One More Frame
By Ophelia Ravenwood
The mug had a duck’s head for a handle and the words WORLD’S GREATEST LOVER printed beneath a picture of a tractor. Cedric had paid two dollars for it. He’d been pleased with himself until he saw Alton through the glass doors and understood that he would shortly have to hand this object to a man he wanted to kiss.
Alton was standing beside the shoe counter in a dark green shirt, looking at the sizes on the wall. He had turned his cuffs back once. In his photographs he’d seemed serious, even in the one where he held an enormous tomato. In person he was smiling at something the attendant had written on a little whiteboard.
Cedric could still leave the mug in his bag. They had been joking about a prize for three days, but it wasn’t a binding agreement. He dealt with binding agreements at work. Nobody in payroll had yet asked him to certify a sexually ambitious tractor.
Alton looked towards the entrance and saw him.
His smile changed. It became smaller and, somehow, much worse for Cedric’s nerves.
Cedric lifted a hand.
“Hi,” Alton signed as he came closer. “You found it.”
“The giant bowling pin outside helped.”
“I thought that might be a bank.”
For twelve days their conversations had travelled through written messages and short videos in ASL, mostly at opposite ends of the working day. Now Alton’s expression was there in front of him, all the small movements a phone failed to keep. Cedric had planned to be funny immediately. Instead he noticed a pale scar near Alton’s wrist and wondered how he had got it.
“You look like your pictures,” he signed.
Alton glanced down at himself, then back up. “Disappointing. I was hoping for taller.”
Cedric laughed. Alton’s gaze dropped briefly to his mouth.
Then they had to choose shoes.
Cedric had forgotten how intimately a bowling alley could introduce two strangers. Within three minutes they knew each other’s shoe sizes, had seen each other balancing awkwardly on one leg and had discovered that Alton wore socks with tiny orange carrots on them.
“Work clothes,” Alton explained when Cedric pointed.
“You grow carrots in the greenhouse?”
“No. I have a life outside work.”
He held up the other foot. There were carrots on that one too.
Cedric nearly dropped his shoe.
They collected their lane number from the attendant. Cedric showed the booking confirmation on his phone, and the attendant wrote their finishing time on the whiteboard: 7:15. Their hour would begin in five minutes.
Alton read it, then looked back at Cedric.
“You really did book exactly an hour.”
“That was the plan.”
“Yes.” Alton bent to retrieve his ordinary shoes, then straightened and met his gaze again. “A sensible plan.”
Cedric couldn’t decide what the pause meant. He’d suggested an hour so Alton wouldn’t feel trapped. A weekday date after work, nothing elaborate, nothing that required them to sit opposite each other over three courses while discovering they had absolutely nothing to say. Alton had agreed so promptly that Cedric had wondered whether he’d already disappointed him.
They carried their shoes to the lane. Above them, enormous animated pins danced across a screen. On the neighbouring lane, a small child was trying to push a ball which appeared to weigh as much as he did. His adult companion was taking a photograph rather than helping.
Cedric put his bag on the bench.
“I brought the prize.”
Alton sat down at once, expectant.
There was no going back. Cedric unwrapped the mug from its tea towel and set it between them.
Alton studied the tractor. He turned the mug, inspected the duck, then looked up slowly.
“Did you have this made?”
“Obviously. A very personal commission.”
“The artist understood me.”
“I was worried the duck was too subtle.”
Alton picked it up again. His hands were broad, the nails short, with a little rough skin along one thumb. He held the mug as if it were something of real value.
“I want it,” he signed after putting it down.
“You’ll have to win.”
“Then you should know I intend to be difficult.”
Cedric had to look away for a moment, towards the comforting anonymity of the bowling balls.
Alton chose a ball the colour of a boiled sweet. He put his fingers into the holes, lifted it and immediately put it down again.
Cedric waited until he turned.
“You don’t have to choose the heaviest.”
“I know that.”
“Of course.”
“I was checking whether gravity worked here.”
Cedric tried a blue one. It was heavier than the ball he usually used, but Alton was watching and his arm appeared to have made a decision without consulting him.
They entered their first names on the scoring screen. Cedric briefly considered adding professional titles. He imagined ALTON, DESTROYER OF PINS, and knew he would spend the rest of the evening trying to live up to something equally absurd. Their names were quite enough.
Alton took the first turn.
He stood at the beginning of the approach with both hands around the ball, staring down the lane. Cedric watched the shape of his shoulders under the green shirt. There was a pleasant steadiness to him. He looked as if he knew how to get things done without announcing that he was getting them done.
He took four steps and released the ball.
It went straight into the gutter.
Alton remained where he was. Then he turned, found Cedric watching and raised a finger.
“Reconnaissance.”
Cedric nodded solemnly.
The second ball travelled almost the entire length of the lane before curving into the same gutter. Alton walked back with the expression of a man returning from an unsuccessful diplomatic mission.
“It’s safe on that side,” he signed. “I’ve checked.”
Cedric stood up, grinning.
He had bowled regularly for about six months in his twenties, with colleagues from a job he hadn’t liked. Since then he had been perhaps once a year. At thirty-nine, his confidence had retained the six months and quietly misplaced the intervening decade.
He set himself, swung and released.
Three pins fell.
Respectable. A beginning.
He turned to Alton, who applauded with exaggerated gravity, and tried not to enjoy it too much.
His second ball missed everything.
Back at the bench, Alton studied the screen.
“I was told you were competitive.”
“I am.”
“I’d assumed that meant you were good.”
“That’s a separate department.”
Alton leaned back and laughed. Cedric felt it as a success far out of proportion to the joke.
They settled into the rhythm of taking turns, waiting for each other to return before commenting. Alton had a beautifully severe expression for inspecting a bad score. Cedric began to dread it and look forward to it at the same time.
In the third frame Alton knocked down seven pins. He came back delighted, already lifting his hands, then stopped when Cedric pointed to the screen.
“You’ve got another ball.”
Alton looked over his shoulder.
“Of course. I was allowing them a moment of hope.”
He went back and hit one more.
Cedric got six, then two. He should have been pleased. Instead he watched Alton sit down and stretch his legs, and wondered whether it was too early to ask how old his tomato had been when the photograph was taken.
Alton caught him looking.
“What?”
“The tomato.”
This required explanation. By the time Cedric had supplied it, Alton was laughing again.
“It was a competition at work. Biggest fruit. I won.”
“Was there a mug?”
“A bag of compost.”
“Luxury.”
“And the right to be unbearable for a week.”
“Only a week?”
Alton narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t seen my other photographs.”
Cedric wanted to. He wanted to see the greenhouse Alton had described, and the balcony where he kept plants that didn’t justify the trouble they caused him. He wanted to know whether Alton really ate breakfast standing up, as he claimed, and whether anyone had ever told him what happened to his face just before he smiled.
Alton took his next turn, knocking down five pins. Then the screen flashed Cedric’s name. He rose too quickly and knocked his knee against the table.
Alton winced in sympathy. Cedric held up a hand to indicate that he was fine, collected his unnecessarily heavy ball and sent it directly into the gutter.
By the fifth frame the score was close enough to make both of them unreasonable.
Alton had developed a method. He stood very still, swung with very little ceremony and watched the ball as though displeasure might alter its course. Sometimes it did. Cedric, meanwhile, had begun experimenting with his approach. Every alteration made him worse.
After a particularly elaborate failure, he returned to find Alton with his phone out. On the screen was a photograph of the mug, taken from its most flattering angle.
“Getting acquainted?” Cedric asked.
“Making a record. For the insurance.”
“You haven’t won it.”
“Not yet.”
Cedric reached for his drink. His thumb caught the edge of the paper cup, and a little water spilled across the table. Alton moved the mug out of danger while Cedric found napkins.
They wiped from opposite sides. Their fingers met beneath the table’s raised edge.
Neither moved for a second.
Then Cedric pulled back to pick up another napkin. He had meant the movement to be practical. Alton put the mug down and went to take his turn.
Cedric sat with the wet paper in his hand, furious with himself. There was a particular kind of courage he possessed readily: complaining about an incorrect bill, telling a manager that a deadline was impossible, explaining a payroll discrepancy to somebody twice his salary. Touch a man you liked and his entire nervous system demanded a committee.
Alton bowled. Nine pins fell.
He turned, grinning, but Cedric was looking down at the napkin. By the time Cedric looked up, Alton had turned back to the lane.
The last pin remained standing after the second ball.
Alton came back less exuberantly. Cedric made himself meet his gaze.
“That was good.”
“Nearly.”
“Nine’s good.”
Alton sat. For the first time there seemed to be a spare person-sized space between them.
Cedric wanted to close it, but the screen was asking for his next turn. He picked up the blue ball. His wrist had begun to object to its weight.
He swung, felt an unpleasant pull and put the ball down without releasing it.
When he turned, Alton was already watching. Cedric came off the approach before answering his questioning look.
“Too heavy. I chose badly.”
“There’s a lighter one on the rack.”
“I saw it.”
Alton waited. His expression was entirely free of mockery, which made Cedric feel worse.
“I thought this one would look better,” Cedric admitted.
Alton looked from Cedric to the ball and back again.
“The blue suits you. The injury wouldn’t.”
Cedric laughed despite himself. “I haven’t injured anything.”
“Good. I’d like you to have both hands available.”
The look that went with this was unmistakable.
Cedric stood very still.
Alton held his gaze for a moment, then got up and went with him to the rack. He didn’t choose the new ball for him. He tried a smaller one himself, frowned at the finger holes and put it back. Cedric tested a green ball which felt almost indecently manageable.
When he returned to the lane, it knocked down eight pins.
He turned round so quickly that he almost lost his balance.
Alton lifted both hands in celebration. Cedric bowed. His next ball took the remaining two pins, and the screen erupted into a cartoon explosion.
Alton stood to greet him when he came back. He held up his palm. Cedric met it, then let their hands slide together instead of pulling away.
They stood like that for a moment beside the ball return, smiling foolishly.
Then Alton glanced at the screen, gently freed his hand and signed, “I’m still going to beat you.”
Cedric sat down. It took him several seconds to remember what the score meant.
They had twenty minutes left when Alton’s shoelace came undone.
He stopped on his way to the approach, looked down and returned to the bench. As he bent to tie it, Cedric noticed a dark patch spreading along his cuff.
There was a small split in Alton’s water cup. It had been quietly soaking the sleeve resting beside it.
Cedric touched Alton’s arm lightly. When Alton looked up, he pointed to the cup, then the cuff.
Alton picked up the cup and discovered the leak directly over his trousers.
His expression was so blank that Cedric couldn’t help laughing. Alton looked down at his lap, then at the ceiling, appealing to an authority neither of them believed would help.
Cedric fetched napkins and a replacement cup from the counter, where the attendant exchanged them with a sympathetic grimace. Back at the bench, he put the dry cup on the far side of the mug and helped blot the table while Alton dealt with his trousers.
“I grow things for a living,” Alton signed when he could set the napkins down. “People trust me with irrigation.”
“You’ve watered the shoes.”
“They’ll be bigger by tomorrow.”
Cedric shifted along the bench to give him more room. Alton rolled his wet cuff higher. Beneath it the scar was fully visible, pale against his skin.
Cedric indicated it with a small questioning gesture.
“Broken pot. Years ago.” Alton looked at the scar. “I was carrying too many. A recurring theme.”
“At work?”
“Moving house. I had forty-three plants and six plates.”
“Priorities.”
“I still had too many plates.”
Cedric smiled. “Do you live alone?”
“Yes.” Alton paused. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
They looked at each other. The question Cedric hadn’t meant to put inside the question seemed to sit between them, warm and conspicuous.
Alton set down the last wet napkin.
“I like living alone,” he signed. “Mostly.”
“I do too.”
“I’d like somebody to visit.”
Cedric could feel his pulse in his throat.
“I’d like to be invited.”
Alton’s face softened. Then he glanced at the mug and shook his head.
“After I’ve checked you aren’t a sore loser.”
“Oh, I am.”
“How sore?”
“Unpleasant for several minutes.”
“I can work with minutes.”
Alton got up for his turn, leaving Cedric with an expression he was glad no one from payroll could see.
The next frame went badly for both of them. Cedric forgot which foot he usually started with. Alton released too early and watched his ball perform a leisurely excursion along the gutter. They blamed the cups, the shoes and the phase of the moon, taking care to turn towards each other before adding each fresh accusation.
The child on the next lane now had a dinosaur-shaped ramp. He sent a ball down its back and knocked over nine pins. Alton watched with open envy.
Cedric touched his arm. When Alton turned, he signed, “Don’t even think about it.”
“I was admiring the engineering.”
“The child would fight you.”
“I’d lose.”
“You’re afraid of a five-year-old?”
Alton looked at the child, who was jumping up and down with fierce delight, then back at Cedric.
“Yes.”
Cedric laughed hard enough to have to sit down.
They were no longer leaving a space between them. Alton’s knee rested against his, and when the screen called Alton up again, he took a moment before moving.
The final frame began with eight minutes left on the clock.
Cedric was ahead, but not by enough. Alton studied the score with the frown of a man examining an invoice for a greenhouse he hadn’t ordered.
“How many do I need?”
Cedric looked at the numbers. “Enough.”
“Useful. Do they pay you for that?”
“Quite handsomely.”
“I shall ask your colleagues.”
Alton picked up his ball and went to the approach. This time he waited for the child on the neighbouring lane to finish before starting. Cedric watched him settle, the slight bend of his knees, the concentration that smoothed the humour from his face.
The ball travelled straight.
Nine pins fell. One wobbled, recovered and stood offensively upright.
Alton turned back with his mouth open. Cedric spread his hands. What could anyone do with a pin like that?
For the second ball, Alton took longer. He shifted a little to one side, then shifted back. Cedric caught himself leaning forward as if he could help.
The ball missed the remaining pin by almost nothing.
Alton stared down the lane. Then he returned to the bench and sank beside Cedric, defeated.
“The mug is yours,” he signed.
“We haven’t finished.”
“You’re ahead already.”
Cedric looked at the screen. Alton was right. He’d been so absorbed in wanting the last pin to fall that he hadn’t added up the score.
He went to take his turn. His first ball knocked over two pins. His second found the gutter. It was not a victory anyone would have commissioned a statue for.
When he came back, Alton was standing with the mug held ceremoniously in both hands.
Cedric accepted it. They bowed to each other. Then Alton took out his phone and gestured for a photograph.
Cedric posed with the tractor facing out, trying to look arrogant. Alton lowered the phone, laughing, and came closer to show him the result.
It was a terrible photograph. Cedric’s hair stuck up at the back. One shoe was turned out at an absurd angle. His expression suggested a provincial official unveiling a monument to himself.
Alton watched him studying it.
“Can I keep it?”
Cedric nodded. Then, with the mug set safely down, he added, “Send it to me.”
Their hour had three minutes left.
Alton began gathering the wet napkins. Cedric wrapped the mug in its tea towel. He had won, he had held Alton’s hand, they had flirted so openly that he could no longer plausibly pretend he wasn’t sure. Yet the sight of Alton putting away his phone made him feel the evening narrowing towards a polite goodbye.
At the shoe counter they would hand back their rented shoes. At the entrance they would work out which direction each was going. Alton would say he’d had a good time. Cedric would say the same, and later he would sit in his kitchen trying to decide how soon was too soon to send a message.
Alton stood, bag over one shoulder, and looked at him.
“Ready?”
Cedric put the wrapped mug on the bench.
“Have you got to be somewhere?”
“No.” Alton’s hands paused. “I thought you did.”
“Why?”
“The hour.”
Cedric glanced at the timer, suddenly furious with the efficient little numbers.
“I thought an hour would be easier. In case you didn’t like me.”
Alton let his bag slide off his shoulder.
“I’ve spent the last twenty minutes considering whether to pretend I couldn’t find my shoe.”
Cedric looked down. Alton’s ordinary shoes were together beneath the bench, neatly arranged and impossible to lose.
“You’d have had to work at it.”
“I had a plan.”
“Was it a good plan?”
“No. I wanted you to ask me to stay anyway.”
Cedric took a breath.
“Stay.”
Alton smiled, but didn’t pick up his bag.
“What do you want to do?”
“I’d like to kiss you.”
The answer changed Alton’s expression. His amusement stayed, but something quieter came through it. He stepped closer and touched Cedric’s wrist, lightly, waiting until Cedric looked fully at him.
“I’d like that.”
Cedric rose. For a moment they stood close enough that signing would have meant making space again. Alton’s hand settled at his waist. Cedric touched the rolled sleeve, the edge of dry fabric above the damp cuff, and leaned in.
The kiss was gentle at first. Then Alton drew him a little closer, and Cedric forgot the timer, the shoes, the entire difficult business of deciding whether somebody wanted him before allowing himself to want anything back.
When they separated, Alton’s smile was crooked. Cedric suspected his own was worse.
The screen behind them changed to a thank-you message.
Alton glanced at it, then took Cedric’s hand. With his free hand he pointed towards the counter, eyebrows raised: another game?
Cedric nodded.
They took their bags with them to ask. A second hour on the same lane was available. Alton paid this time, holding his card out before Cedric could reach his wallet. Then he handed him the new receipt and indicated its finishing time with a wickedly solemn expression.
Cedric folded it without looking.
Back at the lane, Alton unwrapped the mug and put it between their drinks. He adjusted it until the duck faced Cedric and the tractor faced himself.
“A rematch,” he signed.
“You’ll have to win.”
“I intend to be difficult.”
Cedric went to the rack for his green ball. When he came back, Alton had entered their names in the opposite order, so Cedric would bowl first. He was sitting with one ankle crossed over the other, the ridiculous carrot socks showing above his rented shoes.
Cedric set the ball down before turning to him.
“I hope so.”
