Dreamland Social Club (26 page)

“With Loki,” he said. “And the city council.”

“Oh,” she said, and she instantly, viscerally—like in the buzz of her fingertips and the quiver in her throat—remembered why she’d dreaded spring to begin with. “What’s going on?” she asked and felt wobbly—as if she were on skates. As if winter had been a smooth glide on a frozen lake but now cracks were forming on the surface.

“Big presentation of Loki’s new plan Thursday night at the Aquarium.” He was straightening his jacket. “Loki is opening it to the public on a first-come, first-served basis and footing the bill for a dinner buffet. To try to win people over, I guess.”

“And the new plan is a lot better?” Jane asked, pushing down the sick feeling in her gut. She’d sort of assumed the new plan would take longer, even though they’d been saying spring all along.

He nodded. “Which tie do you like?” He held up two, and Jane pointed to the one with gray and blue stripes on a diagonal.

“How is it different from the old plan?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I just know the Tsunami made the cut.” He looked in the mirror. “Speaking of which, I need to get this mop trimmed.” He ran a hand through his hair, then disappeared upstairs.

Jane sat in the living room for a moment, absorbing this new information. The presentation was happening. She knew about it. But did Leo? Did anyone? Had the news been made public already? Because she did not want to make the same mistakes she’d made in the fall. She wanted to be open. Honest. Wasn’t that the way forward?

She went upstairs and knocked on her father’s door. “Have they announced the event yet?” she asked when he opened.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I think so. Or it will be. Maybe tomorrow. What’s on your mind?”

She sat in a chair in the corner. “I don’t know. There’s someone I might need to tell about it, just to be sure he doesn’t hear it somewhere else and realize that I knew. It’s complicated.”

“Sounds it.” He was hanging up the suit, brushing off a few bits of fuzz.

“Dad?” There was more on her mind than she’d actually realized at the start of the conversation. “If they veto Loki again—and I know it’s a big if—do you think the
city
might be interested in the Tsunami?”

He turned to her. “I’m not sure it works that way, honey. And the city seems to have just stalled its own plans anyway. Something about a change in leadership, I think.”

He was emptying his shopping bag and said, “Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her a postcard—“This was in the mailbox when I came in”—and she studied the image on the front—a black-and-white shot of a million people on the beach. She didn’t have to turn it over to know it was from Mr. Simmons, but she did anyway. It said, “Are we having fun yet?”

 

After dinner that night, Jane went to the window in her room and looked out at the Parachute Jump, lit red in the night. Tomorrow all the boardwalk stores and clam shacks and pizzerias and bars would open for the season, and the crowds would be endless and annoying.

Crowds were good, she knew.

Good for Coney. It depended on them.

But she was going to miss the quiet, the knishes, the truce. She was going to miss the way Coney felt more like a secret than the playground of the world.

Crossing the hall to Marcus’s room when she couldn’t shake a restless feeling, she poked in her head. “I’m going to go for a walk. You want to come?”

So they went up toward the boardwalk together, with light jackets on, and just walked and walked until they hit Brighton—where Russian women in fancy dresses were talking and smoking in groups in front of Tatiana. The sounds of the cabaret—electronic drums and poppy female vocals—floated out into the air.

And then they turned around and walked back and cut down the side of Wonderland, where a barker stood outside the sideshow building with a megaphone. “Free show tonight!” he said to no one, then he spotted Jane and Marcus. “Hey, you two,” he said. “Free show. Come in. You don’t have anything better to do. It’s our dress rehearsal for tomorrow.”

Marcus looked at Jane and shrugged, and she said, “I don’t know.”

“Jane,” he said, “we go to school at a sideshow practically every day. And I mean, look at your friends. You, of all people, shouldn’t be squeamish about this.”

She still couldn’t believe the mystery of the Dreamland Social Club had been solved. If it weren’t a secret society she’d be telling the whole world—or at least Marcus—about her new-member status.

“Fine,” she said, and they ducked into the dimly lit theater and climbed to the middle of a set of small bleachers facing a stage. Jane had, she only realized now, been consciously avoiding the sideshow ever since they’d arrived on Coney. It had seemed sort of scary to her when she’d first laid eyes on that mural on the building. But now, well, now she wasn’t sure. Marcus was right. Maybe something about being a member of the Dreamland Social Club—a club inspired by a group of freaks—made her sort of calm about geeks and sword swallowers and fire-eaters. They were just people. People with tricks, sure, but still just people.

The sideshow performers didn’t seem that enthused about working for a crowd of two, but Marcus and Jane did their best to clap loudly after a man lifted the bowling ball with a chain attached to his tongue, and after another man put a power drill up his nose. And when that same performer—the Human Blockhead—asked for a volunteer, Marcus said, “Go on,” and elbowed Jane. “It’s your destiny.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

He sunk down in his chair.

“Fine.” She stood. “Whatever.”

So she went down to the stage—no one but Marcus was there anyway, so what did it matter if she looked dumb?—and then the Human Blockhead explained what he wanted her to do, and she thought she was going to throw up right there on the stage. But when he put the sword down his throat and tapped his chest—the signal they’d agreed upon—Jane climbed up the small step stool that had been put in front of her and took hold of the sword and very, very slowly pulled it up and out. And when she did, she felt strangely victorious.

When the Human Blockhead told her to take a bow, she did.

“Bravo,” Marcus called from the bleachers, and he stood up and clapped, lazily, three times.

 

They walked past the Anchor on the way home and Jane saw Leo inside. “I’m just going to go say hi,” she said to Marcus, who just said, “Okey-dokey,” and walked off.

She went into the bar and sat next to Leo, who looked up from his crossword puzzle, startled. He said, “Spring has sprung, and so have you.”

She crinkled her nose. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He sipped his Coke, studying her. “You seem different.”

“I do?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You do. A little gooble gobble magic, maybe?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She was looking at the crossword clues, trying to think of a three-letter word for “Paris to Berlin dir,” whatever that meant.

“I’m just saying.” Leo tapped his paper with his pencil. “It must be a relief. To have finally figured it out.” He tilted his head. “You seem, sort of—I don’t know—happy? No, not that. Sassy?”

“Sassy?” She shook her head. “Me? No way.”

“See, right there.” He pointed at her. “That was some sass.”

“It was not!”

He just shrugged. “Look at this.” He pointed at 18 down’s clue, “Anchor’s job.”

“To sink?” Jane was looking for the right boxes.

“Ha,” Leo said. “But no, five letters.” He pushed the paper aside. “I sort of hate crosswords.”

“Me, too.”

“Where you coming from or going to? You want a Coke?”

“No, I’m good. Coming from sideshow. Going home.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” She stretched the fingers on her hand. “I pulled a sword out of the Human Blockhead’s mouth.”

He made a clicking sound and pointed at her quickly, like taking a shot. “Sass, I’m telling you.”

“I’m leaving,” she said, rotating on her stool, though she had no intention of going anywhere.

“No,” he said, grabbing her arm. “Stay a few minutes. It’s a big night. Sort of like Christmas Eve.”

“I feel it,” she said, looking around at the couple leaning into the jukebox picking songs, and at the guy by the outside tables who was trying to sell DVDs to the people there, and at Leo’s father, who was polishing up the old cash register. “Something in the air.”

What she couldn’t bring herself to say was that there was something else in the air, bouncy molecules of dread ricocheting around with all the excitement. He just couldn’t feel them. She simply didn’t have the heart to spoil the mood with the word
Loki
, not when he seemed so happy.

“We have this tradition,” Leo said. “My dad and me.”

“You’re not going to trim a tree, are you?”

“No, but every year since I can remember, he closes the bar a little early on the night before opening day and we watch
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
. Ever see it?”

Jane nodded and said, “It’s pretty bad.”

“But that’s the beauty of it!” he said with an elbow nudge. “I was obsessed when I was little. Now it’s just for old times’ sake. Or something. I don’t even know. I thought it was cool your mom made the beast once, though.”

Jane nodded. “Yeah. Me, too.” She was studying the words around the “anchor’s job” clue and the word popped out. Not a boat anchor but a news anchor. “Recap,” she said, pointing.

“Huh?” Leo said, then he thought for a second and said, “Oh,” and wrote it in. “Yeah, definitely hate crosswords.”

His dad called out, “Drink up, folks, we’re closing early!” and was met by a few lazy groans.

T
HE STORE FOR LEASE BANNER hanging on the Anchor rippled in the wind like a flag. Just down the boardwalk, similar signs—PROPERTY FOR LEASE—wrapped around the gate to Wonderland. Jane and the rest of the Dreamland Social Club stood outside and watched as people walked by, then stopped, midsentence, when they noticed what was going on.

The signs had appeared overnight, as if by magic. Jane knew for certain they had not been there last night.

But there was no mistaking their origins.

Jane looked at the serpent bolt of the logo and swore she heard a hiss. This was all very wrong.

Leo had gone inside to talk to his dad and now came back to report. He said, “They’re trying to mothball the boardwalk.”

“Mothball?”
Jane crinkled her nose. It didn’t make sense.

“It means that Loki’s pissed their first plan got vetoed, and now they’re going to shut down the Anchor and Wonderland even if they can’t replace them. Just to prove a point.”

Jane shook her head. Still didn’t get it.

Babette rolled her turquoise eyes and said, “The point being that they can just let the land sit there.
Gathering moths
. Unless the new plan they’re presenting on Thursday gets approved.”

“Oh!”

So the news of the presentation
was
out. And Loki had obviously timed this power play for maximum impact. Jane’s father had neglected to mention the mothballing, to warn her. Had he known this was going to happen?

Leo shook his head. “My dad said that’s it. The jig is up. Six weeks and he’s shut down. And Wonderland only has two, so they might not even bother opening up again next weekend.”

The park was open now. You could hear a few of the rides whirring and tinkling.

“Let me get this straight,” Legs said. “This is supposed to force the city to approve the new plan?”

Leo said, “Yes.”

“Do you think it will work?” Rita asked. Rita, like Coney, just
looked
better, happier, now that winter was over with. Her skin seemed to thrive on a particular kind of sun.

“No idea,” Leo said, and then they watched a few more people stop and point at the STORE FOR LEASE signs.

Moving over to the plastic tables in front of the bar, they took seats, and Leo’s dad came out to say hi and to clean their table.

“We’re really sorry, Mr. LaRocca,” Babette said, and everyone muttered their regrets, too.

“Crazy days,” he said, and then his sinewy arms ran a cloth around—he was wearing a shirt this time—and rearranged some condiments. Jane tried to glimpse Leo’s future in his father’s form, tried to imagine what he might look like in a bunch of years, what kind of man he might become. She still wasn’t sure she agreed with what her father had said about how loving someone’s potential wasn’t really love. She was sure, though, that she loved Leo just as he was right then, even if he didn’t feel the same way.

Finally, Mr. LaRocca took the ashtray away and said, “I’ll send over some sodas.”

“I’ll help.” Leo sprung up out of his chair.

H.T. took the seat next to Jane. He had his legs on but was wearing shorts, so the metal joints glinted in the sun. She watched the people around them do double takes and gawk and elbow friends and found herself staring at one woman who was staring intently at H.T.

Look at me,
she thought, trying to will the woman to turn her head.
I dare you.

And when she did, Jane just stared at
her
, like
she
was the freak, until finally, the woman looked away, whispered something to her friend.

“I wonder what they’ll do with that,” Babette said.

She pointed over to the neon sign at Wonderland, and Jane wondered whether Alice and the Mad Hatter and their fluorescent blue teapot would suffer the same fate as the Hell Gate demon and the Claverack horse, locked away in some old man’s dusty old house. It didn’t seem right.

Mothballing
.

A funny word.

Preemie had been doing his own variation of it for years.

Leo’s dad was back with sodas, and then Leo reappeared with a clipboard. He said, “Petition to save the Anchor.”