“Yeeeeessss,” Gabe says. “That’s very astute of you, thanks for that. It’s also first day of Knights of Columbus.”
“Is it really?” The Knights of Columbus carnival is the dorkiest of all summer traditions, a handful of slightly sketchy rides folded out of trucks at the park downtown, vendors hawking sausage and peppers and sugary fried dough. It’s put on to take advantage of the tourists, but we all used to love it anyway, would go four times in a week if we could find someone to take us, all blinking neon lights and beepy music like Las Vegas in the middle of Star Lake. The summer after fourth grade Patrick rode the swings six consecutive times over Chuck’s patient warnings and then threw up hot dog all over himself—and me. It occurs to me that I ought to remind him of that, that he actually barfed on me once and our relationship previously survived.
Gabe’s still looking at me expectantly, his eyes blue blue blue in the overhead lights of the shop: There are a couple of high school kids parked in the red plastic booths, a family splitting an extra cheese pie and a pitcher of grape soda. I blink, and the memory of Patrick recedes like a cloud of semolina flour, disappearing into the air. “I’d love to,” I tell Gabe, stealing the crust of his pizza off his plate and finishing it in two big bites. “I can’t wait.”
Day 42
We hit Knights of Columbus with a crowd of Gabe’s friends, a noisy herd ambling down the midway in the pink-purple twilight. My boots kick up tiny clouds of dust under my feet. The whole Falling Star crew has turned up, too: Tess and Patrick, Imogen and Annie and Handsome Jay; my spine rattles in time with the chorus of mechanical beeping coming from the long row of games, the periodic Hey! as the water-gun booth broadcasts “Rock and Roll Part 2” over and over. I’m taking my change from the cotton candy vendor when Tess touches my arm, urgent. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” she asks.
“Sure thing,” I tell her, forehead wrinkling, wondering immediately what Patrick’s told her—not that there’s anything to tell, but still. I rip off a wad of spun sugar and stuff it into my mouth as I follow her around the corner beside a giant whirring generator. “What’s up?”
“I never really said thank you,” she tells me, tipping her head close even though there’s nobody but me around to hear her. She’s wearing clean white shorts and a plaid button-down, a smudge of lip gloss the only makeup she’s wearing as far as I can tell. Her eyelashes are pretty and pale. “After the other night.”
“For what?” I ask, swallowing my cotton candy and staring at her blankly. “Oh, for the water and stuff? Don’t even worry about it. Seriously, it could have been any of us. We were all pretty banged up.”
Tess shakes her head. “That wouldn’t happen to you.”
That surprises me. “I like how you think I’m this person who has my shit together,” I say, laughing a little, waving my cotton candy in her direction until she nods and pulls some off. “It’s very charming.”
“I don’t know.” Tess smiles back. “Sometimes it just feels like—”
“Hey, ladies!” That’s Patrick from a distance, motioning to where the rest of our group has already receded down the midway, bound for the hulking cluster of rides. “You wanna join us over here or not so much?”
“We’re talking about our periods,” Tess informs him loudly, which makes me laugh. “Anyway. Thanks,” she adds quietly.
“Don’t mention it,” I tell her. “Really.”
We rejoin the group and head for the Scrambler, which Annie swears beheaded somebody at a carnival outside Scranton. I spy Julia and Elizabeth Reese waiting in line for the giant slide. I turn to point them out to Gabe, find Patrick at my side instead, and startle; Tess is chatting animatedly with Imogen, nobody paying attention to us at all.
“How you feeling?” Patrick asks, quiet enough so only I can hear him. He’s wearing jeans so holey they’re basically shorts and a faded ringer T-shirt, hands shoved into his pockets. “The sunburn, I mean.”
I blink. “Better now,” I tell him, surprised not just that he’s walking beside me but that he’s actually speaking to me in public—Patrick, for one, definitely doesn’t share his girlfriend’s opinion that I’m somebody who knows what she’s doing in this life. “Really wasn’t so bad after all.”
He and Tess break off to ride the Scrambler with Jay and Imogen. “There you are,” Gabe says when I catch up to him, swinging a sturdy arm around my shoulders. He keeps it there as we walk, easy and casual in a starchy button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, like he really is the mayor on his night off; his buddy Steve chats to me about Boston, if I’m planning to root for the Red Sox once I move.
“The Sox are filthy,” Kelsey puts in, sniffing like they’ve done something to personally offend her. “Don’t do it.”
I win a bright orange monkey at the water-gun game, which I pass off to Gabe with great fanfare amidst groans and catcalls from his buddies; he stamps a kiss against my temple, pulls me into line for the Ferris wheel just as the sun slips below the horizon line. Paused at the top I can see the winking lights of town in the distance, the dark spine of the mountains, and the first few pinprick stars.
“I used to think about bringing you up here,” Gabe tells me now, an arm around my shoulders and his face half shadow, half brilliant light. “When I was, like, thirteen or fourteen or whatever.”
“What? You did not.” I actually scoff, the bark of my laugh good-natured and incredulous.
Gabe laughs back, but he nods as he’s doing it. “I did.”