Bowling Dreams & Cheap Wine

Chapter 3

Dianna nudges the glass of wine towards me. "You're going to need this." She fusses with the tips of her hair, a classic sign that she's irritated.

"Sorry. Did I really commit us to winning this thing?"

"You did. Are you aware of how bad we are? We don't even bowl half the time. Most Sundays we barely get eight frames. Eight of ten, Gwen." Dianna gestures to the other tables. "Everyone else takes the tournament seriously."

"All things I didn't think through." I drink the wine and refuse to look over my shoulder. "Are they looking over here?"

"They are," Lisa comments unhelpfully. "I couldn't believe Tara assumed you would play matchmaker between her and Nate. You don't even know her."

"I think this is good for all of us," Tamara addresses us directly. "Tara just posted the replay of their championship win from last year. She even set the music to Eye of the Tiger."

Lisa squares her shoulders. "You're friends with her on social media?"

Tamara waves her off with a defeated blow. "Arnie knew her husband. Remi was an ER physician."

Maybe I had forgotten that. Tamara's husband is an accountant at the hospital. "How did her husband die?"

"Car accident." Tamara pauses. Lisa, Steph, and Dianna lean forward, breaths held, information vaults ready to be filled. "Arnie said her husband had been driving with another woman. A patient. In the car with him. No one knows what happened to her."

Tara's laughing with her friends. It couldn't have been easy to lose her husband, especially with a young daughter. Rumors don't get kinder just because we're all at a safe distance from our teenage years. I feel silly for making this bet now. I want to bake her a casserole and splurge on bagged salad. 

"Her past has nothing to do with winning this thing," Lisa finally says, her gaze steady on me. "I bet you were just feeling bad about the wager."

My chin raises. "I was not."

"We're like the reject group," Dianna speaks up. She brushes strands of her angled haircut. It's the kind of style a very small percentage of women can pull off. I am not one of those people. "But Tamara's right. Maybe it's time we stop bitching and show this place what the Mams can do."

"Sounds like a lot of work," Steph gripes and looks up from her phone.

"You have the advantage here." Tamara's inner leadership skills shine. She points at me. "You can work the neighbor angle."

"Yes, but their daughters play together. And they've gone through something similar." I don't know about this...it's just bowling.

"He needs help with Noreen a couple afternoons a week. Trust me." Tamara sits up straight and eyes up Lane 3 where Tara and crew are bowling. "If he wasn't in need of help after school, he wouldn't be talking to her."

"I don't think that's entirely accurate."

The lights dim. Chatter explodes. The lanes light up. Those here for competitive reasons keep their wine in their buckets and get a bowling glove on. The women next to us at Lane 9, the Spares, are up and running with their first ball rolling towards the pins.

I look at my friends, my lifelines.

U Can't Touch This explodes from the speakers scaring the Pin Heads in Lane 7. "Too loud!" one of them shouts.

Paul adjusts the volume, but it's too late.

Something truly frightening begins to happen. Certain songs at the bowling alley bring out the inner dancer in many of these women. There's a reason inner is the operative word here. Nobody wants it to get out.