The Twilight Swimmer (28 page)

             
She upended her laundry basket at the closet door and climbed on top. It was flimsy beneath her feet, but managed to support her weight. She dug around on the top closet shelf until she found what she was after: a battery-powered doll her sister had kept from childhood. When you pressed the doll’s stomach, the speaker behind her mouth uttered a few phrases in a distorted, child’s voice. Brandi flipped the doll over and popped off the cover for the battery pouch. She fished out the batteries, which were long dead, and tucked the memory stick inside. She closed the battery pouch again and replaced the doll on the top closet shelf. It was as good a hiding spot as any, at least for now, in case Cody decided to spread the word that she had been rehearsing a mysterious play at dawn with a half-naked man.

              When Brandi dressed and came downstairs, she found Cody sitting at the kitchen table, engrossed in his videogame. Her father was at the table as well, reading the newspaper. He lowered the paper and took a long look at Brandi, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Cody had already spilled his guts.

             
“Where’s Mom?” Brandi asked.

             
“Hair appointment. Have fun last night?” asked Conrad with no expression on his face.

             
“Sure, it was pretty fun.”

             
“Not too much fun, I hope.”

             
“Definitely not.”

             
Conrad rose from the table and passed Brandi on his way into the living room. “Good, because tonight is family night.”

             
“Family night? I really can’t I have homework I have to—”

             
Conrad gave her an uncharacteristic peck on the cheek. “Family night, Brandi. You’re coming.”

             
Cody swiveled in his chair and flashed Brandi a smile. She noticed that his backpack was sitting on the floor next to his chair, stuffed to bursting from the look of it. When he saw her eyeing the backpack, he kicked it under the table with his foot and returned to his game. She wanted to grab his ear and give it a twist, but she meandered into the kitchen instead to look for something to eat.

              As it turned out, family night meant the annual town fair. The fair grounds were little more than an expansive field that remained fallow most of the year. Only in the autumn did the regional, traveling carnival crews drive into town, hauling trailers full of retractable games and the framework for an array of rides that made cautious parents cringe. There had never been an accident at the town fair, but there had been one high-profile lawsuit from Marjorie Bluss when her son Teddy complained of dizziness for days after riding the teacups. The lawsuit was quickly thrown out when Teddy’s doctor presented evidence that Teddy had been suffering from headaches for years, usually at the end of each school semester, around the time his teachers expected him to study for and pass exams. The fair was an institution everyone enjoyed, and the town was collectively pleased that the tradition would survive Marjorie Bluss.

             
Brandi’s mother had indeed been to see her hair stylist that afternoon, apparently determined not to be seen in autumn with the same old summer hairdo she’d displayed at the Fourth of July fireworks and the Labor Day lobster festival. Her new cut was as short as she’d ever worn her hair, and Brandi could tell by her father’s cool demeanor that he wasn’t pleased with it. Sherri Vine was intentionally oblivious to her husband’s taste, and cooed at her own image in the sun visor mirror all the way to the fair grounds.

             
Cody was in the backseat with Brandi, his backpack between his knees. He fiddled with the zipper, flinching every time Brandi turned to glance at him. He subtly turned his back to her, pretending to be preoccupied with the view through his window. But she caught his reflection looking at her in the window, a nervous excitement in his blue eyes.

             
“If either of you kids wants to go on any rides, you have to talk your father into it. I’m not risking life or limb for the sake of a little adrenaline. Had enough of that during childbirth.” Sherri patted her hair gently as they stepped out of the car and crunched gravel under foot. It was the haircut, not her concern for her life and her limbs, that would keep Brandi’s mother grounded for the evening. “Oh look, there’s Meredith!”

             
Sherri hustled off toward a group of mothers who were sharing an elephant ear and a tub of popcorn. When they saw her approaching, they all straightened up their backs and prepared the compliments they knew they were expected to aim at her hair.

             
“We’ve been ditched,” said Conrad.

             
“Family time,” Brandi muttered.

             
The grounds were laid out in a trio of ‘streets’ lined by carts selling foods. Some vendors barked the allure of doughy confections overloaded with sugary syrups and powders, while others tantalized the crowd with pork and beef and chicken and fish doused in barbecue sauces in every shade of red, orange and brown. There were deep fried morsels that were difficult to categorize, and deeper fried morsels that were difficult even to believe. The smells all blended together, a symphony of odors that somehow enthralled even while they disgusted. The only thing that could draw attention from the food was the bright lights of the carnival games. Booth upon booth, manned by hard-living carnies in colorful costumes, some wearing exotic hats or suspenders or bow ties or face paint to stand out from the competition, others letting their practiced catcalls do the work as they leaned back and cupped hands to project over the din of buzzing and beeping and crashing and booming that came from every side at once. There were ball tosses and ring tosses and water pistols and a scale to thwack with an oversized sledgehammer. There was duckpin bowling and arrows to fire at pinned balloons and cotton candy in such massive puffs you could have your money back if you could eat one in less than five minutes. It was dizzying, this onslaught of sights and sounds and smells, and all of Brandi’s neighbors were here to enjoy it, old and young, including many of her classmates. Some were attending with their families, while others were running around without chaperones, in groups of three or four, boys proudly lighting cigarettes in plain view and girls wearing clothing so skimpy it made Conrad grit his teeth. When one of Brandi’s classmates waved to Brandi as she passed, Conrad took one look at the length of her skirt, scowled, and turned to Brandi to make sure she saw his scowl and understood what it meant for her should she ever be seen in public wearing anything half as short.

             
At the end of this trio of ‘streets’, the fair grounds opened up on the main attraction: the rides. There was a merry-go-round featuring dragons with teeth bared and claws raised as they chased, perpetually, after galloping ponies with ribbons in their flowing manes and jewel-encrusted saddles. You could tell the personality of a child by which they chose to ride, and parents looked on anxiously to see if they’d raised a dragon or a pony. There was a Ferris wheel, modest by the standards of Boston or Philadelphia or New York but impressive here at a grand height of nearly fifty feet. It rotated so slowly the movement was almost hypnotic, its lighted spokes seeming to draw the eye closer and closer toward the center axle, painted crudely with a bright blue star. There were teacups spinning, bumper cars bumping and a lazy train for the smallest children. There was a gyrosphere and a bungee drop, both of them courting customers by promising terror. And there was a single roller coaster, the rickety, wooden track so short and so devoid of peaks that every ticket earned you five laps. The maximum speed of the roller coaster was probably a legal driving speed in most residential neighborhoods, but the crafty designers of the ride had built in a few subtle twists and turns to maximize centrifugal force and teenage screams.

             
“You want to ride that thing?” asked Conrad, eyeing both his children warily. He would brave anything they asked him to, but it was obvious he hoped they’d go for the teacups instead. He always tried to get them on the teacups.

             
“I want to get a polish sausage,” said Cody, still tugging on the straps of his backpack.

             
“That’s the only thing I haven’t seen anybody selling. Saw a guy selling twenty different kinds of hot dog. How ‘bout a weird hot dog?” Conrad dropped his hand on Cody’s head and squeezed it gently.

             
“Polish sausage is better,” Cody answered, gnawing on his lower lip. “I don’t like hot dogs.”

             
“Not even weird ones? They’ve got a rabbit hot dog, I saw on the sign. What that tastes like, I hope I never know.”

             
“Probably tastes like gross rabbit. Can I get a polish sausage?”

             
Conrad glanced at Brandi, who merely shrugged. He dug a pair of dollar bills out of his pocket and handed them to Cody. “Meet us at the teacups, and try not to get mustard on anything your mother will see by moonlight.”

             
“And neon light. There’s lots of neon lights,” said Cody.

             
“Fifteen minutes,” said Conrad, and Cody took off running.

             
Brandi wandered over to a nearby booth where boys Cody’s age were throwing ping pong balls at candy bars stapled to a wooden shelf. The balls weren’t heavy enough to tear the candy bars loose, but the boys slammed down quarter after quarter to give it another try. Conrad came up behind her, silent, and watched the boys fail to dislodge a prize yet again. They were digging in their pockets for enough nickels and dimes to pay for another run, but Conrad caught the carnival worker’s eyes and gave him a stern look. The carnival worker smirked sheepishly, then reached for one of the candy bars and tore it free. He gave it to the boys as a begrudging consolation prize, one already paid for ten time over.

             
Brandi kept walking, and Conrad was at her elbow.               “You can play a game if you want. I’ll play one with you,” he said.

             
“If I stink at the game, you’ll just glare at the guy until he gives me a prize. What’s the fun in that?”

             
“More fun than not getting the prize, right?”

             
Brandi shrugged, kicking a discarded corncob toward a rusty trashcan. A cool breeze rushed down the street and lifted her hair from her shoulders. Conrad saw her shiver and reflexively put his arm across her shoulders. She didn’t mean to, but she flinched. Conrad looked around, embarrassed, at the few people who had seen his daughter recoil from his touch. They quickly averted their eyes, but it was too late.

             
Conrad raised his hands apologetically. “Okay Brandi, just do your thing. Whatever your thing is. Teacups in fifteen, if you want to ride.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and spun on his heels, slipping between a pair of food stalls to cross to the next ‘street’ over. Watching him go, Brandi felt the chill of the evening even more acutely. She hugged her body and kept walking until she felt a hand on her elbow.

             
“Dad, I—”

             
“Oh come on, ‘friend’ is bad enough. Don’t start calling me ‘dad’.” It was Spider, standing behind her. He was wearing shorts and a tank top despite the temperature, his long arms swinging freely and his long legs planted in the dirt like fence posts. His hair was mussed and a bit tangled, as if he hadn’t washed it or run a comb through it since the previous night. “You’re happy to see me, Brandi. Smile.”

             
“Don’t you know how cold it is?” she asked.

             
“Not to the digit, no. Not very cold,” Spider let go of her elbow. “So you’re not happy to see me? I thought we had a good time last night, until you ran off. Until you pretty much left me hanging. Like, from your roof. Hanging from your roof. I wasn’t going for a pun there, but the pun could not be denied.”

             
He tried to take a bow, but he was unsteady on his feet. He had to extend both arms and wave them to keep his footing, as if he was standing on a precipice when a sudden gust of wind gave him a malevolent shove.

             
“Are you okay?” asked Brandi, studying him more carefully.

             
“Obviously, I am fine.
I’m
fine, I mean. Contractions. For shortening sentences, and for letting people know that yes, you are fine.
You’re
fine. Contractions! For giving birth to short sentences, and babies.”

             
He laughed a little too hard at his joke, and only realized it when he saw the expression on Brandi’s face.

             
“I’m fine. How are you?” he asked.

             
“You’ve been drinking.”

             
“Stay hydrated. Rule number one.”

             
“What have you been drinking? Wood alcohol?”

             
“Wood? Is that what they make vodka from? I thought it was potatoes.”