The Summer of Cotton Candy (4 page)

“Hey there, lady,” a voice behind her said.

She twisted around and saw the Lone Ranger, standing with his hat in his hand. She stood gaping, sticky hands pressed to sticky hair.

“You know, you shouldn’t go outside without your pants on.”

“What are you talking about?” she shouted.

Then he began to laugh. Everyone was laughing. She could hear the roar through hands and sugar and hair. Finally, she looked down and realized that she was completely naked from the waist down. She screamed and tried to run. Globs of sticky pink goo oozed around her feet, making them stick to the ground. She tried to move her hands to cover herself, but they were stuck to her hair. She screamed again and began to cry.

She heard another voice and turned her head to see the recruiter leering at her from behind his desk. “You know, you should have started dressing hours ago. You need to wake up now.”

Suddenly she woke and saw her mother staring at her. “Candace, you’re late, you should have already been dressed.”

“Late for what, Mom?” she asked, still not sure where she was.

“Work, you should have left five minutes ago.”

“Work? Work!” she shouted and launched herself out of the bed, tripping when her left foot tangled in the sheets. She fell onto the floor in a pile of blankets.

“Help me!”

Her mother just raised an eyebrow. “It’s your job, your responsibility. You have to sink —”

“Or swim on my own,” Candace finished in disgust. She had heard that all her life, and she swore that if she heard it one more time she was going to lose it.

“So swim already,” her mother said, sarcasm dusting her voice. “I’m off to work.”

Candace sat for a moment, frustrated and out of breath. When she heard the door close downstairs, she scrambled to her feet and raced to the bathroom. She grabbed her makeup kit and dashed a bit of blush across her cheekbones. Her hand shook as she applied a pale pink lipstick to her lips.

She threw on her pink-striped blouse and white skirt. She ruined two pairs of nylons before she finally managed to get a pair all the way up. She slipped on her white shoes that reminded her of the ones the school nurse wore. The pin on her name tag stabbed her as she tried to push it through her shirt. She bit her lip and hoped that she wasn’t bleeding, but she didn’t have time to check. She grabbed her purse and flew out the door.

Forty-five minutes after she woke up, she was standing behind her cart in the Kids Zone with a fake grin plastered on. Martha, a wizened old woman with a smoker’s cough, was her trainer. Actually Martha was a manager, but apparently the trainer was out sick.

The Kids Zone had to be the most chaotic part of the park. There were a few traditional rides where kids would board vehicles and wind through tableaus from classic stories like The Little Mermaid, Princess and the Pea, and Little Red Riding Hood. For Little Red Riding Hood, the ride cars were shaped like baskets of goodies, and for Princess and the Pea, they looked like a giant stack of mattresses. A lot of the other games and rides, though, were far less contained. There was a huge finger-painting wall that started out white every morning and ended each day a mess of color. There were ball pits in several places. A huge set of tubes, like the Habitrail you’d see on a hamster’s cage, wound around the tops of several of the buildings, and you could see kids happily climbing and sliding all day long. A foresty maze with a gingerbread house in the center always reverberated with lots of high-pitched squeals of laughter. Perhaps messiest and craziest of all the games was Silly String Tag, a messy version of Laser Tag that had kids pouring out of the building, trailing Silly String everywhere. She didn’t know how the janitors kept up with it all.

“All righty, missy, you think you got it?” Martha asked after an hour. Candace nodded, her mouth too dry to speak. Martha stepped back to let Candace handle the next customer.

The sun came out with a vengeance, and scorched the black pavement. Candace’s red curls were plastered to her head, and she could feel sweat rolling down the small of her back. Her fingers were sticky from the cotton candy, and the background music that played on continuous loop in the Kids Zone was starting to drive her insane. The music was a high, tinny instrumental version of “I Want Candy.” She figured it was meant as a subliminal message to kids already hyped up on sugar to beg their parents for more.

Several feet away, a man seemed to be arguing with his wife as his two little boys jumped up and down between them. At last, the man separated himself from his family and walked up to her cart.

She plastered a smile on her face. “Hello, sir, what can I get for you?”

He stared at her for a moment, and then a sly smile spread across his face. “Candy,” he answered, letting her know with his eyes that he wasn’t talking about the sticky sugary stuff that was coating her hands.

Eew! Gross
, she thought. He just kept staring at her, and she dropped her eyes. “Pink or green?” she asked.

“Pink,” he said, his voice still slimy sounding. She blushed until she was sure her cheeks must match her hair.

“Three dollars,” she told him.

She flinched as he tried to hold her hand for a moment as he gave her the money. She thanked God silently that the man had given her three ones and that she wouldn’t have to give him change.

“Here you go,” she said, picking up a paper cone already wrapped in sticky pink goodness. She practically threw it at him and refused to meet his eyes. She heaved a sigh of relief when he walked away.

Martha made a clucking sound. “You’ll find there’s more where he came from, but you did good. Just remember, there’s an intercom under the counter. Hit the red panic button if someone gives you too much trouble, and security will be here before you know it.”

“Has anyone ever had to hit the panic button?” Candace asked.

Martha snorted. “Only about once a month.”

Candace stared at her in dismay. Martha patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Candace opened her mouth to assert the fact that she most certainly would
not
get used to it. But before she could say anything, Martha glanced at her watch.

“I’ve got to go open somewhere else. There’s more demand for snack food starting around this time of day. I’m sorry I don’t have more time. Hopefully the trainer will be back in tomorrow, and she can walk you through anything else you need to know. You’re going to be fine. Someone should be by in a few minutes to give you your break.”

Then Martha took off, leaving Candace all alone.
Just breathe,
she told herself.
Someone will be here soon, and you can take a break. Everything’s going to be okay.

Except no one came to give her a break. She squirmed, not knowing what to do. She didn’t have keys to lock everything up, and she couldn’t just leave the stand — including the cash box — unattended. So she waited, and the minutes ticked by painfully.

By the time she was relieved for lunch, she was exhausted. She limped to the nearest exit and made her way to the employee cafeteria.

There she grabbed a turkey sandwich and a bottle of water and sat down gratefully on a bench. She drank half the water in a matter of seconds and then just sat for a few minutes staring at the sandwich.

“First day?” a voice beside her asked.

She turned and looked up. “Zorro?” she asked.

“Sí, senorita
,” he said, bowing with a flourish and putting on a thick accent.

She looked deep into his eyes, once again framed by a mask, and recognized that it must be the Lone Ranger from the recruiting office.

“Is it that obvious?”

He nodded. “Even if I hadn’t seen you the other day at HR. You can always spot new refs — they’re the ones that look half dead.”

“Refs?” she asked, more interested in staring into his eyes than hearing what he was saying.

He laughed. “Referee, remember? Employees are called referees and customers are called players?”

“That’s right,” she said, blushing furiously.
He must think I’m a total idiot,
she thought.

“Don’t worry. If you can last the week, you’ll be fine.”

“I hope so.”

“You will,” he assured her. He resumed with an accent, “Zorro gives you his word.”

He drew his sword, saluted her, and then turned and swept away, cape fluttering in the wind.

She just sat and stared after him.

Lunch was over before she knew it, and she limped back to her cart. Without a word, the girl who had been minding it left, her pace brisk. Candace got out some empty paper cones and began to roll them, one after another, inside the spinning tub. The cotton candy wound itself onto the cones like webbing wrapping itself around a spider’s helpless victim.

After half an hour of that, Candace realized that thin strands of cotton candy were stuck to her clothes. She must have caught some accidentally on her arm or sleeve. She shook her clothes, trying to get it off, but it just clung more fiercely.

“Hey there.”

She looked up, embarrassed at being caught unaware. A guy that looked like a surfer, right down to the baggy shorts and bleached white hair, was smiling at her. The only thing that gave him away as a ref was a name tag — Josh — worn on a tank top with a subtle blue stripe in it.

“I work at the Kowabunga ride.”

“The Splash Zone,” Candace said with a smile.

“That’s right.”

“Nice uniform,” she said with a wistful smile, thinking that what he was wearing was probably a lot cooler than hers.

“It’s one of the best in the park.” He leaned closer conspiratorially. “That’s why there’s a waiting list to work there.”

“How did you get it?” she asked, curious.

He smiled. “I applied in March.”

Duh!
She felt like slapping her forehead, but restrained herself.

“They had me work part-time until last week.”

“Didn’t it rain like the entire month of March?” she asked.

“Yeah, storms nearly every day,” he affirmed.

“You had to have been freezing!”

“I was, but it was worth it to not sweat away the summer.”

She laughed. “Good choice.”

“Yeah, your cotton “candy-striper” look is cute, but it has to be hot.”

“Thank you, I thought I was the only one who noticed. I feel like I should be working in a hospital.”

He laughed, a nice, easy sound. “Well, I got to get back to my post.” He glanced at her name tag and his eyes widened. “Candy,” he said and started laughing even harder. “I’m sorry, that’s just really unfortunate.”

“It’s worse than that. My name is Candace. I hate Candy.”

He slapped his thigh. “Of course you do. It took me three weeks to get them to put Josh on my name tag instead of Joshua. Not even my parents call me that.”

“Only three weeks?” she teased. “Then maybe there’s hope for me.”

“Oh, there’s always hope. Catch you later, Cotton
Candace
.” He waved and took off.

The next hour dragged by. The good part was that she was busier than she had been all morning, but it wasn’t enough to completely distract her from the heat and the pain in her feet.
I never knew standing could be such hard work.

She was just coming up on her afternoon break, a much anticipated event, when she looked up and saw Tamara walking toward her, a triumphant smile on her face.

“Tamara! What are you doing here?”

“Since you couldn’t hang with me, I thought I’d come hang with you,” Tamara said. “I’ve been to every cotton candy stand in the park looking for you.”

“Tam, that was sweet, but you don’t have to do this.”

“I do now.”

“Why?” Candace asked, confused.

Tamara whipped a card out of her pocket. “Because, thanks to you, I’m now a season-ticket holder, and I plan on getting my two hundred dollars’ worth.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know. So, do they give you breaks or what?”

Candace waved to a girl headed her way dressed as she was. “I’ve got my afternoon break right now.”

“Good on me. I couldn’t have better timing.”

“Your timing rocks,” Candace confirmed as she gratefully relinquished her post.

“So, where do the fine guys work around here?”

“I can think of one place,” Candace said with a blush. “Lead the way.”

They walked across to the History Zone, which would be more accurately named Somebody’s Fantasy of What History Should Be Zone. In it, cowboys mingled with knights. King Tut rubbed shoulders with superheroes. Candace, however, ignored all of them and looked for a particular black-clad swordsman.

“Howdy, ma’am,” a gunfighter said, tipping his hat as he paused in front of them.

“Check again,” Tamara said. “It’s
mademoiselle
. I’m too young to be a madam.”

“My apologies,
mademoiselle
, it was a slip of the tongue,” he said, giving her a wink.

He continued walking down the street and Tamara turned to stare after him.