The rented shoes were warm.
Mara held them by two fingers and looked at Iris, who was tying her own beside the counter.
“They clean them,” Iris said.
“They've still got someone's weather in them.”
“Put socks on.”
“I've got socks on.”
“Then you've done everything you can.”
Nell came over carrying a ball against her stomach. It was pink, with white swirls through it like something Mara wouldn't have put in her mouth even if somebody said it was candy. Behind her, Ben was talking to a man Mara recognized only after Iris introduced him as Luis.
“From the night you brought food,” she said.
“Oh.”
“My place. Not this place,” Luis told Mara, seeing her look around.
She smiled and pulled on the shoes. One lace was longer than the other by so much that she thought someone must have done it deliberately. She undid the whole thing, threaded it through again and found Iris watching her.
“What?”
“We could be here a while.”
“I want my foot to stay in.”
“That's fair.”
The building smelled of hot oil, rubber and a sweet cleaning spray Mara recognized without wanting to. Children were playing on two lanes at the other end, shouting with the force of people who didn't have to hear themselves tomorrow. A woman on a stool watched them over the rim of a paper cup. She had put both hands around it, holding her elbows against her body.
Mara followed the others to their lane. Iris entered their names on a screen while Ben went for drinks. Nell took off her jacket, revealing a shirt with a little hole near the neck. The skin around it was white from where the fabric had rubbed. Mara almost offered to mend it, then saw Nell put a finger through the hole and stretch it wider.
“Comfort,” she said when Mara caught her looking.
“It'll be very comfortable soon.”
Nell grinned and handed her the pink ball. Mara nearly dropped it. It was much heavier than it looked.
“Not that one,” Iris said. “Come here.”
They went to the racks together. Mara picked up a blue ball, tried the holes and couldn't get her thumb out. She put it back before Iris could see. The next one fitted, but she didn't like the color. She could hear Bev telling her she had lost her mind and chose it anyway.
Luis went first. His ball traveled in a straight line toward the pins, changed its mind near the end and knocked down almost all of them. He made a small irritated sound. Nell told him that was why nobody liked playing with him, then rolled hers into the side channel before it reached halfway.
“Except for you,” he said.
She bowed.
Mara was fourth. She had watched three people do it. The method looked sufficiently simple that she was offended by the existence of special shoes.
She put her fingers into the ball, took three steps and tried to let it go. Her thumb held on for a fraction too long. The ball hit the floor with a noise that made everyone behind her stop talking, rolled a few feet and turned sharply toward the side.
Mara stayed where she was. The ball traveled the remaining distance in the channel with tremendous dignity, touching nothing.
Iris put her head down on the table.
“Don't,” Mara said.
“I'm not doing anything.”
“I can see your shoulders.”
Ben returned carrying the drinks, looked at the screen and asked whether she'd had a go yet. Iris made a sound into her folded arms. Mara went to get the ball again.
The second time she let go before her fingers could reconsider. It went straighter, hit two pins and took a third on the way down. Behind her, Nell clapped once, loudly enough for Mara to feel it between her shoulder blades.
She turned and bowed. Iris was laughing openly now.
“There you are,” Mara said.
“Never doubted you.”
“Liar.”
They played on. Mara learned the ball was supposed to feel as if it might fall out of her hand, which did nothing to improve her trust in it. Ben explained something about the marks on the floor, but when she watched his next turn he appeared to ignore everything he'd said. He knocked down one pin and stood staring at it.
“Were you looking at the arrow?” she asked when he came back.
He sat down. “I was looking at the future. It wasn't that.”
They laughed. Nell moved a chair so Mara could see the lane without turning her head. Mara sat with her knees gratefully straight while she waited for the next humiliation.
Halfway through, Iris bought fries and onion rings. Mara reached for her bag. Iris was already paying, using the little machine with a thumb that moved too quickly for Mara to follow.
“I've got it,” she said.
Mara put her bag down and took the food from the counter. Luis took an onion ring so hot he had to hold it between his teeth until it was safe to decide what to do with it. Mara passed him a napkin and watched him fail to thank her without dropping the ring.
At the next table a child scored a strike and ran the length of the seating area with both arms out. His mother raised her cup to him. He came back for a high five, getting it on the second attempt because she hadn't put the cup down.
Iris stood behind Mara for her next turn.
“Smaller steps,” she said.
“I've got small feet.”
“Use them less.”
Mara tried. The ball rolled, stayed out of the channels and struck the pins in the middle. Nine went down. One remained at the far right, perfectly upright, so distant from the others that she felt it had been placed there to insult her.
“Get that one,” she told Iris.
“It's still your turn.”
“I didn't ask about the rules.”
She got the ball back and tried again. This time it passed on the other side, giving the single pin plenty of room. Everyone cheered anyway. Mara sat down feeling absurdly pleased, then looked at the screen and discovered she was still last.
“How can that be right?”
Luis leaned across. “You've got a lot of zeros.”
She pulled the food toward her. “Get your own.”
Iris laughed and took one of the onion rings from the end nearest her mother. Her hand was warm when it brushed Mara's. She smelled of the soap in her own bathroom, not the shampoo Mara had kept buying after she'd moved out.
When the game ended they bought another because Nell had begun to improve and refused to go home with the evidence incomplete. Ben had to be at the bakery early, but not that early. Luis said he could stay if they promised no more food; he had only come for a game and was now going to have to eat something green to forgive himself.
Mara changed the shoes for a larger pair. The man at the counter handed them over without asking why. She liked him for not needing an account of her feet. When she came back Iris had moved their drinks off the table where somebody had spilled a little water, then sat with one foot tucked beneath her.
“I've got a thing to ask,” she said.
Mara stopped so abruptly that Iris began laughing.
“Not big. When you know what's happening with the money. Not now.”
Mara sat beside her. “What?”
“A bike. A good one. I know which one, but I need to try the size. I thought that could be a thing.”
Mara looked toward Nell, who was choosing another ball. A large bruise showed above her ankle where her jeans had lifted.
“To go out with her?”
“And by myself. I miss it.”
“Your old one—”
“Is old. And I've repaired it until it mostly belongs to other bicycles.”
Mara smiled. She had bought that bike with Daniel, the summer before Iris started high school. Daniel had talked the man down by an amount so small they'd spent it all on the way home celebrating his success. Iris had ridden it through the parking lot behind Mara's building until it was too dark to see the painted lines.
“Send it to me,” she said.
“I'll show you. We can go and look when you're ready.”
“I'd like that.”
Iris leaned her shoulder against hers, then got up because her name was flashing on the screen. Mara watched her bowl. She took her time, looking down the lane before starting, then missed in a way so familiar that Mara began to laugh before the ball reached its unfortunate end.
Iris turned around. “You brought that.”
“I've got witnesses.”
Nell held up both hands, refusing to help either of them. Mara rose for her own turn, took the ball and let it go without giving herself time to arrange all the things she'd been told. It hit six pins. She stood watching the others settle, disappointed, and realized she'd begun expecting them all to fall.
The second roll took three more. She came back with her hands up, inviting the applause she felt they had not supplied quickly enough. Iris caught one hand and slapped it, laughing.
Afterward, while the others argued about whose score should have improved more, Mara told her about Saturday.
“At the hotel. Six. Food at six thirty. You can bring Nell.”
“The goodbye thing?”
Mara nodded. “I'd like you there.”
“I'll come.”
The answer was so uncomplicated that Mara had to wait a second before asking whether she should put Nell down too. Iris turned, called the question across the table and got a yes in reply. She turned back.
“Two.”
“Your uncle's coming. Leo too, probably.”
Iris nodded. “Good.”
She didn't ask about Elena. Mara opened her mouth, then found she had nothing to tell her yet. Iris had pulled the scarf from beneath Mara's bag before it could fall on the floor again. She laid it on her lap and asked if Mara wanted to stay for the rest of the game.
Mara picked up a cold fry and ate it, looking toward the screen. “I'm going to catch you.”
Iris checked the scores, then looked at her mother with such delighted disbelief that Mara got up to take her turn before anybody could tell her how unlikely it was.