CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Before we left for the fair, Penn insisted on mapping my way home in the old Thomas Guide, prompting me to record the route in the brown notebook. Just in case.
The truck radio played nineties-era Cranberries, and I stared at the finished directions. “I could’ve just used a sticky note.”
“Too easy to lose,” Penn said, in shotgun as usual. “And it fits in with the memories we’re recording. Like a scrapbook of random stuff.” His mouth went slack. “You can look back and remember everything we did.”
Later. When he was the one who had found his way home.
After about thirty minutes, I was pulling into the gravel parking lot of the Pine Meadows County Fair. The event itself took over a massive clearing in the Willamette Valley, the space skirting the foothills of what Penn noted as the Calapooya Mountains. A portion of the Western Cascades.
One ticket secured, we entered as the sun dropped behind a distant ridge of pines.
With food and fun and color spinning out in every direction, my feet itched to move. Penn had other plans. He halted in the center of the bustling midway as overtired, over-sugared kids dragged along, and teens filmed social media clips.
There was nothing half-gone or barely formed about the way the strands of brilliant lights reflected in his eyes, or the play of a soft, childlike smile that jumped wide as he turned toward me.
A cracker pop of tingles burst beneath my skin, and I smiled back at his dazed and daydreamy expression that was more than simple wonder.
It looked like nostalgia—the good kind. “You remember this place, don’t you? ” I asked.
After a pause, he nodded, still taking in everything around us. Instead of pressing him for notebook-worthy details, I tried to just be a girl at a summer carnival with a beautiful, curious boy. Together we stood inside a drawing etched in disappearing ink, a temporary tattoo.
As dusk settled in this clearing, the air was scented with smoky coal fire and sweet kettle corn. We absorbed the ding-ding-ding of carnival games and anxious thrill-ride shrieks. The heartbeat bass line of a distant country-music jam pulsed under all of it.
Finally, Penn broke his own spell. “I have been here. I don’t remember the people, and it’s not a specific memory.
But if I’m right,” he said, pointing, “there’s a huge tent behind the food stalls that has all sorts of farm animals.
You can pet goats and baby chicks.” He pivoted.
“And that way, there’s a showcase for flowers and artwork. ”
I opened the fair map that came with my ticket. He leaned in with a satisfied nod over the fact that he’d gotten everything correct.
“What’s first?” he asked, rising up onto the balls of his feet. “The Ferris wheel? Wait—no. That’s better when it’s dark.” He aimed his head toward a nearby lit-up archway. “Carny games?”
I snuffled out a low laugh. “Only if we watch other people get scammed out of spending fifty bucks to win a stuffed elephant worth three dollars.”
“The gaffing is part of the charm! Okay, how about food, then? Fried chicken sandwich on a glazed donut bun?”
My face scrunched. “Don’t ruin the moment.”
“Sylvie from Los Angeles passes the ultimate cringe test,” he said on a delighted chuckle.
The giddiness in his voice, the extra shot of lightness into his already-transient form, sent an instant grin to my face.
“If I don’t make it the whole time,” he added, “you cannot leave without trying a foot-long corn dog and a funnel cake. That is, if your stomach can handle it after your brief encounter with Sacred’s magic bark.
” He dragged his hand left, then right. “Hmm, since we left Needles, I haven’t seen you running off toward any—”
“Is it your goal to get in as many cascara jokes as possible today?” “Absolutely.”
“Sorry, but my stomach is happily unfazed. Maybe I’m immune. Corn dog plus funnel cake with extra whipped cream? Bring it. But maybe after we do some rides.”
We decided to wander, chasing vibes and people-watching. My earbuds stayed in my backpack. The noise and chaos meant no one stared at me for chatting with my invisible friend.
As we entered the section of booths offering wonky souvenirs and crafts, he insisted I try on every brightly colored hat and document my growing headgear rainbow with selfies.
“Is this to prove to Grier and Ana that they were right to leave my embarrassing ass behind?” I asked after posing in a lilac fedora with a spray of dyed feathers.
“Nah, more for Sacred memories,” he said. “Your mortification is an added bonus.”
“Rude.” I would’ve socked him if it were possible.
Instead, I dragged him to a booth selling intricate tiaras. I grabbed one that was set with pale pink stones. “Now this is quality—heavy.”
“It should be for seventy-five bucks.”
I confirmed, then grumbled. “The theme of this fair is Bring More Money.”
He gave a chuckle, then made a move that would’ve felt like a nudge. “Go on, princess. Let’s see it.”
A rectangular mirror was tacked onto the booth frame. I placed the tiara above my forehead, the high ponytail I’d fixed earlier rising in the background.
I could see Penn behind me in the reflection. Delighted. Goofy. He stayed in the frame, mumbling words like “your Royal Highness” and “fairest of them all,” and bunny-earing me as I aimed my phone’s camera at the mirror. Only I showed up in the photo.
I moved off to the side, pouting as I set down the tiara.
“Screw the price,” Penn said. “You should just get it.”
I considered, then held up my wrist with the valuable gold watch. “This is so much better.” A true prize. Would I still feel that way when I fixed it and found a willing buyer? When not only was my link to Penn gone, but all the rest of him too?
Unease. That’s the feeling that rushed in.
But it didn’t fit with me and Penn and our arrangement.
His resting place was a sweet and settled thing.
Getting him there was the right ending. For me, he was one summer slice of the big, big life I’d always wanted.
And none of that was supposed to feel uneasy.
I left the weight of those thoughts behind, charging ahead like usual.
I followed the sparkle around me. When I skirted the next table, I zeroed in on one particular necklace that sat in a packed display, just like I had with the gold watch at Spines and Pines.
The lure was almost the same: a magnetic pull of memory and regret.
I grabbed the statement necklace that looked like it was plucked from the Crown Jewels collection in London. Long and tiered and regal. A yellow teardrop stone.
“Put it on,” Penn said.
This time I shook my head. “This one doesn’t get a photo. Those are only for good memories.”
“Because your last breakup was in a diamond-necklace vault,” he said. “Obviously.”
“Ha, I wish.” It was the first time he’d brought up any other guys I might’ve gone to county fairs and coffee shops with. “Try a traffic jam on the 10 Freeway.”
“So LA-coded.” He held up one finger. “Um . . . you had a birthday party with a bejeweled theme, in Santa Monica, and a flock of seagulls flew off with the entire cake.”
My laugh fell away as I snapped into a zone that felt too sentimental for the frenzied carnival scene around us.
I set down the necklace, averting my gaze.
We were here to find out who he was, but I couldn’t get over how much of him was already locked into place.
How deep and funny and colorful he was. I needed to do something—anything—to tie the moment back to solid ground before it flew away and took me with it.
“Four years ago, I stole a necklace like this.”
That’ll do it, Sylvie. I searched his face for disgust or even mild disappointment. I should’ve known what would really show up.
“Tell me everything,” Penn said, just like Ana did whenever I texted that I had scandalous tea to spill. I should’ve known he’d be curious.
“You sure about that?” I warned.
He pointed ahead. “Ferris wheel, you and me, now. The line is long, and we need something to do so I don’t die of boredom.”
Sarcastic. Irreverent. I would add both to the brown leather notebook.
The line was long, but the supersize Ferris wheel was lit to the perfect amount of twinkle against a blackout sky. Due to the close quarters, I popped in the earbuds and pulled out my phone for show, pretending to make a call.
“First of all,” Penn said, “have you ever stolen anything besides the necklace?”
“Hmm.” I considered for a few beats. “Does an entire rainbow of Home Depot paint samples count when we only needed Restful Robin’s Egg for my bedroom?”
He scoffed. “Those are technically there for the taking.”
“Then no.” We moved forward two steps. “Oh . . . what about a handful of grapes from Whole Foods?” He gave a clownish wince.
“Then yes.”
I wished everyone could’ve heard his laugh.
“It didn’t start with theft,” I said. “It was more of a last-ditch effort to get my parents to let me choose a different summer.” “That was the why?”
I nodded, and we moved along a little more. “You heard my story.”
I saw it—the way he tried to reach out a hand, then remembered. “I didn’t forget.”
My pulse stuttered, knowing that. “In middle school, I thought I could Veronica Mars my way into a short trip to Cabo with Grier.” He seemed to get the reference, so I went on.
“It was one of my finer schemes. Going full-force dutiful daughter to show that I’d be zero trouble to another family.
I’m talking extreme obedience—all fake, of course.
I kept my bedroom clean to Cuban levels, which out-levels, like, all the other levels. ”
“That’s impressive,” he said through a rumbled chuckle. “I want to hear more about your heritage. I’m down for the food and superstitions and quirks—all of it.”
How long did we have? The thought splintered into fragments, and I lost them all. “Sí, claro. A veces.” I threw on a half smile. “Another time. Dutiful daughter is an excellent Spanish tutor.”