Carousel Nights

by Amie Denman

  Jack and Evie exchanged a look. “That’s why we’re here, but I’m not sure we’re going to make your day.”

  June shrugged. “I was having a great day until about five minutes ago. Unless you tell me we can’t shape up these old theaters in the next month, I’ll live.”

  Jack sat in a theater seat, his long legs protruding into the aisle. He dug in his pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag full of cookies. He bit into a star-shaped sugar cookie and held out the bag.

  “Want some?” he mumbled, mouth full.

  “You’re stress-eating, Jack. It’s not even lunch and you’re hitting the sweets.”

  Evie sunk into a seat in the row in front of her brother. “Better than drinking before lunch.”

  “That’s next,” Jack said. “We’re bleeding money and none is coming in.”

  “The park’s not even open yet,” June protested. “Stop panicking.”

  “We have to be conservative with the little capital we have,” Evie said. “We’re looking for places to cut.”

  “Don’t look here. This theater anchors the whole front midway. If it’s closed or cheap-looking, guests will notice.” She rested her hand on a seat back. “Bankers and investors will notice.”

  “Can we get away with closing the Starlight Saloon for the year?” Evie asked.

  “Are you kidding? My steampunk Western show is going to put the Wonderful West on the map. I can guarantee it will bring people to that part of the park and make them stay. They’ll get elephant ears and tacos while they wait for the train. You can’t afford to make that area into a ghost town. Kids love the shooting range and parents can get a cold beer and catch a show.”

  “But the kitchen—” Jack began.

  “Sucked last year, but we—you—got by. We can serve prepackaged food and drinks. Chips, cookies, cold bottles. No kitchen required.”

  “It would be easier to just—”

  “No.” June cut off her sister. “We can do this. Even if we have to work night and day until opening. Remember how you two ran around like the sky was falling last year on the day the vendor boycott and the bankers’ visit collided? Everyone pulled together. Augusta, Mel, the maintenance staff, a few other poor suckers I recruited. We got through it. Starlight Point survived. We can do it again this year. Especially since—” she lowered her voice with a quick glance at the stage, where the dancers and Megan were absorbed in their plans “—we have no choice.”

  “Should’ve been a drill sergeant. Or a cheerleader,” Jack grumbled.

  “I’d rather dance. The costumes are much better. Right now, I’m getting back to work. This old place is going to shine if I have to scrub the floors myself.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A WEEK LATER, Mel Preston parked at the maintenance garage, which was tucked out of sight behind a fence, trees and a roller coaster. Just as he had since he was sixteen, he buckled on his tool belt and picked up a clipboard with the day’s work orders. As a young summer employee, he had changed lightbulbs, greased brakes on coasters and cleaned up messes. A dozen years later, he was the head of maintenance, writing and following his own work orders.

  Usually.

  He frowned at the plans on his desk from a local architect. Starlight Point had its own planning and design team ensuring continuity and maintaining a sense of history at the park. Why June wanted to hire an outside architect to design the facades for her theater upgrades was an irritating mystery.

  Mel tossed the plans into the back of a three-wheeled cart and drove through the open gate onto the midway. Some members of his crew were picking up limbs that had fallen in last night’s spring thunderstorm. Old trees lined the trail through the Wonderful West, a quaint and relatively quiet respite from the coasters, flashing lights and games of the front midway.

  He parked and surveyed the Starlight Saloon Theater. From the boards on its plank porch floor to the rustic marquee still advertising last year’s Western show, it was old and familiar.

  A dented silver spittoon rolled out the front door, bounced down the steps and came to rest by his foot. June stomped onto the porch, hot-pink shirt matching the color in her cheeks. She lugged half a countertop bar behind her. When she saw Mel, she let go of the prop and straightened, her chest heaving with effort.

  “Bring me a Dumpster?” she asked, her tone hopeful.

  “Not yet. Working on it.”

  June sat on a barrel-shaped chair and tapped her foot. “I’ve waited patiently for a week.”

  “Patiently?”

  “Well,” she said, a half smile appearing. “I have waited.”

  “Theaters aren’t the only things that need attention before opening day,” Mel said. “They don’t even open the first couple weeks of the season.”

  Mel propped his foot on the spittoon. He wanted to stride onto the porch and ask June why she was always running away. But she was like a bird taking handouts in a park. If he made a sudden move or got too close, she’d head for the nearest tree.

  “I do have a project for you,” she said.

  “Does it come with breakfast?”

  “You don’t want to eat out of the kitchen in this theater. I don’t know how it passed inspection last year.”

  “It didn’t,” Mel said. “So we only served drinks at this show. With all the bigger fish to fry after your dad passed away, we let a few things go.”

  As Jack’s best friend and an unofficial member of the Hamilton family, Mel knew firsthand that Starlight Point had flirted with bankruptcy. When Jack opened the books after his father’s fatal heart attack, he found a mess that had taken years to accumulate. It would take years to clean up, but Jack and Evie had gotten a strong start last summer.

  June fished a rubber band from her jeans pocket and gathered her long light brown hair into a tight ponytail. Although only two years younger than he was, June looked like a lost little girl sitting on a barrel in front of the empty saloon.

  “I don’t think I ever got to tell you how sorry I was about your father’s death,” Mel said.

  June met his eyes. “You did. You were at his funeral.”

  “The whole town of Bayside and anyone who ever worked at Starlight Point was at his funeral,” Mel said.

  “I remember talking to you.” She smiled and her whole face softened. “You brought me a tissue and a glass of iced water.”

  Although the entire Hamilton family was shocked at Ford’s death, June seemed to take it the hardest. Maybe that’s because she felt guilty about not being around the past few years. Was that why she decided to come home this summer?

  “Least I could do,” he said.

  “And you’ve been there for Jack,” she said, standing and moving closer. “When he took over last spring, he needed a good friend.”

  “We all do.”

  June crossed her arms and leaned back on a porch post. She stared at her feet for fifteen seconds while Mel counted silently. He recognized the grubby work boots she’d had for years. She’d worn them as she helped around the park in the off-season until she went away for college. He remembered every tool she’d ever handed him and each ride she’d accepted in his cart. The owner’s daughter and his best friend’s sister who’d always been around.

  “Can you tell me why the main electric switch won’t turn on in this old theater?” June asked, adopting a neutral, businesslike tone. “I have to finish cleaning in here and I need to keep working when it gets dark or I’ll never get it all done.”

  Mel had never doubted June’s dancing ability, but he wished she wasn’t using it to sashay a wide circle around him. There was no question it was better that way. Better to pretend that summer seven years ago and that kiss had never happened.

  He picked up his clipboard. “Don’t think that’s on my orders for the day,” he said, trying t
o keep his tone light. “I’m supposed to run electrical diagnostics on the Sea Devil, fix the organ’s circuit board on the Midway Carousel, and call the state inspectors about the ride license for the Skyway cars. Boss won’t like it if I get diverted.”

  June snorted. “You are the boss.”

  Mel smiled. “I love hearing you say that. How about once more?”

  “Very funny.”

  “It is funny. Because you, Jack and Evie are in charge of this place. I just work here.”

  He swung one leg into his cart, turning his back on June.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Mel tensed, wriggling his shoulders in his blue work shirt, the tag grating the sensitive skin on the back of his neck. He turned toward June and fought a grin. She looked hopeful and bossy at the same time. Close to the six-foot mark with long, slim arms and legs, she reminded him of Jack. Her green eyes flecked with brown and her full lips made Mel remember she’d briefly been his girlfriend. Until she’d left for college and left him cold.

  “I can spare a half hour,” he said. “But you have to help. The wiring in there hasn’t been updated during my lifetime, and the conduit runs up high over the stage.” He strode over and stopped in front of June, eye level with her on the elevated porch. “It’s going to be a real pain in the neck,” he said.

  June laughed, stepped back and shoved through the swinging saloon doors.

  * * *

  IF SHE WANTED to revisit a time when her insides didn’t flip whenever Mel Preston came into view, she’d have to go back about a decade. The first time she’d seen him was at her older brother’s seventh birthday party. Even then, his sandy hair and blue eyes combined with a giant smile had set him miles above Jack’s other friends. When high school rolled around, she’d started to realize just how much she liked him. Now, at six foot three, Mel was easily head and broad shoulders over other men. Except Jack. June’s older brother and Mel had competed for vertical supremacy throughout high school until Jack finally edged Mel out by one inch during a late-teen growth spurt.

  Gradually, over the last decade, their easy relationship had heated, tempered, flared, cooled and simmered. But never jelled. It didn’t have a chance to because June couldn’t give up her dream to tap her toes on Broadway. The two live theaters at Starlight Point with their creaking floors and seats were not enough for her then or now.

  How ironic that she was standing in one of those theaters and trying to make it sparkle. Temporary, she reminded herself.

  She tilted her head to see Mel balanced on a ladder ten feet over the stage. Only his worn work boots were visible from her angle. A screwdriver clattered to the floor, almost clobbering her on its way down.

  “Sorry about that,” Mel said. “Can you toss it back up here?”

  “I’m a bad throw,” she said, picking it up. The handle still held Mel’s heat.

  He chuckled. “I know.”

  “Hey,” she said. “I was only ten and you guys were twelve. Big difference. And I didn’t want to play baseball anyway but you were short a player.”

  “That was my first time replacing a pane of glass,” Mel said. “I did okay and your parents probably never would’ve known if Evie hadn’t told on us.”

  “Too young to know better,” June said. “She was only six or seven.”

  June tossed the screwdriver up but missed by several feet, causing Mel to overreach and almost fall off the ladder.

  “I better come get it before someone loses an eye,” Mel said.

  He backed down the ladder while June crossed the stage to retrieve the fallen tool. Her back to him, she said, “Your son’s about six, isn’t he?”

  “He’ll turn six this summer. Starts first grade in the fall.”

  She turned to face him as he stepped off the bottom rung, a flicker of silence between them.

  Mel jerked his head toward the upper catwalk without taking his eyes off June. “Think that old catwalk for the lighting will hold my weight?” he asked. “I don’t know if it’s been used in years.”

  “I hope so. My shows include lots of lighting. Maybe some special effects.”

  “In the Wonderful West? Seems out of place,” Mel commented.

  June rolled her eyes. “What you know about theater would fit in your back pocket.”

  “Maybe,” he said, taking the screwdriver from her outstretched palm, “but that’s where this goes. Lucky for you, I know about electricity.”

  June watched him climb one rung at a time. When he reached the junction box ten feet up, he put a small flashlight between his teeth. Although full daylight outside, the theater was dim.

  “I’ve gotta follow this line,” Mel said. He climbed another five rungs and eased onto the narrow metal catwalk that hugged the theater on three sides. Ancient spotlights were mounted beneath it and cables snaked over and under it.

  “Seems solid,” Mel said. “I’m going down to the junction box in the corner. I have to see where we have spark and where we don’t.”

  Good idea, June thought, following his progress as he crawled along the back wall. She held her breath when he slid across a gap between missing supports. When he reached the corner, the flashlight between his teeth threw patterns of light on the wall as he banged at something metallic.

  “Any luck?” June called.

  “Just...” The flashlight clanked onto the steel catwalk, rolled off and crashed onto the floor near June. The light went dark.

  “Shouldn’t have opened my mouth,” Mel said from the darkness above her.

  “My fault,” June said. “I asked you a question.”

  “You can make it up to me by digging through the toolbox on my cart and finding me another flashlight.”

  “Be right back.”

  June headed for the daylight streaming through the front windows. Mel’s cart had two toolboxes and she had to dig through both before finding a large industrial-looking flashlight.

  Inside, Mel’s long legs hung over the side of the catwalk fifteen feet up. He swung his feet like a kid waiting for his third-grade girlfriend on the playground.

  “Can I convince you to bring that up here?” Mel asked.

  “I could throw it.”

  “I haven’t got a death wish. Just come up the ladder and I’ll crawl along the catwalk and meet you at the top.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. She knew he wouldn’t. June had worked at Starlight Point until she was eighteen. During the off-season, she’d tromped around handing tools to maintenance men after school, climbing the emergency steps on coasters and taking any challenge. When she was old enough to officially work, she’d sold popcorn until she finally convinced her parents to let her dance on stage. Although her parents owned the amusement park, they made their children work regular summer jobs. It was a great way to see Starlight Point from the inside out, and all three of them had earned reputations as hard workers.

  Mel had every reason to think she’d scamper up the ladder, flashlight in hand, like she would have done in the past.

  But the shining aluminum faced her like a demon.

  Her heart rate accelerated as she placed one foot on the bottom rung and pulled herself up with her free hand. One rung down, at least fifteen more to go. Maybe she could do this. Jumper’s knee. That’s what her doctor had called it. If she stretched, did her exercises, and avoided stairs and high-impact jumps, it would get better. She’d been taking it easy, keeping her movements small and not telling a soul. She felt stronger, ready to take on these theaters and get on with her life.

  She sucked in a breath and steeled herself for another vertical step.

  Pain streaked through her right knee when she put her foot on the next rung and tried to pull herself up. Agonizing pain. Ladders were not on her therapy plan. A wave of nausea hit her and sweat chilled the
back of her neck. She dropped the flashlight and grabbed both sides of the ladder. She stepped backward to the floor, fumbling for the light, afraid to look up. Back on both feet, the pain subsided and she took a deep breath.

  “What are you doing?” Mel asked.

  Trying to pretend everything is just fine. “Picking up the flashlight,” she said tersely. “What does it look like?”

  “At this rate, it’ll be dark before I even get started. That’s an expensive light, so be careful with it.”

  “Sorry,” she said, eyeing the ladder and trying to think of a graceful way out. Her heartbeat pulsed through her neck and hammered in her ears. She risked a glance up. Mel lay full length on the catwalk, his chin propped in his hands. Waiting for her.

  But that was a mountain she was not climbing today.

  She parked the light at the bottom of the ladder. “If it’s so precious, you better come get it yourself,” she said. “I’m going back to work in the prop storage room.”

  She walked slowly and carefully away, willing herself not to show a trace of weakness. Would Mel let her off the hook? The catwalk overhead groaned and the ladder behind her creaked as Mel started down it.

  “Don’t know when you became such a princess that you can’t help a guy out,” he said.

  June counted to thirty, numbering her steady steps to the storage room door. She closed it, sat on a box and elevated her leg on a dusty plastic hitching post. She was still sitting there staring at years of props in the gray light from the solitary window when the overhead fluorescent lights buzzed on. She waited, listening, until Mel’s cart started up and drove away. Rubbing her knee, June tried to quell the panic in her chest. If she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t go back to Broadway and the roles she had already sacrificed so much for.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EVIE SAT AT Jack’s desk, staring at his computer through her green-rimmed glasses. Three years younger than June, Evie was generally sweet, except in her ruthless devotion to accurate accounts. And her attitude toward the architect June had hired to fancy up the two live-show venues.