It didn’t take too long to realize that I had no natural aptitude for bowling. One foul and three gutter balls later, it was probably difficult for everyone to mask their disappointment in my play.
“You kinda suck, Trist.”
That is, everyone except Jacob. Though his comment was harsh, his aloofness made it difficult for me to take it personally.
I laughed nervously. “Yeah, guess I’m just not used to it yet.”
“Zoey, teach him properly. He’s a guy, let him bowl with one hand.”
“He’ll get it soon. Don’t worry,” Zoey said.
For whatever reason, whether it was because the bowling ball was too heavy or because she simply preferred this style, Zoey bowled by using both hands to lunge the ball down the lane. I wasn’t particularly familiar with bowling, but from what I did know of it, I had only ever seen people use one arm to roll the ball down. I couldn’t fault her for her style though. Despite my terrible play so far, Zoey had already managed to land three strikes in a row, so our team was still crushing it versus their scores.
“Get a strike, Tristan!” Laura cheered with a neutral expression from the seating area.
“Hey, he’s not on our team, don’t cheer so hard.”
“I can’t help it. I love an underdog story.”
“Underdog? Zoey scored a whole turkey in her first three frames. That’s 60 points right off the bat. Three more of that and she’s at 150.”
Laura tilted her head. “You know, I never got how points were tallied in bowling. How does 60 points twice add up to 150?”
“It’s kinda hard to explain without writing it down, but it has to do with how strikes are scored. When you get a strike, your next two scores are added to that frame’s score. So for example, you get ten points from knocking down all ten pins on your strike. If you score a 9 and a 5 in your next two frames, then your strike is worth 24 points rather than just 10. When you add that to the actual 9 and 5 that you scored in the frames themselves, your total for all three frames is 38.”
“Okay, I get it. So do the strikes like, add up forever?”
“Kinda, yeah. If you get three strikes in a row, then your first strike is worth 10, plus your other two which adds up to 30. Your second strike is worth 10 plus the third strike, which is 20, and your third strike is just 10 since you haven’t bowled your other frames yet. If she keeps bowling tens after the first three strikes, then they can add up to a maximum of 90. So, as you can imagine, if she gets three more strikes just how high the numbers can go.”
“Oh, that’s not good. If she keeps going like this then we won’t be able to catch up.”
“Now you understand the situation we’re in…” he said, then turned back to me. “Gutter out, Trist!”
“Perform moderately well, Tristan!” Laura said.
The two of them were not as supportive as I’d have liked thanks to Zoey being way too good at the game. If it weren’t for the fact that I legitimately did feel terrible about how badly I was playing, then I might have laughed them off. But I needed to focus. I didn’t want Zoey to do all of the heavy lifting for our team.
“Don’t mind them. Here, try this ball.”
She handed me a ball that was slightly heavier than the ones she’d had me use previously.
“Will this help?”
“Well, your control is shaky with the light balls that I’m using, so maybe something heavier might work for you.”
“Oh, maybe.” I felt the ball in my grasp. Certainly, I could see where she was going with it.
“Just visualize it. The score doesn’t show it, but your other rolls weren’t too bad for a beginner. You just need to believe in yourself.”
It was nice to hear that from Zoey. Having her in my corner in a moment of conflict was comforting in some way. But it didn’t rid me of my unease towards her entirely. Despite her kind words, I was still wary of what was lurking beneath the surface. But there was no point in focusing on that now. I held the new bowling ball in my hand. Sure, it was heavier, but it felt like it’d be much easier to be precise with this one. Holding onto it tightly as I kept it close to my chest, I began visualizing the straight line it would take to knock all ten pins down.
It felt like I was channeling all the energy inside of my body into the ball, yet at no point did it feel excessive. It was a calming, sensual experience to stand up at the lane and put my focus into the ball. It was so calming that the ball was already rolling towards the pins before I even realized it. The thundering hum of its resin body against the wooden lane was like a crowd doing a low chanting in anticipation for the outcome of my roll.
“Oh?” Jacob sounded surprised. It must have been a good thing, since the status quo up until then was a bunch of terrible gutter balls. And when it got to the end of the lane, I realized that it really was a good thing. The satisfying note of the ball connecting with the pins gave me a shot of dopamine that I so desperately needed. It was such a thrilling feeling that I suddenly understood why people enjoyed bowling in their free time. Knocking those pins down felt relieving.
“Six, not bad.” Zoey rubbed my head gently. It was a bit condescending of her, but I didn’t hate it. The joy from finally knocking some pins down felt like riding a wave of ecstasy.
“Woo, go Tristan!” Laura cheered.
“Hey, we’re not supposed to cheer for him.”
“You’re happy for him too, though.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t have to know that.”
It was nice of the opposing couple to cheer for me, in their own way. I was obviously pretty bad at the game, so it was nice to know that it wasn’t a big deal to anyone and that it wasn’t ruining their fun.
However, my second part of the frame went about the same as the others. A gutter ball that killed any hint of momentum that was being built up. It didn’t matter all that much though since we were pretty solidly in the lead now. Each player had played three out of ten frames at that point, and the scores looked like this:
Zoey: 60
Tristan: 6
Total: 66
Jacob: 24
Laura: 19
Total: 43
Even if you excluded my 6, we were still 17 points ahead of the opposing couple thanks to Zoey’s three strikes. I was surprised at how skilled she was. She’d never made any mention of bowling before, when did she get to practice getting to this level?
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“Okay, it’s miss perfect’s turn,” Jacob said. “Take a hint from Tristan and try to gutter out here, yeah?”
“Not on your life,” Zoey smiled, picking the ball up from the rack.
She was focusing intensely, just as I had. You’d think that she would be more casual about it since it was just a silly double date activity, but she seemed to be completely immersing herself in the act of bowling.
“Miss!”
The second she rolled the ball, Jacob called out as if to disrupt her concentration at the important moment.
“Jacob!” Laura pouted.
“Sorry, my bad.”
The ball rolled down the lane, spinning over toward the right then circling back down the middle when it got close as it always had, and then… she had her first miss. The ball had only knocked down eight of ten pins.
“Jacob, you cheated,” Laura said.
“My bad my bad,” he said, before looking over to examine the remaining pins. “Oof, that’s unlucky.”
The only two pins left standing were the seven and ten pins, the two pins in the back row that stood completely opposite from one another on the lane.
“Seven ten split,” he added.
“Is it that hard to make that shot?” I asked.
“Well it’s pretty hard. I mean, there’s no way for the ball to hit both pins, right?”
“Oh, you’re right.”
“The way you do it is you have to somehow hit one pin so that it bounces into the other. But because both pins are so close to the gutter, it’s not really possible to make the shot that way. The way people usually attempt it is by bowling the ball harder than usual so that, when it hits the pin, it smashes into the side wall then bounces over and hits the other pin.”
“But that’s…” I stopped.
“Yeah, it’s all luck. Even pros don’t usually make this split. It’s not a big deal, though. Even hitting one pin in this situation is pretty good. A nine will still add a nice chunk of points to her strikes so there’s no need to be upset.”
“Don’t worry Tristan,” she said without turning around. “I’ll get them both.”
Zoey held the ball in her hands and breathed. If the shot was so impossible that even pros never landed it, then what was the point in trying so hard? But for some reason, seeing that side of her, not the one that acted so calm and cool about everything, but the side of her that was seriously trying her best at something, made her seem more human. She hurtled the ball down the lane with both hands, aiming for the right pin. There was a lot more force in this roll than her previous ones, so she must’ve known what she was doing.
“Oh?”
The ball collided with the left side of the pin and bounced off the wall, then… missed. The pin flew off into the back rather than hurtling over to the left.
“Tch, I had it too.”
A rare display of frustration from Zoey. Who knew that she was such a competitive person?
“If you landed that then we’d probably have to forfeit right away.” Jacob leaned back. “Skill is one thing, but luck and skill together is just cheating.”
“Seems like luck isn’t something I can achieve with just hard work.” Zoey took a seat in between myself and Jacob as Laura stood up for her turn.
“You’re clearly not an amateur, Zoey. You might not have gotten the split spare, but you did everything right there. What leagues do you play in?”
“No leagues,” she smiled, looking on at Laura who was about to bowl. “My dad taught me a long time ago.”
“Really? Was he a pro or something?”
“Nope. Him and his friends were in a league though. Sometimes he’d bring me over to the alley since mom would work late nights.”
“Oh, that’s cool. So you grew up around bowling then?”
“You could say that. Oh, not bad.”
Laura had just landed the first strike out of the three of us who weren’t Zoey.
“It’s comeback season, Jake,” she said as the two of them high fived.
“Nice one babe. I’ll try to catch us up too.”
They swapped places as Laura took her seat and Jacob went up to bowl. The two switched places, and Jacob also scored an 8/2 spare.
“Hey Zoey,” Laura asked. “How come your ball always rolls to the right before it gets to the pins?”
“See, that’s another reason I think you’re league material,” Jacob said as he returned, then turned to Laura. “That’s called a hook shot. The idea is that you twist your wrist as you’re bowling to give the ball a spin. That lets it curve to hit the pins from an angle that has a higher chance of knocking all the pins down than a regular straight. It’s really hard though, takes a lot of practice.”
“It does take a lot of practice, but it’s easier if you do it two-handed,” Zoey said.
Laura and Jacob were both in awe at how talented she seemed to be. But to me, it only seemed natural. Zoey is perfect, of course she could do something as simple as bowling with no problem. But a part of me hated that superficial guise of perfection, and how she used it to manipulate people.
Knowing how rotten she was on the inside was tainting the sight of her talent and skill for me. And knowing that these two were falling for that image made me despise them too. Perhaps I must have seen my own naivety in them. But in that case, I couldn’t really blame them. I was even worse than them just a week ago.
In any case, the middle of the game was rather tense. We bowled a few more frames until we finally got to the tenth and final frame. Everyone except myself had bowled, and the scores looked like this:
Zoey: 210
Tristan: 38
Total: 248
Jacob: 137
Laura: 114
Total: 251
Despite my poor performance, the exceptional ability of Zoey meant that we were still within reach of victory. I needed to knock down four pins for us to win. If you looked at the scores, I had averaged about four pins per frame, so this should have been an easy victory. The issue is, it would only take one gutter ball to make this a difficult situation for me.
“Bomb out, Tristan!” Jacob yelled.
“Jake…” Laura pouted again.
“Oh, alright,” He smiled. “Good luck Tristan.”
I tried to ignore them as I stuck my fingers in the holes of the ball then lifted it out. There wasn’t much pressure to win in the first place. This was just a fun date activity, so it didn’t matter if I actually hit the pins or not. I just needed to do my best and have fun with it.
“Tristan.”
Zoey approached me from behind, her hands gently placed over my biceps.
“Ooh, spicy,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” I said, not turning away from the lane. “I’m gonna try my best.”
“I couldn’t care less if you tried your best. Just knock the pins down.”
“What?” Her sudden change in demeanor had thrown me for a loop. She whispered the words into my ear like they were a threat. “But I-”
“I don’t want to hear it. Listen Tristan. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s losing. I played my heart out with everything I had to get us this far. If you can’t do your part to knock down a measly four pins here, then my evaluation of you might just sink all the way down to the earth’s core. Don’t let me down.”
She let go of my arms then walked over to the seats.
“Little pep talk, huh?” Jacob said.
“Tristan’s the kind of guy who works better with some encouragement,” she responded.
Encouragement my ass. Who cares about her evaluation of me, I wondered. I could have gone off and let her know what my evaluation of her was right then and there. The problem was that I had already fully committed to this date. There was something within me that didn’t want to disappoint Laura on this outing. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was genuinely how I felt. Was it because of what I felt when I hacked her? It was the first time in years that I had felt so at peace. Did I want to understand what that feeling was? I wondered for a moment, but I could only guess that it had to do with her upbringing.
Perhaps it was God?
Was that the answer?
I’ve been seeking relief from death this entire time.
Was belief in God the thing that would save me from my woes? In a world where my angel Zoey had revealed herself to be the devil, would faith in God be my new reprieve from these tormenting thoughts of mine?
My gaze followed the visual path I had planned for the ball. Straight down the middle, into a beautiful strike. Whether it would follow that path or not was another story. The only certainty was that, at some point, it would reach the end. What scared me wasn’t the end itself, but whether or not I would be satisfied with the outcome of that journey down the lane.
I took a deep breath. Then, with a running start, moving my arms the way Zoey taught me, I rolled the ball down the lane. The rumbling that came after the thud of the ball hitting the floor was like music that sought to drown out the sound of my beating heart. I felt as if it had been a good one. I was proud of my execution.
Unfortunately for me, however, the ball veered off to the left near the end and hit the gutter.
I’m sure that, under normal circumstances, I might have been disappointed. I might have even let whatever the three people behind me were saying affect me. But my only focus in that moment was the ball I had just picked up from the rack. The residue of lane oil on the ball was like a sudden chill in my hands, a feeble attempt at pacifying the warmth of my determination. My gaze never left the ball. How would its story end? How would this frame end? How would my first bowling match end? The scene before the credits of this journey should have been tense enough to stop my breathing, but I was strangely calm.
I gave my slight running start and bowled again. This one felt even better. I was proud of myself. I had given it my best shot. No matter what the results were going to be, I was happy with what I had done given the hand I was dealt. And really, isn’t that what matters the most?
I looked on as the ball rolled down with thunderous purpose towards the goal at the end of the lane. Trucking on with every ounce of energy that it could muster. And to everyone’s surprise, the ball slammed into the pins right down the middle, knocking every single one of them down with a roar. The arm of the lane machine came down like the curtains of a final act, clearing out the stage of my intense victory. I raised my fist into the air with a smile, and stared right at Laura Young, whose eyes were sparkling with surprise at my one and only strike.