Carousel Nights

by Amie Denman

  “The money is one thing. But I don’t see why we should pay his hourly rate when we already have our own planners,” Evie said. “And how much do you think we can really get done on the facades when the park opens in a week? It’s nuts.”

  Jack, who was standing by the window, raised one eyebrow at June. His look said you’re on your own with this argument.

  June wasn’t asking for the moon and stars. She just wanted the theaters to look like they hadn’t been designed by the same person who’d imagined the cheeseburger stand. Something a little more modern—even a new paint scheme and lightbulbs would be better than nothing.

  “Fresh blood,” June said. “Our planning guys will just come up with the same old same old.”

  “So?” Evie asked. “Same old ensures continuity. People like the old-fashioned aura. Even if you don’t.”

  “News flash,” June said. “Change is good.”

  June crossed her arms and leaned against the large window beside Jack. He’d finally moved into their father’s office over the winter. Last summer, he’d kept the smaller office next door out of a combination of shock, grief and respect. Moving into this office—rich with their father’s history, his big wooden desk, awards and mementos from years in the business—was a sign Jack was growing into the job of CEO.

  “I refuse to be the grown-up here, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jack said. “Just because I’m the tallest and smartest of the three of us.”

  Evie breathed loudly through her nose and stared down her older siblings. When had she gotten so opinionated? Evie had always been the nice, sweet one. Hadn’t she? June had been away for seven years, and in that time Evie had gone from fifteen to twenty-two. Practically a lifetime.

  “Fifteen hundred bucks so far and all I’ve gotten out of him is an argument,” Evie said.

  “You argue with people?” June asked.

  “I’m doing it right now.”

  “That’s different,” June said. “We’re related. And what the heck is wrong with doing something new around here? You opened the Sea Devil last year. A multimillion-dollar roller coaster is a pretty big deal compared to what I’m suggesting.”

  Although it was by choice, June felt like a third wheel when she had meetings with Jack and Evie about Starlight Point and its future. The small profits last year had been split three ways. This year’s profit would be split as well, even though it’d certainly still be modest as they worked to convince the bankers to extend the loan.

  June wanted to earn her share, small though it was. And theater was the best way she knew how to do that. Better shows could mean more ticket sales. They might bring local pass holders across the Point Bridge a few more times each summer to see the shows, and locals spend money on popcorn, elephant ears and soda.

  “The Sea Devil was Dad’s idea,” Jack said. “He started it, he just didn’t get to finish it.”

  “Are you saying you wouldn’t add new rides in the future?” June asked.

  Jack exhaled slowly, staring out the second-floor window at the front section of the midway. “I’m saying I wouldn’t go that big, especially if it practically bankrupted us. Not anytime soon.”

  “Our plan for this year is good,” Evie said. “Small improvements that guests will notice. New paint, a few new facades on buildings—”

  “Like both theaters,” June said.

  Evie went on as if her sister weren’t even there. “Restroom upgrades, new safety belts in the children’s rides, new signs on the Point Bridge. But we’re not breaking the bank.”

  “Unless the bank breaks us,” June said.

  Jack waved at someone outside and then turned back to his sisters. “If we made it through last year, we’ll make it through this year. The bankers liked what they saw last summer even though we had very little time to do anything. We have a solid plan. And one of our owners is now a CPA with more money sense than the other two of us put together.”

  “Hope it helps,” Evie said.

  “Credibility,” Jack said, “helps make up for the fact another one of the owners is a Broadway dancer who never sticks around.”

  June narrowed her eyes and threw a pencil at him. The elevator outside Jack’s office dinged.

  “Mom,” Jack whispered. “And she’s got Betty with her. I just saw them outside.”

  Virginia Hamilton zipped into the room. She pulled a red wagon behind her and parked it by Jack’s desk. The brown, black and white dog snoozing on a blanket in the wagon opened one eye, yawned and went back to sleep.

  Evie rolled over in Jack’s chair and stroked the dog’s ears. “Betty smells good today,” she said, smiling at her mother.

  “Just picked her up from the groomer. She rolled in something dead on the beach yesterday,” Virginia said. “How’s it going here in the war room with one week before the big opening?”

  Jack groaned loudly. Evie rolled back to the desk. And June looked out the window, thinking about big openings she’d been part of before. Opening day at the park every year through her eighteenth birthday. Opening night of four major Broadway productions. She was getting to be a pro at pulling a show together.

  The elevator dinged in the silence and Mel ambled in.

  He stopped. His eyes met June’s and held for a heartbeat until he shifted to the oldest member of the family.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Don’t mean to interrupt. I just came by to see if Jack wanted to get some lunch. I need a break from trying to figure out how water got into the circuit boards of the Silver Streak over the winter.”

  June hadn’t seen Mel since he’d turned on her lights at the Starlight Saloon. She’d heard through Jack that Mel was rewiring the entire theater before he’d allow even one extension cord to be plugged in, so she’d avoided the Saloon for a week, focusing on costume and prop designs instead.

  “Gus is bringing lunch,” Jack said. “She’s coming over anyway to get her three bakeries ready to open.”

  “I hear she’s working up some new creations for this summer, themed pies and turnovers,” Mel said, wiping a fake tear and using a tragic voice, “I love your wife.”

  Jack punched Mel’s shoulder. “There’s probably enough lunch for you, but no way am I sharing dessert.”

  “I can live with those rules,” Mel said. He dropped to one knee and made kissing sounds to Betty, who hopped out of the wagon, threw herself at him with embarrassing abandon and rolled over for a belly rub.

  Virginia cleared her throat. “While we wait, I thought we could talk about my STRIPE program this year.”

  June turned back to the window, staring outside. Every year, Virginia muscled someone into running the Summer Training and Improvement Plan for Employees. Every employee had to participate and learn a specific skill such as conversational French, water rescue, ballroom dancing, knitting. In the past, the program had been mandatory. Last summer, it had become voluntary. But it was still an onerous task for whoever Virginia chose to be the STRIPE sergeant.

  “Any ideas?” Virginia asked, enthusiastically. “What should the STRIPE topic be this year?”

  “I’m off the hook,” Gus said, coming through the door with a cardboard box filled with paper bags and drinks. “I taught hundreds of people to decorate a birthday cake last summer. I’m still recovering.”

  “And you were wonderful,” Virginia said. She cleared a space on Jack’s desk so her daughter-in-law could set the box down.

  Jack approached the food, eyeing the bags but avoiding direct eye contact with his mother. June smiled at his pathetic attempt. If he thought cowering would save him, he was in for a surprise.

  “How about kayaking, Jack?” Virginia asked. “The lake is one of our best assets, and you’re such a good rower. You’d be great.”

  “Sorry, Mom, too busy. And I don’t know where we’d get do
zens of practice kayaks.”

  “Don’t we rent those on the hotel beach?” June asked. “I thought we had thirty or forty kayaks.”

  When their mother turned her back, Jack stuck his tongue out at June.

  “Evie,” Virginia said, turning to her youngest daughter, “no one can doubt the importance of managing money. You could teach practical bookkeeping. How to balance a checkbook. Perhaps the wisdom of investing at a young age.” Virginia’s face lit up. “Stock tips!” she proclaimed.

  Evie took off her glasses and cleaned them meticulously until her mother moved on to her next target.

  “June,” Virginia said, approaching June’s hiding spot by the window. Great, she thinks I’m going to teach them all to dance. Maybe I should tell her about my bum knee instead of keeping it a secret. I could use a great excuse for getting out of the STRIPE.

  “How about teaching piano lessons? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could play something nice like Für Elise or Happy Birthday on the piano?”

  June blew out a sigh. Teaching two thousand summer employees to read music and play the piano with both hands would be worse than teaching the tango. “You can’t play the piano, Mom, and you’re perfectly fine.”

  “I’d be better if someone would teach me to play.”

  “Sorry, no time,” June said, eyebrows raised in innocence. “Choreography, costumes, blocking... The theaters are a huge task. Huge. Plus, I may have to take a short-notice trip to New York for auditions at some point. Can’t guarantee I’ll be here on the class days. You’d have to hire a substitute teacher. Could get pricey.”

  “It might give you a purpose,” Virginia insisted. “Make you feel like you’re part of the team.”

  June felt her cheeks heat. She wondered when the guilt trip would start. Jack and Evie were devoting their lives to the family business. Why wasn’t she?

  She could explain in one sentence. She didn’t want to. She’d never made any promises and she had a right to her own career—a career she hoped would soon step beyond dancing into lead singing and acting roles. She had no plans to give that up.

  “I don’t need a purpose. I have my own life. I’ve already given up my summer to be here. If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what you want.”

  June saw Evie’s face flush, probably mirroring her own. Augusta focused on handing out lunches. Jack dug into a sandwich.

  Only Mel appeared willing to get in the middle of the family volley.

  “Simple electricity,” he said.

  Everyone turned to stare at him. What is he doing?

  “Electrical circuits,” he said. “Basic wiring.”

  More staring.

  He accepted a sandwich and a drink from Virginia, smiling and asking, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for people to learn something about voltage and current? Maybe wire a switch?”

  Virginia swished her lips to the side. “You mean for a STRIPE topic?”

  “Uh-huh,” Mel said.

  “Don’t most people hire an electrician?” Jack asked. “Like you?”

  “For big jobs, yes,” Mel said. “Same reason they go to a bakery for big or fancy cakes.” He nodded at Augusta who gave him a two-eyebrows-raised look of skepticism.

  “But you can make birthday cakes at home,” Mel continued, “and you can do a lot of wiring on your own, too.”

  Why was Mel arguing to be in charge of the STRIPE when he’d probably spent the last decade dodging the event? He had to be out of his mind. Everyone in the office was looking at him as if he’d just announced an elegant tea party in the maintenance garage.

  “I don’t know,” Virginia said. “Electricity can be dangerous.”

  Evie laughed and rolled her eyes at her mother. “Water-skiing was dangerous, Mom. The water rescue thing two summers ago was dangerous. Even the conversational French got pretty dicey when some of our locals tried it on the international workers we hired that year.”

  “That was not my fault,” Virginia said. “French is a very romantic language.”

  “Sounds like voltage is the safe choice this summer,” Mel said. “Can’t cause an international incident with that, and I’ll make sure no one gets electrocuted.”

  Virginia sipped her drink and stared at Mel. “Do you think you could teach hundreds of summer employees about electricity?”

  “I’d need plenty of help,” Mel said. “Some of the other maintenance guys are really good and all of them know at least something about electricity. But I still need volunteers. Guys I can get, but I’d like females, too. It’s good evidence there’s no gender bias in wiring a circuit.” Mel grinned, catching June’s eye. “Women can handle sparks just as well as men can.”

  June wanted to be mad at Mel for trying to be a hero. But she couldn’t. Because she was the one he saved. She had no idea why he’d thrown himself on the STRIPE grenade, but she had a feeling she was going to find out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OPENING DAY WAS PERFECT. Blue sky, a forecast of 75 degrees and a tiny breeze off Lake Huron. The typical first-day crowd was a combination of roller coaster fanatics, families with little kids anxious for their turn on the helicopters and bumper cars of Kiddieland, and locals who’d had enough of long winters in Michigan. Folks who wanted to smell and feel summer.

  The newly improved loudspeakers played theme park music. Food vendors sent heavenly aromas to lure guests in.

  Perfect. Except for one thing.

  “We need a parade,” June declared. “Floats, music, live performers.”

  Evie and Jack exchanged a look. “I knew we shouldn’t have let you conduct the ceremonial gate opening,” Jack said. “The excitement went to your head.”

  June giggled. “It was exhilarating. I thought the pack of preteens would break a speed record as soon as I declared the Point open.”

  “There’s a certain cachet to being the first in line at the Sea Devil,” Jack said. He cracked his knuckles. “I already rode it twice yesterday, but I won’t tell the coaster fanatics. It’d burst their bubble.”

  “I haven’t been here on opening day in seven years,” June said. “I forgot about the adrenaline.”

  “I’m glad you’re here this year,” Jack said. His expression sobered and he slung an arm around both his sisters. “We’re in this together.”

  Evie leaned into the hug. “I know,” she said. “I miss Dad the most on days like this.”

  June felt tears prick her eyes and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  Standing off to the side and watching guests stream through the gates, June, Evie and Jack did a paradoxical combination of holding their breath and deep breathing.

  “Off and running,” Evie said. “If we made it through last year, we can make it through anything.”

  They watched parents with strollers moving at the back of the pack. Older people with no ride-crazed kids dragging them forward sauntered along. They’d be the first to notice new paint, signs, different offerings in food and merchandise. Everyone else was headed for the queue lines, ready for a coaster fix after a long winter.

  June kept her eyes on a couple roughly her parents’ age, holding hands and looking around, pointing things out to each other. Laughing. Really noticing the sunshine and the flowers planted in a pattern that would look best from the Skyway cars above. She wondered how many years they’d been coming to Starlight Point. Maybe they’d met here when they were teenagers and had already raised a family, coming to the Point every summer and making albums of memories. Her vision blurred and her eyes stung a little. She shook it off. For all she knew, it was their first date and they’d met on a seniors gambling bus tour.

  “A parade would be perfect for the midafternoon doldrums,” June said. “You know. Three o’clock when the buzz wears off a little and the sunburn
starts stinging. Kids get all cranky and parents are looking for a mood-changer. They could line up for a parade.”

  “I thought they were going to fill the seats in your theaters. Soak up the air-conditioning,” Jack said. “A parade is the opposite.”

  “No, it isn’t,” June said. “It takes the show to the people. Live music, costumes, dancing. Maybe we could have a banner made up, advertising showtimes in the theaters.”

  Evie and Jack glanced at their sister and returned to counting the guests streaming past.

  “Everyone loves a parade,” June added.

  Evie shrugged.

  “Maybe next year,” Jack said. “If we’re lucky, you’ll forget all about it.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “How hard would it be to jazz up the high school band thing that’s been going on for years?” June asked.

  Every summer, high school bands from all over the state applied for a day at the Point. Band members got free admission in exchange for two performances. They played the national anthem at the front gates at park opening and marched through the park at some point in the day. Decent deal for the high school kids, probably hellish for the chaperones and a vague return in live entertainment for the Point.

  “We standardize the time of their marching performance—say three o’clock every day—and add some other stuff,” June said.

  “Opening day fever has gotten to you,” Evie said. “It’s a lot of adrenaline to handle, and I forget your immunity is down. You probably think you can do a triathlon right now.”

  “Or at least name all fifty states and their capitals,” Jack said.

  “Everything seems possible on opening day,” Evie said. “It’s the family curse. It makes us commit to a lifetime of insanity, one hundred days at a time. And then spend the other two thirds of the year wondering what the heck we were thinking. It’s a Vegas-wedding way to spend your life.”