by Lisa Luedeke
The whistle blew. Green intercepted the pass back and flew down toward their goal again, their strategy clearly to score again as quickly as possible, cement their lead, and shoot down what was left of our confidence. But Bobbi cut into a Green pass, snagged the ball, and shot it up to me for what should have been a clear breakaway.
I dodged the sweeper, hoping to get past the goalie with a high flick, but I tapped the ball too hard at the top of the circle trying to position it. The goalie saw her chance and came straight out at me; I panicked, shooting it right into her pads instead of diverting it to Sarah, who had appeared nearby. It was a rookie’s mistake on my part and I was furious.
“Sorry, Sarah—I blew it,” I said.
She shook her head. “That sweeper wouldn’t have let it happen, anyway,” she replied, referring to the defender who had circled back again to guard her. It was nice of her to say. She’d had a much clearer shot than I did.
Coach Riley put our only varsity freshman, Amy Wilson, in for Marcy when the five-minute penalty was up. Marcy would be fuming about not getting back in the game, but the rest of us were relieved. We had a couple more shots, but no goals. When the final whistle blew, we’d lost for the first time all season. Our perfect record was gone.
Coach Riley shook her head. “They deserved that one,” she said.
Green was ecstatic—jumping, hugging, high-fiving sticks. Our heads were down as we slunk off the field, looking for our pullovers to protect us from the chilling wind. “Thank the officials and shake Greens’ hands,” Coach Riley said. “You too, Marcy.”
Coach Riley talked to Marcy while the rest of us picked up our things and started toward the bus. Tight-lipped, Marcy folded her arms across her chest and looked straight ahead, over Coach Riley’s shoulders.
The school bus was silent, most of us staring out the windows or off into space. Marcy climbed on board last and headed to the very back, where she stretched her legs and feet out across the seat, stone-faced, looking at no one.
For the first time all season, I wondered if our team really had what it would take to win the state championship.
31
Main Street was jammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic, the cars, trucks, RVs, and horse trailers all headed to the same destination: The Deerfield Fair had arrived.
“We’ll follow you,” I said, and Cassie led us through the thick Saturday crowd. Matt and I slid past the booth where they made fresh-squeezed lemonade with ice and pure cane sugar. Opposite that was a lone ATM with a line twelve people deep.
“I hope we all brought enough cash,” I said, ducking around a family with three small children and a baby carriage. Matt nearly collided with a couple of seventh graders with pink hair and fake tattoos.
“Could you slow down, Cass?” I said. “We’ve got nine hours, you know.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I’m hungry. Three large fries, please,” she said to the woman in the booth she’d been leading us to.
“Just remember,” Matt said, looking at the row of rides that lined the midway, “whatever you taste now, you will taste again later.”
“That’s gross, Matt,” I said.
“I speak the truth,” he declared with a laugh.
“It’s almost too hot,” I said, and took off my field hockey Windbreaker, tying it around my waist.
“I’m not so sure I want all these guys to know my first name, either,” Cassie said, looking down at the embroidery on her sleeve. She pulled hers off, too. “Check this guy out.” She nodded in the direction of a man who was urinating in an alley between two game booths filled with posters and stuffed-animal prizes. He zipped up and strolled casually back toward the Merry Mixer, where he apparently worked.
“Remind me not to go on that ride,” I said.
“He’s drunk,” Matt said.
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re the one who said you didn’t want to go on his ride,” Matt said, and aimed his camera at me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, and turned away as the shutter clicked.
Matt wanted pictures of everything. “This place is a photographer’s dream,” he said.
Hours later, when the sun went down, the midway lit up like Las Vegas: red, white, blue, and yellow lights filled the night sky. “Come on, I want to go on the Zipper!” I said.
“Thrill seeker,” Matt said.
“Oh, you’re just a baby about big, scary rides,” I teased.
“I want to go to the farm museum.”
“Hmmm, farm museum or Zipper,” I said. “Tough call …”
“Ride junkie,” Matt said, and elbowed me playfully, rocking me off balance.
I looked left and saw Megan coming through the crowd, followed, predictably, by Cheryl.
They asked us to go on the Gravitron, but Cassie put a single hand on her stomach and groaned. “Too many fries,” she said. “I’ll stay with Matt.”
“Wimp,” Megan said to Cassie, and Matt rolled his eyes. He’d always said Megan was obnoxious.
“You go,” Cassie said to me. “We’ll meet you after.”
“Eleven fifteen at the main gate,” Matt said to me. “Cassie has to be home at midnight.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll see you then.”
*
I left Megan and Cheryl in line getting our ride tickets, cut through the crowd, and kept walking far from the midway, out near the animal barns, to where a low white building housed a set of men’s and women’s restrooms that never had long lines.
“I knew it would be dead out here,” I said to myself, stepping into the fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Rows of wooden stalls, ten on either side, were mostly empty. A woman and a small child occupied one together, the child whining while her mother coaxed her to go. I finished quickly and went back outside. It was quiet there, too.
“Martini.” A tall figure emerged from the men’s room, startling me. “What a pleasant surprise. Good to see you out of school, off the field. I didn’t expect it.”
I swore Alec had supernatural powers. One minute I was alone outside the deserted restrooms, the next he was there. Bam: Alec.
He’d stepped in front of me and was standing too close, his breath reeking of french fries and beer.
“Hey, Alec,” I said, and moved around him. “I gotta go.”
“Not so fast,” he said coolly, and grabbed my arm, spinning me around. “We haven’t had a chance to catch up.”
“Hey!” I said. “Let go of me.”
He released my arm and held his palms up in mock surrender. “I forgot myself, Martini. It’s just … we used to be so close. I miss that.”
“Right,” I said. “Megan and Cheryl are waiting for me.”
“Megan and Cheryl? Now I am hurt. I thought you’d given us all up. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What I do is none of your business.”
“You know, Martini,” he said, “that’s just not how I see it.”
I tried to step around him but he stepped right along with me, blocking my way, his body inches from mine. Behind me was the wall of the restrooms. Where was that woman and her little girl? Had they gone out the other way? Didn’t anybody else need to use the bathroom?
“Move, Alec.” My heart was racing.
“You know what your problem is? You can’t admit the truth. You may be hiding out lately, but that doesn’t change the facts.”
“What facts?”
I regretted asking right away, letting him pull me in to his stupid game.
“We’re just alike, you and me. We’re not pussies who play by the rules. We’re not like your little friend Matt with his geeky cameras and his self-righteous horseshit.”
“You don’t know anything about Matt.”
“I know enough,” Alec said evenly. “He looks like he’d like to take me out—not that he’d ever dare try. You must have told him some pretty deep shit about me.”
“Actually, you managed to al
ienate him without my help, Alec.”
Alec smirked. “You’re feisty, you know that? It’s one of the things I like about you.”
“I’m out of here,” I said, and stepped to the left.
Alec stepped with me. His face was dead serious now, his eyes locked on mine, his voice low and intense. “Matt must be pretty mad at me for driving you around drunk, huh, Katie? That’s a pretty serious offense. And Matt’s a pretty serious guy.”
The sound of the fair disappeared; there was nothing but Alec’s eyes, his breath, my heart pounding furiously in my chest. I couldn’t speak.
He held my gaze for an eternity, then abruptly stepped aside.
Legs unsteady, I moved past him, heading quickly for the crowded midway.
“Nice visiting with you, Martini,” he said behind me. “Don’t be a stranger now.”
*
I was reeling, my whole body trembling as I stumbled back to the midway.
Megan, looking exasperated, held up the tickets. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Ask Alec. He cornered me by the bathroom. The psycho,” I said, regretting it immediately. Even my voice was shaking.
“He’s just not used to getting the heave, Martin,” Megan said. “He liked you a little too much, that’s all. Couldn’t you tell?”
Couldn’t I tell? What was that supposed to mean? By the way he ripped off my clothes after the Bethel party? By the way he lied about driving the car?
Jesus. What was he telling people?
Cheryl, predictably, said nothing.
I didn’t feel like going on the Gravitron anymore. “You guys go,” I said.
“I have a better idea anyway,” Megan said. “Follow me.”
Cheryl and I followed her, threading through the dense crowd. Beyond the midway, an area filled with kiddie rides sat silent, shut down for the night. I was relieved to be away from the crowd, away from everyone and anyone who might talk to me. Far away from Alec.
Beyond that, it was quiet, deserted. My heartbeat quickened again as Megan led Cheryl and me around some dark draft horse barns and then out farther still, across lumpy grass littered with beer cans. Finally we reached the woods that abutted the chain-link fence running around the entire perimeter of the fairgrounds. It was pitch black, the music and lights an island of life in the distance.
There was only one reason to come out here, but I was past caring what it was.
Megan leaned against the fence. “Katie, my friend, you have got to try this.” She pulled a baggie out of her coat pocket and removed a single joint from what must have been six or seven. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Lighten up,” Megan said. “My sister brought this home from college. It’s not your basic homegrown shit.” She lit it up, inhaled deeply, and passed it to me.
I hadn’t gotten high with these guys since that party over the summer, the one I’d gone to with Alec. I hadn’t gotten high with anyone. But these two had been smoking their way through hockey season. Lightning hadn’t struck them down.
I hesitated. The joint was burning between my fingers, a speck of orange in the night. The smoke was sweet, tempting.
“Jesus,” Megan said, “just take a hit.”
I put it to my lips and passed it to Cheryl before tilting my head back and releasing the smoke in a straight shot over my head.
A few rounds later Cheryl cracked a smile. She only did that when she was high.
“Riley could burn us for this,” I said, and inhaled deeply. The space between Cheryl and Megan blurred every time I moved my eyes. “Here, you finish it.”
“Riley’s not burning anyone,” Megan said, and took the glowing stub. “She doesn’t have a clue.”
Cheryl nodded unsteadily, tilted her head back, and tried to hit her eyes with some Visine. She kept missing, the drops running down her face like tears.
“You’re losing your touch,” Megan said, and took the bottle from her. She used it and handed it to me.
*
Back at the midway, we floated through the crowd. I moved my head quickly left, then right, the lights of the rides blurring together like a melting rainbow whizzing through the air. Cool. I brushed past people, but they were unreal, like characters on a television screen. My skin tingled. Even Megan and Cheryl seemed far, far away. I jerked my head side to side, marveling at the brilliant colors until I nearly fell over.
Megan looked back at me, eyes squinted, smile slow. “Good stuff, huh?”
I wondered vaguely what it had been laced with.
We boarded the Gravitron. A skinny guy with a goatee and long greasy hair took our tickets, then pushed back some younger kids behind us.
“It’s full,” he said, and slammed the door of the spaceship shut in their faces.
“It’s been a long fucking day,” he muttered, and, not looking at any of us, strode to his box and started the thing up. He had a gold stud through one cheek and another through his tongue that he stuck out and flicked against his teeth.
We were spinning fast now, and the goateed man, feet propped up on the side of his control box, threw his head back like a cowboy, pierced tongue flicking in the wind. The pressure flattened me back against the wall, the weight heavier than I remembered. Across the way a kid inched his feet slowly up and around on the wall until he was upside down, his head a foot off the floor.
I couldn’t move my arm or a finger even. How had the kid managed to get upside down like that? I was pinned like a donkey to the wall of this capsule, the flesh on my face blown back, spread out like Silly Putty.
Suddenly it felt like I couldn’t breathe at all, like the air was being sucked out of my lungs. My heart beat wildly in my chest. If the thing didn’t stop, I would suffocate there against the wall, my face smeared like discarded bubble gum across its surface. I tried to catch my breath, but the harder I tried the more panicked I felt and the less air I got, and all I could see now was the goateed man at the controls in front of me, head flung back, looking like nothing would make him happier than ending his long fucking day by killing us all… .
We went in search of pizza. We were starving and I’d had a fantastic craving for pepperoni ever since, much to my surprise, I’d been set free from that space capsule alive.
Cheryl was spacey, her bloodshot eyes focused on nothing. “Is that your name on the intercom? I could’ve sworn I just heard your name… .” Her voice trailed off.
“What time is it?” I asked.
Megan shrugged.
A skinny woman turned to me, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. “It’s eleven forty-five, baby.”
“What? I’ve gotta go.”
*
It was nearly midnight by the time I made it to the main gate.
“Where have you been?” Cassie said. “Didn’t you hear us paging you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “We were on the Gravitron and the Zipper, and we kept running into people… .” Lies spilled out of my mouth. “I should’ve worn my watch.”
I tried to focus on Cassie but I couldn’t. The colors of the Ferris wheel lights behind her blended with the red of her hair like a trail of fire whenever I moved my head.
“You know I have to be home right now,” Cassie said. “You know my curfew is nonnegotiable.”
“Tell them it was my fault.”
“That’s not the point,” Cassie said.
“Some people care what their parents think,” Matt added.
“Yeah, and some people’s parents care, Matt.” I shot him a dirty look.
“It’s not your mother’s fault you blew off Cassie’s curfew.”
“Cut it out, you guys. I need to call my parents.” Cassie pulled out her cell phone and turned her back to us. A minute later she turned around. “Let’s go,” she said.
She didn’t look at me again.
32
Cassie leaned on her rake and looked back across the leaf-strewn lawn at her house. The day had
turned gray, the temperature in the fifties.
“Of course I’m mad,” she said. “I have to rake all day. Until I’m finished, anyway.”
“Didn’t you tell them it was my fault?” I was still straddling my bike, relieved I’d found her outside. I didn’t want to see her parents.
“You know how they are. It doesn’t matter. It was the situation I was in, I put myself in it, and I’m responsible. I’m not twelve, I’ve got a car, and I can get myself home when they ask.”
She laid a bright blue tarp on the ground next to a large pile of leaves and began raking them onto it.
“You should have left me there. I could have gotten another ride.”
“Like I’d leave my best friend stranded at the fair. And I kept thinking you’d be there any minute. Where were you guys, anyway?”
“Trapped on the Gravitron with a tattooed psychotic at the wheel. If he ran it any faster, I swear we would have lifted off. Megan loves that thing.”
Cassie dropped her rake. “It figures,” she said. “Megan’s never on time for anything. Can you get the other end of this tarp?”
“Sure.” I climbed off my bicycle and leaned it against the rail fence that bordered the front of their lawn. Each of us took two corners and carried it, like a picnic blanket, over the stone wall at the far back of their property, where we dumped the pile of dead leaves into the woods.
“You must have gone on a lot of rides,” Cassie said, trailing the empty tarp behind her. “You were with them for three hours.”
She looked at me, expecting me to fill her in. My stomach dropped. Was she waiting for a confession? Had she seen how high I was?
I wanted to tell her. I’d actually come over here thinking I’d tell her the whole thing—how I’d run into Alec, how Megan put the joint in my hand, my moment of weakness. I wanted to come clean—at least about this. But would she get it? She’d told me how she felt about them partying this season. Everyone should care about not blowing the States, she’d said. We’re a team. No. Moment of weakness or not, she would not be impressed.
I looked at the ground and kicked at some leaves with the toe of my sneaker. I could still tell her part of the story.