teens trash-talking each other; this place had always had the absolute worst acoustics, and generally smelled of mold.
"Then, let's see, after the bowling alley closed, they did the 4H livestock auctions here while they were renovating the fairgrounds. And I think there was a paintball place for a while, but I never went there. I had moved away by then."
"You moved?" Dan asked, surprised. "I thought you had lived here your whole life. I mean, from what you said about helping your parents run the diner."
"No, I went away to school." And met Terry. And got married. That was definitely a can of worms she did not plan to open on a first not-a-date. "What about you?" she asked hastily. "City boy all your life?"
"Pretty much," Dan said with another of those self-effacing, effortlessly charming smiles. "Grew up all over—Atlanta, Chicago, a few other places."
"Oh, military brat?" she asked.
"Foster kid."
Shit. "Sorry."
"It was a long time ago." His smile was a little sad. "But, yeah, after that, I went into the Army."
"Do you mind if I ask how you, um ..." She couldn't think how to ask what she really wanted to know in a way that wouldn't be potentially offensive. How did a guy like you end up working as a male nanny? No, no, no. She tried to rephrase it. "Have you been doing this for long?"
"Miniature golf?" he asked, looking blank.
"No, I mean the—watching the kids thing."
"Oh," he said, surprised. "It's kind of a—complicated situation."
"Yeah, I don't know anything about those sorts of situations," Paula said. She glanced around in search of Austin, but there was no sign of him. So much for "stay in sight."
She shot him off a brief text: Where R U?
Mom!!!! Im in the bathroom!!!!!!
Sorry!! she typed back, and sent a blushing-face emoji.
why are you like this, Austin sent back.
"Everything okay?" Dan asked as she put the phone away.
"Yeah, it's fine. Just being a mom."
The course had been generally sloping upward for the last couple of holes, a plywood ramp covered in scratchy, lurid green Astroturf. Now they were on an overpass looping across the floor-level section of a different, blue-flagged course.
"Well, this seems safe," Dan remarked, looking down through the scratched Plexiglass barriers at other families playing through the course beneath them.
"Oh yeah, totally," Paula said. "One of these days it's going to collapse beneath the weight of a sixth-grade class and they'll be sued out of existence. In fact, that's sort of what happened to the paintball place, from what I heard."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, someone got a concussion and they were slapped with a bunch of lawsuits."
"That doesn't really seem like the business's fault."
"It is when part of an obstacle course falls on someone's head."
"Oh," Dan said. "It's not the same owners, though, is it?"
"I don't think so. But you never know."
"Mom!" Lissy said. She held out the putter. "Do this one for me. It's hard. I always lose my ball."
"It's not that hard," Sandy said, waiting his turn with his club resting on his shoulder.
They were facing a ramp leading down. There was a series of small zigzag obstructions and, at the bottom, a witch's cauldron tipped over on its side, on a jerky conveyer belt that slid slowly back and forth. The objective was to get the ball into the cauldron. A recorded witch's cackle played at intervals.
"Lissy's right, this one is terrible," Paula said, but she gamely placed the ball at the top of the ramp. "You have to walk all the way down the ramp and get your ball if you miss, and it's really hard to get it in. Whoever designed this hole is evil."
"I can give it a shot if you want," Dan said.
"No!" the kids chorused at once. "You're on the other team," Lissy added in a horrified voice.
Dan smiled and raised a hand good-naturedly. He took a step back.
"Don't yell at me if we have to go down there and collect your ball a dozen times," Paula said.
She carefully tried to line up her shot. Embarrassingly, considering how many times she'd brought the kids here, she was not good at mini golf. Usually these evening games were an opportunity to stroll behind the kids and talk with other parents, or go hang out at the concession stand and enjoy half a cheap beer out of a plastic cup, while one of the other parents took one for the team and watched the kids.