by Sarah Bannan
They waited a few beats and then the Suburban moved forward, turned around the corner. They were out of our view, collecting their food, probably going someplace cool, someplace with seniors, someplace we knew nothing about.
We texted other juniors to see where everybody was, and people said they were on their way, or just hanging out, or had driven by and thought that nobody was there so they had already gone home. At 7.25 – we heard the DJ from Blake’s car radio – Blake’s mother called him and he said he had to go home for dinner. Dylan followed Blake. And then we decided we should go too. Nothing was happening, same as ever. But maybe next time.
Over dinner, all our parents asked us about the pep rally, Coach Cox’s prayer, the cheerleaders’ routine, the football team’s line-up, the band’s new sequence of songs. When we said grace, we prayed for the team, and we knew that this happened all across our town, at dinner tables up and down Adamsville. Our parents had gone to Adams too, and they knew how important all of this was. Made sure we remembered it too.
That night, after we’d cleaned our plates and hugged our parents and kissed our younger brothers and sisters before bed, we started texting. Lauren Brink texted Blake who texted Dylan who texted somebody and found out that the new girl’s last name was Lessing. First name Carolyn.
We all got on Facebook, messaging back and forth, posting pictures from the day – trying to tag as many people as we could in the bleachers. We found Carolyn eventually, and a lot of her page was public – not her wall, but her friends and her profile and her pictures – they were all there for us to see. Either she didn’t understand privacy settings or she was some kind of exhibitionist freak. Whatever the case, we could see a lot this way. And we could figure out more.
She had 1,075 friends and 409 pictures in nine different albums. Some of them, like “Boredom is a sin,” just had pictures of her body: her arms and legs, nothing sexual, just limbs. But she’d taken the pictures at funny angles and put on henna tattoos, or something like that, so they looked kinda cool.
There were pictures of her with guys – “Leaving party 2010” – and we looked at these for a long time – and we sent them back and forth to each other as jpegs to make sure we were texting about the same thing. A tanned girl with four guys – two on either side – her wearing shorts and a tank top – the same white one we saw during the day? – and the guys like Abercrombie models. Shirts off, shorts low, bodies like we were only used to seeing on those soft-porn shopping bags. The guys looked older, like maybe even in college, and Carolyn looked cool and relaxed and we said you could tell that they were really friends, that the guys really liked her, just from the way they were standing. There were dozens like these. Carolyn and guys, all different and all the same: her pretty and smiling, standing next to or sitting on top of or leaning against guys who were hot. There was only one other girl in that whole album – number twenty-two of thirty-one – and the girl was a foot taller than Carolyn, at least, with hair that was blonde and short and choppy – and she was pretty too. And underneath, a caption: “Me and my bestie!” and the girl was tagged “Kourtni Kessler.” We tried to find her, but her profile was blocked. Not even a picture. Weird, we said. Weird and annoying.
Carolyn’s music likes: Vampire Weekend, Chemical Brothers, The Strokes, The Donnas, Vivian Girls, REM, Beastie Boys, Slumber Party. She was cool, we said. Some of those, we hadn’t even heard of, so we Googled them and found the stuff on iTunes and we downloaded and listened to what we could. Her page listed her school – St Bernard’s – and the name of her town – Haddington – so we Googled them to find out more. Her school had an actual entry on Urban Dictionary. We couldn’t believe it:
2,600 New Jersey kids fill the hallways of this elite New Jersey high school each day. If you haven’t heard of us already, first thing you need to know is: we’re awesome (25 percent brains, 25 percent class, 25 percent looks, and 25 percent beast, which equals 100 percent awesome). Who are we: mostly we’re upper class, white (except for the diplomats’ kids, you know?), and we either commute from plush brownstones in Manhattan or we live in upscale towns like Haddington or Royston. Girls roll into school at 8 a.m. wearing North Face, UGGs, Burberry scarves, carrying their Venti Skinny Starbucks. Vineyard Vines and Sperrys are the bomb, Lilly Pulitzer scouts for models on campus. We get into the best colleges and make a shitload of money when we get out (unless we decide to mooch off Mommy and Daddy).
We stayed on Carolyn’s profile for at least thirty minutes: we liked the way she looked and we liked the way she stood and we liked the things she wrote in her profile. We wondered who she’d want to hang out with, who she’d sit with at lunch, whether she was as smart as her page made her look (she liked J. D. Salinger, Jonathan Franzen, Virginia Woolf – people our parents read, or who were on the AP reading list).
She didn’t have a relationship status – this bugged us a lot – and we thought it meant that she was single, and then we thought it meant she had a boyfriend. The most important piece of information, we thought. And we couldn’t uncover it, no matter how many tabs we opened.
Carolyn Lessing had 1,075 friends. We would have gone through them all, to figure out how many were guys, how many were relatives, how many were old people who were friends of her parents. But we didn’t have time that night. Our parents set timers on Internet Explorer, so we got cut off before we were done, always. We thought about asking Reverend Davies for the new girl’s phone number or something – maybe we should ask her to go the mall? – but we didn’t, not in the end. We didn’t want to look too needy or like lesbians and, plus, we didn’t really know what we’d say to her.
Her location was still down as New Jersey and we watched the page for the next few days – the days before school started – and as soon as the location changed – from Jersey to Alabama – we texted each other. She’d made it official. She was one of us.
Adamsville Daily News
Weekend Edition
14 August 2010
THOUSANDS FLOCK TO ADAMSVILLE FOR ANNUAL BALLOON FESTIVAL
Hot-air balloons took to the sky early on Saturday morning in the annual Sky Sprint, which marks the beginning of the Annual 3M Adamsville Balloon Festival in Harper’s Memorial Field.
Jeffrey Grady, president of the annual festival, said the race, which involved 72 hot-air balloons, began as the sun rose on Saturday morning, at around 6 a.m. Conditions were described as “near enough perfect” and the winning balloon, from the festival sponsor 3M, narrowly won the race, beating off competition from Texaco and Stewart’s Coffee Shop. The prize is a trophy in the shape of a hot-air balloon, along with $1000 to the charity of choice. 3M announced that the prize money would be donated to Ronald McDonald House. Reverend Jim Davies, who has observed the race since it began thirty years ago, noted that the wind “seemed to make the journey somewhat smoother.” Reverend Davies has been attending the festival since he was a boy and noted that it continues to fill him with a “deep sense of wonder and awe.”
It is estimated that close to 40,000 people will attend the festival over the weekend, which will culminate in the annual balloon light show on Sunday evening. “It’s been very successful and Adamsville needs it,” said Grady, who noted last year’s event was affected by the inclement weather. “It’s a community thing where we give back to the community and say thanks.”
When asked about how the festival was planning on dealing with disorderly conduct or the use of illegal substances, he noted that the local police would have a strong presence in the park but that he was also relying on members of the community to “be vigilant and report any inappropriate conduct.”
Last year’s festival was marred by the fact that several local high-school students were hospitalized due to alcohol poisoning. Although alcohol cannot be purchased on the premises, it is common for festival attendees to bring coolers with beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, to enjoy at the event. Grady noted that the festival had always encouraged “families to bring a picnic lunch or dinn
er with them,” but that alcohol must be “consumed responsibly” particularly since so many young people attend the event.
Reverend Davies, whose daughter Gemma was one of the six young people to be hospitalized at the 2009 event, further underlined this point, advising his congregation to abstain from alcohol altogether during the festival weekend.
Grady was insistent that alcohol does not form a central part of the event. “We have a strong line-up of entertainment, in addition to the obvious draw of the hot-air balloons.” Local blue-grass band the New South will play, as will country singers Avery Avis and Donald Dillard. The Azalea Avenue Church of Christ Gospel Choir will perform and local artists will be displaying their work in various tents across the field. A farmers’ market has been established this year, in an attempt to highlight the incredible locally grown produce available to Adamsville residents. “What we tried to do this year is have great entertainment and atmosphere,” said Grady, “and we continually try to grow that every year. The festival is an important part of our local economy and, given the stress that everybody has been under the past few years, we’d encourage as many people as possible to attend.”
Chapter 3
The last weekend of summer vacation, the balloons filled Harper’s Field – we watched them arrive, coming in on the back of trucks along the Stripline – deflated silk in red and purple and orange and blue, silk that looked so thin you could tear it with a fingernail, the grit from the ground could rip them into shreds. Those who were afraid of heights would point to this – the casual way the balloons were brought into town – and explain they wouldn’t get into one of those deathtraps if they were paid to. The same went for the rides – the Circle of Destiny (called the Circle of Hell in towns up north, but not around here), the Chamber of Mirrors, the Twirling Coffee Cups – all variations on better rides we’d seen at Six Flags or at Disney World, but shipped into town and put together on a weekend in late August for the Balloon Festival.
Our parents said it was the oldest hot-air balloon festival in the world and when we were little, we would beg and beg and beg to get there before 6 a.m., to see the race, to get the first balloon ride, and stay until the field closed at midnight. We waited all year for the funnel cakes and the corn dogs and the skee ball and the spot prizes and the picnics. And the balloons. Of course, the balloons.
When we turned thirteen, we begged to go alone, to arrive later, to get rides with our friends, for our parents to stay on the opposite side of the field so we could walk around the grounds and sneak Southern Comfort into our iced tea and snow cones. We would gather behind the balloons and share joints and then run to buy cotton candy in buckets and then feed each other, laughing, smiling.
That year, when we were sixteen, we got there around 10 a.m. During the day, the field was so hot you would want to wear your bathing suit – but you couldn’t – so we wore sundresses and flip-flops and tied our hair up so it didn’t stick to our necks. By 11, you tried to stay in the shade – the tans that we had were already so extreme from the three months at the country club and the river. And to go any darker wouldn’t be good – too dark a tan was redneck.
The field was divided into three parts – the rides to your left, the food to your right and the balloons straight in front of you, rising up into the air, like notes on a piece of sheet music, all uneven and up and down. They were every color you could imagine and we picked out our favorites – the ones that had no advertising on them mostly – deep purples and fluorescent orange, and ones with seventies-style rainbows. Some said Adamsville in huge letters, some had the names of people on them – Rosa, Penelope, Terry – the way you would name a boat. From far away they looked light and gentle, and sometimes we forgot how amazing this all was – these hot-air balloons that came to our town – but when you watched them all in the air, you had to admit it was kinda cool, even if you’d seen it before.
Jessica Grady’s dad had the 3M balloon and Jessica invited us to come with her for a ride, just after 10.30. This was good – we were already hot and tired and cranky and the wind was still calm – and Jessica’s dad waved us over: “Hurry up, y’all. I gotta long list of folks who are due to get their turn.” Up close, the noise of the fire and the hot air and hammers nailing the ropes to the ground – all of this was louder than we remembered. The gas made a screeching sound and we screamed and covered our ears and Mr Grady rolled his eyes and told us to hold onto the edge of the basket – he would go up with us – we’d get fifteen minutes. He released the ropes and the balloon started to lift, faster than we thought possible, and Mr Grady leaped from the ground and into the balloon, closing the wicker door behind him.
We passed balloon after balloon after balloon as we rose – some were going up, some were coming down, some were moving to the side – and we checked to see who was inside those, if there was somebody our age, somebody we knew, but eventually, we got so high, and the balloons got so far apart, you couldn’t make anybody out. So we looked down.
You’d think it’d be like being on an airplane – that the ground would look like it did when you were taking off and landing for vacation – and it was, just a little bit. But it was different too. We could see things more clearly: people looked all Fisher-Price, cars were from Thunderbirds. And all of a sudden, the town was in squares and rectangles and straight lines. From where we looked, from however many feet above the ground, we looked at our town as a series of shapes, like an exercise in geometry. Plots and plots of land, subdivision after subdivision, roads that were straight and long. The pieces of road that curved and twisted, even they looked orderly – some of them like parabolas, a rounded line that could only be made with a compass, other ones like those up-and-down lines you’d see on the life support machines on Grey’s Anatomy. The ground was brown and red and just a little green, and on the edge of the town, past the Old Courthouse, past the Stripline and the country club and Fifth Avenue – past that, you could see the river – the Tennessee River – and it wasn’t straight at all, not like we had expected. It curved and jutted and it went all over the place, a disruption to all the squares and lines. And it wasn’t blue, not like water should be. It was dark grey, with strokes of white: “That’s the river moving,” Mr Grady told us. “That’s where the white comes from.” It was funny to us then – and confusing too – that the white spots stayed completely still.
We didn’t look at each other – we looked up and down and around – and we held on to the sides of the basket. Our bodies felt light like paper when we were up there, you could be blown away. We couldn’t talk – the sound of the wind was too much – and once we reached a certain height, after the people below us became unrecognizable, and after it was impossible to tell what was a person and what was a building, after that we held our breath, not wanting to add any weight or bring ourselves closer to the ground: we wanted to be up high forever. When the ground below us was still and we felt like we might fly through a cloud, Mr Grady lifted up the blankets that were at our feet and he wrapped one around us. We huddled together and we linked arms: we were smiling, laughing.
As we started to come down, people were clearer – first just colors, everything blue or red or yellow or green – and then we could pick apart male and female, kids and adults. We approached the ground slowly, but we picked up the detail quick – there was Dylan Hall and there was Miss Simpson and there was Reverend Davies. We saw Tiffany Port and Taylor Lyon and somebody else, some other girl – and then we saw Shane Duggan, standing close to her. We scanned the ground for Brooke and nobody could see her, find her, and we looked back to where the girl had been standing – near the funnel cake cart – and the other girl was gone. There were just Tiff and Taylor, standing alone, mopping up grease from a funnel cake and then picking it apart with their fingers. We didn’t know who we’d seen.
“I bet it was the new girl.”
“Standing with Shane?”
“No way.”
“How would he even KNOW her?”
“If it’s Andrew Wright, he looks weird.” Lauren yelled to be heard, the wind was crazy loud.
“It looks like he’s wearing make-up.” Jessica gestured to her eyes. “Like they’re all black and blue?”
“It’s Andrew Wright, I know it,” Nicole said. And we believed her. Her vision was, like, crazy good. “He looks hot.”
“Vomit.” Lauren pretended to retch. “Too skinny. Like Dan from Gossip Girl skinny. And tall. Like freakishly tall.” And we laughed, even though we were pretty sure we shouldn’t, even though we knew Andrew was actually kind of hot, people said so.
Andrew Wright was Shane’s best friend. We guessed it was because their mothers were friends, and ’cause they lived next door to each other. We heard that, when they were in kindergarten, Andrew cried during naptime, as soon as Mrs Cornish turned out the lights. In music class, he covered his ears when Mr Olsen clashed the cymbals. His hair was dirty blond and silky. He grew his hair out really long when we were in middle school, and people told him he’d be a pretty girl. He would have been. He was an athlete, like Shane, but never quite as good, always the tight end, never the quarterback. Still, he hung out with Shane and so it didn’t really matter what he did. It made him popular.
His mother had cancer or something the year before. We found that out during the first week of our sophomore year – he would have been a junior – and she died only a couple of months before school ended. Lauren Brink and her mother ran into him in Winn-Dixie in July, after we’d heard about it. He was standing in the soft drink aisle, loading a cart with three-liter bottles of Coke and Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew. Lauren told us her mother had mortified her, asking him what he was doing. Lauren told us they came back to the same aisle twenty minutes later and he was still there. Standing in front of the soda, like some kind of zombie.