Chapter Fifteen
The geese are less hostile with me now. In the week that’s passed since the incident on Nancy’s show—which resulted in a video that now has forty thousand views and climbing—I think the geese have taken pity on me.
They don’t chase me anymore. They just stand in their spot behind the planter and honk angrily, which I can take. It’s basically the goose version of how Marina feels about me, I’m sure. She’s kept a frosty distance from me and the Ryser Cares office since last week.
Our conversations have been stilted and work-related only.
After we officially secured Juniper Park as the festival location, Marina came by the office yesterday to work on a presentation we’re planning to give to Solar Summit today.
Last weekend, when Tessa took me to Richmond for a tour of her favorite bakeries, she mentioned that if Solar Summit sponsored the festival, we could use the funds to solicit prominent local bakers and food critics to serve as judges for an apple pie–baking contest. The promise of prestigious judges and cash prizes for contest winners could help drum up attendance.
Even if Solar Summit doesn’t go for the sponsorship, just getting them to advertise it to their audience would be a win.
We need all the advertising help we can get, especially because Nancy’s roundabout way of promoting the festival on her show involves prattling on about the Nancy convention, advising they bring ponchos in case “Queasy Lauryn” makes an appearance, and cutting to a still of me from the moment right before I threw up.
It was hilarious , my dad said, because he has no sense of loyalty.
The morning of our meeting with Solar Summit, we all pile into Randy’s van.
On the drive to Falls Point, as I listen to Marina and Arun joke about the multiple fruit bouquets listed on the rider Nancy sent us this morning, the pit in my stomach reminds me how close Marina and I came to rekindling our friendship.
When we pull up to Solar Summit’s corporate office, a nondescript building just outside the amusement park gates, my eyes gravitate to the roller coaster towering in the distance. I can just barely hear the delighted screams of its passengers as the coaster plummets down.
Marina slows to watch it when she steps out of the van.
I wonder if she’s thinking about all the times we’ve ridden that coaster over the years, all those summer memories drenched in ice-cold lemonade and dusted with funnel-cake powdered sugar.
But her gaze leaves the roller coaster without a trace of longing.
More than once, I catch myself watching the coaster through the window during our meeting with the Solar Summit marketing team, a broad-shouldered man named Ted and a small, blond woman named Lucy.
To Tessa’s delight, Ted and Lucy exclaim over the pie contest idea.
Before long, they agree to not only sponsor the festival but to include ad space for it on the Solar Summit website.
I know, logically, that this is more than we even hoped for. I see the pleased looks on Randy, Jen, Arun, and Tessa’s faces, and I try to mirror them. But I just can’t bring myself to be excited about it when Marina and I aren’t talking—again.
“Looking forward to working together,” Ted says, shaking our hands firmly at the end of the meeting. “We’ve been looking for more opportunities to partner with Greenstead.”
“These are for you.” Lucy presses something colorful into each of our palms.
I examine the ticket in my hand: a one-day pass to Solar Summit.
A ticket to reliving every happy memory I’ve had here.
Beside me, Tessa breaks into a smile that I can’t help but mirror.
Jen raises her eyebrows in interest. Arun nudges Randy and whispers something to him.
Marina turns to stare out the window at the park with a wistful expression, but she doesn’t say a word.
“What are we supposed to do with these?” Marina says once we reach the parking lot.
“Uh, go to the park, obviously,” Arun replies. He points a thumb toward the park behind him. “Ready?”
“Hell yes,” Tessa says.
I’m about to agree when Randy interrupts to say, “Hold on. If anyone doesn’t want to go, I can drive you back.”
“Who wouldn’t want to go?” Tessa asks. When Randy tosses a pointed glance toward Marina—who’s still staring at the ticket in her hand—an understanding passes over Tessa.
“I don’t think I’m up for it,” Marina says. She holds her ticket out to Arun. “You should give this to your niece.”
It stings that she could give it away so easily, this ticket to so many memories we shared.
Like she’s decided this place that once meant so much to us is nothing.
I’m suddenly overcome with a desire to rip up my ticket, toss the pieces into the sky and let the breeze carry them away.
If Solar Summit doesn’t mean anything to her anymore, why am I holding on to it?
“Yeah, me neither.” I hold out my ticket too. “You can take your niece.” When Arun just stares at my outstretched ticket like it’s a bomb, I offer it to Randy instead. “Or give it to Jake,” I say, naming the teen he’s fostering.
“No,” Arun says with more finality than I’ve ever heard from him. “Don’t pretend you’re doing us a favor.”
Marina frowns. “I just thought you might enjoy coming here with your niece.”
“I take Hannah to Solar Summit all the time. She’s not old enough to go on any of the good rides. I’ve ridden Pony Chase and Dizzy Kittens enough for a lifetime—but I can’t remember the last time I went on the Avalanche,” he says, pointing at the tallest roller coaster behind him.
“Then go,” Marina says. “No one’s stopping you.”
Arun tilts his head to the side with a sigh. “Look, I know things have been weird between you two lately, but I don’t care. We’ve spent all week working on this presentation—and we crushed it! We should celebrate that. Together.”
Marina hesitates, her gaze drifting from Arun to the park behind him. His earnestness has me wanting to take back my reluctance and give in—but only if Marina does, too.
“Things aren’t weird between us,” Marina protests, but she averts her eyes when Arun scoffs.
“Then prove it,” Tessa says. “Let’s go in.”
Another pause. Marina’s looking down at her shoes. I silently will her to care enough about this, about me, to put our past behind us and stay.
“Okay,” Arun says when Marina doesn’t speak. “Then I don’t want to go.” Beside him, Tessa’s face sinks into disappointment, and she mutters something I can’t hear.
Randy pulls his keys from his pocket, ready to drive us back to the Ryser Cares office—the place where I’ll spend the next two and a half months having stilted, obligatory festival planning conversations with Marina. As if that evening of giggles and horse jokes last week never happened.
I breathe in the sweet smell of fried dough wafting from the funnel-cake cart just past the gates.
Leaning on our old traditions brought us together last week.
It has to mean something that we’re back here, at the place that shaped our childhood, holding these tickets. All we have to do is use them.
“No, we should go,” I say, glancing at Marina. “All of us.”
The distant screams of joy sound again. Marina lifts her head to watch the roller coaster race along its tracks.
“Well…” Marina says. “I haven’t had a peach cobbler funnel cake in forever.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a lemonade,” Jen says.
Arun’s grin is infectious. Together, the six of us walk through the parking lot, cross the street toward the Solar Summit entrance, and hand in our day passes.
I spin around, taking in the familiar sights and new changes.
The colorful coaster tracks are the same, looping impossibly through the sky.
The funnel-cake stand by the entrance has its same menu of flavors.
But there’s a ride I don’t remember seeing before, something lime-green and steep called the Raging Cyclone.
And when a man walks by carrying what looks like a burrito bowl, I gawk at the lettuce and bell peppers in disbelief.
It’s strange to see fresh vegetables within the walls of this park that, as far as I can remember, has only ever sold foods that are either deep-fried, full of sugar, or both at once.
I haven’t been here since the tail end of my senior year of high school.
Grad night, an after-hours, seniors-only trip to Solar Summit at the end of the school year, was tradition for most high schools in the surrounding area.
While Marina and I had been to Solar Summit together easily over a dozen times, there was something especially magical about being here late at night, when the park was open to only us students for five precious hours, from 9:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. The lines for all the rides were short, and the air was electric with adrenaline and possibility.
The memory plucks a string in my heart. If nothing else, we have this: one more day here at the park before we return to our separate lives.
“What should we ride first?” Tessa asks.
Arun points to the one right in front of us. “The Speed Racer?”
“Sure,” she agrees.
“Hold on,” Marina says. “Shouldn’t we talk strategy?”
“Strategy?” Jen repeats.
“For…roller coasters?” Arun asks.
Marina glances at me for backup. The glint in her eyes ignites a spark in me. “I’ll get the map,” I announce.
“Strategy meeting, picnic table, two minutes,” Marina says to the others. At Arun’s groan, I share a smile with Marina before darting off to the information booth. For the first time all day—all week—something feels right.
Two minutes later, we’re sitting at a table with the Solar Summit map open in front of us.
“We start with the Avalanche because of the short line,” Marina says, circling it with her pen.
“Then I say we hit up all the good coasters that usually have long lines. It’s…
” She checks the time on her phone. “Eleven o’clock on a Wednesday, so we can take advantage of weekday lulls. ”