by Jake Parent
“Don’t worry about them. We shouldn’t have gone down this road. Mommy made a mistake.”
“OK. Can we go to the amusement park now?”
“Yes, chica. That sounds like a great idea.”
8
Cristina used some slick parallel parking skills to slip into a tight space between two cars on her first try.
“Aww, yah,” she said as she pulled the e-brake.
Anise quickly unbuckled herself from her car seat, and would have burst out the door with excitement had it not been for the Civic’s childproof safety locks.
Cristina still couldn’t quite shake the image of the two meth-zombies from her mind. But the warm sun on her face as she stood near the car went a long way toward brightening her spirits.
The lingering chill under her skin vanished almost completely when she saw her daughter smile ear to ear, awestruck by the countless rides darting and dashing and diving in every direction. Hand-in-hand, they walked toward the front entrance, listening to screams of joyful terror fill the air.
Cristina couldn’t help but feel like a kid, too.
“Where do we go first?” she asked.
Without looking at her mother or uttering a single word, Anise simply pointed, jaw dropped open, toward a beautiful antique carousel. Under the umbrella-shaped roof, a herd of wooden horses bobbed up and down, circling their well-worn path. A whimsical melody chimed from the automated pipe organ, calling forth potential riders.
“Which horse are you going to ride?” Cristina asked as they waited in line.
The question and all its prospects made Anise’s eyes bulge even wider than they already were. She seemed almost paralyzed by the immensity of choosing.
Then she caught site of a bright-pink mare with a blue bow in its mane.
“I’m riding Pinky!” she declared.
Cristina thought it was certainly one of the more eccentric horses of the bunch.
“Good choice.”
They were second in line behind a little blond girl about Anise’s age, who stood with her father – a large, mean-looking white guy with a swollen, rosy nose. He tried to be nonchalant as he twisted his pudgy neck to check Cristina out. He wasn’t looking at her face, but at the firm roundness of cleavage bulging from her tank top. The sight distracted him so badly that he didn’t even react when the pimply-faced kid running the ride signaled for the next group to take their places. Not until his daughter silently tugged on his pant leg did they finally move along.
Cristina tried to ignore him.
She walked Anise over to the pink horse and lifted her up onto its saddle, gently strapping on the safety belt, against Anise’s strong insistence that she was a big girl and didn’t need it.
Cristina hopped onto the horse next to Pinky, and away they went. The organ music came to life. The lights on the inside of the roof flashed in harmony.
Cristina sat back, admiring the innocence of her daughter’s joy and wonder. Her giggles and squeals as the ride whirled around and around. And, more than anything, her bright smile. It was everything good in the world.
At the same time, Cristina was consciously trying to avoid the continued stares coming from Red Nose. But even when she didn’t look his way, she could still feel his cheap, car-salesman grin from across the carousel.
As the ride came to a stop, the dismounting children all begged their parents for another turn.
Red Nose approached Cristina as she and Anise walked toward the exit turnstile.
“Hey, baby.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cristina thought. Is that the best you can do?
There was a time when she probably would have just called the guy out. Made him feel stupid. But, for one, she didn’t want to embarrass his daughter. No matter how much of a scummy douchebag he was, the poor girl didn’t deserve to feel awkward. Her life was probably hard enough already. And, secondly, Cristina was just tired of it. Tired of the way men slobbered and gawked and tried to casually rub against her in crowded places. How they touched her ass when she went to concerts. She was just done.
So, instead of saying anything, she simply tried to walk around him, holding Anise’s hand, responding to his words with nothing more than a nod and a polite smile.
But, of course, that wasn’t good enough. It never was for these kinds of guys.
“I said hello to you,” he insisted, moving his wide body to block her path. “Don’t you think it would be polite to say something back?”
“That was sooo much fun,” Anise said next to her, ignorant of the man’s presence. “Can we ride again? Can we?”
“Of course, baby.”
Once more, Cristina smiled and tried again to walk around him, this time toward the wall. He stepped in front of her, straightening his arms so one palm was on either side of her body, trapping her in place.
“You’re a little short on manners,” he lectured. “I think you owe me a few words.”
Now she picked up the yeasty scent of beer on his breath. In fact, he smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower in at least a couple of days. She also noticed for the first time that his eyes were as red as his nose.
“No thanks,” she said. “Come on, chica. Let’s go.”
Anise protested. “But I want to ride Pinky again!”
“No. We’re going.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Red Nose said, keeping his arms locked in place when Cristina tried to move.
He was short. Only a few inches taller than her. Which didn’t give her much room to maneuver without being forceful. She looked past him. The little blond girl was just standing there in silence, staring off into the distance in some kind of trance.
Her defense mechanism, Cristina thought.
Red Nose continued, “How about we let the girls ride again? You and me can sit and talk a little about how mean you’ve been.”
Cristina had had enough. Adjusting herself ever-so-slightly, she lined her knee up with the center of his crotch, hoping to give herself enough room to build up the force she needed to make sure he would never have the chance to breed again.
She offered a coy smile, to which he returned a prideful look of victory. She leaned toward his ear, so neither of the kids could hear. He moved toward her too, grinning like he just won the lottery.
“Look, asshole,” she whispered. “If you don’t get away from me, I’m going to knee you so hard you’re going to bleed out of your eyeballs.”
He jerked back his head a bit. His eyebrows crooked and his beery lips opened in surprise. He took in his surroundings. First looking at Anise. Then seeming to notice his own daughter for the first time, her stare still stuck on something far off that only she could see. His eyes returned to Cristina’s unflinching glare. What he didn’t see was her hand creeping toward the back pocket of her jeans. In her mind, she pictured pulling out her knife, flipping it open, and shoving it right into his dirty face.
“Yah,” the man said, considering his situation one last time before spitting on the ground. “Well, it’s not like you’re all that pretty anyway.”
With that, he stepped back from Cristina, grabbed his daughter roughly by the arm, and dragged her away. The blank look on the girl’s face barely shifted as her tiny legs stumbled to keep up.
Suddenly, all Cristina wanted to do was cry. Not so much for herself. It wasn’t the first time she’d been harassed by some creep, and she was positive it wouldn’t be the last. But her heart ached for that innocent little girl.
For a few moments, Cristina couldn’t bring herself to look at Anise, fearful that doing so would burst whatever seal was keeping the tears from flowing.
Why do people have to be so horrible to children?
Cristina bit down hard on her bottom lip.
She took a deep breath.
Squatting, she brushed Anise’s hair out of her eyes and kissed her forehead.
“Is everything OK?” Anise asked.
“Yes, chica. Mommy’s fine.”
“I love you, mamma.”
Anise leaned forward and smacked a kiss onto her mother’s lips.
Then, leaning back, she put on her most angelic face.
“Can we ride Pinky again?”
Cristina let go a cathartic laugh. Along with it came a single tear, which she wiped away with the back of her hand.
“Yes, baby. We can ride Pinky as many times as you want.”
9
Anise kept Cristina to her word. They rode the carousel another seven times.
Then they had giant corn dogs at an outside table overlooking the beach. The number of people crammed onto the sand was a sharp contrast to the wide-open space Cristina experienced at the beach she’d found when first visiting Pleasure Point. And most of the people here were pale tourists, sitting under umbrellas, staring at screens.
Why even come to the beach?
Cristina had never been a computer person. Probably due to the fact she was more interested in drugs for most of her life, and maybe because her ex was a bigshot tech entrepreneur with his own startup. Well, it wasn’t like it was really his, given that he’d started it with money from his father, who was himself some kind of computer bajillionaire.
All that aside, the world of technology was so damn impersonal. Cristina had spent most of her childhood being raised by her grandmother – an old-school woman who believed a person gains respect by looking other people in the eye, telling them exactly what’s on her mind.
Sometimes it seemed to Cristina as if her own generation had been transformed into a bunch of robots. Everyone loved to stare into their smartphones, to the point they would walk right into you on the sidewalk and not even apologize.
She snapped out of her thoughts when a seagull landed at the end of the table. The brave bird stared at them while it inched toward their basket of french fries.
“It’s a birdy!” Anise declared. “Can we feed him?”
Before Cristina had time to answer, her daughter had already thrown one of the fries.
“Anise!” Cristina said, more harshly than she meant it.
Anise froze in the shock of a kid being scolded for something they don’t understand to be wrong.
“Sorry, mamma.” She turned toward the seagull. “Go away, Mr. Bird!”
He didn’t listen. Instead, he waddled his webbed feet forward, helping himself to another fry, this one straight out of the basket, before retreating back to the far end of the table.
Cristina put a playful tone back into her voice.
“Do you think he likes ketchup?”
Anise considered the question carefully.
“Yes, I think he does.”
Cristina coated one of the fries with red goop, then lobbed it toward the bird’s end of the table. The gull inspected the offering, flipped it over once with his beak, and tossed it into the air before gulping it down his throat.
“See!” Anise said. “I told you, mamma.”
At that point the word was out. Two more seagulls landed on the table. Then a few more. There were soon seven of them vying for space on the table. As the size of the group increased, so did the intensity of their squawks. Anise threw another fry and the birds loudly argued over who it belonged to.
About a minute later, the flock decided the game was over. They moved forward with the unity of a disciplined military unit. Cristina and Anise were forced to retreat, leaving behind the last of their food and a trail of shared laughter.
After lunch, they continued exploring the park. First, Anise rode on a green-tracked kiddie-coaster. Then, together they boarded a slow-moving cave train on a trip back through time, all the way to the land of dinosaurs. That was followed by shooting water guns into a plastic clown’s mouth, in a race to fill the balloon extending from the top of his head. Cristina won, beating a guy who seemed genuinely annoyed at having lost to a woman. His frustration made victory that much sweeter. At another booth, she knocked down a stack of bowling pins with a softball. She let Anise pick out the prize: a stuffed, blue octopus.
Once they had their fill of rides and games, the two walked hand-in-hand out onto the beach. They moved slowly over the uneven sand. Through the mass of bodies.
It was the warmest part of the day. After finally finding a spot with a bit of distance between themselves and anyone else, they spread out towels and stripped down to their bathing suits. Cristina’s bikini and Anise’s one-piece were matching black-and-white cheetah print.
Then they headed for the water.
Cristina hadn’t even put a toe in when she went to the other beach, so the icy coldness came as a bit of a shock. She yelped when the water first washed over her feet and ankles.
Anise, however, was unaffected. It was her first time in the ocean, but she took to it as if she’d grown up a block away.
Cristina had a vague recollection of coming to the beach once or twice with her cousins when she was younger, and somehow she remembered the water being a lot warmer.
Eventually, however, she worked up the courage to wade into the shallows near the pier, Anise in her arms.
It’s not that bad once you’re in for a few minutes, she kept trying to tell herself.
They floated and laughed and smiled as the surf tossed them about.
From the water, she could see the amusement park stretch down the beach. It looked a lot bigger than it had earlier from up on the hill.
Reality is always a lot bigger up close.
That felt like something Michelle would probably say.
It had only been a couple days, but Cristina already missed their daily conversations over coffee.
Floating at the mercy of the ocean, she suddenly felt a bit isolated and alone. She promised herself she would call Michelle that evening, and would try to make it to a 12-step meeting as soon as possible. Even if the first attempt at connecting with the local recovery community had been a little bit . . . well, weird.
Cristina refused to stop doing what had brought her so far.
Despite having somewhat adjusted to the frigid temperature of the water, she still shivered when she and Anise finally plopped their wet bodies face-first onto a towel. Cristina lay on her belly, elbows tucked close to her body, soaking the warm sun into her skin. Anise copied her mother precisely, glancing over every few seconds to make sure she was doing it right.
10
Cristina must have fallen asleep.
Before she could even manage to blink her eyes all the way open, her mind slammed into full-alert. Anise was no longer beside her.
She jumped to her feet, looking up and down the beach.
Nothing.
There were so many bodies occupying the space around her, lying, sitting, digging, standing, running, jumping, it was almost impossible to see through them all. The only clue she had was the fact Anise’s plastic bucket and shovel were gone, too.
OK, she must be down by the water.
But when Cristina came running up to the shoreline, she saw no sign of her daughter anywhere. She asked several people if they’d seen her: two long-haired stoners throwing a frisbee, a young couple holding hands, and an older guy with a big, round belly wearing nothing but a cowboy hat and a pair of red speedos.
None of them had seen anything.
She couldn’t have gone far.
But which way?
The beach suddenly seemed to stretch on forever. In one direction was the pier, and past that more beach. In the other was the amusement park, and then the cliffs and the fancy homes Cristina had seen earlier from above.
She decided to go toward the pier.
Her bare feet kicked chunks of dirt into the air as she sprinted across the hard-packed sand near the water. The beachgoers gave strange looks to the short, brown-skinned girl with the tattoos weaving in between the crowd.
She hardly noticed.
After what seemed like half an hour – and in reality was no more than a minute – Cristina finally arrived at the pier, her smoker’s lungs woefully out of breath.
The tall wooden structu
re blocked out most of the sun, making the air underneath much cooler. The sudden change from bright to dark also made it hard to see.
Cristina rubbed her eyes into focus.
After the blur cleared, she felt a wave of relief. There was Anise, kneeling in the wet sand, digging with her shovel.
Next to her was a man Cristina had never seen before. A white guy with a shaved head, wetsuit pulled down to his waist, the top half of his body completely covered in tattoos. He was bent over and pointing, saying something to Anise.
Filled with frightened rage, Cristina yelled, “Get away from her!”
He immediately stood and put his palms in the air as he opened his mouth to speak. She didn’t give him the chance, instead turning to her daughter.
“Anise, what are you doing!? You know you aren’t supposed to go away from mommy without asking. What were you thinking?”
Anise continued shoveling dirt into her bucket. She spoke softly and without looking up.
“Sorry, mamma.”
“Look at me.”
After some hesitation, Anise did as she was told.
“You scared me,” Cristina said. “Don’t you ever do that again, OK?”
“OK.”
Anise went back to digging and said, “This nice man showed me how to find the sand crabs.”
Cristina glared at him, a bit surprised he remained standing there, looking almost comical with his hands still in the air. Though by then he’d added a disarming smile. She checked him out a bit closer and noticed that his body was not only covered with tattoos – one of the more prominent a large triangle with a circle around it on his stomach – but he was also quite muscular. Not like a body builder. More like a well-honed athlete. Actually, his ridged abs seemed carved from stone. The sleek lines of muscle dove toward the confines of his wetsuit.
When she finally looked at his face again, she found his square jaw and full lips still grinning.
“Hi there,” he said, sticking out his hand with confidence. “I’m Casey.”
Cristina said nothing.
After an awkward moment, he shrugged, turned, and walked toward a surfboard he’d propped against one of the pier’s support pillars. He put the board under his arm. Before heading off, he turned back toward her, his face assertive but not unkind.