by Thianna D
“No, sweetie, no!” Jen said. “But if we finish early we might see what else there is to do in Boulder.”
“Sorry?” Did she just hear right?
“Oh fuck it,” Jen said. “We only go bowling for one quick game and then we have a bit of fun.”
“You lie about where you are?” Erin said.
“No, we don’t lie. That’s why we play the one game. So if they ask did we have fun at bowling? We can answer honestly, yes, we did. Who won? Carol or Sienna. See? We’re not actually lying.”
“I don’t know…” Erin could feel a spanking in her future. Everything in her was screaming at her that this was a bad idea.
“We have to go. Do you still want to come now that you know our secret?”
Erin stood there in her doorway contemplating her choices. Behind her was a very staid, controlled life with people she adored in a place where they’d found peace. In front of her, new friends were keeping the car warm, ready to drive her to a new adventure. Something she hadn’t had for a while. She didn’t know how long she could walk on that tightrope in the middle, but she had to try.
“I’ll just be a second,” Erin said.
Erin paced her room for what felt like an hour but what was probably only a few minutes. She opened her closet door and stared into the abyss. She really needed to get some clothes. At one time she would have had all of her rack and half of Zach’s to go through, but when they moved here her needs changed and she gutted her wardrobe accordingly. Her cowboy boots. She’d gotten them when they went to the Boulder county fair. Those with a nice shirt, and her jeans would be okay.
“These do?” She asked holding them in the air as she ran out of the front door.
“Perfect.”
With her best non-wrinkle blouse under one arm and a pair of cowboy boots in her other, she ran down the path with Jen and jumped in the car.
“Isn’t this part of the University?” Erin asked as they turned into the parking area of the alley.
“It is, but it’s open to the public. Day games are cheap and it’s as close as we’ll get,” Sienna said.
It was funny, Erin thought as they walked into the air-conditioned room. You could probably travel all over the world and bowling alleys would be the same. The lights, the smell of fries, corn dogs and old shoes. There were the people who made bowling their thing; they had the shirts, their own balls and shoes. They polished their balls to a high shine and carried them in a special bag. Then there was the rest of the population that shared the shoes. Pretty gross really when you thought about it. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” Erin said.
“Did you bring socks?” Carol asked.
“Two pairs,” Erin said.
“Let’s get this game going so we can have some real fun,” Carol said with a grin.
Although it was a token game, Erin found the girls quite competitive, for people who used bumpers, that is. She was quite pleased with her performance. She came second. Carol came first, Jen came third and Sienna came last, not to say that counted because she basically didn’t give a crap. She just walked up threw the ball and walked away. Once it bounced and ended up in someone else’s lane. “So, do you go to the same place every week?” Erin asked.
“We change it up. There’s a whole bunch of bars down on Pearl Street,” Carol said. “We have lunch and a couple of drinks. Well everyone but the driver, of course. That’s why we take turns.”
“So did you have a place in mind today?” Erin asked.
“A bar that does a simple lunch dish. Nothing that exciting but it has a nice atmosphere and tasty food,” Jen said.
“Sounds good,” Erin said. So far not too bad, I mean Zach was no ogre, he wouldn’t mind her having lunch. Not that she could tell him, she’d promised to keep the girls secret. If she was honest with herself, it was the secret was making this more exciting.
The place was dark and not as quiet as you’d expect in the middle of the day. There was obviously a party of sorts going on at the other side of the room. When a couple of the girls staggered by to get to the bathroom it became clear. “Oh, it’s a bachelorette party,” Erin said.
“Happy wedding!” Carol called out.
“Sweet,” Jen said. “Fun times when you’re young.”
“Hey, we’re not exactly old,” Sienna said.
“I know, but they don’t have to throw a couple of drinks down and be back in time for the school run, you know?”
“I know, but we wouldn’t really change that would we?” Carol asked.
Jen thought for a minute. “No, but I think I would have paid more attention when I was young to how much fun I was having.”
“Here, here,” Erin said. “I think you just hit on how I feel. We take life for granted sometimes.”
“Well we’re not too old to live a little now,” Carol said. “I have an idea. Why don’t we have ‘live young again Wednesdays’.”
“What does that even mean?” Sienna asked with a giggle.
“Every Wednesday, instead of just having lunch, we do something we always wanted to do but didn’t get the chance.”
“Wow,” Jen said. “That is brilliant.”
“I’m in,” Erin said.
“Although I have a really bad feeling about this, count me in,” Sienna said.
Erin and Carol went to the bar to get the first round of drinks. They could see that the bachelorette girls had stopped and were talking to Sienna and Jen.
“Wonder what that’s about?” Erin said.
“Maybe we’re crashing their do,” Carol answered. “I don’t remember seeing a sign or anything.”
They carried the drinks over to the table and set them on the table. “Hi,” Erin said when one of the girls smiled at her.
“I was just saying to your friend,” The girl with the sash on said, “that you are all welcome to join our party.”
Carol blinked but said nothing.
“That’s nice of you,” Erin said.
“You’d be doing us a favor really,” the girl said. “I’ve come all the way from Texas, because this is where my fiancé’s’ family comes from. Some of my friends from home dropped out.”
“Oh, sorry,” Carol said.
“There’s lunch and there’s gonna be a male stripper show after.”
“Great,” Carol said with a smile that was just a bit fake.
“Why don’t we take a vote?” Sienna asked.
“Oh, cuz that would be fair,” Carol said. “The three of you with your tongues hanging out and one non plussed les girl who also can’t drink because she has to drive.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if they were girl strippers,” Jen teased.
“I’m very happy with the woman I have, thank you very much,” Carol said, poking out her tongue.
“Okay, well I’ll just go and let y’all decide. I just wanted you to know you were welcome.” The blonde bride-to-be said before tottering away on her high heels.
“It’s not like I’m really interested, I just want to window shop for a little while,” Jen said.
Carol shook her head and grinned.
“Sorry, honey, but I’m in,” Jen said.
“Me, too,”‘ Erin said with a wince. “Sorry Carol.”
“That’s a big fat yes from me, too,” Sienna said, slinging an arm around Carol. “It’ll be fun.”
Carol sighed. “I tell y’all what. I’ll watch your naked men show, but next week, I get to pick the first ever weekly ‘live young again Wednesday’ and y’all have to go along with whatever I choose.”
It pleased Erin that they were able to reach an easy agreement. She wanted to stay but not if Carol was seriously unhappy.
“Besides, I’m hungry and free lunch sounds good,” Carol said, leading them all into the next room.
The food was delicious and there was plenty of it. Stations, in a line at the bottom of the room, offered choices of mini burgers, tapas, little cups with Caesar salad and some with noodles. There
was even a Chinese station with egg rolls, steamed pork buns and other little delicacies. Erin was in her element. Too nervous to eat any breakfast, she was starving. “This is so good,” she said, taking another mouthful of noodles. “The sauce is amazing.”
“Look at the dessert bar!” Carol squeaked with excitement.
Erin had been looking at it. It was positively sinful. She would have loved to have made up some candy bags for her girls if that hadn’t meant admitting where she’d been all day. “I have to have a piece of that cake,” she said.
“Oh yeah.”
“I’m not much of a sweet person myself,” Sienna said, tucking a shrimp bun into her mouth.
“I’m not touching that one,” Jen said with a giggle.
“Nope,” Carol said giving Sienna a friendly shove.
“It’s starting, it’s starting,” Sienna said, dragging Erin to sit at a table.
“Yay,” Carol said with a role of her eyes at Jen.
Jen took her arm and towed her away from the dessert table, although she allowed her to take a loaded plate with her. “Come on! You’ll have fun,” she said.
The music to Devil Woman started pounding and three men wearing firefighters’ costumes strutted out on stage.
Jen and Carol looked at each other and burst out laughing. “What are the odds?” Carol said, cackling into her bowl of candy.
“For strippers to be dressed up as firefighters? About three in four, I’d say.” Jen giggled. “They like the costumes.”
The dancers kept dancing around each other, around the stage and eventually right into the audience. The bounced and jiggled and shook their bits like their lives depended on it and all to a roaring crowd. Erin screamed, yelled and hooted as loud as the rest of the girls in the room. You would have sworn there were fifty more people there than there actually was. “Ooh their coming for someone,” she said as the men jumped from the small stage and gyrated their way through the audience.
The first one of course made a bee-line for the bride-to-be. He hoisted her over his shoulder and took her to the stage. He smiled leerily at the audience while he humped against her. Erin screamed when one came towards their table. She tried to hide behind Jen but he wasn’t even looking at either of them. He headed straight towards Carol.
Carol picked through her bowl of candy, seemingly oblivious.
Erin closed her eyes, not sure she wanted to witness what would come next. The guy in just his skimpy underwear and fireman’s hat, now wormed his way towards the one person on the table who looked like she was doing her best to ignore him.
He plopped his hat on top of Carol’s head and she sighed. She removed it and passed it back to the dancer. “No, thank you,” she said.
He chuckled and put it back all the while swinging his hips in time to the music while he pressed himself against her back provocatively.
Carol swung around. “Back off,” she said.
Erin, as well as Jen and Sienna, stopped laughing. “Stop,” Jen said, seeing her friend was past uncomfortable.
It was so noisy in there. It was quite possible that he didn’t hear them telling him to stop, no one knows. What they did know was that he’d listen better next time. Carol grabbed the elastic on his skin-tight undies and pulled as hard as she could. She dumped the rest of her bowl of candy down the front of his pants and then followed it with her orange juice. She let go of the elastic so it snapped against his skin.
“Ah,” he yelled.
High voice for such a macho looking guy, Erin thought. They watched in awe as he danced away to another table, inviting one of the other women to sample his candy pants. When she looked up there was a security guard on his way in to the room. “Um, I think we may have overstayed our welcome,” she said.
The other girls agreed. They gathered their stuff and ran towards the exit, but Erin went back. When she found the bride-to-be, she thanked her for having them and shot out the door after the others.
“What time is it?” Sienna asked.
“It’s two thirty,” Carol said. “We have about a half an hour still to drive so we should make it just in time.”
Erin wasn’t that worried. The fact that Zach normally brought the girls home gave her an extra half an hour or so. They would walk to his classroom and wait while he packed up whatever work he had to grade that night and then the three would make their way home. Not the case for the others who were clearly getting a little worried about the time. “It was fun today, girls. Thanks for including me,” she said.
“Thanks for coming!” Jen said. “That was the most fun we’ve had yet.”
“It sure was,” Sienna said.
“What about you, Carol. Did you have fun?”
“Are you serious? I had a ball!” she giggled, joining in with the others when they burst out laughing.
“Mom!” Jordan said racing across the playground and throwing herself into her Mom’s arms. “You never pick us up from school.”
A pang of guilt twisted Erin’s gut. It had never occurred to her that it mattered to the girls. Zach was there. It didn’t make sense for her to come to school, too. “I didn’t know you wanted me to.”
“Just sometimes,” Jordan said.
“Well then I’ll come sometimes,” Erin said. She could see Avvy running towards her and she looked just as happy to see her there.
“Mom, how come you’re picking us up?” Avvy asked.
“We just got back and I couldn’t wait to see you.” Erin took both girls’ hands and they walked to Zach’s classroom.
Chapter 7
Did you really have fun?” Zach asked as they cleaned up after dinner. “I mean, I know you said you did but did you?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?” Erin asked, bending over to wipe an invisible spot off the floor with the floor sponge.
“I don’t know. Something seems a little off. You seem quiet or something.”
“I’m tired. It was a long day.” That wasn’t a lie. It was a long day and the effects of the alcohol had worn off leaving her feeling flat and a bit like a big fat liar. “Fun though.” It had been. That thought helped her to flash him a genuine smile.
“Let’s have an early night, then.”
“Yeah let’s.”
Zach was watching Erin as she came from the shower and crawled into bed. “Come here.” he said opening his arms.
She did, tucking her head in to the crook of his arm. “Thanks, honey.”
“For?”
“Letting me go today when I know you had reservations.”
“Only at first, we’ve come a long way since we moved here. I know you won’t let me down.”
Erin pressed her lips together so he wouldn’t hear the sob that caught in her throat. She brushed away a tear that trickled down her cheek at the memory of that last few days before they decided to move…
Erin opened the mailbox and sighed with relief at the envelope inside. It was her new credit card, the one she hadn’t told Zach she’d applied for. In her heart she knew she was being deceitful and careless but she didn’t know what else to do. It was all about commitments that had been made and needed to be taken care of. She was going to have to look for paid work, she knew that, but at the moment she was only interested in getting out the girls dresses she’d ordered for this week’s pageant. Not to mention the payment for the pageant itself. The girls didn’t even know. She’d kept it a secret in case she hadn’t been able to pull it off.
“Avvy!” she yelled.
Avvy came down the stairs slowly, stopping to look at herself and fix her hair in the landing mirror before coming the rest of the way. “Yes, Mommy?”
“We can do it!” Erin said. “We can go to the little Miss Denver pageant.”
“We can?” Avvy’s eyes were wide. “You won’t change your mind?”
“I won’t change my mind, but we can’t tell Daddy.”
“How you gonna stop Jordie telling?”
“You leave Jordie to me.”
&nbs
p; Erin turned in her husband’s arms, feigning sleep as the memory of her teaching her children to lie deepened. The way to keep Jordan quiet had come the next day when her daughter came home from school with a note.
“Suspended ,Jordan? You’re only seven. Who gets suspended at seven?”
Jordan shrugged.
“That was a rhetorical question.”
“I don’t know what that means, Mommy.”
“It means that if your Daddy finds out you’ll be in big trouble.”
“Don’t tell him Mommy please?”
Jordan’s big green eyes were full of tears. “I’ll be really good Momma and I won’t never punch nobody again, no matter what. Not even if they say my name is a boy’s name.”
“They shouldn’t say that to you, honey, but you have to use your words, not your fists.”
“Are you gonna tell?” Tears ran down Jordan’s cheeks.
“Maybe not. Maybe we can keep each other’s secrets.”
Jordan sniffed. “What’s your secret?”
“I’ve entered you and your sister into the Little Miss Denver pageant.”
“I hate pageants!”
“You’ll get to get dressed up all pretty and you can win prizes.”
“I don’t like getting dressed up.”
“I know, but just this once I thought you could do it for me and see if you like it. It’s good for you to do something girly.” Erin could see that her daughter wasn’t convinced. “And in return I won’t tell Daddy that you’re suspended.”
“What if Avvy tells?”
“She won’t because she wants to be in the pageant and if Daddy finds out he won’t let either of you do it.”
Jordan sighed. “Okay,” she said sadly.
What had she been thinking? As if things weren’t strained enough with the girls fighting and the bills piling up. She had to add another credit card and lying into the mix.
The days leading up to the pageant had been hard. She’d had to run around and pick up the girls outfits, keep them hidden and make sure the girls didn’t forget and let anything slip out. The only saving grace was that Zach had a weekend field trip organized with kids from a low socio-economic background. He wouldn’t be around the day of the pageant.