He leaned down and quickly kissed me, then grinned.
“Hey, ’Lize,” called Camden. “What about all that sexual tension between Azor and Satina?”
“They never hooked up,” said Eliza.
“But everyone imagined it,” I said.
We watched her smile. “They sure as hell did. Okay, let’s do a little fanfic version.”
Camden leaned in close to me, and in this space that was tiny but also infinite because of the reflections, I could truly imagine he was Azor and I was Satina. I had always, always wanted him and now he was renouncing his vow of celibacy. For me. Decades of fans had fantasized about being the one he did it for, but here, now, it was me.
Did we kiss for a minute? Five? An hour? I wanted to catapult out of myself again, the way I had for those few forever-moments behind the Ferris wheel, but we were on display now. We were putting on a show.
After we made our way through the rest of the fun house and stepped back onto the midway, Eliza said, “Let’s take our time getting over to the dairy pavilion. Just walk. Be them.”
So we did. I tried to look at the world of the fair through Satina’s eyes. This travel-weary woman who had seen so much, but nothing like this. She was trying to get her bearings as to where and when she was, and what was important to the people here. It must have been hard for her every time, despite her strength and independence. And of course, she was secretly, desperately in love with Azor, the man who could not give her what she needed most because he did not understand what it was.
James and Kendall together took about five hundred pictures as we walked. Heads turned, but it was the fair, after all. Everyone seemed to accept us as part of the absurdity they were there for in the first place. When we reached the dairy pavilion, Eliza handed me the plaid shirt and gave Camden Azor’s stolen 1950s leather bomber jacket—another thrift store find that Eliza had tweaked.
Max slipped on Bram’s silver wig, which really was the attention-getter. I could tell he was trying hard not to feel uncomfortable, and I thought of his comment at the Barn about how he was only doing this for Eliza.
“The cows?” asked Camden.
“Yes, the cows,” replied Eliza.
The second scene we re-created was where Satina—who had never tasted real cheese before, what with cows being extinct in the Silver Arrow universe—was loading up on free samples while Azor begged them to move on to the Ferris wheel so they could investigate the anomaly. In another part of the sprawling pavilion, Atticus Marr and Bram were trying to find them.
The third series of photos were over by the Ferris wheel itself, and included all four of us—a scene after everyone had been reunited. Eliza wanted the ride in the background as we pretended to be running from angry fifties-era locals.
When we were done, we crowded around James and Kendall as they scrolled through the shots they’d taken. They looked better than I thought they would. I was not convinced that Satina was me.
“I cannot wait to post these,” said Eliza. “I’m not sure I can even stay at the fair.”
“You’re staying,” said Max. “We’re having some fair fun whether you like it or not.”
She smiled at him mischievously. “Only if you keep your costume on.”
Max’s expression flickered with doubt. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not kidding. I’ll stay in mine.” Eliza stepped up to Max and put one arm around his waist, the other on his chest, her fingers spread. “It’ll be memorable.”
Max laughed, grabbed the hand that was on his chest, and kissed it. “Fine. But you’re buying me a bag of deep-fried Oreos.”
They took off. I raised my eyebrows at Kendall.
“I like to see the animals,” she said to James. “Some interesting photo ops there. Wanna come?”
“Sure,” he said with a smile that could have meant anything. Sure, let’s do that and then finally go hook up somewhere. Or, Sure, that sounds safely unromantic, I’m in.
Kendall led James away toward the rabbit pavilion.
Camden turned to me. “What about me? Should I change or not?”
Our costumes were barely costumes, out of context. My oversized plaid shirt and Camden’s leather jacket with our leggings and boots just looked sort of arty. You couldn’t even tell we were wearing wigs.
“I’d like to stay at the fair with Azor,” I said.