Dreamland Social Club

by Tara Altebrando

  If it hadn’t been for the shopping mall built out onto a pier and the complete absence of the Anchor and Wonderland, she might have fallen for the proposal hook, line, and sinker. It was certainly closer to the old Coney she loved than what was here now.

  Leo would probably never understand the way she felt about it all now that she’d really seen the whole scale of the Loki plan, and she’d probably never tell him. Even if Jane saw only gray, the world was black and white and this entire situation was out of her hands. When the lights came up, Leo wasn’t in his seat. It wouldn’t surprise Jane at all if he’d bailed, if he’d joined the protesters outside.

  After the presentation, Legs led Jane to a tank for tiny seahorses in a darkened corridor, claiming he wanted her help with his story. Jane didn’t really think she’d be much help and had never helped Legs with a story before, but then he said, “You’re really pretty, you know,” and Jane knew it wasn’t about the story at all.

  “Thanks,” she said as she watched seahorses gallop slowly through the water, using their curly tails to maneuver. They were yellow, with round black eyes, and so very tiny and beautiful. She wished she could shrink herself and dive in and escape all this awkwardness.

  She cleared her throat and said, “Okay, so what are you going to lead with?”

  “That.” He bent down on a knee like he had that day so long ago, and he had a funny look in his eyes and then a second later, he was leaning in as if to kiss her. He said, “That was my lead. That you’re really pretty.”

  “Legs—” she said, putting up a hand.

  “Sorry.” Sadness seemed to shrink his face to a normal size. “But why not? I mean”—he backed off—“we get along great. We spend all this time together.”

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I can’t explain. I’m just happy with the way things are, with us being friends.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t need friends.”

  She said, “But I do.”

  “Jane,” he said. “Give me a break.”

  It was only then that Jane realized she actually had friends. A bunch of them. Real ones. Maybe for the first time ever. Because even if things never got better for the Dreamland Social Club, she still had Babette and Legs and H.T. and, well, Leo.

  Legs said, “Have you ever thought that maybe you are to him what I am to you?”

  She took a second to try to parse the words but was still confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Leo. I mean, he must just see you as a friend. Because wouldn’t something have happened by now?”

  “I’ve got to go,” Jane said, looking into the tank and saying a silent farewell to the yellow seahorses. “I’m sure your story will be great.”

  She stepped out into the Aquarium courtyard for some air and saw Leo standing by the penguin environment. She clicked over in her heels and he turned. “This is where Dreamland used to be, you know.”

  She shook her head.

  “This penguin palace might have been the Helter Skelter or Midget City or Hell Gate. Preemie’s little incubator might have been right here for all we know.”

  Jane sighed. “You hated it.”

  “No.” Leo stood up straighter, shook his head. He looked so grown-up in that suit, but so sad, too, which was maybe par for the course. Jane wondered whether all of this had made her more grown-up and more sad, too. “I didn’t hate it. I wanted to. But no.”

  “And the Tsunami?”

  “If the goal is to scare the crap out of people, I’d say your father pretty much hit the nail on the head.”

  They stood there in front of fake icebergs and shimmering black water lit from below—a few people walked by, laughing and talking—and then Leo said, “You and I have some unfinished business.”

  She thought back to the peanuts and the rooftop and the way she was sure he’d been about to kiss her that night, would have if it hadn’t been for the situation with Legs. She thought about the night at the Anchor, about the scurrying and what it might have interrupted, and said, “We do?”

  “We do.” He turned to face her and said, “The Bath key.”

  “I actually asked your mom about it,” Jane said, and she pulled the key from her purse. “But she wouldn’t tell me anything except that my mother had a thing for secrets.”

  Leo was nodding. “She said the same thing when I asked her.”

  “You asked her?”

  “Yeah.” He took the key from Jane and studied it closely. “And I’ve been thinking that when people have secrets they sometimes leave clues.”

  “True,” Jane said. “My mother wrote a note in an old book of mine that said that mermaids were good at keeping secrets, and I did find the keys inside a mermaid. But beyond that, I don’t know. ‘Bath.’ It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, obviously, there’s not exactly a perfect trail of bread crumbs,” Leo said. “But maybe there’s still a crumb or two out there.”

  “Maybe,” Jane said, but she wasn’t convinced.

  CHAPTER nine

  THE FLIERS WERE BACK in the morning and in numbers that indicated great urgency. Jane stopped to read one that said,dreamland social club

  EMERGENCY (YES, AGAIN) MEETING TODAY.

  RIGHT NOW. ROOM 222.

  She’s not dead yet.

  Jane hurried upstairs and found most of the rest of the club already assembled.

  “I think we should cancel the mermaid funeral,” Babette said after the meeting was called to order. “I mean, what’s the point anyway?”

  “Fine by me,” Venus said.

  Minnie said, “Me, too.”

  H.T. said simply, “But Little B, you were so excited.” And Jane suddenly wondered what it meant that Babette let H.T call her that.

  “I just mean, did you see all those suits last night?” She turned to Jane and said, “No offense.”

  Jane said, “You were there? I didn’t see you.”

  “People rarely see me when I don’t want to be seen,” she said, then turned back to the group. “All those suits are going to be there on parade day, probably in some ridiculously swank viewing trailer they park in front of Nathan’s or something, and the whole thing, putting on a show for them, just makes me feel sort of dirty.”

  “Seriously,” Jane said to Babette, “don’t be like this.” She really didn’t want it to be canceled, especially not now that she had the mermaid costume figured out.

  “I’m not being like anything.” Babette threw her hands up. “There’s just no point.”

  “Of course there is,” Jane said, and felt a certain power in being able to speak with at least a tiny bit of authority to Babette for once. “There’s even more of a point.”

  She looked over at Leo, who seemed to be egging her on with his eyes. She said, “It’s a mermaid funeral on Coney Island just as all these old businesses are getting shut down.”

  Rita smacked her gum. “So it’s like this metaphor, you mean?”

  “Exactly,” Jane said. “That was the whole seed of the idea!”

  “I don’t know,” Venus said. “It seems like it’s the wrong message to be sending. Almost like we support what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, like we’re glorifying it or something,” Babette said.

  Jane shook her head. “But if it’s this awesome and really sad and beautiful thing, people will get it. They’ll feel it. That it’s about mourning the past.”

  Leo’s silence, by this point, felt conspicuous. All faces had turned to his, and Babette said, “I know you’re mad at Jane because of what she said about the rats, but this is something different and you should share some thoughts.”

  “I think she has a really good point,” he said, smiling at Jane. “And it was true, by the way. About my dad not paying his rent and not dealing with the rodent situation.”

  “Really?” Venus said. “Sucks.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sucks. But, well, we have to do something, right? We can’t just not do the p
arade.”

  “All right, then,” Babette said. “If everyone agrees.”

  Marcus walked into the room then and all heads turned. “Sorry, I just saw the fliers,” he said, and Babette shot Rita a look.

  “Don’t look at me,” Rita said. “I didn’t invite him.”

  Then eyes went to Jane and she said, “It wasn’t me.”

  Babette started banging on her desk and they all joined in. “Gooble gobble, Gooble gobble. We accept her. We accept her.”

  “Her?” Marcus said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” H.T. said, and Marcus took a seat next to Rita, who promptly leaned over and kissed him on the mouth.

  Babette looked for a moment like she’d been struck by a stun gun, but then she said, “Welcome, Marcus.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “So what is this club anyway?”

  Babette rolled her eyes. “Rita can explain, but in the spirit of the club, I’m just going to say that I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk. It’s cool. I’m happy for you. There. I said it.”

  “Really?” Rita said.

  “Really,” Babette said, then she looked at Minnie and cleared her throat dramatically, and Minnie stood up. “Fine,” she said. “Jane, it was me who filled your locker with condoms. I’m sorry. I was hurt.” She looked sheepishly at Legs, then back at Jane to say, “And I took it out on you.”

  “What about the doll in the noose?” Jane dared.

  “No,” Minnie said. “That was the Claveracks.”

  “Okay,” Jane said. “Well, apology accepted.”

  Babette said, “Venus, anything you want to say?”

  “No,” Venus said. “I’m cool.”

  “Fine,” Babette said. “Adjourned!”

  “I’m proud of you,” Jane said to Babette when they were alone.

  Babette huffed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m jealous and all.” Her eyes pooled up. “I mean, who is ever going to like me?”

  Jane squeezed her shoulder. “Somebody will!”

  Babette blew her breath out through circular lips, pushing tears away. “I mean, look at me, Jane!” She almost laughed.

  Jane laughed, too, and said, “I’m looking!”

  There was a van parked in Preemie’s driveway when Jane got home that day, its back doors open to face the porch. Four huge men wearing thick gloves were trying to coax the Claverack horse off the porch.

  Jane’s father saw her and waved. “They called and wanted to come right over. I thought it’d be okay.”

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “Of course.”

  She climbed the steps and stood next to her dad and watched as the horse disappeared into the van amidst a grunted chorus of “Easy”s and “Hold it”s and “Okay now”s. She’d boxed up the rest of the stuff—except for the demon, which she’d just covered in protective paper—and saw that it had all already been moved to the porch. Once the horse was done, the men took the demon, then slid the boxes into the van and soon they were gone.

  Her father squeezed her shoulder. “You good?”

  The van was backing out of the driveway.

  Yes, its a driveway.

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “I’m good.”

  “Any word yet?” she asked him after a moment. They had no idea when the verdict about the new Loki plan would come down.

  “Nope,” he said. “Not yet.”

  After the van pulled away, she got a black marker out of her bag and went down to the sign on the driveway and added the missing apostrophe.

  Upstairs, she sat down to do some reading for Mr. Simmons’s class and found the postcard she’d taken from the Anchor on her desk. After studying the photo on it—a black-and-white shot of the bar’s exterior—she turned it over and started to write.

  Dear Mr. Simmons:

  There’s a writer whose name I can barely remember how to spell who wrote something rather lovely about how everyone has a holy place on earth where their heart is pure and their mind open, where they feel close to truth or God or whatever it is they worship. [Trust me, he said it better.]

  I think Coney Island might be my holy place, but I can’t be sure yet. I just know that I feel closer to a lot of things here. Closer to my mom. Closer to myself. Maybe even closer to fun.

  Best wishes,

  Luna Jane Dryden

  She stepped out into the hall and called out, “Dad!”

  His “Yeah?” came from far away.

  “Do you have a stamp?”

  CHAPTER ten

  FRIDAY BLEW BY in a whir—all anyone was doing was counting the hours to meeting up for Wonderland’s last night—and Jane found herself bolting out of school at day’s end so she could go home and get ready. Not that there was even anything to do to get ready, but everything felt urgent.

  Since there was no way to make time go faster, Jane had to find a way to fill it. Sitting in her room, surrounded by that hideous green-and-pink wallpaper, she decided she needed to look no further for something to do. She moved her bed away from the longest wall in the room and then found a loose corner by the bottom edge of the wall and grabbed and started to pull it up and off. Two strips later, she was certain that she was uncovering something significant. There was definitely something underneath, a pattern of some kind. Whatever it was was covered in glue that made it sort of hard to figure out at first, but eventually the mural’s scene started to take shape. It was one big oversize doodle of Coney Island as it must have been when her mother had lived in this house.

  The Parachute Jump was there, with a picture of a key at its base. The Thunderbolt was there—all overgrown with vines and plants and with a small house underneath—also with a key icon by a gate. Looking for Wonderland, Jane found it—replete with Mad Hatter, and this Mad Hatter had a key dangling from one of his fingers.

  So Leo had been right about the “Wonder” key after all.

  Which left “Bath.”

  When she saw the key drawn next to the picture of the round sea vessel sitting underneath the Cyclone’s tracks, she sat and thought hard for a second, about The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms—didn’t the scientist who went down to find the sea creature get eaten up in one of these little vessels?—and of the postcard her mother had sent Beth—with the mermaid smoking a cigarette on a little round sub. She closed her eyes and let her mind go. In the movie they’d called it a “bell,” but there was another word, and she could hear her mother’s voice say . . .

  There has to be a submarine or a shipwreck or a bathysphere around here somewhere.

  Bathysphere.

  And here was the map of where to find it.

  She got changed for Wonderland and walked out onto Steeplechase Pier and inhaled.

  So that was that.

  She exhaled and took another drag of salty air and closed her eyes as her hair whipped across her face in the wind. She pushed some strands away and thought about screaming into the wind again. It had felt good that one time. It had been cathartic and almost fun. But what would she even say this time?

  What am I doing here?

  She was actually starting to think she knew.

  Why did you leave?

  Was it so that Jane would have to come back? To find Leo? To find the bathysphere?

  It was there, right where her mother had drawn it; she just knew it. The journal, too. All of her questions would be answered.

  “This is your captain!” she finally screamed, and the words seemed to catch the wind and fly. “We are passing through a storm!”

  She needed to stop to take another deep breath before she could yell, “We are quite safe!”

  A smile had crept into her features, she could feel it. She couldn’t shake it the whole way to Wonderland.

  CHAPTER eleven

  THE GOAL WAS TO GO ON EVERY RIDE and to play every game before closing time. Or at least that was Babette’s goal—and that included all the kiddie rides. So Jane played the part of proud parent as Babette went on silly rides with names like the Frog Hop and Hippo Hat, scaring wailing to
ddlers and their parents alike with her head-to-toe black clothes and dark eyeliner.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Babette said, upon exiting a miniature flying elephant ride.

  Jane finally had the nerve to say, “What’s up with the goth thing anyway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  They started to walk toward the grown-up rides, some of which Babette would be too small to go on. “I just mean, you’re not a very good goth.”

  Babette stopped by a bench and climbed up on it to stand so she could see Jane better. “Honestly, I think I did it because I thought it’d be a distraction, you know? Like people couldn’t just say ‘Hey look, there’s a dwarf.’ I thought that if I did the goth thing, I don’t know, the dwarf thing wouldn’t be my whole identity.”

  It made sense. Somehow.

  “I don’t know”—she held out a hand and Jane helped her down—“I think maybe it backfired. And we’re all in therapy now and I somehow can’t bring myself to go to the sessions as a goth. Analyze that!”

  “It just doesn’t seem very you is all.” They were nearing the bumper cars. “But that’s good, about your parents and therapy, right?”

  “Come on.” Babette pinched Jane’s leg. “I’m going to bump you so hard that your clothes will come back to life.”

  Rita and Marcus were already in bumper cars. Legs and H.T. and Leo and Debbie and Minnie, too. Even the Claveracks were squeezing themselves into small seats and then someone threw a switch and the bumper course came to life. Jane hit her pedal hard and barreled across the course to hit Harvey Claverack sideways, and hard, and then backed up, turned, and moved on. She made a straight line for Leo and hit him hard on the side.

  “Hey!” she said. He spun around and shot off and then came back and hit her hard head-on.

  She had to shout. “I need to tell you something.”