You could of heard a pin drop. Evelyn is the oldest of us, true, and her hair has mostly gone gray, but she's one of the liveliest women I know. She and Janey always used to make fun of the Seniors' League, all the little kids' games they do and how they give out a trophy every time you turn around. Used to say the Seniors' was for people who had given up, that they set the handicaps so high all you had to do to average 200 was to write your name on the scorecard.
Well, we all wanted to know her reasons and tried to talk her out of it. Since she retired from the State last year, bowling was the only time any of us got to see Evelyn and we didn't want to lose her. She's one of those women makes you feel all right about getting older, at least till this Seniors' business come up. We tried every argument we could think of but she'd made up her mind. She nodded down the alley at the AMF machine clacking the pins into place and she says, "I'm the only one here remembers when they used to be a boy behind there, setting them up by hand. You give him a tip at the end of the night, like a golf caddy. I remember when Al had all his teeth, when the hot dogs here had beef in them. I'm the only one here remembers a lot of things and it's time I quit kidding myself and act my age. You girls can get on without me."
Then she said her good-byes to each of us and walked out, tired-looking and smaller than I'd remembered her. Wasn't a dry eye in the house.
But, like they say, life must go on. We evened the sides up by having either me or Blanche sit out every other game and keep score. While we were putting on our shoes we tried to figure out who we could get to replace Evelyn and even up the teams again. June Hundley's name was mentioned, and Edie McIntyre and Lorraine DeFillippo. Of course Bobbi had some objection to each of them, but that's just how she is so we didn't listen. Janey didn't say a word all the while, she seemed real depressed.
Janey and Evelyn were really tight. In one way it's hard to figure since there's so much age difference between them, but then again it makes sense. They've both had a real hard row to hoe, Evelyn's husband dying and Janey's running off. And they both had a child with mental problems. Evelyn had her Buddy, who was Mongoloid and lived till he was twentyseven. She kept him at home the whole while, even when he got big and hard to manage, and loved him like she would a normal child. Never gave up on him. To his dying day Evelyn was trying to teach Buddy to read, used to sit with him for hours with travel brochures. Buddy liked all the color pictures.
And Janey always puts me in mind of that poor Terry on General Hospital, or any of the nice ones on the daytime stories who are always going blind or having their men stolen or losing their memories. Just one thing after another — as if having Scooter wasn't enough trouble in one lifetime. Janey has to bring Scooter on Thursdays cause there isn't a babysitter who could handle him. Al allows it cause like I said, he's sweet on her. There's no keeping Scooter still, he's ten years old, real stocky and wild-eyed, like a little animal out of control. At the Home they'd keep him full of Valium and he'd be in a fog all day, but Janey won't let the school use drugs on him. Says he's at least entitled to his own sensations, and from what I seen from my patients I agree with her. Scooter is all over the lanes, dancing down the gutters, picking the balls up, drawing on score sheets, playing all the pinball and safari-shoot games in the back even when there's no coin in them. Scooter moves faster than those flippers and bumpers ever could, even pinball must seem like a slow game to him. The only thing he does that Al won't stand for is when he goes to the popcorn machine and laps his tongue on the chute where it comes out. He likes the salt and doesn't understand how he might be putting people off their appetite.
Anyhow, you could just look at Janey and tell she was feeling low. She's usually got a lot of color in her cheeks, it glows when she smiles and sets off nice against her hair. Natural blond, not bottled like Bobbi's is. Well, after Evelyn left she was all pale, no color to her at all, and when we started bowling she didn't have the little bounce in her approach like she usually does. One of the things that's fun is watching the different styles the girls bowl. Like I said, Janey usually comes up to the line really bouncy, up on her toes, and lays the ball down so smooth it's almost silent. You're surprised when you hear the pins crash. Rose and Vi both muscle it down the alley, they're as hard on the boards as they are on the pins, and when they miss a spare clean the ball cracks against the back wall so hard it makes you wince. But when they're in the pocket you should see those pins fly, like an explosion. Bobbi uses that heavy ball and can let it go a lot slower — she always freezes in a picture pose on her followthrough, her arm pointing at the headpin, her back leg up in the air, and her head cocked to the side. She looks like a bowling trophy — sometime we'll have her bronzed while she's waiting for her ball to connect. Pat plays by those little arrows on the boards behind the foul line, she doesn't even look at the pins. She's like a machine — same starting spot, same four-and-a-half steps, same little kneeling dip as she lets go, like she's genuflecting. Blanche has this awful hook to her ball, some kind of funny hitch she does with her elbow on her backswing. She has to stand way over to the right to have a shot at the pocket and sometimes when she's tired she'll lay one right in the gutter on her first ball. She gets a lot of action when she connects with that spin, though she leaves the io-pin over on the right corner a lot and it's hard for her to pick up.
I'm a lefty, so the lanes are grooved in my favor, but I don't know what I look like. The girls say I charge the line too fast and foul sometimes but I'm not really aware of it.
The other thing with Janey's style is the 7-10 split. It's the hardest to pick up, the two pins standing on opposite sides of the lane, and because Janey throws a real straight ball she sees it a lot. Most people settle for an open frame, hit one or the other of the pins solid and forget about trying to convert, but Janey always tries to pick it up. You have to shade the outside of one of the pins perfectly so it either slides directly over to take out the other or bangs off the back wall and nails it on the rebound. Even the pros don't make it very often and there's always a good chance you'll throw a gutter ball and end up missing both pins. But Janey always goes for it, even if we're in a tight game and that one sure pin could make the difference. That's just how she plays it. It drives Bobbi nuts, whenever Janey leaves a 7-io Bobbi moans and rolls her eyes.
Of course Bobbi is a little competitive with Janey, they're the closest in age and both still on the market. Bobbi is always saying in that high breathy voice of hers that's so surprising coming from such a — well, such a big woman — she's always saying, "I just can't understand why Janey doesn't have a man after her. What with all her nice qualities." Like it's some fault of Janey's — like working split shifts at a nursing home and taking care of a kid who makes motorcycle sounds and bounces off the walls all day leaves you much time to go looking for a husband.
Not that Janey doesn't try. She gets herself out to functions at the PNA and the Sons of Italy Hall and Ladies' Nite at Barney's when they let you in free to dance. The trouble is, she's got standards, Janey. Nothing unreasonable, but considering what's available in the way of unattached men, having any standards at all seems crazy. Janey won't have any truck with the married ones or the drinkers, which cuts the field in half to start with. And what's left isn't nothing to set your heart going pitter-pat. When I think of what Janey's up against it makes me appreciate my Earl and the boys, though they're no bargain most of the time. Janey's not getting any younger, of course, and any man interested in her has got to buy Scooter in the same package and that's a lot to ask. But Janey hasn't given up. "There's always an outside chance, Mae," she says. "And even if nothing works out, look at Evelyn. All that she's been through, and she hasn't let it beat her. Nope, you got to keep trying, there's always an outside chance." Like with her 7-10 splits, always trying to pick them up.