Cards
Going down the stairs leading into Pin Up, I covered my ears and went to the counter, where a pretty girl was tending the register. “It’s loud in here,” I said, raising my voice for the first time in ages.
“First time here?” she said with a giggle. “I love this song. ‘99 Red Balloons’.”
“Never heard of it.” I lowered my hands, letting the music pound through me, and paid the cover fee with a credit card. “I don’t know much about pop music.”
“You poor thing!” She fiddled with the machine, and threw away the receipt without asking. “Strict parents?”
“If anything, the opposite,” I said. “My mom got me a Spotify subscription this year.”
“You’ll learn,” the employee said, all smiles and glitter and eyeliner. Her hoop earrings, framing her small face, danced with her chin-length hair. “Let me know if you need anything!”
“Thanks,” I replied, and went to find Conari. He was at the pinball machines, hunched over and concentrated on the flashing lights, the ever-increasing numbers on the scoreboard, the taunts of the mechanical red-eyed cavalier.
“I got over eighty million last time,” he said, cradling the metallic ball with a flipper and looking up with a proud grin. “I love Sword of Rage, man. Someday, I'll buy one for my basement.”
“Liz, and the tax man.” Releasing the side button, Conari waited a breath and fired the ball past the raised shield of the villain into a small pocket. Waiting for the animation on the screen, he took his hands off the machine and cracked his knuckles. “I thought there’d be no more rules and nagging once I was a working adult. Who knew?”
I nodded, and looked at his score. “Halfway to beating your record.”
“I'll leave it there,” he said, and threw his arm around my shoulder. I watched the ball come out a chute and roll down into the abyss. Game over. “Let’s get you moving. Wanna shoot some hoops?”