Chapter 20. Lenore
Lenore
The county fair sits on the edge of the crowded parking lot, multicolored carnival lights gleaming over the rooftops of cars. “Shut up,” I say. “I haven’t been to the fair since high school.”
“We can always go somewhere else,” Cal says.
“No, I love the fair,” I say. “I used to go every year with Gran.”
“I remember.”
Cool autumn air greets me as I step down from the truck. A cotton candy sunset kisses the darkened tree line, frothy clouds catching the dying rays.
Callan waits a few yards ahead. His sweatshirt emphasizes his broad shoulders and he’s pulled a baseball cap low on his brow.
A crackling uncertainty has arced between us since the kiss in the bathtub.
It would be embarrassing to outright ask him: Did you want that to happen as much as I did?
I don’t doubt that he was into it, but maybe I wanted it a little more.
I’m at risk of putting on that armor again, refusing to want because wanting has, historically, ended badly for me.
Except, if I keep my guard up, I cut out any chance of it happening again. And I want it to happen again, even though I’m certain it’s a bad idea. The possibility fizzles like effervescent little champagne bubbles in my bloodstream as I jog to catch up.
At the ticket booth, he pays for two orange wristbands. We stop just inside the fairgrounds to put them on. His fingers brush against the sensitive underside of my wrist.
“Too tight?” he asks, eyes lifting to mine. His usual blue is cast gray in the neon lights. Not for the first time, I’m at risk of falling into those bottomless depths—like a cloudless sky right before sunrise.
I shake my head, a knot tied in my vocal cords.
The scent of hot cooking oil and deep-fried food plumes from nearby stalls. The distinctive oom-pah-pah of accordion music blares from speakers erected around the Tilt-A-Whirl. We follow the surge of the crowd, the grass smashed beneath feet.
“I can’t wait to get a funnel cake,” I say. “I haven’t had one in forever. Oh, look! There’s a fun house, too. Maybe we could—oh my God.” I stop dead and grab his sleeve.
People spill around us. “What?”
“We have to go on the Zipper.”
Callan frowns up at the ride. A chorus of screams ensues when the creaky boom turns on its axis, flipping the cages wildly. “You have some sort of death wish I’m not aware of?”
“The opposite, actually. It’s all the blood rushing to my head and the screeching metal—makes me feel alive.”
He scoff-laughs. “Maybe when you’re in high school. I’m pretty sure those G-forces can take actual years off your life.”
“Come on,” I tease. “You can afford a few years.”
“You’re going to have to find another way to feel alive, Nore, because I am not setting foot on that death trap.”
“All right.” As much fun as it is ribbing him, I don’t want to push him to do something he isn’t comfortable with. My eyes scan the nearby stalls. “There.” I point.
He follows my finger and shakes his head. “I feel like these are two extremes,” he says. “Surely there’s something less exciting than death and more exciting than ring toss.”
“A man could never understand the simple joy that is an impractically large stuffed animal.”
“That’s not true.” Already he’s wandering over to the octagonal stall. Plush cows and Looney Tunes characters dangle overhead. He slides his wallet from the pocket of his sweatpants and leafs through bills.
I touch his elbow to stop him. “You already got the wristbands,” I say.
“This is part of the fair experience,” he says, handing the cash to the teenage attendant. “If you’re going to be lugging around a giant cow for the rest of the night, you’re supposed to be able to tell people your date won it for you.”
My foolish heart cracks open like an egg, messy warmth spilling behind my rib cage. It’s a word. A word, and I have no idea whether he means anything by it, but maybe tonight we can pretend. “In that case,” I say, “I want the otter.”
The attendant hands over five plastic rings. “One bottle gets you a prize from the bottom row, three rings gets you the middle row, and all five for the top row,” he explains in a bored voice.
Cal turns his hat backward and squints at the prize rack. The otter is in the middle row.
He lines up a shot and tosses the first ring. It pinks off the glass cola bottles, landing in the grass. The attendant dips to collect it and tosses it in a bin.
“No pressure,” Callan says with a nervous laugh, and bends at the waist to line up the next toss.
The second ring pirouettes around the lip of a bottle before settling around the neck.
“Yes!” I say, bouncing on my heels. We high-five.
The third ring lands between two bottles. A fourth ping, ping, pings across the tops. The attendant catches it before it hits the grass.
“Shit,” Cal says. Only one ring left, which means there’s no way to get the three bottles to win the otter. Still, he takes his time aiming, and the final ring settles around a Coke bottle. He straightens with a sigh through his nose.
“Ten dollars for three more rings,” the attendant says.
Callan is already getting out his wallet. This time, I stop him. “It’s no big deal. There are other games,” I say.
There’s a stubborn look in his eye. I shake my head and he pockets the wallet, sulking.
“You can pick anything from the bottom row,” the attendant says and waves two fingers.
I take a few seconds to look over our options: inflatable hammers and rubber chickens. “I’ll take that one.”
He unhooks a flamingo grabber toy from the rack and hands it over.
We wander past a rope ladder and a shooting gallery with every seat filled. A carny working the basketball game shouts at passersby to goad them into playing. “You! Guy with the backward hat. Your girl looks like she could use a teddy bear.”
Callan shoots him a murderous look.
“Hey.” I pinch his cheek with the flamingo. “It’s okay. Everybody knows these games are rigged. Thank you for trying.”
“I’m not done trying,” he says. “I’m just looking for a game I know I can win.”
My mouth waters as we pass by a stall peddling fried Oreos and other heart attacks waiting to happen, but Callan is on a mission.
“Do you like any of these?” he asks, indicating the stuffed toys strung from the balloon darts booth.
I hesitate. “The snake is fun,” I say. It’s also one of the top prizes, which means every dart would need to pop a balloon in order to win.
Cal hands a few bills over to a woman in scarecrow face paint behind the booth and receives four darts in return.
“Good luck,” I say, and rise on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. His face is warm and scratchy against my lips.
He’s laser focused as he mimes the throw once, twice. The dart hits a green balloon with a satisfying pop. And then a red balloon. And a yellow.
“Wow,” I say. “Suddenly I’m wondering whether you win giant snakes for all the girls.”
Callan tosses me a preoccupied smile. “You’re distracting me.”
“Sorry.”
Pop. A blue balloon bursts, and the scarecrow attendant collects the darts from the corkboard. “Congratulations,” she says, her smile stretched too wide by the makeup. “You can pick anything from the prize wall here.”
Less than a minute later, I’m walking away from the booth with a hot-pink snake plush coiled around my waist, its head draped over one shoulder. We join the queue at the cotton candy stand. “You look great,” Callan says while we wait. “Elegant.”
“I’m making fashion history here. It’s like Bjork in the swan dress,” I say.
“The queen of pink,” he declares. I hold the flamingo grabber like a scepter.
The line thins and we’re up next. The woman operating the cart spools blue sugar around a paper cone and hands it over to Callan, who gives her a few dollars in return.
I stop at another stall to buy a fresh-squeezed maple lemonade and then we sit down at an outdoor table to contemplate our next move.
I reach across the table with the flamingo and pluck some cotton candy, popping it in my mouth. “A little offended you didn’t get the pink cotton candy, but I’ll let it slide.”
“Here,” he says, angling the cone toward me.
I tear off another piece. The sugar melts between my fingers and then on my tongue. Without breaking eye contact, I suck the sticky-sweet residue from the side of my thumb. Across the table, his eyes are fixed on my mouth, flared pupils reflecting the carnival lights.
We’re so good like this, when it’s only another game. When the stakes, win or lose, aren’t tangled up in something more. Even though I want something more.
Callan rises to toss the empty cone in the nearest trash can and we continue walking. He fishes his wallet from his sweatpants and extracts a stick of gum.
I laugh a little. “What are you doing?”
“All that sugar is bad for your teeth.” He pops the gum into his mouth.
“And gum is going to make it better?”
A muscle works in the sharp corner where his jawline meets his ear as he chews. “It’s sugar-free,” he says with a shrug.
I snort and lift my lemonade by the lid for a long sip. “Where to next?”