“Spoilsport.”
Then I saw something from the corner of my eye. We were near the side of the pier. It was a white F-150 truck, driving across the sand of the beach, toward us. I could see a stack of clear plastic bags in back, full of toys. You? It had to be you. “Follow me,” I said, and I started walking, keeping an eye on the truck to see where it was headed.
“Where are we going?” asked Paris.
I didn’t answer. I swerved past a group of women on a bachelorette thing, pink furry mouse ears on their heads, angel wings fluttering out behind them. Between two of the round stalls, along the side of the Sidewinder. Beyond its steel struts and riveted crosspieces, there was a little gate, waist high. A wood-sided office was next to it. A sign said STAFF ONLY AFTER THIS POINT. It wasn’t locked—I pushed it open and walked through, and then there was the side of the pier—a sheer drop to the beach below.
“Cass, what the—”
I held up a hand to cut her off. I walked right up to the edge and looked down.
“Jump,” said the voice. It was only the fourth time I had heard it that day, I realized. The schedule thing was really working.
“Jump,” it repeated. “Break your legs.”
“Shush,” I said.
“You little *****. Don’t you d—”
“Not now,” I said.
“Uh, Cass?” asked Paris from behind me. “Cass, are you all right? What are you doing?”
“Wait,” I said. I looked down.
“Wait for what?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Is this, like, some kind of bravery thing? Like Chicken? How close will you go? Okay, I’ll play.”
“What?” I said, turning to her. But she was already coming up beside me, shuffling her feet till her toes were over the edge of the wooden planks. Then she leaned forward, right over the edge, almost ready to topple.
I looked down. The hard gray sand was easily fifteen feet below us.
“Jesus,” I said. “Don’t do that.”
“Just because I’m winning,” she said. She leaned right out now, ten degrees or something. I don’t know degrees. I don’t even know why I’m making that analogy. Let’s say instead: she leaned out till she looked like the woman on the prow of an old ship, her hair stirring in the breeze.
“It’s not a game,” I said.
“Not if you’re losing,” she said. Leaned more.
I backed away from the edge. “Seriously, I’m not competing with you.”
She turned, looked quizzically at me. And that’s when she lost balance, her arms wheeling as she began to fall. Her eyes went comic-book wide, and I lunged without thinking and caught her wrists. I then did a beautiful move where I just kind of sat down, all my weight at once, to pull her back onto the pier.
She collapsed on top of me. “Thanks,” she said, with a grin, the fear already gone from her eyes, as if it had never been there.
“You’re welcome.”
We stood up.
“So what were you doing at the edge?” she said.
I pointed down. “Waiting for him,” I said. You had just pulled up in your truck and were climbing out of it; you hadn’t looked up yet, and consequently had not noticed us standing there.
“Oh,” said Paris. “That makes much more sense.”
Below us, you closed the door of the truck and walked around to the back. Then you leaped up onto the tailgate.
“Hey,” I said.
You looked up. You raised your eyebrows and smiled. “Hey, yourself,” you said. “What are you doing there? Where’s Pedro?”
“I don’t know who Pedro is.”
You sighed. “Always late.”
“It’s him!” said Paris, moving to stand next to me. “Hello, cute boy who lives at Cass’s place.”
You blinked at her. “Uh, hello, um …”
“Paris.”
“Hello, Paris.”
I looked down at the bags of toys. “So you just throw them up on the pier?”
“Yeah,” you said. “Then Pedro carries them to the stalls that need them. When he’s around anyway.” You saw the toy in Paris’s hand. “You won that?”
“Hook-the-Duck,” said Paris. “I sucked ****.”
“Hang on,” you said. You moved a couple of the bags. Then you made a little rip in one of them and pulled out a big Elmo, like half the size of me. “Catch,” you said, and tossed it up to Paris.
Paris held out her hands but missed—the Elmo fell to the wooden floor of the pier.
“See?” she said. “I suck.”
Was she flirting with you?
And if she was, why would I care?
“Do me a favor,” you said, interrupting my thoughts.
“What?” I said.
“I need to roll. I have another delivery. So I’m going to toss these bags up. You make sure they don’t fall off the side, okay? Pedro will know what to do with them.”
“Just don’t throw them to her,” I said, pointing to Paris.
You laughed. “Seriously, though, don’t try to catch them. They’re heavy.”
“Okay.”
You picked up the first bag and kind of pitched it up onto the pier. It landed with a dull thud and a flat flopping motion that made me think queasily of a body.
Blood.
A tiled floor.