Page 70 of Rock & Roll Nights: The Lila and Rivers Edit
The bowling alley was a bigger hit than I’d thought it would be. I mean sure, I’d thought bowling would be good for the kids, and I loved the idea of taking them out for the day, but I hadn’t expected them to run shrieking toward the lanes, their faces alight with joy and their fingers grasping for the bowling balls in their racks. I certainly didn’t expect them to grab any adults in the vicinity—including Lila and Anna—and drag them along with them, chattering a million miles a minute and grinning up at them like they’d found a bowling alley that led straight to Heaven.
My heart grew about ten sizes in the space of ten seconds, and when the woman who ran the orphanage touched my arm, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just wanted to let you know how excited they are about this.”
“I noticed,” I said wryly. “They’ve never been bowling before?”
“We don’t usually have the time or money for this sort of thing,” she answered. “They see the bowling alley every time they go out, though, and have been asking for years to come. Wejust...” She gestured vaguely at the building and all the kids, her actions telling me exactly how hopeless it all was.
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “What if I set up a fund for them to go bowling once a month? I’d be happy to do it.”
It wasn’t a lot. It didn’t guarantee any of them the happy homes they deserved. But it could make the wait a little bit easier. And I had a feeling that this particular orphanage needed that sort of thing. The place had been clean and well-cared-for, the kids healthy. I didn’t think this was the sort of place that needed extra food or oversight, to make sure the kids found their way into better situations. But they could use entertainment.
And that, I could do.
I strolled away before she could answer, already knowing the answer was going to be yes, and before long I’d been pulled into a game with boys who looked to be about ten years old. They were telling me about the frogs that lived in the field behind the orphanage and the tadpoles they’d been raising in dishes inside when the creek dried up, and then about the birds they thought might be eating the frogs and a plan to build some sort of netting to protect said frogs. One of the boys, evidently an aspiring engineer, was going through the complications of the plan, and my mind was frankly spinning in circles by the time I felt a hand on my shoulder.
I looked down and recognized those fingers. The callus on the middle finger from playing guitar. The ring on the thumb. The particular color of bright pink polish.
I looked up into Lila’s eyes and couldn’t stop myself from smiling in welcome.
“Having fun?” she asked.
I stood up and took her in. God, she was gorgeous, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining. “Better than a party. I’m learning all about their plan to save the frogs in their field.”
She made a face at that and eyed the boys behind me. “Saving the frogs? Have you already saved their tadpoles? You know they need to move into a safe spot before their water dries up.”
That was all it took. The boys grabbed at her and pulled her into their midst, all of them talking at the same time and telling her about the tadpole aquariums they had set up, and when they thought it would be safe to release them back into the wild. She was laughing and giving them tips she’d learned from her own childhood, then telling them about one particular frog she’d thought of as a pet, and I’d never seen anyone look so excited about fucking amphibians.
I’d thought the kids were over the moon when they were talking to me, but that didn’t hold a candle to how excited they were about Lila. They were looking at her like she was an angel come to teach them about frogs, and if I’d thought my heart had grown by ten sizes before, I didn’t know a damn thing.
She was taking to the kids like she’d had this whole thing planned right from the start, moving around them now to take her turn at bowling, and I wondered for a moment if she’d known we were going to be doing this today. Had she somehow found out early in the week that I was going to be doing this? Prepared herself to entertain a bunch of kids with no families and teach them the hard-earned lessons of her youth?
No, I realized. She wouldn’t have had to do that. She’d probably learned about it just this morning from Matt, that turncoat.
And she’d jumped right into it with both feet, ready to share herself with whoever needed a little sunshine in their lives. She wouldn’t have had to prepare. She just had to present herself. And she’d done it without thinking twice or looking back.
Because that was just who Lila Potter was.
37
RIVERS
Ikept the smile on my face and my hands to myself as long as the kids were there. I bowled and gave out gifts, shared plates of fries, and made sure every boy and girl there had as much soda as they wanted. We had a day off from the tour, and that meant I had all the time in the world to spend with them—lucky that it had matched up with a city where they had a group home—and I spent every last minute I had making sure the kids had a day they’d never forget.
And I made sure they each left with at least one stuffed animal in their arms.
As they were filing out, I made the call to my business manager. “Johnny, I need to set up a trust for the orphanage I just left. I want them to have plenty of food and a chance to go bowling once a month.”
Okay, so I didn’t think the food thing was completely necessary. But I also didn’t see any reason not to include it.
Johnny asked me a few questions—the name of the orphanage and what city it was in, along with how much I wanted to allocate to them every month. And then he told me he’d take care of it, and that was that. I hung up feeling a wholelot better about everything...and then turned to look for Lila. I’d noticed that Anna and Matt had left earlier, but I’d seen Lila still sitting with some younger girls, telling them a story, and had hoped that she’d stay the whole day.
I wanted to talk to her. More than that. I was yearning for it like a druggie who needed a hit. Itching to hear what she’d say about how we’d spent the day. I wondered if she had ideas for what I could do for these kids or thoughts about how we could have improved things.
I wondered if she had any idea why we’d done it at all.
I spun, my eyes grazing every inch of the now-darkening building while my heart thudded at the thought that she might have left while I wasn’t looking. Had she decided she’d had enough? Escaped before she had to face me and talk to me? Maybe this had just been a good deed for her; something that was for the kids, not for me. Maybe this had?—
