Broken Bottles

Broken Bottles: chapter 16

"I will be placing you on lane twelve. Someone will be there shortly to put up the bumpers." I said to the lady in front of me.

"Thank you so much." She said before grabbing the shoes off the counter and handing them to her young daughter. She then turned her stroller around and rolled it towards the lanes.

I looked around the bowling alley for Hannah, but she was no where to be found. I was hoping I could get her to put up the family's bumpers, but it looked like I had to do it myself. I sighed and went to grab the long pole with a hook on the end. I made my way over to lane twelve and hooked the pole under the bumpers. With one big push, the bumpers clunked up and snapped into place.

"Um, excuse me, mister?" The young girl at the lane tapped my arm.

I looked down at her and smiled a little, "Yes?"

The girl looked back at her mom before turning to me again. Her mom was dealing with the toddler in the stroller and most likely told the girl to ask me her question by herself.

"My shoes are too big." She held the shoes up to me.

I gently grabbed them from her and checked the size. They were a kids eleven.

"I'll go get a size smaller, okay? I'll be right back."

The little girl nodded at me and bounced off towards her mom. I dropped off the bumper pole to its respective place and found a pair of shoes in children's size ten. I returned to lane twelve and handed the shoes to the girl.

"What do you say, Lacy?" The mom asked.

"Thank you." Lacy said to me shyly.

"You're very welcome." I responded. I then returned to behind the counter and started checking in the next set of customers.

It was Saturday and I was stuck working the entire day. Linda was out of town to visit her parents and I stupidly volunteered to pick up the extra shifts.

"Please tell me that was our last birthday party for the day?" Hannah joined me behind the counter.

I watched the group of kids with their parents leaving the bowling alley. I could tell the two parents that belonged to the birthday kid, because they were struggling to carry all the presents.

"Sorry, we have one more at three." I apologized to Hannah.

She slumped her body against the counter and groaned, "What age group?"

I checked the registry book on the counter in front of me and found the three p.m. time slot, "Twelve year old boy."

"Oh no, they're sometimes worse than the little ones, because they purposely like to cause trouble."

"Yeah, well just be happy you get to leave at six. I'm stuck here until closing."

"I can't believe you willingly volunteered to work extra." Hannah finally lifted herself from the counter.

"Linda has done so much for me, the least I could do was help her out for a weekend. Plus, I could use the extra money." I explained.

"Well, I better go clean the party room, so it's ready by three." Hannah searched the desk for the storage closet key. Once she found it, she lazily walked off.

I was about to clean some shoes that were piling up on the counter when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket and read the message.

I'm thinking of going bowling later tonight. Know any good places?

I smiled at Danny's text and answered, I heard this place, Linda's Lanes, was good. If not for the bowling at least for the good looking staff.