Fangirl

bowling is more pathetic than everything else you do.”
    Cath pushed away from the desk. Her left leg had fallen asleep. She shook it out. “I’ve never been bowling. What should I wear?”
    “You’ve never been bowling?” Reagan was incredulous. “Don’t people bowl in Omaha?”
    Cath shrugged. “Really old people? Maybe?”
    “Wear whatever. Wear something that doesn’t have Simon Snow on it, so that people won’t assume your brain stopped developing when you were seven.”
    Cath put on her red CARRY ON T-shirt with jeans, and redid her ponytail.
    Reagan frowned at her. “Do you have to wear your hair like that? Is it some kind of Mormon thing?”
    “I’m not Mormon.”
    “I said some kind. ” There was a knock at the door, and Reagan opened it.
    Levi was standing there, practically bouncing. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and he’d drawn on it with a Sharpie, adding a collar and buttons down the front, plus a chest pocket with The Strike Out King written above it in fancy script.
    “Are we doing this?” he said.
    *   *   *
    Reagan and Levi were excellent bowlers. Apparently there was a bowling alley in Arnold. Not nearly as nice as this one, they said.
    The three of them were the only people under forty bowling tonight, which didn’t stop Levi from talking to absolutely every single person in the whole building. He talked to the guy who was spraying the shoes, the retired couples in the next lane, a whole group of moms in some league who sent him away with ruffled hair and a pitcher of beer.…
    Reagan acted like she didn’t notice.
    “I think there’s a baby in the corner you forgot to kiss,” Cath said to him.
    “Where’s a baby?” His eyes perked up.
    “No,” she said. “I was just…” Just.
    Levi set down the pitcher. He was balancing three glasses in his other hand; he let them drop on the table, and they landed without falling over.
    “Why do you do that?”
    “What?” He poured a beer and held it out to her. She took it without thinking, then set it down with distaste.
    “Go so far out of your way to be nice to people?”
    He smiled—but he was already smiling, so that just meant that he smiled more.
    “Do you think I should be more like you?” he asked, then looked fondly over at Reagan, who was scowling (somehow voluptuously) over the ball return. “Or her?”
    Cath rolled her eyes. “There’s got to be a happy medium.”
    “I’m happy,” he said, “so this must be it.”
    Cath bought herself a Cherry Coke from the bar and ignored the beer. Reagan bought two plates of drippy orange nachos. Levi bought three giant dill pickles that were so sour, they made them all cry.
    Reagan won the first game. Then Levi won the second. Then, for the third, he talked the guy behind the counter into turning on the kiddie bumpers for Cath. She still didn’t pick up any strikes. Levi won again.
    Cath had just enough money left to buy them all ice cream sandwiches from the vending machine.
    “I really am the Strike Out King,” Levi said. “Everything I write on my shirt comes true.”
    “It’ll definitely come true tonight at Muggsy’s,” Reagan said. Levi laughed and crumpled up his ice cream wrapper to throw at her. The way they smiled at each other made Cath look away. They were so easy together. Like they knew each other inside and out. Reagan was sweeter—and meaner—with Levi than she ever was with Cath.
    Someone pulled on Cath’s ponytail, and her chin jerked up.
    “You’re coming with us,” Levi asked, “right?”
    “Where?”
    “Out. To Muggsy’s. The night is young.”
    “And so am I,” Cath said. “I can’t get into a bar.”
    “You’ll be with us,” he said. “Nobody’ll stop you.”
    “He’s right,” Reagan said. “Muggsy’s is for college dropouts and hopeless alcoholics. Freshmen never try to sneak in.”
    Reagan put a cigarette in her mouth, but didn’t light it. Levi took it and put it between his lips.
    Cath almost said yes.
    Instead she shook her head.
    *   *   *
    When Cath got back up to her room, she thought about calling Wren.
    She called her dad instead. He sounded tired, but he wasn’t trying to replace the stairs with a water slide, so that was an improvement. And he’d eaten two Healthy Choice meals for dinner.
    “That sounds like a healthy choice,” Cath told him, trying to sound encouraging.
    She did some reading for class. Then she stayed up working on Carry On until her eyes burned and she knew