into a warm, genuine smile, and she held out her hand. “By the way, I’m Leila.”
He wiped his hand off on his work pants and said his name as he shook her hand. Months, he thought to himself, his fingers practically buzzing at the touch of her skin. I’ll be thinking about her for months.
AFTER HE WAS done fixing Leila’s car, Hudson went to the back of the shop to change out of his work clothes while Leila settled the bill with his dad. When he came out, he saw her sitting in the front passenger seat of her idling car.
“I’m driving?” he asked as he opened the driver-side door.
“You’re the tour guide,” she said, making a sweeping gesture with her arm as if to indicate that the world beyond the windshield was vast and unexplored. “Guide me.”
She smiled at him, and he thought to himself that she was exceptionally good at smiling. He shifted the car into drive and pulled out onto the street, wondering where to take her, how to get her to smile more often. The obvious treasure was the oxbow, but it was too far away. Everything that was nearby held fond memories—the Coca-Cola museum he’d gone to on every birthday until he was twelve, the ice cream shop that invited its customers to suggest new, strange flavors and had once taken up Hudson’s request for Bacon Chocolate—but the only way to transplant memories onto places and make them feel like treasures to her was to talk. He usually didn’t have trouble talking to girls, even beautiful ones, but while he didn’t quite feel tongue-tied around her, he didn’t know how to begin. “It’s very red in here,” he said at last.
“I know. It’s pretty much why I bought it. It was love at first sight.”
“So I’m going to go out on a limb and assume red is your favorite color.”
“I like red—don’t get me wrong. But I have a deep appreciation for anything that is willing to be totally and utterly itself. If you’re going to be red, well, then, be red, goddamnit. From your steering wheel to your hubcaps, be red.”
Hudson could only nod to himself. He’d never met anyone who talked this way, the way he thought. The brakes chirped loudly as he slowed for a stop sign, and he assured Leila that they worked fine. They just liked to sing. He turned left on Maryland so that the sun wouldn’t blind him while he thought of something to show Leila. “What about you?” he asked after completing the turn. “What are you?”
“Me?” she said, feigning innocence. She kicked off her flip-flops and put her feet up on the dashboard. Hudson imagined what it would be like to be her boyfriend, which was the first time he’d ever had such a thought without immediately dismissing it. To go on long drives with her as she sang along shyly to music, to lie on the grass somewhere and confess things to each other, find ways to cuddle around movie-theater cup-holders. “I am a treasure-tourist. And my tour guide has yet to show me a single treasure. Where are we going?”
Hudson took her toward downtown. They passed a couple of motel chains off the highway, a spattering of restaurant and fast-food places, everything flat and that shade of beige that felt duller than gray. Nothing felt like enough of a treasure to show Leila.
Afraid that she’d grow bored, though, Hudson turned the car into the parking lot of the bowling alley as soon as he saw it. Through the large windowpane he could see that the place was full, fluorescent balls rolling down the eighteen lanes in varying speeds, ending in silent white explosions of pins.
“When I was a kid, I came to a slumber party here,” he said, looking out at the squat, sky-blue building. He was flooded by warm memories of the night and wished there was a way to share them with Leila, to show her just how special it had actually been. “We bowled until two in the morning and then set up our sleeping bags on the lanes. Any time I drive by here, I wonder how many other kids have had the chance to sleep in a bowling alley before.”
Hudson stared out the windshield, admiring how the bowling alley’s façade matched the cloudless sky, the tacky and faded window art that had been there since his childhood. He noticed Leila glancing around and realized he’d been quiet for a while. “C’mon, I’ll show you around.”
* * *
The place was loud with the usual sounds: balls rolling down the lanes, crashing into pins. A little boy tried to prevent a gutter ball by shrieking at it, and groups cheered a strike. The interior was painted the same baby blue as the outside. A “wall of fame” was on display by the shoe counter. The tiny snack bar practically dripped with pizza grease.
“This turns into a salsa club on Tuesday nights,” Hudson said. “The lanes make for a great dance floor.”
Leila smiled and gave him a light shove, letting him know that she wasn’t falling for it. But she looked around the room as if searching for clues that it might be true. As she swiveled her head, Hudson caught a glimpse of a scar poking out from her hairline behind her ear, just the tiniest sliver of damaged flesh. Then she turned back to him, combing a tress of hair over her ear and hiding the scar. “There’s no way that’s true.”
“Please don’t argue with your tour guide,” Hudson said, leading them to the shoe counter. Unlike other bowling alleys that invested in cubbyholes, Riverside Lanes had a much different storage system for their shoes.
“This is ridiculous,” Leila said, staring at the massive pile of shoes, more than a few of which had fallen off the counter. A group of junior high girls came by, chatting excitedly about weekend plans, each of them tossing a pair of shoes haphazardly onto the pile. It shifted, and Hudson saw Leila brace for the pile of footwear to come tumbling at them.
“No, this is awesome,” Hudson corrected. “Whenever the pile falls, an employee yells out, ‘Avalanche!’ and then everyone in the house gets a free game.”
“Wouldn’t people just knock it over, then?”
Hudson shook his head, as if no one had ever considered that before. “Where’s the fun in that?” He crossed his arms over his chest, admiring the sight of all those separated pairs of shoes, the laces sticking out everywhere, like arms seeking salvation from a pile of rubble.
Hudson glanced at Leila, trying to get a sense of whether she was enjoying herself. Then a couple in their twenties came up to the pile and began to rummage. “The tour will continue this way,” Hudson said, touching Leila briefly on the shoulder as he led her through the bowling alley. He walked backward, like an actual tour guide. “On your left you will spot the snack bar, which still advertises freshly made pretzels despite being sold out for the last twelve years. On your right in lane six you can see the local bowling legend known as The Beaver, who’s bowled three perfect games and has never smiled at anyone but fallen pins. Please, no flash photography,” Hudson cracked, pointing out a hefty man in his sixties whose gut drooped over his belt.
“Our next stop is the men’s bathroom,” Hudson said, thinking of the chalkboard over the urinals. It was always adorned with a mix of inane vulgarities, doodles, and the occasional heartfelt message, scrawled in sloppy handwriting that indicated its author was either drunk or his focus was split with another task at hand. “You can really see some lovely things there.”
There was a pause before Hudson realized what he’d just said. He turned to Leila, who raised an eyebrow at him. “That didn’t come out right. I meant that some people really show parts of themselves that usually stay hidden.” He tensed a fist closed, stopping himself. “Nope, that didn’t clear anything up. What I meant was—” Hudson said, but he was interrupted by Leila bursting into laughter.
Hudson smiled nervously. “There’s a chalkboard in there,” he started to explain, but he was too enraptured by the sound of her laughter to keep going. It emptied his thoughts, that laugh.
“Don’t worry. I assume it wasn’t what it sounded like,” she said, catching her breath.
Hudson shook his head at himself