The streetlight abandons them, throwing the car into darkness. Sonny sighs. “Come on, Lorc.”
“What does that mean? I’m asking.”
“I don’t know why Louisa has trouble talking to you,” Sonny says. “You’re such a goddamned peach.”
The car clamors over a pothole and part of the ceiling fabric comes undone, making a veil over Lorca’s head.
“You got a fix for this?” he says.
Sonny reaches over Lorca and punches the glove compartment open to reveal a staple gun.
“You’re a world-class musician,” Lorca says. “And your car is held together by string.” He shoots staples into the ceiling.
“Do it nice,” Sonny says. “Make a line.”
The Courtland Avenue Club shimmers like a false sunset off the highway. They still have a snake girl. She is featured prominently on a banner that hangs over the entrance. Lorca hasn’t been inside in five years. Other than a new coat of paint, not much has changed.
In one of the lanes a group of Main Line girls prepares to bowl, trying out shoes and form-perfect throws. One of them, a rotund, displeased-looking girl, wears a crown with tulle bursting out of it.
“In and out,” Lorca says. “Find Max and let’s go.”
Sonny nods. “You got it.”
The door to the strip club is behind the bar. Sonny exchanges words with the bouncer. He tells a joke that only he laughs at, but the bouncer lets him in. Lorca orders a whiskey at the bowling alley’s bar. Five years earlier he had stopped in on the way home from scouting a saxophonist in Jersey. Then, it had been Louisa getting his drink and not this girl in the new uniform: a bikini top and shorts.
Lorca swivels to watch the action in the lanes. The place has gained a following among bachelorette parties and hipsters. The yawking group of girls is still testing out grips and throws. One screams, are they ready? The others raise their arms and cheer. They nominate one girl to go to the bar for drinks. She waits for the bartender next to Lorca, so close he can hear her nails tap on the bar. “Are we making complete fools out of ourselves or what?”
“You girls are just right,” he says.
She points to the sour-faced girl. “That one is getting married so we drove down from the suburbs.”
He raises his glass. “Here’s to her.”
The girl orders, unfolds several bills from a change purse. Lorca throws a bill to the bartender. The girl attempts to hand it back.
“Please,” he says. “Tell your friend I’m happy for her.” Even he thinks he sounds desperate.
“I will.” She delivers the drinks and comes back. “My friend says thank you.”
“Tell her my pleasure.”
She takes the stool next to him, mouth knotted in worry. “I’ve never been to this neighborhood before,” she says. Girls were always saying things like this. Like bookmarks, to hold their place until they think of something real to say.
Lorca says, “Where do you live?”
“Princeton. Yardley, actually, but no one’s ever heard of Yardley. You ever hear of Yardley?”
“No.” He signals the bartender that he wants another, bigger whiskey.
“See?” She fiddles with her scarf and recrosses her legs, revealing the top of one thigh.
The bartender brings his whiskey. He asks the girl what she would like.
This time, she doesn’t refuse. “A vodka cranberry.”
“Barbara,” one of her friends calls. “It’s your turn!”
“I’ll come back,” Barbara says.
There is still no sign of Sonny or Max. Lorca says, “I’ll probably be here.”
Barbara jogs back to her friends and hurls the ball down the lane. It brings down a few pins. As she waits for her ball to return, one of her friends collects her into a huddle. They giggle, and separate. She throws the ball again with a sound of effort. It brings down the rest of the pins. Her group cheers. In the middle of their hugs she leaps and twirls.
She marks her score and returns to Lorca, hitting a pose. “Was that something or what?”
“That was something.”
“My friends are getting jealous.” Her breath is sweet with cranberry. “I have to stay with them, or people will say we’re in love.” She’s young, and thinks she has to say pretty things to seem interesting.
“You go with your friends,” he says.
“I wish I could stay and talk to you. I sounded ungrateful before. I don’t like to feel indebted.” At the crux of her collarbone, perspiration grows. She loosens her scarf.
“You were perfect,” Lorca says. “Really.”
The bartender yells, “Night bowling!” and the lanes are plunged into black light, revealing iridescent cartoon rabbits high-fiving on the walls. Everything white Barbara wears is glowing. Lorca wears all black. He checks his watch. Val will be into her second set already. They need to get back to the club.
He enters the back room and the door behind him closes, sealing out the noise of the lanes. Topless women wag themselves around a sparkling dance floor. A girl undulates over an elated coed, her expression fuzzed out. In a corner booth, a dancer works on Sonny, his hands clamped on her ass. A pop song belches out of the speakers. Lorca doesn’t see Max.
“Where is he?” Lorca mouths.
Sonny points to a farther booth and signals that everything is okay.
Hurry up, Lorca mouths, and leaves. In the bathroom behind the lanes, he pats water onto his forehead. In the hall he collides with Barbara. “Goody,” she says. She clasps his wrist and leads him into the ladies’ room, where everything is the color of salmon.
She presses her mouth into his neck, feeling for his arms and hair.
“This is much nicer than the men’s room,” he says. She slides her hands underneath the waistband of his jeans. “Whoa,” he says, as if he is bringing a horse to a halt.
She tilts her head. “You don’t want to?”
“Do I want to?” he says.
He tries to undo her shirt, but the buttons are too small. She does it for him. She hitches up her skirt and spins so he can see her ass. He unclasps her bra. The bathroom’s lamp casts dirty blond light onto her bare skin. She wrenches his belt off, his pants down. She holds the top of the stall with delicate hands and he pushes into her.
A nagging sound from the fluorescent bulbs and the hard thrum of the club’s music.
“How are you soft everywhere?” he says.
“I know a guy.” She wants him to move into her hard. Her lips fill with blood. “Wait,” she says.
They are pressed against the stall but sliding toward the ground. Something inside him waits, but something else continues. It gathers and advances.
“Good things come to those who wait,” she says, in the pretty way that suddenly seems cruel. His shoulders tremble with effort. Then the quaking recedes and becomes one limitless thing. His thoughts jump off a cliff.
She says, “Go.”
It’s too late. He is slack.
“No,” she says. “Really?”
He tries to force his body to cooperate. He reminds himself of her neck, her nipples. It’s no use. They stay together for another moment, making a wishbone on the hard floor. Then she breaks away and he slumps in the corner near the toilet.
“It’s no biggie,” she says, before he has time to apologize. She pulls up her underwear and skirt and reapplies lipstick in the mirror.
“Where do you live again?” he says.
“A town near Princeton.”
“Lucky town near Princeton.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is filed down, bored. Shame heats him. Someone pounds on the door. Lorca and the girl fix themselves.
Sonny stands in the catastrophe of the hallway. “We need to get Max out of here now.”
10:05 P.M