple other businesses.”
I gulped too much Coke and an avalanche of ice dislodged and fell down my chin. “That’s good,” I said, wiping my face. “I mean, good for him. He wouldn’t recognize me anyway.”
“You said that already.”
“I did?”
She waited a beat, fighting some impulse, and I wasn’t sure if she won or lost the fight but she said, so quietly I barely heard her over the music and games, the boom-clacks from the bowling alley, “He’d recognize you.”
We ate our burgers and watched the skaters, and in the long silence I wondered if Casey was thinking the same thing. That Alex had been right to give us activities. A schedule.
“They’re cute, right?” Casey said. “God, so young.”
“That one looks a little like your...” Daughter? Foster daughter? “Like Elle.” I nodded at a laughing girl skating past with long honey-brown hair.
“That’s her friend from school. Mia.” Casey waved, but the little girl didn’t notice. We watched her pack circle around. She was a bold and graceful skater, her hair flying behind her. She navigated the corners with a flick of her eyes and an imperceptible pivot of her skinny ankles.
The music stopped and a voice on the speakers announced the Dice Game. People had to stand by numbers spaced around the rink while a teenage employee rolled a fuzzy die the size of a washing machine. Anyone not standing under the number it landed on had to leave the rink. Finally, three boys at number seven prevailed, and they high-fived each other as if they’d won the lottery. Modern kids, supposedly so spoiled and warped by their video games and iPhones. Here they were excited about their trip to the plastic treasure chest.
“Why are you smiling?” Casey said.
“Was I? I was thinking I’m glad this place is still here. Swinging chairs. Digby the Pirate Duck. I’m glad it hasn’t changed.”
“Me, too,” she said.
“Me, too.”
The voice above me was older now, but unmistakable. I hooked my feet around the table leg to stop my chair from swinging.
J.B.
Also called The Boy Behind the Counter, and Skating Rink Boy.
For me, he was only, ever, The Boy. The boy who was different from all the rest. And now he was standing behind me, inches from the back of my chair.
“We’re a real time capsule,” the voice continued.
I looked up. He was leaning down over me, his black hair falling forward around his face. The only thought I could register was that even upside down and half-covered by hair, his brown eyes were kinder than any I’d ever seen.
And the only words I could manage were “It’s you.”
June 1996
Summer before sophomore year
The last time I’d been to the Silver Skate ’n Lanes Pauline Knowland had shoved me.
It was in fifth grade, right when things started to go south for me at school.
“Watch out,” Pauline had said, in a tone wholly without fear or apology, seconds before her palms smacked the small of my back and sent me flying. I’d tried to slow down by dragging my orange toe stopper, a piece of cylindrical rubber like a giant pencil eraser. Instead I’d fallen facedown in front of the snack bar.
I hadn’t been back since.
Casey thought it was time for me to face my fears. The shabby skating rink/bowling alley in Red Pine had become cool again ever since Erin Simms threw a Roller Boogie–themed Sweet Sixteen. Now every girl in our class was talking about some college guy who worked there. He’d gone out back, behind the Dumpsters, with Debbie Finch. Debbie described this as if it were the most romantic thing in the world.
Alex was driving us to Red Pine so we could see what all the fuss was about. She clearly wanted to join us and dropped hints the whole way. “I’ve always been curious about bowling, do people really wear matching shirts like on TV?” Two miles down the road—“You two are so brave, I’d probably be a total klutz on skates.”
Never been bowling, never been skating. I added these to my list of facts about Alex. Didn’t know what a friendship bracelet was, never heard of the game Red Rover. These gaps in her childhood education didn’t surprise me anymore. Her parents had been strict, she’d said. Strict was always the word she used to describe them when I asked. Then she’d change the subject.
Casey was in the back seat, not speaking. I turned to her and raised my eyebrows, pleading silently. We have to invite her.
She shook her head. Casey was punishing Alex for something. But to me, even their rare fights were something to envy; they were the fights I imagined sisters had.
“She’s mad at me for turning a pair of her jeans into cutoffs,” Alex said. “I’m getting the silent treatment. You can wear anything in my closet, baby. You, too, Laur.”
I smiled, unsure what to say, and looked out the window.
“That’s a pretty song, what’s it called, Case?” Alex blasted the radio.
Another