Adriana #2
You’ll have to learn to unplug, to slow down. You can catch up on all the living you’ve missed, cultivate hobbies, go on vacation. Take up gardening. Maybe join a book club. Adriana took a deep breath as she’d returned home that day, ready to leave it behind.
You can be someone brand new there.
Now she was here, all her worldly possessions packed into a trailer that didn’t quite fit in her new driveway, hoping that anyone passing by that evening wouldn’t mind stepping through the grass to refind the sidewalk, running to catch the old-fashioned trolley.
Her hand clutched around a fistful of dollar bills in her open shoulder bag as she boarded, but there was no visible farebox or electronic validator.
A moth couple pushing a fat, caterpillar-esque baby in a stroller had come up to the stop behind her, and Adriana continued down the aisle, deciding to use their entry as her model on how to pay .
. . but the moths never did, simply boarded and took their seats, the chime of the old-timey bell indicating the trolley was continuing on.
“If you’re going to the senior celebration, this is as close as we can get,” the driver called out cheerfully, just two stops later.
Adriana rose slowly, allowing the moth family and several other passengers to exit before her, emptying the car, pausing at the steps. “Excuse me . . . I-I didn’t see a way to pay, and I want to make sure I’m not—”
“Oh, this circulator is free, sweetheart.” The boar-faced driver was old enough to be her grandfather, grinning as she nodded jerkily. “Seven days a week. Although we only make the circle. You can find a map of the stops at the community center.”
“Oh, wow . . . how nice. Okay, good to know. Thank you,” she added quickly, exiting the trolley car to allow a group of goblins to enter.
The short walk to the barricaded Main Street was only a block or two, giving her the opportunity to take in the center of Cambric Creek for the very first time.
She had never seen anything like it.
Window boxes overflowed with flowers in front of Victorian-style buildings, housing a jeweler, a lingerie boutique, an ice cream parlor.
Several bicycles leaned against the brick wall of a narrow alleyway between buildings without chains or visible concern for theft.
The soft colors of the businesses were broken by a line of black awnings, emblazoned with the white outline of a manic-looking sheep.
Baskets of color-coordinated flowers hung from the lampposts, just above pennants with the faces of high school students, all different species, presumably the graduating class.
If that doesn’t scream disposable income community, I don’t know what does.
For a moment, Adriana forgot where she was going as she neared the square, her mouth agape at the excess of commerce that ringed the long park.
There was an independent bookstore with hand-lettered staff recommendations in the window, a kitchen store displaying copper cookware that looked too beautiful to ever contain actual food, a wine bar on the corner, whose outdoor tables were occupied by nymphs and trolls wearing light colors with the confidence of a bottomless dry cleaning budget as they held glasses of port and bordeaux aloft.
She took it all in slowly, gawking at the shiny gold cupola of the clock tower at the center of Main Street.
An abundance of small business, all clearly thriving, people strolling the sidewalks, practically a neon sign advertising upper middle class over the building line.
Towns like this only existed on television; that’s what she’d thought.
Evidently it had been so long since she’d indulged in mindless viewing that one of them had wished itself into existence.
“Fluvia Jeene, if you don’t stop running right now!”
Adriana stepped back as an elementary school-aged goblin skidded to a halt at the end of the sidewalk, turning back to huff impatiently at her mother, who walked several yards back, chatting amiably with a willowly nymph.
“Better wait for mom,” she told the girl conspiratorially with a wink, stepping off the curb, hoping her mouth wasn’t actually hanging open in wonder as she took it all in.
People lived here. Not visited, not retired here after successful careers elsewhere.
Lived here! There were actual families raising children in this place, young people and professionals, the doctors at her new practice.
Fluvia Jeene was growing up in this place, and likely had no idea how lofty the status of her daily existence even was.
In Adriana’s experience, entry to places like this had to be earned, and the litmus test they provided to prove one’s worth wasn’t usually fair. It’s always about who you know. Never about how good you are.
“Did you even see that schedule? What are they thinking?! Swimming right before Mathletes? Who is getting their kid out of the pool excited to do math?!”
The speaker was a purple-skinned tiefling, pushing a stroller that could have doubled as an off-road vehicle, its cheddar frog-eating inhabitant never raising their head from a tablet they clutched.
A selkie walked beside the tiefling, her own toddler strapped to her body in what looked like several hundred yards of stretch fabric, knotted hugely at her back.
“I almost hate to say it, but the schedule for everything was better when Sandi was in charge.”
She gulped. Toddler mathletes. These are the kids who will grow up to be the med school superstars, based on their connections alone. She certainly knew the type.
“I don’t want you spending all the money your grandmother gave you on candy!” a reptilian woman called out to the retreating forms of her own two children, cutting across the barricaded road, shaking her head when they disappeared into the central park without a backward glance.
These kids probably have a better-funded 401 (k) than you.
How are you supposed to convince them you belong here?
Adriana couldn’t help but wonder if the pocket money these children were given for a single night would have put her hard-earned carnival earnings to shame, before shaking the thought off, chastising herself. Get a fucking grip.
She’d always had a bad habit of getting ahead of herself, of catastrophizing, but preparedness was the doorway to perfection.
It was good to establish the obstacles in her path early.
All the better to circumvent them when the time came, and it was clear to her, just looking at this town square, that she would need to get her eventual story straight.
You’re not here to spiral. Go grab something to eat, find some lemonade. Fucking relax, it’s not like anyone is going to demand to see your credit score just to get a funnel cake. No one is going to ask you questions at the clinic either.
It wasn’t a carnival at all, she realized once she crossed the street and entered the park.
It was some sort of street festival, albeit one with professional-level organization and amenities.
There were no rides, but there were plenty of games, manned by what appeared to be regular townsfolk instead of transient workers who would be leaving along with their darts and spinning wheels at the end of the weekend.
Food tents within the green space were supplemented by a dozen different food trucks on the outer perimeter.
Folding tables overflowed with raffle baskets, middle-aged trolls and shifters sold tickets spun off giant rolls, and every available patch of grass seemed occupied by camp chairs and coolers, her future patients everywhere she turned.
Adriana swayed, the smell of grilled onions and popcorn tickling at her nose.
She felt a whine within her, cortisol rising, her animal skittishness on high alert.
It had been years since she had seen a place that was so alive outside the ED, but there was no one in distress, and the only pressing decision she needed to make was what to eat.
See? Unplug. Slow down.
It was with that spirit that she located the grilled sausages, moaning a little at the first bite.
Nostalgia washed over her again as she moved through the maze of tents, the smell of fried dough competing with the tang of vinegar from a food cart selling some pickled gnomish dish, served in foil.
It was familiar in a way that nearly folded her in half, but entirely different from her own experience.
The games, at least, were similar to the ones she remembered from her own childhood midway — a ring toss, milk jugs, throwing darts at a wall of balloons.
“Do you know if they have the goldfish game?” she asked, smiling in a way she hoped seemed friendly at the green-skinned dryad who stood before the milk jugs, a basket of tennis balls before her.
The handsome, dark-haired man who stood beside the dryad raised his brows, eyes widening, his smile never faltering, but tightening in a way that resembled a grimace for a brief instant that Adriana might have overlooked as a figment of her suspicious imagination, if the dryad hadn’t wrinkled her nose, eyes moving up and down Adriana swiftly.
“Uh, no. That’s like, super barbaric.”
The dark-haired man laughed lightly, shooting his companion a swift look.
“Barbaric is a bit strong. I don’t think they do that one anymore,” he directed at Adriana, with another warm smile.
His tone was tactful, with a kindness she most often heard employed in pediatrics.
His smile seemed friendly enough, though she could smell the wolf on him, her lungs squeezing around the nervous whine within her.
Something about him tickled at the back of her memory, something she couldn’t quite place.
“You know . . . it’s uh, not great for the fish. I remember playing that one when I was young. My brothers and I would bring home half a dozen baggies . . . Poor things never lasted more than a day or two once you got them home.”