Dreamland Social Club

by Tara Altebrando

  The next entry wasn’t for another bunch of months. “We’re getting married,” read a clearly dashed-off entry. “I got cast in a picture. More soon . . .”

  There was a card shoved into the pages of the journal right there, and Jane picked it up and studied it. It had a picture of a bird on the front, and on the inside, someone had written, “Birdie, I told you I’d always love you . . . and the horse you rode in on.—Frankie”

  So was that it? Was that the horse she’d been riding at Steeplechase the day they’d first met? Was Preemie—it was almost laughable to think about—a sentimental softie? And at the outset none of this had really had anything to do with Claverack at all?

  CHAPTER ten

  HER FATHER WAS STANDING in the foyer, wearing a suit, when Jane came down for breakfast. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Loki’s sending a car. They want to talk again today, and they don’t want me to have to deal with picket lines. I don’t even know where the meeting’s going to be.”

  “Dad,” Jane said pleadingly, “please, please, please don’t sell them your design.”

  “Love,” he said, fixing his tie in the foyer mirror, “I know you have your concerns, but I don’t think you understand. I mean, to build a roller coaster on Coney Island. The most famous amusement park to have ever existed. Do you understand how huge that would be for me? For us? It would be the biggest possible comeback that I could have ever imagined. And I need that badly. A comeback.”

  She felt like she was going to cry, and could only nod.

  A horn tooted, and her father looked through the small window next to the front door. “That’s my car,” he said, and she just nodded again and managed a small “Good luck.”

  The funhouse mirrors were long gone, but in school that morning Jane still felt like her eyes were drawn into large droops and like her whole stomach bent and curved to the side. She felt too tall one second, too short the next. Too skinny, too fat. Too stocky, too lanky. Too normal, too weird. Too quiet, too loud. Too sad, too happy. Too everything, too nothing.

  What was normal anyway?

  Deep thoughts from the Dreamland Social Club.

  Was that all they did as a club? Stunts like that? If so, it seemed sort of silly, but also sort of, well, challenging. How had they pulled it off? And who’d come up with the idea? Had it been Babette? Or Leo? Maybe even her mom? And what would they do next, and when?

  Looking in the real mirror and trying to focus in on the actuality—of her face, her body, her edges—brought her back to the reality of her situation. Her father was meeting with Loki again. She would have to tell Leo. There was no way around it. She had to tell him before anyone else did so that she could explain. About how badly her dad needed this. And, by association, how badly she needed it. The Anchor was just a bar. They could move it, open up a block or two away. Everyone could be happy.

  Right?

  “Where’s Leo?” she said when she hadn’t seen him all morning and didn’t see him at lunch.

  “Some Loki protest or something,” Babette said. “His mother pulled him out of school to go with him. His dad was going, too. Something about the weenie.”

  “Shoot me,” Jane said, and Babette said, “What’s gotten into you?”

  “My dad,” Jane said. Because she couldn’t see the point of hiding it anymore. “My dad is the weenie.”

  In Mr. Simmons’s class it was time to share the sideshow banners/barkers assignment, and Jane thought that meant it was time to suddenly come down with a violent forty-five-minute flu, but when Babette volunteered to go first, she decided to stay put.

  Mr. Simmons nodded at Babette—“Okay, you’re up”—and just like that, she stood up on top of her desk and said, “Step right up and witness the ultimate in doom and gloom! You’ll be glad you aren’t her! She’s challenged in both stature and outlook and has dealt with this cruel world’s gaze the only way she knows how, by trying to shrink into shadows of darkness and hide. She is the Goth Dwarf of Coney Island and has only recently come out of hiding. Do you dare to tower over her tiny, ill-proportioned limbs? Can you stop yourself from gasping in horror as you stare?” She looked at Mr. Simmons and said, “I was hoping for a bigger finish, but that’s all I have.”

  “I like it,” Mr. Simmons said. “But I hardly think of you as someone who is trying to shrink into the shadows, Babette.” She shrugged agreement and said, “It’s theater, Mr. Simmons.”

  “Indeed it is.” He faced the room. “Who’s next?”

  No one volunteered, and so Mr. Simmons called on the Stephanie or Kira who’d questioned her potential exploitation. She huffed, then got up and went to the front of the class with a rolled-up piece of paper in her hand. “Step right up,” she said in a perky voice, “and witness one of the rarest specimens on earth. You will look at her and wonder how it is that she could be this way!”

  Mr. Simmons was stifling a laugh.

  “For she looks exactly the same on the left as she does on the right. She is like a mirror image, split down the middle. She is Symmetrical Girl! Come have a look!”

  “Thank you, Kira,” Mr. Simmons said. Then, almost under his breath, “You tried.”

  And then he called on Jane. She knew he would. So she was ready. She went to the front of the class with a page she’d ripped out of her notebook and cut a certain way and cleared her throat. “Step right up and witness one of the most spectacular examples of genetics gone haywire the world has ever seen! Her grandfather was a preemie, one of the tiniest souls to ever survive to walk the planet, and her grandmother part-bird. Her mother, if you can believe it, was a mermaid! Imagine, if you will, the foul gene pool and what monster it might spawn for its next generation.” She started to unroll her paper, the center of it cut out in a square, and said. “Rest your eyes upon the hideous, dreaded face of ABSOLUTELY NORMAL GIRL.” At that she held up her paper frame and stuck her face through it.

  Mr. Simmons laughed, and Jane just looked at him and shrugged.

  “A mermaid?” he said, eyebrows raised.

  “Long story,” she answered, and went to her seat.

  CHAPTER eleven

  A DISCO BALL HAD EXPLODED into a billion tiny pieces that floated in the air. Or at least that’s what it looked like. The building that housed Lola Staar’s Dreamland Roller Rink was an old landmark that had been shuttered up every time Jane had passed it before, and she felt happy that it had become protected property before Loki had come to town. It was elaborate and grand—if run-down and generally in disrepair—but Jane loved it for its oldness, for its history. It had once been a famous restaurant. She’d seen pictures of it in its heyday.

  Legs hesitated by the line to get in. “Is this okay?”

  She said, “Better than okay.”

  “Oh, good.”

  Legs nodded happily, and Jane made a mental note to be careful about what she said. She was pretty sure she would fall head over heels for the roller rink—makeshift and dingy as it was—and she needed to be sure Legs didn’t think it was he who was making her swoon. More than anything she wanted to get inside so she could find Leo, so they could talk.

  She had never seen a giant rollerskate before and was surprised by Legs’s grace, though not surprised he’d had to bring his own special-order skates. The motion of skating came back to her faster than she’d imagined it would, and she felt steady enough making lazy circles with him, but he was a better skater—faster—and he soon took off to take a few laps of his own. She slid off the rink and turned to watch the flow. Compared to Legs, all the other skaters looked like little people. Debbie was there, H.T. and some of his crew, Babette, Rita—and Marcus. She dearly hoped her brother didn’t know she was on a date with a giant. Even though she really wasn’t.

  She still hadn’t seen Leo.

  Legs swung by and waved her back out, and they were just settling into the rhythm of a new song when she saw him reach out to take her hand. Right then someone blew between them superfast—saying
, “Watch out, slow-pokes”—and skated off. It was Venus, her dark dreads flying out behind her.

  Two seconds later a laughing Leo whizzed between them. “Sorry, lovebirds.”

  Jane’s face burned as she watched him chase after Venus with such confidence that she couldn’t believe he was on skates. Then he shouted, “You can run but you can’t hide!” when he lost his prey in the crowd. He turned and skated backwards for a minute, looking right at Jane. “We need to talk,” she almost said, but then she didn’t. Leo didn’t like “talk.”

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” she said to Legs, and she broke off toward the edge of the rink. Right then, something tugged on her leg and Jane looked down. Babette said, “Is something going on between your brother and Rita?”

  Jane looked over at her brother—too fast, too guiltily—and Babette said, “I feel sick,” and skated away. Jane skated over to Rita and said, “She knows.”

  “Crap.” Rita looked at Marcus, who just shrugged.

  Jane skated back to the edge of the rink and made her way to the girls’ bathroom, where she found Babette by the sink, wiping tears from her eyes. Black mascara lines dragged down her cheeks.

  Rita came in behind Jane, and Babette said, “How could you?”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Rita smacked her gum.

  Babette said, “Spare me. You’re a backstabbing slut.”

  Color drained from Rita’s face. “If that’s what you think, then screw you.”

  She skated out of the room, leaving Jane with Babette.

  Babette glared. “You should’ve told me.”

  Jane said, “I don’t know anything.”

  “I saw a hot-pink hair band in the bathroom at your house.”

  Jane took a second to find the lie: “It’s mine.”

  Babette skated toward the door. “I think your nose just got bigger.”

  Leo was coming out of the boys’ restroom when Jane came out of the girls’. They rolled together down the hall toward the rink, where they stopped by the rails. He looked down at his hands on the rail in front of him, shook his head, then looked up. “So when were you going to tell me?” He only looked at her for a second before he looked away.

  She looked over to try to read the expression on his face as a sort of landslide of nausea started to create a crater in her gut. A new song started then, and its bass line was way too loud.

  “When there was something definite to tell.” Jane’s heart started thumping too fast, to the bass line.

  When he turned back he had to shout above the music: “When was that going to be? When your father turned up at the Anchor with a wrecking ball?”

  “Please don’t be like that.” She was watching H.T. circle the rink; he looked like he was dancing on skates. “I only just found out it was going to have any effect on the Anchor at all, and then you weren’t even in school for me to talk to.”

  “What are you even doing here?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is a benefit for Coney Islanders for Coney. And clearly, you are not one of those.”

  “I didn’t know. I swear.” She thought she might be having a heart attack, wished someone would turn the music down. She thought maybe she could say something to fix things, to make things right, but then Leo shook his head and said, “I guess I’ll see you around, Jane,” and all she could think to say was, “What about the Bath key?”

  Leo looked, for a moment, more sad than mad but said, “I guess you’re on your own,” and turned to skate away, then turned back. “You know, I know you’re not your dad. It’s not even about that, what he’s doing. It’s that you didn’t tell me.”

  The bass line, finally, died.

  Legs suggested a walk out onto Steeplechase Pier after skating, and Jane said yes just to get away from everyone else, to get some air.

  They stopped short of the end of the pier and sat on a bench that ran along the pier’s left side. There was a green garbage can across the way from them, chained to the pier with a rusty chain link. Jane imagined it was to stop people from throwing it off the edge, then tried to imagine the kind of person who would do such a thing and think it was fun.

  Something about the can—and it wasn’t a can, really, because you could see right through it—seemed odd, and then it hit her. It was empty; they were all empty, all six trash cans on the pier. Having seen her share of overflowing cans for weeks, she took it as a sign of things to come, of the coming quiet of winter.

  Legs said, “I’m really glad we did this,” and Jane wanted to cry.

  So when he leaned in to kiss her, she turned away and said, “I had fun. But I really have to head home.”

  “Oh.” Legs seemed surprised. “I thought we’d get something to eat.”

  “I can’t,” she said, feeling a bit like Cinderella, all tragic and mysterious. “But I’m really glad we’re friends.”

  “Friends.” Legs looked shaky and Jane felt that way, too.

  “Yes.” She looked away.

  He exhaled loudly and said, “A lot of that going around.”

  “What does that mean?” she said.

  “Oh, nothing.” He waved a hand. But Jane figured it out. He’d told Minnie he wanted to be friends. Leo had told Venus that, too.

  “Come on,” Legs said. “I’ll walk you.”

  “Actually, I might just sit here a minute. But thanks.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  She watched Legs walk back toward the rink, where a few police cars had arrived, their lights blinking blue and red in the night. The music had stopped and a sad female voice came through a microphone. “I’m sorry, folks. No permit. Party’s over.”

  She turned to face the water and, a few minutes later, Marcus was there beside her. “Everything okay? That giant told me you were out here.”

  Not even looking at him, she said, “The cat’s out of the bag.”

  “Which particular cat?”

  “The Tsunami. The fact that Dad is selling it to Loki.”

  “It’s not that big a deal,” he said, and Jane said, “It is to me.”

  Marcus leaned his elbows on the pier’s rail. “I’ve been remembering, too, you know. Some games.”

  “Yeah?” Jane looked at him now.

  “Remember the game about the flood? I think she called it Flood City?”

  Jane could suddenly see herself curled up in an armchair, pretending it was a boat. Trying to pull her brother and mother aboard. There had been a Johnstown Flood attraction at Dreamland at some point. Over two thousand people had died when the dam failed in that Pennsylvania town.

  “And remember the fire game?” Marcus said. “When she’d tell us the building was burning and to grab what we could and meet her by the front door or on the balcony, depending on where we were living.”

  Jane nodded. The games hadn’t seemed so at the time, but they were scary. Weren’t they? And why had she remembered the fun games, but not these?

  “Sometimes I wonder.” He lifted his elbows, put his hands in his jeans pockets. “I wonder if maybe she was preparing us or something. For the bad stuff.”

  “Well, it didn’t work,” Jane said. “I wasn’t prepared.”

  “Maybe you were and you just don’t know it yet.”

  He turned to leave and said, “You coming?”

  “I’ll catch up.”

  She looked down into the dark, churning water, lit only by the slight glow of the boardwalk lamps and the glow of nearby buildings. If the moon hadn’t been out, she probably wouldn’t have seen much at all, and she wouldn’t even have minded. She knew the ocean was there—steady, faithful—and that was all that mattered.

  Once she saw that Marcus was long gone, she looked out into a black void of sea and air and said, “Who are you?”

  When her voice, so small in that big space, got carried away and it was obvious no one was around to hear or care, she called out, louder this time, “Why did you h
ave to leave?”

  It felt wonderful, cathartic, because maybe someone—someone out there or up there—would listen and send her some clues. To where the journal was—if it even still existed. To what the Dreamland Social Club was all about. To what “Bath” meant.

  It was cold out; Jane was underdressed. Fall had arrived without her noticing. But before turning to go home again, she gathered up her voice once more with all the power she could find.

  “Who am I?” she screamed, and then she listened to the ocean’s roar for an answer.

  The beach is the last place I want to be today—the coldest day in years according to giddy weathermen—but Babette insisted. She takes a dip with the Polar Bear Club every year on New Year’s Day, and she wants an audience. She spent about half a second last night trying to convince me to put on a swimsuit and join the fun today; the look on my face must have been pretty clear. It said, Shouldn’t you be listening to sad music and scribbling depressing poems? Shouldn’t a goth have a little less fun?

  “Fine, then,” she said. “Be that way.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I will.”

  “But you’ll come watch?” she asked.

  And so here I am.

  I can’t feel the tips of my fingers or my nose or my toes, but I stand on the beach and hold Babette’s towel for her as she wades into the water—not very far on account of her stature—and then dips her head under, resurfaces, and tips back into a float. While keeping one watchful eye on Babette as she attempts a backstroke, I watch old men with sagging bellies and Speedos, and women with crinkly thighs in squarecut one-piece suits—even hipsters with shirts that say things like Kenya Dig It? They all shriek and splash, and the whole scene looks almost black-and-white on account of the grayness of the day—like an old photo.

  Some things are never really gone.

  There are old people, young people, fat people, thin people, sane people, crazy people, every kind there is. I watch a few small girls running into the water—their smiles too white; their swimsuits too new, too bright—and their parents watch them with pride so powerful you can sense it through their fancy sunglasses.