Chapter 14 #2
“I’m pretty sure there were plans to dismantle it so they could sell it off in pieces, and the Vineyard Preservation Trust didn’t want that to happen.” I nodded at the doors to the carousel’s ring. “Do you want to go in? Or wait for Bryce and Connor?”
“Go in,” Maisie said. “Otherwise, we’ll be waiting forever.” She rolled her eyes. “You know Bryce is going to talk Connor into hot dogs.” She swiped my phone from my back pocket. How she knew my passcode, I had no clue. “I’m going to text him to get us some!”
“Don’t read my messages!” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“Why?” My sister grinned evilly at me. “Do you have a secret?”
“In your dreams.” I rolled my eyes, because I technically didn’t. I’d just sent an idiotic text to my friends this morning: This vacation might have a plot twist.
Quincy: What?
Gwen: WHO?
Why? I’d asked myself, internally groaning. Why did you tease that?
Hadn’t I already decided Connor would want to get too close for comfort?
Because you wanted to hook them, reel them in, and get their advice, I thought now, snatching my phone the second after Maisie texted Connor.
I hadn’t had the time or guts to respond to my friends.
Maybe I already knew what they would say.
“Shall we?” I gestured toward the doors.
Maisie squealed with delight once we pushed into the center ring.
The Flying Horses were in full swing, the platform carousel spinning to upbeat, old-time carnival music.
I grinned, thrilled to see the green painted platform and hand-carved wooden horses in real life. “Their tails are real horsehair!”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“Teddy.”
“Shame on me for even asking,” I said as we weaved our way through spectators and paid our carousel fee before joining the patient line waiting behind a white picket fence.
Tourists had definitely gotten the memo to visit.
My guess was we’d have to wait a couple rides before mounting our noble steeds.
Connor responded to Maisie’s text a few minutes later, confirming that he and Bryce were indeed making a pit stop at Nancy’s, and did we need any condiments with our hot dogs?
I pretended to gag when Maisie said relish and mayonnaise.
Fries too? Connor asked.
Depends, I answered. Does Teddy think they’re up to snuff?
“Did Annie ever get the brass ring?” Maisie asked while we watched children and adults alike stretch to grab a ring when they passed the overarching dispenser. I’d read that there were many iron rings, but only one brass. Whoever seized it won a free repeat ride.
I shook my head. “She never said.”
“Oh.” Maisie’s brow furrowed a little. “Maybe she didn’t win then. I feel like that’s something she’d tell us.”
I felt a twinge in my chest. Annie and Maisie bonded over their shared love of competition.
Our grandmother had rarely missed Maisie’s softball games, tirelessly cheered for the twins during elementary school field days, and taught Maisie to play gin rummy when we had Sunday dinner with her.
I lost track of how many games they’d play, but they almost always ran after the kitchen timer chimed.
“Would someone win already?” Erica would tease. “The food’s getting cold!”
It almost broke my heart that Maisie probably wanted to tell Annie about the other day’s nightshirt caper, but the chances of Annie understanding were slim.
“I think she would’ve told us too,” I said slowly, then squeezed my sister’s shoulder. “She might’ve won, Maze. Let’s believe she did.” I paused. “The reason she didn’t tell me was because I never spoke to her about the Flying Horses.”
Maisie’s eyes widened. “What?”
“I tried talking to her about Martha’s Vineyard,” I said, “but she didn’t share much beyond telling me she went. She wasn’t…”
My sister’s gaze fell to the floor when I trailed off, which made me remember that she was ten—a precocious ten, like I once was, but only ten.
Finlay House frightened the twins, with its village elders, and Maisie had gotten so frustrated with Annie before our grandmother had been moved there, unable to fully understand what was happening.
I knew she was also disappointed in herself, which killed me.
“Thank you for staying,” she’d whispered to me last year, right after our dad agreed to my gap year. “Annie needs you.”
Now, I swallowed the lump in my throat when Maisie took my hand. “How do you know she came here, then?” she asked quietly. “To the Flying Horses?”
“I have this,” I answered, reaching into my purse and pulling out Annie’s Polaroid from a zipped inner pocket. I handed it to my sister. “I found it in one of her boxes in my closet.”
“Wow,” Maisie marveled. “She looks so young.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, also admiring the photo.
Someone had taken it from a distance; Annie wore a floppy straw hat and a light pink sundress, and she was waving at the camera as she rode a horse with a white mane and tail.
She was smiling so widely that I wanted to smile back.
“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world. ”
“Second-most beautiful,” Maisie pointedly corrected, then said, “I wonder who that man is.”
“What man?” I asked.
Maisie pointed at the picture, not at Annie in the foreground, but to the background.
It was a little hazy, and captured plenty of other carousel riders, but I suddenly realized there was someone else meant to be in the photo’s focus.
A man, as my sister had said. His hand held onto the pole that anchored Annie’s horse, but higher up than her clasped hands, so I hadn’t noticed at first. He was tall and wearing a white polo shirt, although I couldn’t see his face because he had turned away from the camera’s crosshairs, as if someone behind him had called his name.
“Do you think it’s Pops?” Maisie asked.
“No.” I shook my head, mind whirring. Our grandfather’s travel anxiety hadn’t set in until he was older, but I knew this wasn’t him. “Pops had really dark hair.”
Mystery Man’s looked light brown, and upon squinting, it curled at the edges.
It kind of reminded me of my dad’s hair.
“Hmm.” Maisie was stumped. “I guess we’ll never know.”
I gave her a look. “Your investigative journalist skills need some work.”
“Why? I don’t want to be an investigative journalist anymore.”
“Okay, what do you want to be?”
Maisie shrugged before the carousel slowed and a woman with red hair cheered. She waved around something small. “The brass ring!” My sister locked eyes with me. “I want it, Olivia.”
“Then let’s get it,” I told her. It looked like we were going to make the cut for the next ride. “I believe in you!”
* * *
Naturally, Maisie did triumph and grab the brass ring, so I took a video of her victory lap for my dad and Erica. “Maisie’s riding without me?” Bryce was incredulous when he and Connor (and a to-go bag from Nancy’s) found me at the picket fence.
“You snooze, you lose,” I joked.
His disbelief turned indignant. “We weren’t snoozing! We had to park all the way up near the Steamship Authority, and then walk to Nancy’s—”
“How about we get in line?” Connor suggested. “I’m sure Maisie will be game for another ride.”
“Especially if she wins the brass ring again,” I said, pocketing my phone. “I nearly pulled a muscle trying to grab those rings.”
Connor cocked his head, bemused. “You didn’t stretch first?”
Not wanting to flash my middle finger in front of Bryce, I stuck out my tongue.
By way of a response, the corners of his eyes crinkled and he held up our food after Bryce took off to stake out our spot in line. “Teddy advised two hot dogs per person, so I got you the requisite two and Maisie three.”
“Very observant,” I commented. My sister could lowkey put away a lot of food. “And…” I gave him a smile, one that surprisingly caught me off guard and warmed my face. Usually one reserved for Annie. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He smiled back, then reached into the bag, surreptitiously pulled out a french fry, and offered it to me. There was probably a no food or beverage sign around here somewhere. “These are also Teddy-endorsed.”
Our fingertips touched when I accepted his fry, and I felt blood rush to my cheeks after I fumbled the handoff and the fry fell to our feet.
If this plot twist is A GUY, Olivia, Gwen had texted when I didn’t respond, then YES, you should go for it! For once in your life!
“Party foul…” Connor teased as my lungs secretly sped up, but his eyes found mine when I didn’t laugh, let alone react.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You seem a little…”
“Do not say edgy,” I said, remembering our first time hanging out on our porch. “I am not on edge.”
Just painfully attracted to you, I realized. And I need to get out of here.
I was suddenly claustrophobic from all the people, the cutesy cloying music, the carousel, and Connor’s elbow brushing mine. I need to leave, I need to breathe, I need to—
My chiming phone cut through the feeling that I was in a bizarre funhouse; I pulled it out of my pocket and was confused to see a call from La Maison d’Annie. Was it Tara? Or one of the other nurses? Annie rarely called me from her room’s landline anymore. I mostly called her.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Connor, already half-heading for the exit. The last thing I wanted was to send Annie to voicemail. “My grandmother’s calling me. Will you keep an eye on the twins?”
“Of course.” Connor nodded. “Tell her I say hello.”
“She doesn’t know who you are,” I tried to joke, but the words cut deep—deeper than Connor knew.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said as my eyes started to sting. “I still say hello.”
“I will,” I said, and only when I turned away did I realize we hadn’t taken my picture for Annie.