Dreamland Social Club

by Tara Altebrando

  “Do you think it’s weird to be nostalgic for something you never even experienced?” she said, and Leo said, “No,” softly, shaking his head in the dark. Jane was suddenly this close to tears for reasons she couldn’t explain. Something about these images reached deep inside her, as if looking for a memory there, but it wouldn’t come. Not yet. She pushed the emotion aside and just watched. Because maybe it was nothing, not a memory at all. Maybe it was just that seeing Luna Park in action was more powerful than seeing it in photos.

  That Coney Island, old Coney Island, had been something worth saving. Only no one had.

  When the reel ended, Leo said, “I’d give my right arm for a time-travel machine,” and Jane felt like her heart might burst. Then when he said, “So tomorrow, you’ll meet my mom,” she was sure of it.

  “I found something I want to show you,” she said to her father later that day. He fixed himself a cup of tea and then climbed up to the attic behind her, and Jane felt at once like she was about to do something both potentially great and potentially dumb. “Sit,” she said, and she reloaded the reel.

  The images were no less magical the second time around, and Jane alternated between watching Luna Park come to life again and studying her father’s rapt face, lit by the film’s glow.

  “Wow,” he said when the film was done.

  “Wasn’t it amazing?” she said.

  “It was.” He nodded, then sipped his tea, swallowed. “And you know something? I gave your mother a hard time about wanting to name you after Luna Park. Now I sort of wish I hadn’t.”

  Jane said, “It should be that way again, don’t you think?”

  He was quiet.

  “You could help, Dad. It’s what you do.”

  “Did,” he said. “It’s what I did.”

  “I know you’re working on something,” she said. “I saw you.”

  He got up, breathed hard, and said, “Well, come on then. I’ll show you.”

  He led her to his office, which she hadn’t entered since the day they moved in. There were books splayed across the floor and overgrown plants hanging from the ceiling by the window. The books and knickknacks on the shelves were crooked, knocked over, covered in dust. It was arguably the only room in the house that looked worse now than it had the day they arrived.

  She followed her father to a desk in the corner by the window overlooking the garden. She could feel a cyclone in her gut when she saw a drawing of a roller coaster that shot out off the shore and over the ocean on a pier and then peaked and rode back in like a tidal wave. It appeared to plunge down through the sand of the beach into a tunnel and reappear out of the boardwalk. She saw the Coney Island skyline sketched in light strokes in a second drawing of the same coaster: the Parachute Jump was on there; so was the Wonder Wheel.

  Her father was looking at it alongside her and said, “I had this basic concept years ago. I can’t even remember where. But it was never quite right.” He ran a hand over the page. “It’s called the Tsunami.”

  The front door opened downstairs and then Marcus called out, “Hello?” Jane and her dad both said, “Up here,” and then Marcus bounded up the stairs and came into the room. “What’s going on?”

  Jane pointed, and he came to her side and studied the renderings. “Wow,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “Wow.”

  It really was incredible.

  Especially that spiral track that seemed to twist right up through the boardwalk. “Does it go underground?” she asked. “Through the beach?”

  “That’s the idea,” her father said. “Yes.”

  “Cool, Dad,” Marcus said.

  “So you’re going to submit it to the city?” Jane said.

  “What’s the city got to do with it?” Marcus said.

  “They’re accepting bids for new ride designs,” Jane explained curtly.

  “I don’t know,” her father said. “It still needs more work. And it’s a bit over the top, budget-wise, I think.”

  “You have to submit it,” she protested.

  He shrugged, then looked at his own drawings. “I guess I can make a few calls.”

  “It’s really amazing, Dad.” She turned to give him a hug.

  “Yeah,” Marcus said. “Seriously.”

  “Thanks.” He looked like he might cry, but then he said, “Oh, and not a word about this to anyone, okay? Because if nothing comes of it, well, you know . . .”

  Jane considered right then telling her father and Marcus that she’d located a friend of Mom’s. But maybe caution was in order there, too. Because if nothing ever comes of it . . .

  “Sure, Dad,” Jane said, barely able to contain her excitement about it all. “Of course.”

  When sleep wouldn’t come—Leo’s mom, the Tsunami, Leo’s mom, the Tsunami—she climbed out of bed and looked out at the Parachute Jump and tried to picture one of her father’s creations in its shadows. She imagined what the coaster’s sign might look like, with a big blue-and-white wave hanging threateningly over the capital T of Tsunami. She imagined lines of people, waiting for a chance to ride and then spilling out onto the boardwalk to talk about how amazing it was. No doubt some of them—a lot of them—would go to the Anchor for a beer. Leo’s dad would be able to pay as much rent as he needed, and whatever Loki did just wouldn’t compare.

  She wished the mermaid doll on her night table would come to life and give her some tips on keeping secrets. Because she wanted to tell Leo and Babette and anyone else she could think of about the Tsunami.

  Please let this happen, she begged. Though she wasn’t quite sure who she was begging. She just didn’t want to have to be there to pick up the pieces of her father if this didn’t come through for him.

  The old window rattled in the wind then, and she pulled the covers up against the empty house and whispered to herself, inviting sleep with three sentences on a loop:

  This is your captain.

  We are passing through a storm.

  We are quite safe. . . .

  CHAPTER eleven

  SHE WAS GOING TO BE EARLY to meet Leo and his mother at the club after school if she didn’t slow the hell down, so she stopped to look at one of the big vacant lots that had been plastered with THE FUTURE OF CONEY ISLAND HAS ARRIVED signs. She hadn’t noticed the logo on the signs the first time she saw them, but she saw it now.

  Loki.

  The god of mischief. A shape-shifter.

  (Thanks, Mr. Motamed of Introduction to Mythology.)

  The I of the logo took the shape of a serpent.

  She wasn’t sure that was the best kind of name—or logo—for a company that was coming into a neighborhood and causing so much trouble; it was almost like they were bragging. But maybe there was no good name for a company like that.

  At the gate to Wonderland, she looked up at that Mad Hatter. It had been a long time since she’d read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but she remembered that weird tea party, the way the Mad Hatter talked in riddles. Why is a raven like a writing desk?, he’d asked Alice at one point, and Jane had been boggled for days, constantly asking Marcus to tell her the answer. She couldn’t remember how long it took her to understand that there was no answer. That question, too, was unanswerable.

  She turned down the block that ran alongside the park and stopped by the Polar Express ride—a series of cars that ran around a circular track with hills—and studied the paintings on it, of skiers in goggles mid-jump and, of course, polar bears with big white hairy bellies. She remembered a joke her brother used to tell, about a baby polar bear who keeps asking his parents, “Are you sure I’m not a brown bear or a black bear?” They always tell him, “No, you’re our own baby polar bear and we’ve loved you and cherished you since the day you were born.” Finally, the parents ask their baby polar bear why he keeps asking this question. He looks around and says, “Because I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing.”

  Walking farther down the side of the park, she stopped by the Pirate Ship r
ide—this park was pretty loosey-goosey with its theme—and wondered what would happen when the park’s lease was up in the spring, as that article had said. In the meantime, she guessed the park would close for the season in just a few weeks, with their fate hanging in the balance. It wasn’t the nicest amusement park she’d ever seen, but she felt a little sad, anyway, when she wondered where the Polar Bears and Pirates might end up. She closed her eyes and imagined walking a pirate ship’s plank, falling off into choppy seas with an Aarrrgh!

  There must have been a hundred fish in the tank at the Coral Room. And the tank must have been two stories high. Right as Jane walked into the empty club, a school of something gold swam by and turned in sync, and Jane nearly gasped with surprise. Resting on a seabed that appeared to be actual sand were coral clusters and sea anemones—waving gently like Leo’s hair—and a treasure chest overflowing with costume jewelry.

  It was absolutely dazzling . . . at first. But on closer inspection, the rest of the room was less so. The velvet curtains and couches looked a little nubby, and the floor appeared matted, scuffed. There were rips in the leather on some of the booth seats around the room’s perimeter. Jane didn’t care.

  Leo and his mother were sitting at a table in a far corner and Jane approached. His mom wore a dress that was sparkly—almost bubbly—and made of something shimmery and pink. With straight blond hair cut to her chin and lips painted cherry red, she looked clean and crisp and inviting, like a cocktail. She was the exact opposite of Leo’s dad, but sometimes, Jane guessed, that worked.

  Leo said, “I’ll leave you two alone,” and Leo’s mom looked sad and happy at the same time. She pulled Jane into a hug, and she smelled as fruity and crisp as she looked. “I’m Beth,” she said. “It’s wonderful to meet you.”

  Jane just let herself be absorbed and waited, unnerved by how good it felt to be held just so.

  “Birdie used to update me, whenever she got letters from your mother.” She pulled away. “I can’t believe it’s you. I mean, you’re hers.”

  Behind Beth, in the aquarium, seaweed swayed slightly as a tiger fish swam through it. Up close like this, the gravel sparkled like silver and the sea sponges looked like brains. Jane tried to imagine a woman, dressed like a mermaid, swimming around and waving at people sitting at the bar. It sounded sort of silly and also, well, fun.

  “Sit.” Beth sank back into her chair. “We were best friends, your mom and me. For a long time.”

  Jane had so many questions to ask, but the one that came to her lips was “What was she like?”

  “What was she like. Gosh.” Beth had a faraway look in her eyes. “What was she like.” Her lips softened into a smile. “She was an absolute doll. Sweetest, most thoughtful woman you’d ever meet. And boy, could she tell a joke. And flirt. Oh, the woman flirted like a pro. But she wasn’t fake about it. She just really enjoyed people, you know? She could talk to anyone about anything. I mean, anybody. All walks of life.”

  Jane nodded, waited for more.

  “I don’t know. She was just . . . fun. Fun to be around.”

  The very thing that I’m not.

  Beth reached across the table and squeezed Jane’s hand. “It was an awful thing that happened to her.” And released her hand. “To you. I still can’t believe it. You look just like her, you know.”

  Jane felt the tears start to generate behind her eyes.

  I can’t believe it either. I didn’t know. Or she thought she knew, just from the pictures she had seen. But no one had ever told her.

  To keep her eyes from giving in, she focused them on another fish in the tank, this one a really small blue fish with a slash of white on its side.

  Beth stood and seemed to shake something off, then said, “You hungry?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Let’s get some food, hmmm?”

  She summoned a waiter and they invited Leo back over, and they sat and ate in the empty lounge, in the rippling light of the aquarium’s spotlights, while Beth told stories about Jane’s mom. Like how they used to piss off the guy who ran the water balloon game that competed with Preemie’s by only ever playing when they were the only two around, so that one of them was guaranteed to win. She talked about their terrible, terrible sunburns, how they would have to spray themselves down every fifteen minutes for hours with something called Solarcaine because it hurt so bad, before people knew how bad the sun really was for you. She talked about winters on Coney, how she and Jane’s mom would eat piping-hot potato knishes from Mrs. Stalz’s in Brighton Beach almost every day after school. She talked about mermaid camp, when they were fourteen. How Birdie had driven them down to Florida in her beat-up old car in a two-day frenzy, and how Jane’s mom had had to be put in the car forcibly when camp was done. She had wanted to stay, had wanted to drop out of high school and train to be a mermaid for real.

  “Your mother went back after high school. To audition.” Beth shook her head. “But they didn’t have any openings. That’s when she sent that postcard. Then I went away to college and she went to art school and got married and took off, and we lost touch.”

  “What does this mean?” Jane pointed at the LYLAS.

  “Love you like a sister,” Beth said sadly.

  They were done eating, and she sat back in her chair. “We used to do crazy things. Your mother was the troop leader.”

  “What kind of crazy things?”

  “We used to break into the amusement parks at like two, three in the morning.”

  “You did?” Leo said. It was the first he’d spoken the whole time.

  “Sure. We used to climb to the top of the Thunderbolt after dark and smoke cigarettes.”

  “What?” Leo said. “You’re kidding me.”

  “What’s the Thunderbolt?” Jane asked.

  “An old roller coaster that got knocked down.” Beth seemed to be enjoying the memories now. “And we’d try to climb the Parachute Jump, but we never got very far before we either got scared or got caught.”

  Leo was shaking his head and smiling.

  “Your mother was a bad influence.” Beth smiled. “In the best possible way. Sneaking beers onto the Wonder Wheel. She had keys to everything. I don’t even know how.” She turned to Leo. “But don’t go getting any ideas.”

  Then sadness tugged at the corners of her eyes. She took the postcard into her hands and studied the little drawings. “She used to doodle all the time. She had this crazy journal she carried everywhere and she was always writing stuff down. Lyrics and quotes from poems, but mostly doodling. My God, the doodling.”

  A deliveryman had come in, carrying some boxes. “I have to take this,” Beth said, and got up. Leo and Jane got up, too. “But please. Come and see me again. We’ll talk more. Okay?”

  Jane nodded, and Beth went to sign for the delivery.

  Stepping up close to the aquarium now, Jane looked up at the tallest kelp plant, a deep orange underwater tree that stretched high to the top of the tank. Just above her head she noticed a starfish clinging to the glass and she put her hand up, pressed it against the glass, against the five points. She thought she saw one of them twitch.

  Jane looked under the mattress and up on that high shelf of the closet and behind all the drawers in the dresser and then under the bed, by the springs, but didn’t find a journal anywhere. She went down to Birdie’s Bavarian Bar and looked in the chest of clothes, and still nothing. No journal.

  She brought her mermaid book into bed that night and reread the inscription. My dear daughter, I used to be a mermaid once so I know that mermaids are good at a lot of things, like keeping secrets. I hope your life is full of them. Love, Mom.

  It was such a weird inscription. But mostly, it was a ridiculously weird book. A book full of pictures of mermaids.

  The Mermaid’s Secret.

  Who publishes that?

  Who, besides her kooky mother, would actually buy it?

  The pages were mostly filled with illustrations, of course. Mermaids didn’
t really exist. And some of them were ridiculously over the top. Because would mermaids really find it practical to have hair that long? Would they really wear makeup? For the first time Jane regretted that this was the one book her mother had left her, the one book she’d come to cherish above all others. It was possible mermaids were good at keeping secrets, but this book held none. There were no life lessons to be learned in its pages, no inspiration to be found. It was story-less.

  She flipped and flipped until she found what she suddenly knew she’d find: the same photo that appeared on the postcard her mother had sent Leo’s mother.

  The seahorse.

  Being kissed by a mermaid.

  Right there on page 45.

  She remembered, when she was younger, not understanding why there were regular women in old-fashioned bathing suits pictured in a book about mermaids, but she’d never bothered to read the captions before. This one said “Mermaids at Weeki Wachee, 1959.”

  Setting the book aside, Jane picked up the mermaid doll and wound it and still no music came out.

  Song-less.

  Only then did she study the underside of the doll and discover the stitches—a rip that had been repaired. Thinking that odd, she got out a pair of scissors and snipped the thread away. Because maybe the doll could be fixed, made to sing, after all.

  Reaching into the mermaid’s innards, she felt something hard and was able to hook her finger on it. The keys she pulled out hung on a small silver hoop, and each one was labeled with a small taped-on piece of paper. One said “Jump,” one said “Thunder,” a third said “Wonder,” and another “Bath.”

  We used to climb the Parachute Jump.

  We used to smoke on the Thunderbolt.

  She held them in her hand and felt a sort of completion in her heart, like her body had been trying to draw a circle for years and had finally connected two points.

  Thunder. Jump. Wonder. Bath.

  Mermaids were good at keeping secrets after all.