The Saturday I Rented the Bowling Alley

“League’s done by noon,” he said. “I can give you one-thirty to three-thirty. All eight lanes, shoes included, bumpers on whatever lanes you want. Normally that’s six hundred. For Kevin’s buddy, it’s four-eighty.”

I knew that was a good price. I also knew it was about two weeks of my grocery money after the $700 I had just sent to Missouri. I wrote him a check on the counter before I could think twice.

“Bring a cake,” Frank said, tucking the check in the drawer. “And tell your mother I said hello. She used to beat my wife at this place every Thursday night in about 1990.”

That afternoon, on my lunch break, I called Piper’s school and asked for her teacher, Mrs. Olson. She called me back during her prep period, and I explained what I wanted to do.

“We do allow party invitations in the Friday folders,” Mrs. Olson said. “But only if every single child in the class gets one. That’s a building rule. Nobody gets left out at this school.”

“That’s what I want,” I told her. “Every single one. How many kids are in her room?”

“Twenty-three, counting Piper,” she said. “So twenty-two invitations. Mr. Rennick, can I ask what made you decide to do the whole class? Most parents pick eight or ten.”

I thought about how to answer that. I did not want to tell a schoolteacher my divorce business. So I told her the plain truth that was not about Shauna at all.

“She missed her birthday with her friends this year,” I said. “I’d like her to have it.”

Mrs. Olson was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was softer. “Send them over by Thursday,” she said. “I’ll put them in the folders myself. And I’ll make sure nobody tells her.”

That night I printed twenty-two invitations on the old inkjet printer in my spare room.

It ran out of cyan halfway through, so the last nine came out a strange shade of pink. I figured eight-year-olds would not mind.

Bowling Party for Piper. Saturday, 1:30 to 3:30. Shoes and pizza are on us. Please be there by 1:30 sharp, it’s a surprise. And at the bottom, my phone number, written in by hand on every one.

Then came the harder part. Saturday was Shauna’s weekend. I could not throw a surprise party for my daughter on a day she was not mine without asking her mother, and I was not going to sneak around.

I typed and deleted that text maybe ten times. Finally I kept it short.

“Could I have Piper for two hours this Saturday, 2 to 4? Small birthday thing at the bowling alley. I’ll bring her home after.”

Shauna answered in about a minute. “Fine. I’ll drop her there at 2. Thanks for being cool about the trip.”

I looked at the words “cool about the trip” for a long time. Then I put the phone face down on the counter and went out to the garage to sort bolts until I could think straight.

Here is something I have never told anybody before writing this down. I was not trying to beat Shauna.

People have assumed that since. They hear the numbers and think it was a payback, a way of showing her up.