Page 35 of Road Trip with a Vampire

Seventeen

Winners Again! Lady Hawks Bowl Their Way to Victory

Mr.Charles Jones, staff reporter for The Boston Globe

Winners again! The Lady Hawks Bowling League—one of the first women-only bowling leagues on the Eastern Seaboard—beat all fifteen competitors at the Fifth Annual Ladies’ Bowling Invitational in Lowell, Mass.

Leading the charge was the Lady Hawks’ founder and star bowler, Ms.Grizelda Watson of Groton, Mass.

“If a lady can cook a ham, she can throw a bowling ball,” Ms.Watson said, beaming confidently from ear to ear as she held the team’s trophy aloft. She had just bowled a perfect game, which according to her teammates is something she does every time.

Peter spent the drive to the bowling alley staring at the pages of his journal and nearly vibrating out of his seat. I knew he wanted to skip the bowling alley altogether and go straight to South Harbor. But given how close we were to the alley, it seemed foolish not to go there first.

When we pulled up in front of the dingy, squat brick building that housed Gary’s Bowl-A-Rama, though, I began having second thoughts. It had probably seen better days—forty years ago. I doubted it had been updated in at least that long.

“I can’t believe you’ve been here,” I admitted. The idea of Peter willingly walking into this place was almost as hard to imagine as the thought of him going into that chicken restaurant.

“Why can’t you believe it?” Peter turned to look at me, curious. We’d barely slept the night before but damn if that man didn’t look just as put together as always. Being a vampire must do wonders for under-eye circles. Or maybe it was all the sex.

“You don’t seem the bowling alley type,” I said honestly.

One corner of Peter’s mouth lifted in amusement. “You’ve visited enough bowling alleys to know whether someone’s the bowling alley type ?”

“I’ve been to more than a few.” In fact, there’d been a stretch in the ’50s when I’d been part of a ladies’ bowling league.

When you live for centuries, if you don’t find creative ways to spend your time, you risk getting bored.

It turned out I was a natural at bowling, even without my magic.

Which made being in a league much more fun than it had any right to be.

Peter seemed to consider his next words carefully.

“If I’m not the bowling alley type, what type am I?

” He drummed his fingers against the passenger-side window, eyes focused on me as he waited for me to reply.

My instinct was to treat the question as a joke, but the way Peter was looking at me said he really wanted to know.

“You’d rather go to the opera than to a bowling alley,” I said honestly. “You’re someone who prefers Shakespeare to a romance novel. The sort who watches a period drama, not Friends .” I winked at him. “You listen to Morrissey, not the Spice Girls.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but his expression didn’t change. I’d meant it all as a compliment, of course. I liked how serious he was. But I couldn’t tell if my answer pleased him or not.

“Hmm,” he said.

“And what’s my type?” I asked.

Peter opened his car door as he considered this. “The type who’s full of surprises,” he said. “Just when I think I have you all figured out, I realize I had no idea.”

I winced. “That sounds exhausting.”

He held my gaze for a long moment. “Just the opposite.” He extended a hand towards me. “Either way, I apparently was the bowling alley type. Or at least I came here once. Let’s go figure out why.”

Gary’s Bowl-A-Rama’s interior was just as depressing as its exterior.

Terrible ’80s pop music blared into the space through tinny speakers, and there was a row of pinball machines along one wall, all of which looked broken.

Other than a kid’s birthday party at the far end of the alley and a couple at the bar who might have been the parents of the birthday boy, we were the only ones there.

It reminded me so viscerally of places I’d visited when I’d bowled more often that I had to stop and remind myself of the current year. Peter’s scowl could have melted concrete. If I was unimpressed with this place, he was violently offended by it.

“Shall we get a lane?” I suggested, shouting a little so I could be heard over the Violent Femmes.

He stared at me. “What?”

“I said, shall we get a lane? ” At his blank stare, I added, “We are in a bowling alley, aren’t we?”

“We are,” he agreed. “I’d just assumed we’d spend a few minutes here, see if anything triggered my memories, and then leave. I didn’t think we would… bowl .” He said the word bowl like it tasted like spoiled milk.

“Staying at the chicken restaurant for a while helped you remember things, didn’t it?

I think that if you bowled last time, you should bowl this time.

See if it jogs your memories.” At his skeptical look, I added, “See what I mean about you not being the bowling alley type? You’re too much of a snob. ”

“It’s not that,” he countered. “I just think bowling is…”

“What?” I asked, teasing. “Beneath you?”

He looked affronted. “I was going to say boring .”

“What’s boring about trying to knock things down with a sixteen-pound ball?” Suddenly I got an idea. “Why don’t we make a bet?”

“No.”

“Let’s bowl for one hour,” I continued, ignoring him. I held up a single finger. “The bet is that at the end of that hour, you will admit you had a good time.”

“I don’t agree to this.”

“Why not? Have something better to do tonight than bowl?”

“As it happens, I do,” he said.

I folded my arms across my chest, not buying it. “Like what?”

“I have…things,” he mumbled to his shoes.

I rolled my eyes. “You absolutely do not have things . Other than finding something to eat, I suppose. But you can do that at a bowling alley as well as anywhere else.”

Peter opened his mouth to argue the point. Then closed it again, shaking his head. He let out a resigned sigh, and I knew I’d won.

“One hour,” he warned.

I grinned. “One hour,” I agreed.

“What are the terms of this bet?” he asked. “I want to know what I’ll win when you lose.”

“I am not going to lose ,” I said as tauntingly as I could manage.

“But how about this. If, after one hour of bowling, you end up having fun, you have to stand on one of these chairs and announce to everyone that I, Zelda Turret, am the smartest person you’ve ever known.

” I pointed to one of the four vacant chairs lined up in a sad little row at the bar.

That earned a surprised laugh from him. “I’m convinced enough that I’ll win by not enjoying myself that I can agree to that. But when I don’t end up having fun”—his eyes twinkled with challenge—“what do I win?”

I thought that over. “If you win the bet because you’re too much of a snob to know how to have fun, you don’t have to announce to everyone how brilliant I am.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a prize.”

“We can hammer out the details later.”

“No.” His voice had turned unexpectedly serious. “I never agree to a deal without knowing all the terms first. Not ever.”

I stared at him. He’d just made another blanket statement about his past patterns of behavior. From the look of surprise on his face, he’d just realized this as well.

“Not ever?” I asked tentatively.

Peter stared at me, his eyes wide. “No. I…” He trailed off. Swallowed. “Never.”

If he was remembering something about his past, his stunned-silent reaction suggested it was not a happy memory. I nearly asked him what it was, but his closed-off expression had me thinking better of it.

If he wanted to share, he’d let me know.

“Let’s go rent our shoes,” I suggested, steering our conversation back on track. “When you decide on a prize for winning, let me know.”

He didn’t respond but followed along wordlessly as I made my way to the shoe rental counter.

The middle-aged man behind the counter wore a Dungeons & Dragons T-shirt, a black plastic name tag that said Jonathan , and a seriously bored expression. He was staring at something on his phone when we approached.

“Shoe size?” he asked, not even bothering to look up. I couldn’t blame the man for being bored. His job had to be as dull as watching paint dry.

“I’m a women’s seven,” I said. I turned to Peter. “What size are you?”

“Eleven,” he said. And then to me he murmured, “That’s what’s printed inside my shoes.”

At the sound of Peter’s voice, Jonathan snapped to sudden and abrupt attention. When he saw Peter, he took a reflexive step backwards, eyes very wide. “What do you want?”

I glanced at Peter from the corner of my eye. He looked as confused as I was.

“To…bowl?” He sounded totally unconvinced.

Jonathan’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You aren’t here to cause trouble?”

What in the world? Peter looked unhappy to be here, sure. But did he really look so pissy that it justified this guy assuming the worst?

I tried to laugh it off. “I told you that you needed to smile more,” I said to Peter in the cheeriest voice I could manage. “You always look so threatening when you scowl.”

Peter only grunted unhelpfully in return.

Turning back to Jonathan, I added, “Seriously, though. We just want to bowl.” When he continued to look suspicious, I leaned in closer to him and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “Look, I know he’s a total grump, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

My boyfriend’s only here because I wanted him to come. ”

Peter made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, then started coughing violently into his hand. I gave him a sympathetic look and started rubbing his back—the way any girlfriend concerned over her boyfriend’s sudden coughing fit might do.

I knew calling him my boyfriend was an impulsive thing to do. But instinct told me that if Jonathan thought we were dating, he’d be less likely to assume the worst about Peter. It was a gamble, but one that seemed to be paying off, if Jonathan’s slightly more relaxed stance was any guide.

His gaze shifted from Peter to me. “You’re dating this guy?”