We hugged and then sat down in the chairs behind Salvador. Salina was wearing a pair of jeans and a gray t-shirt, and she had already put on the bowling alley shoes. Salvador was still wearing his street shoes and didn’t seem interested in putting on the assigned bowling shoes, as they were still sitting on the chair behind him.
“I’m so good. We were just coming out to bowl tonight, and I told Salvador we had to invite you.”
Salina was extremely full of energy, and I was tired just listening to her. I just wasn’t the type of girl who was all bubbly and smiles all the time. Originally, when I met Salina, she didn’t strike me as that type, either. But as I listened to her talk, I was clearly wrong about her. She smiled and bounced with each word and seemed extremely chipper and happy.
“Thanks. I had a rough day. It is nice to get a little bit of a break,” I said, as I tried not to be too much of a downer.
We started our bowling game, and Salina and I took the time in between our turns to talk. She was a really nice woman, and I felt like we could actually be good friends. She wasn’t anything like Ana, so it was weird to be sitting and talking with Salina. Most of the time, I just kept thinking about Ana and wondering what she was doing and if she was all right.
“I work as a hair designer. You should let me do your hair for you some time,” Salina said as we watched Salvador bowl.
“Oh, yes. I would love that. I don’t usually do too much with my hair. Back home, I never had enough money to even get it professionally cut.”
“Where is home? You said you lived in Europe, right?”
Salina continued with her turn to bowl, and I sat and watched as she threw the ball perfectly and took down all of the pins. She seemed to be an expert at bowling, much better than I was. I had only been to a bowling alley a couple of times during my nursing training. It wasn’t a really popular activity back home. But I knew enough so I didn’t look totally clueless as I took on my turn throwing the ball down the aisle.
“Yes, I actually come from a very small country called Liechtenstein.”
“Oh, that’s cool,” Salina said as she sat down and sipped on her diet cola.
It was interesting that she didn’t have more of a response to hearing my country name. Typically, even very well-educated people didn’t really know that there was a country called Liechtenstein. I had expected her to at least ask me more about it, but she just continued on as if I had said I had been living in London or something.
I thought maybe she didn’t know what I had said and was just trying to be polite. Sometimes, people who weren’t familiar with my country just pretended as if they knew what I was talking about to avoid looking like they had no idea what countries were in Europe. Either way, we continued on with our game and our small talk.
“So, how did you two end up in Atlanta?” I asked.
“Oh, Salvador had a change in his work, and we needed to move here. You know, anything for your man.”
“I understand. A man’s work is very important to him.”
“What does your husband do?” Salina asked me.
“Oh, I’m not married. My boyfriend works for a manufacturing company in town. Nothing too exciting.”
I didn’t really think of Chase as my boyfriend or anything like that, but it was much easier to call him that than it would be to explain everything. To try and describe that I had met him on a dating site and flown in from overseas all in the last week seemed a little too much for anyone to understand.
“Is he nice? Have you been together long? Does he have money?” Salina asked.
Her questions came one after another without giving me anytime to answer them. I suddenly started to get worried about who Salina and Salvador were. Why did they care so much about my boyfriend and whether he made a lot of money or not?
It was the first time I had a really bad feeling about what was going on. Salina seemed really interested in my personal life, and Salvador had also stopped bowling and turned around to listen to our conversation.
But before I could answer Salina, she started to apologize.
“I’m sorry. I’m being nosy. I didn’t mean to ask so many questions. I was just trying to get to know you more.”
“It’s all right. I’m just not use to having to answer questions about Chase,” I said.
“Oh, your boyfriend’s name is Chase? That’s a cute name.”
I laughed. I never thought of his name as being cute. I guess it wasn’t really a manly name, but it did seem to suit him just fine.
“Yes, he’s a pretty good-looking guy,” I said as we both laughed.
I watched as Salvador pulled Salina toward him and whispered something in her ear. It didn’t seem to be anything good, because her smile turned to a frown rather quickly. Salina continued to listen to Salvador, and I just watched them for a minute to see what was going on.
“Salvador says he heard a guy named Chase Foster was working with a Mexican cartel in town here,” Salina said with a serious look on her face.