Kasey Michaels - Bowled Over

"Uh ... yeah ... you do that," the woman said and looked at Alex, shrugged. "She was always a weird kid," she told him and then turned her back to go get their pizza.

At which time Maggie quickly but carefully pulled off the paper at the top of her straw, eased the paper down the straw a good two-thirds of the way (she'd experimented, and two-thirds of the way gave her optimum control), put the exposed end of the straw to her mouth, took careful aim ... and blew the paper sleeve directly at Mrs. McGert's broad backside.

"I've still got it. Direct hit."

"Hardly a challenge, with apologies to Mrs. McGert's massive posterior. I thought I heard you say you were going to forgive your past and move on."

"Not without a parting shot, I wasn't," Maggie said, prudently losing her smile as Mrs. McGert slid paper plates in front of them. "You know, crazy as this is, what with Dad still not out of the woods, I'm really enjoying myself. Maybe I ought to come home more often? Nah, that'd be pushing it, huh?"

"As you seem to revert to near childhood on such occasions—and keeping in mind your own admission that you were not an easy child—yes, I would concur. Ah, and here comes my friend of the other day, Mr. Joseph Panelli, and look who is with him, sweetings—the footballing hero himself."

Maggie turned on her stool, her mouth still filled with the pizza she'd yet to bite through entirely. "Barry Butts," she said around the slice, and then bit down hard, the hot tomato sauce quickly burning the roof of her mouth. "Ow-ow-ow," she said, holding her mouth open as she swiveled toward the counter once more. "Coke. Ah need Coke," she said, grabbing her glass and sucking hard on the straw.

"Congratulations, sweetings. I do believe you've caught Mr. Panelli's attention." Alex stood up, extending his hand to the captain of the Majesties. "Joe, m'man, good to see you again!"

"M'man?" Maggie muttered. "Cripes, I have to get the man out of Jersey. Fast."

She turned around again in time to see Alex and a redheaded man about her dad's age shaking hands while Barry Butts looked on from a few feet away.

"Maggie? Maggie Kelly?" Barry said in that aw-shucks voice she remembered from high school. At the time, she'd thought he was the modest sports hero. Now she thought he was as fake as a three-dollar bill. "Lisa told me you'd been by to see her. And your friend, too, right?"

Ah. There may have been a little bit of an edge to his last statement, Maggie thought as she wiped her hands on a paper napkin and then shook hands with the one-time captain of the football team. The man had a grip like an iron vise. "Yeah, we did. God, it was good to see her. Sorry we missed you, but Lisa said you were at work?"

"Right. Not a lot of call for bikes in the wintertime, but I have to do repairs, stuff like that. You remember my dad's bike rental shop? Bikes, trikes, two– and four-seater surreys? Put your butt in a Butts? We do Rollerblades and skateboards now, too, and body boards. But the bikes are still the Number One rental."

"Do I remember? Like anyone could ever forget that fantastic slogan, huh? Still down at the north end of the Boardwalk, right, in the older part of town?" Maggie said, her cheeks starting to hurt because she had to fight to keep the smile on her face. After all, if Alex was right, Barry Butts had recently killed a man. And framed her father for the murder. And might want to kill her father. And was a bastard to her good friend, Lisa.

Well, she could think of Lisa as her good friend if she wanted to, damn it!

"Yeah, still in the same spot. Forty-two years now. Mom's been gone a long while, and Dad died a couple of years back, and it's mine now. The business, the house. I thought about moving away, years ago, after high school. But you know the saying—I'd rather be the big fish in a small pond, heh-heh. I have it good here."

In the back of her mind, Maggie was humming that Bruce Springsteen song, Glory Days. Barry and Lisa could have done walk-ons in the video ...

"You and Lisa have it good," Maggie corrected smoothly, pulling herself back to attention. "Your mom? Gosh, I remember your dad, but I don't think I remember your mom."

"Like I said, she left a long time ago," Barry said, a tic beginning to work in his cheek.

Maggie took the words, and the tic, as evidence that she and Alex were on the right track. Barry's mom had run off, so Barry was extra-possessive of Lisa, making sure she didn't do to him what his mother had done to him. Wow. Maggie's parents may have screwed her up some, but Barry had her in that department, hands down.

But he was still a murderer, and would get no sympathy from her.

"Why don't you sit down a while, Barry," she said, patting the stool beside her invitingly just as Mr. Panelli sat down on the stool on the other side of Alex, the two of them still deep in conversation. "You're getting ready for the big New Year's tournament?"

"Yeah. It's going to be a tough one. You know, what with half the team only coming on board this week. Frankie Kelso's a good guy, but I don't know that he can plug the two-hole. I'll be ... well, I'll be bowling in the four-hole, taking your dad's place."

"It's the most important slot, isn't it?" Maggie asked, only an effort of will keeping her from batting her eyelashes at the man. But she couldn't play that dumb, not when she'd been listening to bowling stories for nearly half her life.

"It can be, if we go down to the wire. If the match is out of reach, then it means nothing, and everybody's already walked away to watch another match. But, to my mind, the two-hole is the big one, if you want to pull away, pull away fast, you know? Lead-off strong, follow in the two-hole strong, and you're already halfway there, you know? But like I said, Frankie's number two."

"Even so, the four, um, hole, is a big responsibility. But, then, maybe not for the captain of the football team the year we went to states, huh?"

"The year we won states," Barry said, grabbing Maggie's second slice of pizza and shoving half of it into his mouth. "I'm used to pressure. I do my best, under pressure. You should have tried me out, Maggie, back in high school."

"You didn't know who I was, back in high school," Maggie said, this time losing her smile. But she recovered quickly. "You and Lisa and the others—you were the in-crowd. I was the ... I don't know what I was. Maybe the square peg in the round hole?"

Barry leaned closer to her, to whisper his next words in her ear. "That's the round peg in the round hole, Maggie. You don't know what you missed."

Then, before Maggie could say anything—or slap his stupid, grinning face—Barry got to his feet, smoothed down his shirt, and told Joe Panelli he'd meet him back at the lane. "Gotta hit the head first."

"I'd like to hit the head— his head—with something really, really hard," Maggie said, swiveling to grab onto Alex's arm.

Joe Panelli leaned forward and turned his head to look at her. "Like they say your daddy did?"

Suddenly Maggie couldn't wait to get out of the bowling alley, out of Ocean City, out of the past that hadn't changed all that much in the present.

"They dropped the charges against my dad, Mr. Panelli. Didn't Mrs. McGert tell you when she was making her general announcement?"

"I know, I was just joking. Tell your dad to come by later on tonight if he can, okay? I owe him an apology. A big one."

Maggie softened, nodded. "I'll do that, Mr. Panelli. I know my dad would appreciate it. The past few days haven't been easy."

"Tell me about it. No, it hasn't been easy, not for any of us," Joe Panelli said, and Maggie saw his gaze shift to his left, as if he could see Barry Butts walking away from him. "And it's not going to get any easier when I have to tell Barry he's off the team. If your dad wants to come back, that is. But don't say anything, okay? I want to ask him myself, when I apologize."