Carnival

by K. B. Nelson

  “Sorry about that.” He throws his cigarette on the ground. “You know something? I didn’t even know the boy was leaving.” He grinds the butt into the ground with his unlaced boot. “That night he met you,” he says, and I perk up, “he came into the camper and said he was leaving the circuit. Said he was gonna be sticking around.” He looks me directly in the eye. “He didn’t even tell his dad he was leaving. Although it shouldn’t have been that surprising, seeing how they barely talk these days.”

  “His dad is here?”

  Marvin points with his thumb at the camper behind us. The one Blue walked into.

  “He’s here, in the camper?”

  “Might have to call the police,” he says.

  “Blue mentioned that, but I didn’t think he was serious.”

  He lets out an amused sigh. “We don’t know things till they happen.”

  I take a pained look at the camper and want to ask so many questions, but it would feel like a betrayal to dig into Blue’s past without his permission. The issue has already been raised, though, and I’m a naturally curious person. “Why don’t they talk? Blue and his dad.”

  “They’ve got a hell of a relationship. He was twelve, maybe thirteen, when his mother ran away. I guess it was just never the same after that. I think they reminded each other of the woman they had lost. One lost a wife and the other lost a mother.”

  “That’s sad.” I don’t know what else to say. It’s not my place to keep this conversation going and I would be content if it would end.

  “I think you’re good for him.” He grabs the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pulls one into his mouth. As he’s about to light it, he glances at me. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” Sure, they bother me, but I’m on his turf.

  The end of the stick burns bright. “I think he deserves someone like you.” He slips the Zippo lighter into his pocket. “God knows the kid’s got his fair share of problems, but maybe you can be the one to help him,” he says, pointing a finger squarely at me.

  “Problems?” As soon as it comes out of my mouth, I regret it.

  He rubs a thumb across his bottom lip and peeks behind him, as if he’s making sure nobody’s there. He turns back and scoots closer to me. “He’s a good kid. He really is, but a few years ago, I noticed a change in him. We were over in Indiana and he disappeared one night. When he came back the next morning, he was still rolling.”

  “Drugs?” I ask, unconvinced.

  He nods. “He got into some trouble about a year ago. Apparently, he owed some guy in Junction City thousands. That guy came to the carnival looking for trouble. Blue had been saving up money since he was fifteen, so he could settle down. You know, find a home somewhere. He had to give it all up. Come to find out—”

  The camper door swings open and slams against metal panels. “Let’s go!” Blue huffs and rushes past me, toward the Jeep. He’s burning red and filled with anger.

  I look to Marvin one last time and he nods. “He’s a good kid,” he says as softly as a lie, but I know that he means it.

  I jog to catch up to Blue. The first thing I notice is his hand balled into a fist. I grab his shoulder and he stops. “Are you okay?”

  He places both hands on my cheeks. “I’m fine,” he says with a forced smile. I want nothing more than to believe him, but I know better. I want to know what happened between him and his father in the camper but asking him is out of the question.

  “You wanna get out of here?”

  “Yeah,” I nod. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Blue’s in the Jeep and has it started before I’ve even opened the car door. I climb into my seat and his head spins around to look behind us as we back out. There’s a loud thud against the driver’s side window and we come to a full, jerking stop. Standing outside is a young man in a worn gray hoodie. I don’t know him, but it’s obvious Blue does.

  A huge grin flashes across Blue’s face, an instant change from anger. He throws the parking brake into place and bursts out the door. “Cookie!” he yells and embraces the man with a bear hug. “How have you been?”

  “Almost got fired the day after you left, so things are ace.” He laughs. “How the hell are you?”

  Blue pushes his hands into his pockets. “I’m a civilian now, haven’t you heard?”

  “Living the dream, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  Cookie grabs Blue’s arm, pulling him further away from the Jeep. They begin talking again, but I can no longer hear what they’re saying.

  He has a family here. Biological family, like his dad, but also the family he has chosen for himself—Cookie and Marvin. I’m sure he has more than that, too, but I don’t know any of them. I can’t shake my ill-conceived notions of who these people are. There’s a tinge of guilt rising in my stomach. Even if it was only a passing thought in my head, I had written Marvin off as a drug addicted loser. It wasn’t until we had an actual conversation, and he really spoke to me, from the heart, that I realized how deeply I was wrong.

  Blue reaches into his pocket and grabs his wallet. My view is obfuscated by his back as he hands Cookie something. I have no idea what’s being said or what’s going on, but I begin thinking the worst. Something Blue said that night in the grass comes rushing back to me. He said he had saved up enough money to live off of for a while, which is how he was able to quit his job in the first place. But Marvin told me that he gave it all up to the man in Junction City.

  There has to be more to that story.

  Blue climbs back into the Jeep, happier and more alive than he was just a few short minutes ago. We begin backing up, and I watch Cookie walk across the green and toward the horse barn.

  As the fairgrounds fade into the distance, a stray thought crosses my mind, and it’s a question I must have an answer to. “Do you miss it?”

  “The carnival?” He pauses, processing the question with a blank face followed by a shrug. “It’s the only home I’ve ever had.”

  We drive away from his home, and to me—it’s no longer a place. It’s an idea or a group of people or something else entirely. It’s the first time for me that ‘home’ becomes a concept instead of a place. Like it can exist anywhere, with the right person.

  Home.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The sun streams through trees, casting ray-filled spotlights onto the gravel littered path. We ditched the car about ten minutes ago, after we drove up to a rusted gate. The path we now walk on has all the remnants of a forgotten gravel road. Patches of grass have sprouted up through the rocks, and it’s clear that nobody’s driven on this road in years.

  Blue’s hand is laced with mine. His firm grasp, as so many other things, betray his easy-going demeanor. I’m still unsure of where exactly we’re going or what we’re doing, but no matter how ridiculous a thought it is, a fraction of my being still believes he’s taking me out into the middle of nowhere to murder me.

  “Are you going to let me in on the secret?”

  “Well.” He scratches his head. “There’s a nice little watering hole just up ahead. About eighty feet deep, I’m told it’s a great place to ditch a body.”

  My feet glue themselves to the rocks beneath me. He’s a mind reader, cracking a joke about my hysterically insane inner-monologue. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  “It is pretty creepy out here.” He looks to his left and takes in the sights. A dense forest lines the road on one side and on the other, there’s a sparse sprinkling of trees. “I was definitely kidding, but I’m kind of getting a Deliverance-y vibe. I hope the quarry isn’t as terrifying.”

  “That’s the big secret? A quarry?”

  His hand breaks free from mine and he thumps himself on the head. “Dammit!”

  The truth is out. We’re going to have our first non-whorey date swimming in a terrifying quarry that’s eighty feet deep and the perfect spot for an afternoon murder. Truly touching. I grab his hand again.

  “Just a t
hought that’s running through my head,” I say, “but what would you have done if I told you I couldn’t swim?”

  “Dump you, probably.”

  “We’re not even dating.”

  He nods his head, a smile on his face. “Sure we are.”

  My eyebrow arches. “You think?”

  “Well, you’re holding my hand right now, and our first date was the carnival.” He clicks his tongue against his cheek. “That was my favorite,” he says with a wink.

  “Oh, my God!” I break free from his grip and playfully push his chest.

  “Our second date was in the grass, earlier today.” He puts up his quotation fingers. “With your science experiment—that was pretty much a bust, but a date nonetheless.”

  I shake my head at him but am unable to refrain from smiling.

  “And now we’re on our third date,” he continues. “At the quarry.”

  “Which, if I weren’t able to swim, would’ve been our second bust of the day.”

  “I don’t think it’s possible to have a bad date with you.”

  “Charming.”

  “Besides, Joey told me you’ve always loved swimming.”

  My feet dig into the gravel again, and I whip around to face him. “Joey knows?”

  “Yeah, he’s the one that told me about this place.”

  My hands rub against my face. “That’s the reason I got him drunk, to make him forget.”

  “You’re still ashamed of me,” he accuses but not too seriously.

  I don’t respond. Not saying it’s true but also not saying it’s not. A part of me believes it is. The other parts know better. It has nothing to do with me… and everything to do with Dylan. Now that I’m not going to college, he’s expecting that we’re going to get back together. He doesn’t have to say it for me to know it’s true. Dylan’s a very strong guy, but he would be hurt if he found out the reason we broke up wasn’t the reason keeping us apart. It’d be worse still if I weren’t able to come up with a reason other than maybe it’s Blue.

  “I’m not ashamed of you. It’s just complicated.”

  “What is?”

  “Whatever we are, I’m not ashamed of it,” I say and grab his arm for reassurance. “I just don’t want Dylan knowing. Not right now. There are some loose ends that I need to figure out.”

  “Relax, Charlie. He said he’s not gonna tell anyone.”

  “Joey’s got a big mouth.”

  Blue laughs. “One of my only memories of him growing up was this one time that his big mouth got us grounded from the jungle gym during a family reunion.”

  “I take it you haven’t spent too much time with him since then?”

  “I see him about once a year at the county fair.” His face begins to glow, and I’m not exactly sure why.

  “You look mysteriously happy all of a sudden.”

  “Behind you.” He grabs me by the shoulder and turns me around. I don’t know where the fuck it came from, but we’ve entered Wonderland, Oz, or Narnia. The sun reflects off beautiful blue water, completely out of place along this long forgotten road.

  “Wow. It’s beautiful,” I say, somewhat stunned.

  “Just like he said it was.”

  That causes me to chuckle. “Joey said something was beautiful?”

  “Shocking, right?”

  We step down onto a narrow path between the trees. Standing before the quarry, where the water hugs the land, it has become even more beautiful than from just twenty feet back. It’s astounding that something like this exists so close to the place where I grew up, and I’ve never heard about it. It’s out of place. It belongs in paradise.

  Blue tugs the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head. He tosses the shirt to the side and my eyes soak in the sight of his chest. The sunlight that glistens off the thin layer of sweat trailing down his body almost blinds me.

  I grab my shirt and begin to pull it off. As it passes over my head, it occurs to me that I’m not wearing a bikini. Thankfully, I have a bra on, so it’s not a total disaster. I drape my shirt over a low hanging tree branch.

  Blue grabs the button of his jeans and unsnaps it. With an inquisitive look, he peers down at his lower half, and I know exactly what he’s thinking, because I’ve already beat him to the punch. “I’ve made a huge mistake,” he says.

  “Yeah?” I laugh softly. “What mistake would that be?”

  “I got so excited about the date and the secrecy of it all,” he says. “I’m not wearing swimming trunks.”

  I shrug my shoulders and state the obvious. “We’ll just have to go in our underwear. Or we could just go in bare?”

  His entire body perks up, including his brow. “I like that idea.”

  Of course he does.

  The water appears clean and to be honest, it sounds like a great idea, but I’m really trying this no sex on the first date thing. And no, I don’t have a selective memory. I remember the carnival all too well. Every sweat-dripping moment and every slippery movement. I remember every micro sensation of the grass on my back. That wasn’t a date though, and despite what Blue says, it certainly doesn’t count as one.

  I slide my jeans down my legs with a sincere attempt at being sexy, but as the denim bunches at the calf, it comes off clumsy. I kick my shoes off and pull my jeans the rest of the way off. They are thrown alongside my shirt on the branch.

  Blue’s turn to stare, apparently. I believe, more so now than ever, that he fantasizes about me the same way I do him. “Don’t just stand there and drool. Drop ’em, boy.”

  He tosses his shoes behind him and smiles. His teeth bite into his lip as he pushes his jeans down to the ground—

  And that’s how you undress sexily.

  His bleach-white boxers are almost see-through and they compliment the dark tone of his tan skin in a sexually compromising fashion.

  “Now who’s drooling?” he asks smugly.

  “Shut up and let me enjoy my moment.”

  He reaches down and adjusts himself, and I know exactly what he’s doing. The proper part of me wants to tell him to do it in private, just as I told Dylan. The other part of me, the one keen on sinning, says we should just gloss over the swimming portion of our date and fuck against the tree.

  Must.

  Be.

  Good.

  His smile and his gaze remain locked on me for a second more before he’s rushing into the water. It’s shallow at first. The crystal-clear water splashes around him, soaking his bottom half. The outline of his equally cute and sexy bubble butt is visible for a few seconds before he hits a drop-off and dips beneath the surface.

  He comes back up almost instantly, shaking water off his face and pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Are you coming, or are you just gonna stand there and watch?”

  I immediately run toward the water. Instinct tells me I should dive, but I know better. Still, if he hadn’t gone first, there’s a good chance I’d be suffering a broken neck. I glide into the water, slow at first. It should be chilly, but it’s comfortably warm. Like paradise without the price or the hassle. The trees that line the quarry on both sides block the cool breeze that was so prominent in the earlier hours of our date.

  I make my way to Blue. We’re both wading in the water when something hits my leg, causing me to freak out before realizing that it’s just Blue’s foot. While it’s perfectly clear on top, by the time you reach our feet the water becomes hazy. Still, it’s clear enough to make out the outline in his boxers.

  “So I still haven’t told you about our date?”

  I laugh at that odd statement. What’s to tell?

  “I’m serious. I didn’t bring you here to swim.”

  “Are you still on the sex kick?”

  “Always,” he blushes. “See that cliff behind me?”

  I saw it when we first came to a stop on the path, but I check it out again. It looks taller from our current location.

  “We’re gonna jump off it,” he says seriously, not realizing how de
ad wrong he is. If he thinks I’m going anywhere near the top of that cliff, then his date will end in massive disappointment. And then jump off it? Absolutely not.

  “I think you have me confused with some other girl.”

  “I’ve already told you, there are no other girls.”

  I caress his cheek. “That’s so sweet of you, but I’m still not going anywhere near that thing.”

  “I know you, Charlie. Not as well as I would like to, but enough to know that you love thrills.”

  “In controlled environments.”

  “Do you really think those carnival rides are safe? You should see how we put them together, especially when we’re tired, hung over, or drunk. Mostly drunk.”

  My shoulders rise. “Sorry, I can’t do it. It’s not in my blood.” I eye the cliff again because I really want to do this for him. “You saw me on the Zipper. I love that thing, probably a little too much for a grown ass woman, but you haven’t seen me on the Ferris wheel.”

  “That scares you? It’s just a tall kiddie ride.”

  I frown. “It’s terrifying.”

  “Why don’t we just go to the top and check it out. If you chicken out, we can just climb back down the rocks.”

  That’s fair enough, I guess. “Race you to the top?”

  His head wobbles in thought. Then I’m blinded by a violent splash of lake water to the face. Once I’ve wiped the water out of my eyes, I can see he’s already racing toward the cliff. “Cheaters never win!”

  “We’ll see about that,” he turns and hollers back.

  * * *

  Blue beats me to the cliff by about thirty seconds. He beats me to the top by about two minutes. It was a rugged climb and I almost lost my footing a few times. We both stand over the edge of the drop-off. He’s excited, ready for the thrill, but I could lose my lunch any second.

  From the bottom of the cliff, it looks about thirty feet high. From the top of the cliff, it looks like a hundred. I was always terrible with math, but Blue seems to have it figured out. “It’s about fifty feet.”

  “Is that all?” Just looking over the edge makes me want to vomit, or pass out. Maybe both.

  “It’s not that bad,” he says. “The Zipper is about a hundred feet in the air.”