“Expect to screw up tonight. But I’m going to be right over there if you need me.” He points to a nook between a cotton candy maker and someone selling kettle corn. Why is he doing this? Is it guilt? I mean, I know Leslie told him he had to watch over me, but that doesn’t mean he has to actually help me. “Tomorrow you and I will ride with Leslie and go over my notes.”
Wait, notes? So not only am I stuck in this poor excuse for a body, but I’m being critiqued, too? Before I can tell him what I think about his idea of “notes,” the curtain swishes back in place and the booth shakes as the door slams shut. I’m still reeling when I see him walk around the side of the booth, waving a brief hello to the woman pulling cotton candy and settling in against the other booth. His gaze flicks down and up and down again before he pulls his hands out of his pockets and mimes laying the cards on the shelf.
Right. The cards.
The moment my clumsy fingers touch the neat stack, the cards scatter in the drawer. I don’t dare look at Sidney to see what he thinks of my bumbling. Instead, I concentrate on laying out orderly rows of cards on the black-fabric shelf.
When they’re all laid out and there’s nothing inside the booth to worry over, I look around. People flood the aisle between booths. Their hands are full of deep-fried meats and unruly ribbons of prize tickets, soda cups, and neon-furred stuffed animals. Their gazes dart from booth to booth, pausing briefly on that which is bright, brighter, brightest. All too rarely do their glances stop on me.
How am I supposed to trick someone when no one ever gives me the time of day? All I want is to go home to sleep in my own bed tonight. But as the avenue pulses with people who are looking every which way but at me, I know that’s not going to happen.
The night wears on, and I have a few lonely quarters in the bowl on the shelf and I’ve given out some senseless fortunes, one to a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten, one to her brother who was even younger, and one to an old lady whose husband dropped the coin in the slot for her. All the while, Sidney has been watching, empty food wrappers and soda cups piling at his feet
The night grows darker, the patrons fewer and farther between, even in this crowded area of the carnival, and my feeble hopes of passing along this curse tonight are suffering a slow death. Sidney is chatting up the girl who works the cotton candy machine instead of watching me. The chill night air from outside is seeping into the box, making the twitching and jerking worse. I have failed.
That’s when Jules walks by.
Her hair is a ratty mess, the curls crushed and twisted up into a messy knot. She has on the same clothes she wore last night—an oversize purple sweater slipping off one shoulder and jeans that used to be black but have faded to a smoky gray. Her eyes are puffy and red, and her shoulders slump. Shawn, the boy she left me to go flirt with, is by her side, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Sidney didn’t say what to do when the only person you could call a friend comes looking for you. What to do when this girl has been crying her eyes out for you. When a walking, talking reminder of what you’ve lost comes trudging past your booth.
If this body were any softer, it would crumple beneath the weight of the stupid mistake I’ve made.
“Come on, Juliet,” Shawn says. The crowd muffles his voice, but the noise of the carnival patrons can’t hide his boredom. “Do you really think you’re going to find Emmaline when the cops couldn’t?”
Jules stops suddenly, forcing Shawn to a halt, too. “Yes. Maybe.” Tears streak down her cheeks, and it’s easy to tell they’re not the first of the night. “She came here with me. And I left her when I should have stayed, and now she’s gone. I have to make it right. I have to.”
“Yeah, but…” Shawn makes a circling motion with his hand, as though encouraging Juliet to put the pieces of some obvious puzzle together. “She was kind of a bitch, so I don’t see why you’re so worked up.”
Juliet slaps him, fast enough he didn’t see it coming and hard enough to leave a mark. My jaw drops. I want nothing more than to run out there and hug her, one of those bone-crushing hugs where neither of you can breathe but no one dares to let go. My chest feels tight, like it’s clamped in a vise.
Shawn skulks off, rubbing his cheek and leaving Jules in the middle of the alley. Once the crowds swallow him up, Juliet tilts her head to the night sky. Her lids are swollen and pink from crying, and her whole body sags, like all the fight’s gone out of her.
As she turns away, her gaze roves over the booth and our eyes meet.
I don’t want her to see me like this. If she looks at me with an ounce of pity, I’ll break. I’ll let her convince me to leave, to go home where I can’t be fixed. And I want to be fixed.
Jules runs to the booth, her palms slapping against the glass. “Em!” she screams, her words slightly dampened by the glass, “Em, thank God! Get out of there!”
Tears make her eyes jewel bright. My chest feels like bands of iron are constricting around me, but I can’t give in, I can’t.
“Where have you been? Your dad won’t stop crying, Emma; we’re all going crazy.” She looks lost now, like I should have given up the ruse already. Her fist hits the wooden frame. “This isn’t funny, Emma. Come out, please.”
My dad hasn’t stopped crying.
I almost break. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell her now, so she can let everyone know I’m okay. Well, okay-ish. But I can’t. I cannot. My fingers twitch, and I pray Jules doesn’t notice. I turn the movement into a slow sweep of my hand toward the coin slot.
Jules looks down to dig in her purse, and when she does, I remember how Sidney had worked the box, and I change my pose. Let her think that I’ve been doing this for years. Let her doubt. Just let her think that I’m not Emmaline.
Jules finds a quarter, and she slips it into the slot. The coin falls down the track and lands next to the others I’ve collected tonight. Fine. Again, I pretend that I’m Sidney, a coldhearted jerk who doesn’t care, just another part of the show.
I turn and twist and pretend to think about just which fortune is the right one for Jules. I need her gone, as far away from here as possible. If the cops think I’m a runaway and Leslie is saying she never saw me, I need Jules to believe that for now. I force every thought of Jules and home away and play my part. The card in the corner seems as good as any, and I pick it up.
My chest hitches, spasms with tears I can’t shed. Just let the card go, Emmaline. Just drop it into the tray and get it over with. The card falls into the tray.
Juliet chews her lip and I know that she’s doubting now, unsure as to what she should do. The card I’ve given her has just four words on it, four words that I was mentally shouting as I plucked the card up from the shelf. She pulls the tray open, retrieves the card, and reads them now. Her eyes fill with new tears.
Know when to quit.