Southampton Spectacular (13 page)

“Ah, but you don’t yet know the traveling carnival,” Devon said, smiling mysteriously.

Austin huffed. “I know I’ve heard it’s a traveling piece of crap.”

The porch crowd roared with amazement at a passing shot James had just made. It was a good thing, because now Devon was laughing with delight. “Oh, it
is
crap,” she said, sounding slightly unhinged. “That’s why it’s so fantastic.”

“Uh-huh. Terrific, but that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t worry,” Devon said. “I’ll bring the money for this one. It’s a rip-off, and it’s a piece of crap, and it’s
great
. I’m taking you
out this time. We can go to dinner for the second date, on you.”

“So no dinner the first time around?”

Devon shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

1

It was Peter Hall’s last day in the hospital. Devon went back to be with him as they took the last of the wrapped bandages off, and smiled at him when he asked her how his head looked.

“Atrocious,” she said, as sweetly as she could. “Honestly.” She stood at the side of his bed and had him turn away, so that she could see the broad contact bandage that still protected the newly grafted skin underneath; skin that had been taken from the side of his leg. She knew that another layer down, in place of the sections of cracked skull the doctors had removed during surgery, there was a shaped metal plate.

Devon came back to stand in front of him, and she shook her head critically. “We need to shave the rest of your hair off as soon as we get home,” she said. “You look like a nuclear fallout victim right now.”

Her father nodded. “Mmm, yes. Thank you for that.”

Cynthia Hall was there, too, and enjoying the family time. Enjoying the increasing sense of normalcy. She was grateful to her daughter for not asking about the manila envelope the lawyer had brought to them before. Or about her fainting reaction, which she imagined had been so telling. “How were the finals?” she asked Devon. “Who won?”

Devon turned to her. She seemed about to answer, but then she paused. She opened her mouth, closed it, and put a hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “Probably Barnes, based on what I saw early on.”

And then what?
she thought desperately.
I was there, wasn’t I? And didn’t I congratulate someone?

Apparently she had been distracted. Devon shook her head.

Her parents exchanged a glance, then watched her closely. They waited.

Devon shifted her weight from one foot to the other, an uncommon behavior for her. Suddenly she felt somehow guilty for having been asked out during the brief time she had been away from the hospital. As though she had been simply biding her time here, waiting for the moment when she could get away and get back to chasing every boy who crossed her path.

Not that she had gone looking for this. It had been
him
, after all. She had only been sitting there.

“Devon?” her mother said.

“We’re all going to the carnival,” she said quickly, hoping that would cover it. Her parents shrugged. Carnival. Fine.

“Who’s ‘we’?” her father asked. Devon cringed. It was an innocent question, but one she had wanted to avoid.

“Florin and James and Austin and Nina and Barnes and I,” she said, as fast as she could. Why did she feel as though she were suddenly back in the fourth grade?

Her mother spotted it. “Ah,” she said, and tilted her head back a degree. She smiled. “That sounds like fun.”

Peter Hall was slower on the uptake, but he came around. Head wound and all. “Carnival?” he said slowly. “You haven’t been to that thing in years. And who’s Austin? Is he the one who caught me after I got hurt? I didn’t know he was part of the gang. How do you two know each other?”

Devon dropped her head, and her mother stepped in. “That’s too many questions,” she said gently. “Let’s ask her about it in a few days.”

Peter looked confused, but he shrugged and dropped the subject. Women had their own language, and he supposed a traumatic blow to the back of the head was not going to help him decipher it. He would do as his wife suggested, and follow this up later.

2

The traveling carnival that worked its way along Long Island each summer was an anomaly in Southampton summer life, in that it was an attraction neither exclusive, nor refined, nor in any way requiring skill or training or proper upbringing to enjoy. Anyone could come, and anyone did. It was the one place outside the liquor store where farmers and townies and residents of First Neck Lane and Dune Road could come together.

The people who ran the carnival were poorly educated, dishonest, and often rude. And they smelled like hay and horse manure, though there were no animal attractions at this carnival. Every game of so-called skill was designed to deceive, and even the “guaranteed” contests (the water pistol race, for example, in which one out of the ten participants eventually inflated his or her balloon first and was declared the winner) were rip-offs; the few prizes that could be won were cheaply made and, in the unforgiving light of the following day, useless. Without exception, each prize displayed above a game booth was worth less than a single-play fee, so that even a theoretical, win-every-time participant would have found himself behind in the count at the end of the night. Every game at the carnival was worse, in terms of mathematical expected value, than any game to be found at a casino.
Far
worse. Because even if you won – and 95% of the time, you didn’t – you still came out a loser.

According to some, however, the rides made it all worthwhile.

Though by no means according to all.

Consider: the rides at the traveling carnival were not in any better shape than the rest of the equipment. They were just as banged up, just as dirty, and just as overpriced (though at least you knew more or less what you were paying for when you stepped up to the gate). The paint on the spaceship whirlers was faded, the edges of the giant teacups were chipped and rusted, and the seats on the parasol swing were dented and misshapen. The service on the rides was even more careless than at the game stands, since the rides sold themselves; here there were no barkers, no falsely smiling men in striped shirts assuring you that anyone could win. The man standing at the entrance to the giant Round-Up centrifuge had a sour expression on his face, and he seemed actively displeased at each patron coming through the gate. He took tickets without looking at those who held them out; he shut the door behind the last teenager with a slam, released the safety latch and engaged the machine’s massive, single-gear motor with a violent tug on a lever caked with layers of lead paint and sweat and oil.

And yet when the ride itself began, there was something.

That single-gear motor was a powerful one, and you could feel this under your seat, or under your feet, whether you were in the Spaceships or the Helicopter Rotors or the Round-Up or the Gravitron or, saints preserve us, the Zipper. The steel structure of the ride made little groans and rattling noises as the motor accelerated, and you were suddenly very aware that this was a ride that had been assembled. It had been assembled
recently
, from a jumble of rusty parts that had been lying in the back of a truck’s trailer only days ago, or even hours ago. Not only that, but it had likely been assembled by the same bored, marijuana-addled kid who had taken your ticket a minute ago, a kid whom you wouldn’t have trusted to park your car, or even your bike. You looked below you, at the rapidly receding ground and the dingy yellow tents of the carnival below, and you could pick out the oversized hairpin clasps that had been used to secure this ride’s structure at every key joint. You thought to yourself, as the spaceship or the teacup began to fly, to really
fly
around in a way you hadn’t believed it could, that the only thing between you and a messy, twisted-metal death was a bunch of giant hairpins. Hairpins, you thought, as the tops of the trees flashed by in the dark, and the motor started to make a high, humming noise of startling strength. Hairpins, and the engineering skill of marijuana-boy down there.

And it was thrilling.

They came to the carnival as if returning to a favorite playground. Nina said they should try the two-coke-bottles-with-a-softball game first, but Barnes was adamant about the ring-toss. James and Florin went straight for the darts and balloons. Devon and Austin hung back and watched them go.

“Come here often?” Austin said.

Devon grinned. “Not for a few years now. Fun to come back, though. Memories.”

“Win anything good?”

“Not once. Fun to remember when we were all twelve, is what I mean.”

Austin nodded, perhaps pleased to learn that the bar had been set so low. Surely he could win something for her. Not that he could see anything worth winning. “Which game do
you
want to start with?” he asked.

Devon shook her head. “I don’t care much about the games. I like the rides.”

“Ah.” He relaxed a notch. No pressure to win anything. “Great. Scary ones?” He looked around doubtfully. “Do they
have
scary ones?”

Devon laughed. She put her hands out like a display model showing off a new car. “They’re all scary,” she said.

“Um,” he said. “Okay. But maybe you’re remembering from when you were twelve.”

Devon didn’t say anything. She took his hand and led him toward their first ride. “We’ll start easy,” she said. “Spaceships.”

He looked at the ride, at the little open capsules with the faded lighting bolts painted on the side, and then at the half-asleep man slouching by the ticket booth. “Is there something about this thing I don’t see?” Austin asked.

“Come take a spin with me,” Devon said, still leading him along.

He didn’t resist. “I get to sit next to you in one of those things, right?”

“You do, yes.”

“Okay, then.”

And so they took a spin.

They came stumbling out three minutes later, both slightly breathless, their eyes wide and unblinking. Devon was laughing, but Austin was not.

Florin and Nina and James and Barnes were done with their games for the moment, and they came over to regroup. “How’d that go?”
Barnes asked Austin
. “Still as terrifying as I remember it?”

Austin gave him a startled look. “
Yes
,” he said, with wonder in his voice. “But it’s not the ride itself. It’s because you think the whole thing could fall apart at any second.”

Barnes nodded eagerly. “Right, exactly. That’s the whole point. Scary as shit, I know. All the rides are like that. Wait until you try the Zipper.”

Austin glanced at Devon, who was still giggling quietly, as though having trouble getting over a good joke. He said, “We’re not done?”

She pulled herself under control. “Not even close.”

“But I’ll still get to sit next to you.”

“That’s true.”

Austin took a breath and steadied himself. “Then it’s still okay.” He sounded almost convinced.

Florin gave the two of them a concerned look. “Maybe a quick break first?” she suggested. “The darts are flying well this evening. Want to come pop some balloons?”

“No way,” Devon said, and she led Austin off to their next ride. He turned to look back as he was led away, and he gave Florin a grateful nod. For trying.

She waved at him.

“He looks sick to his stomach,” Florin said, when they were out of earshot.

“Abso
lutely,” Barnes said
. “I like him.”

James agreed. “He’ll barf after two more. Tops.”

Nina and Florin glared at them. “What’s wrong with the two of you?” Nina asked. “You want him to suffer?”

The boys looked back at her; they wore matching expressions of gentle scorn. “That’s not the point,” James said.

“We like him because he’s
willing
to suffer,” Barnes explained.

“And because he’ll pretend to have fun the whole time,” James added.

Barnes held out his hands, and he put on a caring face. “We only want the best for our girls,” he said.

“Oh, shut up,” Nina said. She swatted at him, but he ducked her effortlessly. “Go win me a big stuffed banana,” she demanded.

“I got your banana right here – ”

“Shut
up
.”

The four of them headed back to the game stands. They would try a few of the rides when they were ready. After James and Barnes had eaten a few orders of fried dough and cotton candy, which was part of the fun. Holding down cheap fried food and super-sweet, imitation sugar after a few turns on the Round-up was always a good and challenging way to end the evening.