Butter (12 page)

“
Strike!
”

Parker flung his arms in the air and waved them in a snakelike motion that rippled down his body. It was the same victory dance I'd seen him do for a spare, a split, a single pin, and even a gutter ball. I guess he was just celebrating the bowling ball reaching the other end of the lane.

I joined the crowd laughing at Parker's antics. So far, bowling hadn't been half as bad as I feared. Trent had been right. It was a lot more drinking and joking than actual bowling. Plus, Jeremy was playing six whole lanes away and Anna just one. Every time she got up to bowl was a perfect excuse to stare openly at her. She was wearing a short skirt and tight tank top—thank God for Arizona's warm winters—and she bowled by bending over and rolling the ball between her legs. Why, oh
why had no one ever told me bowling was such an incredible sport?

“Butter, you're up!”

I got to my feet and tried not to show my displeasure. I wasn't really enjoying the
bowling
part of bowling.

“Show us how it's done, big guy!” Trent called. Technically, he was bowling on our lane, but he'd spent most of the night next door in the girls' section, with one hand wrapped around a beer and the other wrapped around Jeanie's thigh. His voice had an authority to it that made people stop and listen, and that's how all eyes came to land on me when I stepped up to the lane.

I pinched the bowling ball with sweaty fingers and prayed it wouldn't slip. I could feel my arm shaking with nerves as I swung it behind my body, and even if no one saw the wobble in my arm, they surely noticed the crooked landing of the ball as it smacked onto the lane and curved right into the gutter.

“Ouch! Gutter ball,” Trent said.

“No, not a gutter ball,” Jeremy spoke up. He had sauntered over to watch the show and was now leaning on the ball-return machine in the girls' lane. He raised his voice. “A
Butter
ball.”

Parker whooped. “Yeah! A
Butter
ball!”

Even Trent joined in, bellowing in his best boxing-ringannouncer voice, “Butteeeer baaallll!”

They were all laughing. I could feel sweat dripping down my back under my T-shirt and blood creeping into my cheeks. Jeremy howled louder than the rest, and even Anna was giggling with the other girls.

Trent stood up and pumped his fist in the air, starting a group chant. “Butter ball! Butter ball!”

The others joined in, filling the entire bowling alley with the sound. I thought I might melt right into the lacquered floor when something strange happened. Fist still pumping, Trent backed away from the group and slung an arm around my shoulder, pulling me forward to face everyone. He was grinning from ear to ear. That's when I realized they weren't mocking me; they were cheering me on. That was the power of Trent's approval.

Somehow, the “Butter ball” chant dissolved into a raucous rendition of our school fight song, and attention drifted to Parker and a few other boys who were standing on the bowling alley's plastic seats, shouting profanities that were
not
strictly part of the chorus.

Only Jeremy was still focused on me and Trent. He stepped toward us and leaned in. “That's
not
what I meant—”

“We know what you meant,” Trent cut him off. “Why don't you go back to your lane? I think you're up.”

Jeremy skulked off, and Trent called after him, “Don't throw a Butter ball!”

I tried to thank Trent, but he waved me off before I could say a word. “What are you still standing here for? Play your second frame!”

“Yeah, Butter, c'mon!” Parker hollered. “You're holding up the game!”

I was too dazed to be nervous this time and knocked down every pin.

“
Spare
!” Parker shouted.

Feeling cocky and this time enjoying the attention, I pushed my hair back like a greaser and pretended to pop a shirt collar. Then I crossed my legs and did a little Michael Jackson spin that someone my size shouldn't have been able to do. My audience approved, judging by the cheers.

On the way back to my seat, I passed Anna, who was heading up to take her turn.

“Nice moves.”

She said it with this little half-grin that made me trip over my own foot and stumble forward.

She laughed. “I'd work on that one, though.”

I laughed too and collapsed into the plastic bucket seats. I didn't even care that I was taking up
two
of those seats … because Anna had just smiled at me.

And it wasn't the last smile from Anna that night.

She had opened the door with her teasing about my dance moves. It gave me the confidence to needle her right back about her girly two-handed bowling.

“And you
still
got a gutter ball!”

“You mean a
Butter
ball?” She laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, hilarious.” I rolled my eyes.

“I'm Anna.”

“I know.”
Awesome, you stalking loser. Why don't you just tell her you know where she lives too?
“I'm—”

“Butter,” she said. “I know too.”

We smiled.

I spun my eyes around, looking for something to talk about.
They fell on Trent and Jeanie, now fully sucking face in the girls' lane.

“So, Trent and Jeanie are a couple?” I asked.

Anna looked over her shoulder at the make-out session. “Not exactly. But they don't couple up with anyone else.” She shrugged. “It's complicated.”

“Gotcha.” I drummed my fingers on my leg, searching for a new topic. I'd thought Trent and Jeanie gossip would go further.

“I could never do that,” Anna said, turning away from the kissing scene and plopping into a seat next to me.

“Do what?”

“Casual dating. How could you ever trust the other person, knowing they could go out with someone else at any time?”

“I agree. It's too—”

“And it's not safe.” She cut me off. “What if someone—
ick—
catches something and gives it to you?”

“Does one of them have a—”

“I mean, not like they're sleeping around, but I'm just saying. We're not too young to start taking relationships seriously.”

I held my breath, waiting to see if she was really done talking. She widened her blue eyes at me like it was my turn.

“Um, yeah. I see what you mean.”

She nodded. This was a satisfactory answer.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked me suddenly.

I stuttered, “Well, Parker and Trent, I—I was invited.”

“Oh, I know!” She smiled. “I just meant you don't normally hang out with us.”

“Yeah. I think Parker and Trent are just curious about the website.” I looked down at my hands. “You know about the website?”

Anna tugged at a chunk of her long blond hair and studied the floor. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, that's—that's kind of how I got to know Parker and Trent. I've been sitting with them at lunch … and Parker's been grilling me about what's on the menu.”

“Boys are demented,” she said, her face still on the floor.

“Yes we are.” I laughed to put her at ease, and she finally looked up.

It felt strangely comfortable talking to Anna, like we were just picking up where we left off online the night before—only she didn't know it.

“Anyway, it was nice to be invited tonight, to get out of my house and away from my parents.”

“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. My mom is in my face all the time. I can't even stand to be home anymore, because she's just everywhere, y'know?”

Of course, I
did
know, because Anna had told me this many times before.

“Yeah, I know.”

Anna leaned in and whispered, “I've started calling my mom ‘Mother.' She absolutely hates it, but what's she going to say? It's not like I'm calling her something disrespectful. So she doesn't stop me, but she starts chewing her lips and getting all flustered when I say it. It's awesome.”

Again, something Anna had already told me, but seeing the animation in her face as she talked and the dramatic way she
used her hands to emphasize a point made me feel like she was telling me the story for the first time. I must have looked like a maniac, but I couldn't stop grinning at her. I was mesmerized by the way each one of her features moved when she spoke. I'd never met anyone who talked with such intensity that her face was physically transformed by every word. I was so fascinated by that face I never once looked down at her boobs.

“Butter!”

Damn, I'm up again already?

I tore my eyes away from Anna to look at Trent. “My turn?”

“Nah, beer run.” He wagged an empty bottle at me. “It's your round.”

“Me too,” Parker said. He chugged the last of his beer and set it down with a smack on the score panel.

I rolled my eyes at Anna. “Guess I'm buying. You need another?”

“Oh, I'm not drinking. Thanks, though.”

I smiled. What a good girl.

I stood up and tilted my own bottle to my lips, bent on finishing my booze.

“Beer has sooo many calories,” Anna blabbed on. I froze with the bottle perpendicular to my face. “I mean, alcohol in general. But especially the stuff they serve here.”

Was she seriously preaching calories to the cow? I looked down with one raised eyebrow but saw she was no longer talking to me. She was babbling at a girl on her left—or to anyone who would listen, really. It occurred to me this was probably the way she always talked, but the Internet stemmed the flow.

“Butter.” Parker poked my back. “The beer.”

I downed my bottle and made my way to the bar. Trent had been right about the bartender too. She wasn't carding. She popped the tops and slid a triangle-shaped tray full of beer across the bar. It made the bottles look like bowling pins. I slid her cash in exchange and tried not to make eye contact.

I was focusing so hard on not spilling the carefully balanced tray that I nearly slammed right into someone as I rounded the corner of the bar.

“Butter?”

I looked up, startled by the familiar voice.

Tucker blinked at me, then at the beer. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Ahh … bowling.”

He lifted his eyes from the beer to meet mine. “And drinking? Why are you drinking?”

“Oh, it's okay! They don't card here, and no one's given us any trouble. I think someone knows someone or paid someone or—”

“No, why are you drinking
beer
? That's, like, the worst thing you can drink—just liquid calories. I mean, you might as well be carrying a tray of donuts.”

Geez! First Anna, now Tuck. I pulled a face. Whatever happened to hello?

“Well, they're not all for me, obviously,” I huffed.

How rude of Tucker to judge me, the skinny bastard, and then make me hungry for donuts on top of that. What a dick.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him. “Aren't you supposed to be in Chicago?”

“Semester doesn't start until January. We're waiting until after the holidays to move.”

“Oh.” I shifted the tray in my hands. It was getting heavier by the minute. “I didn't know you bowled. That part of your new
fitness routine
?” I let the sarcasm drip off my tongue.

“We're here with our church group. It's kind of a holiday party.” He pointed down the alley, and I could see his mom in a crowded lane, chatting with a bunch of middle-aged women. I rotated my body automatically to hide the beer in case she looked over. Not that I cared what Tucker's mom thought anyway. She was leaving and taking my friend with her to that hideous place, where he'd be brainwashed into becoming even more of a diet and fitness freak than he already was.

“Who are you here with?” Tucker asked.

I shrugged. “Just some kids from school.”

“I thought you didn't have any friends at school.”

“I didn't call them my friends, did I? I said kids from school. And if they are my friends, so what? Is that a problem, Tuck? That I make friends? I seem to recall someone telling me recently how much it sucked to not have friends all year round.”

I looked for a place to set down the heavy tray. And yeah, okay, I was also looking away from Tucker's hurt expression. But who was he to get snide with me about having friends? He was the one leaving
me
behind!

Tucker's face flushed, making his freckles disappear. He scuffed the carpet with his bowling shoes.

“Well, good for you then.”

I couldn't tell if he was being genuine or sarcastic, but I didn't like his tone either way.

“Yeah, good for me.” I hoisted the tray onto one shoulder and started to walk away. “See ya around, Tuck.”

“Not likely!” he called to my back.

I didn't turn around.

I felt bad about the thing with Tuck. I woke up Saturday morning with every intention of calling him to apologize, but when I picked up my phone, it rang before I could dial his number. It was Trent, inviting me to a Cardinals game. I tried to decline. I would've rather had my fingernails torn off than stuff my butt into one of those tiny stadium seats.

I wondered briefly if they'd someday start charging overweight football fans for two seats. First the airlines, then sports arenas and concert venues; soon there could be a double charge for anything that involves sitting. Maybe they'd call it a “supersize” ticket, or something equally fun and guilt-free sounding. It struck me that I might not be around to see that, and that was strangely comforting.

Trent assured me it was nothing but plush accommodations and cushy chairs for us, thanks to his dad's company suite. His
promise that Jeremy couldn't make it finally won me over, and I joined the guys at the game.

After the game it was billiards, then a movie, then a video game marathon and a cookout at Trent's. I was so busy, I barely had time to register Mom's uncertain smile and her eager questions about who I was hanging out with. I brushed her off with vague answers and only waved at her calls of “Have fun!” and “Be safe!” as I rushed out the door for the next party. The weekend went by in a blur, and by the time Sunday night rolled around, I'd forgotten all about Tucker.