Depth by Rosen Lev AC

Author:Rosen, Lev AC
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regan Arts.
Published: 2015-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

* * *

DRIFTER’S ALLEY OPERATED OUT of an old building so far downtown that Simone was pretty sure it had been in Brooklyn, back when there were boroughs. It used to be a product-testing facility and still looked like it; the hallways branched off into small rooms that had once been used for focus groups and now contained private lanes. The lobby was small and worn looking, with walls painted a rough black and a vinyl floor. Besides the desk, the only decoration was a neon sign of a bowling ball knocking down pins, the pins returning upright, and then the ball knocking them down again, over and over. The man behind the desk was tall, scruffy, and tired. He looked up at Simone with undisguised boredom. Simone hesitated. She could walk out, come up with an excuse to cancel. She didn’t want to see Caroline, didn’t want to have to smile to her face while wondering if Caroline was faking her smile, too. But how could she ask if her friend was mixed up in this trouble without making it sound like an accusation?

“I have a lane reservation under the name Pierce,” she said. He looked down at the tablet in his hand, typed in the name Pierce, and nodded.

“Lane twenty-six. Gloves are in the room. You need me to show you how to use it?” He asked this in a way that made it clear he hoped she would say no.

“We’ll be able to figure it out,” she said. He handed her a keycard and looked back at the tablet, done with her.

“My friends will show up soon,” she said. The man didn’t look up, and Simone glanced down the hallway. It was poorly lit and marked with bright yellow signs showing lane numbers. The doors themselves were blank, except for the occasional no-smoking sign. From behind the doors, she could hear the sounds of pins striking and people cheering. Lane twenty-six was a small, windowless black room with a pile of gloves on a shelf next to the door. Simone flipped a switch, thinking it was the lights, and there was a sudden humming as the room changed. One wall zoomed backwards into a long lane, pins all set up, and another wall became an empty scoreboard. A panel next to the switch glowed, asking her to choose from a variety of lane options. She scrolled through them, from “Arctic,” where the pins were penguins that shuffled around and the room became chilly and windy, to “Blackout,” where the room was totally dark and the pins just neon outlines. She settled on “Classic,” which was clean nostalgia with red-and-white pins and Elvis playing from a jukebox that materialized on the far wall.

She was looking for a mute button when Danny came in. He smiled at her, his eyes not quite focused, his head cocked to one side. She waited a few seconds more for his hello.

“Hello to you, too,” Simone said. “This lane okay for you?”

Danny shrugged. “Old, but cute.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.