All the Pretty Things

by Emily Arsenault

  “No.” Dad looked surprised. “Was someone saying that?”

  “I thought I heard something like that,” I said.

  “Huh.” Dad contemplated his beer bottle, peeling off part of the label.

  I didn’t want to talk directly about what Briony had told me. About Ethan saying he couldn’t ride the Laser Coaster on another day. It gave me a very creepy feeling, and I didn’t want to get into that now.

  “Umm, do you know why Winnie backed out on her shift that night?” I asked. “Why she couldn’t work the night Ethan died?”

  Dad shrugged. “Nah. I didn’t ask. She’s been switching shifts occasionally this summer, but since she always finds a replacement, it’s not a big deal. I don’t mind people trading shifts if they can cover their own butts. Chris doesn’t either.”

  “Right,” I said softly.

  Our waitress came and dropped off the check.

  “Don’t run away, honey,” he said to her, digging for his wallet in his back pocket. “I’ll pay right now.”

  The very tan waitress, who was in her twenties and wearing little purple denim shorts, waited patiently as he fished for the right credit card. He tossed it over and it landed right on the plastic check tray.

  “Good throw,” she said as she walked away.

  Dad watched her go.

  “I love summer,” he murmured.

  Hoping he wouldn’t elaborate, I chose that moment to rummage in my backpack and take out the recorder I’d found in his office.

  “Hey. Is this yours?” I asked.

  He squinted at it. “What is it?”

  “Just a gadget I found…umm, when the girls were changing and I…” I trailed off, realizing I should be vague, for now, about where exactly I had found it.

  “You should ask all the princesses, then. Probably one of theirs.”

  I nodded, believing he was telling the truth. He didn’t seem aware that it had been in his office. “Will do.”

  If I had told him where I really found it, Dad would probably flip out on someone. Better to poke around on my own first. I didn’t want to get Chris in trouble. At least not until I could figure out a little bit more. I needed to hear what was on the recorder and go from there.

  “So,” Dad said, taking a resolute sip of beer and meeting my gaze. “Kittycat.”

  “Yeah?” I could tell from his smile that he was about to spring some new Fabuland business on me.

  “You did such a good job with this princess stuff. I think you’re ready for something bigger. I’m thinking you’re really gonna love helping Chris and me with our giant Doughnut Day project too.”

  “Oh.” I smiled like I had at the princess parade—sweetly, but with great effort. “Is that really happening this year?”

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  I cast around for something that might encourage Dad to reconsider his plan without offending him.

  “I kind of thought that was your and Jason’s thing,” I said, after a moment.

  “I can’t wait for Jason on this. He might never be coming back.”

  I’m not sure whether it was the expression on my face that made Dad correct himself. “For a whole summer, I mean.”

  “And you definitely want to do this big doughnut thing in the summer?”

  “Of course, honey. It would be a Fabuland event, primarily. Not as much a Dynasty event. A summer attraction.”

  I sucked in a breath. Jason and my dad had talked about this for years. The biggest doughnut ever made was a 1.7-ton jelly doughnut made in Utica, New York, in 1993. This was a well-known fact in the Cork household. When we were kids, Dad and Jason would make plans for how they’d top that record someday. Dad would insist their doughnut would be vanilla-cream-filled, with tons of rainbow sprinkles. Jason would talk about the logistics, like what kind of giant vat or swimming pool you’d need for all that oil. What kind of aerial machines or construction equipment you’d use to lift the doughnut, flip it, fill it. They were both kind of inspired, I think, by a book Mom got Jason and me when we were little. It’s called The Giant Jam Sandwich, and it’s about a town plagued by wasps. Everyone pitches in to bake a giant loaf of bread and then trap all the wasps on a slice of it spread with raspberry jam.

  When Jason and I were kids, it was clear that it was just a before-bed fantasy, that we’d somehow outdo the Utica doughnut. But since Dad bought Fabuland, he talked about it like it’s a real thing. He knows he probably can’t top 1.7 tons, and he probably doesn’t want to bother. But when he and Jason would discuss it last summer, he would say, “There’s something alluring to people about a giant sweet. It brings out a childlike fascination. A Hansel-and-Gretel kinda deal.”

  So they’d talk about billing it as “the biggest doughnut ever to roll into New Hampshire” or the “world’s biggest-ever sprinkle doughnut.” Dad wanted to unveil the giant doughnut in the middle of the park, where the Food Zone tables are, and give people little sandwich bags of sprinkles and let them throw the sprinkles down from the top of the Laser Coaster or some of the other nearby rides.

  “People like to be a part of this kind of thing,” he’d say. He felt that the communal spirit of The Giant Jam Sandwich bore him out on this.

  “When were you thinking this would happen?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around what this project was going to take.

  “Couple of weeks,” he said. “Mid- to late July.”

  “Huh,” I said. That sounded both soon and vague enough to be unrealistic. Probably I was supposed to be like Jason and just take up the mantle of talking about it indefinitely. “Well, I’d be honored to help plan it.”

  “Chris had a brilliant idea. We do about a dozen dough balls, each five feet wide, fry them, and then use frosting to mush them together in a ring that looks like a decorative doughnut, you know? Then we don’t have to figure out how to fry one doughnut at once. We can borrow a couple of ten-foot metal vats from the cheese factory up in Landon. I’ve got a great relationship with those guys. They love me since I use their cheese in the Dynasty danishes, you know?”

  “Would that count as a doughnut, though? Dough balls pushed together?”

  “It wouldn’t be for Guinness World Records. It would just be for the spectacle and the sprinkles.”

  “Right. Who would spread the frosting?”

  “I don’t know. I wish I had myself some Oompa Loompas, really.”

  Dad said this sometimes. I kind of wished he would stop. In fact, sometimes, very occasionally, when he was concentrating intensely on something, he would mutter-hum under his breath, Oompa loompa, doopity doo, like in the old Willy Wonka movie. I wondered if that meant he was imagining little orange men working in his head.

  “I meant customers or employees?” I said.

  “Employees. Customers would only get to do the sprinkles. They can’t fuck that up, I don’t think.”

  “Hey, Dad. I’m kind of tired from all the princess stuff. Maybe we can head out now?”

  I was tired. Not just from the day but from this conversation. And I was eager to be somewhere alone so I could check out what was on the weird little recorder now back in my backpack.

  “Sure, Kittycat,” Dad said.

  NINE

  After Dad turned on the TV, I went into my room, closed the door, and switched on the air conditioner to mask the sound of what I was planning to do. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to play the recorder. Then I rewound a bit to see what I could find.

  It was taking a while, so I stopped in the middle of the rewind, pressed Play, and immediately heard my dad’s voice:

  “Well, look, Krista, if he wants money from me he should ask me for it himself.”

  I held my breath for a second, stiffening at the sound of my mother’s first name. Then there was a rustling noise.

  “Yeah.
You know, if he’s having trouble paying it, then maybe this wasn’t such a good plan. Oh…really? Well, those are the breaks. Let that be a lesson, I guess.

  “Yeah. I get it, honey. It’s been the same thing with Jason for years now. He’s afraid of hard work.”

  I winced. They were talking about my brother, of course. But that wasn’t the painful part. It was that I knew how much my mom hated it when Dad called her honey.

  “Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I’d call that hard work. But you know what, honey, if you’re giving him that much, I’ll match you. Sure. But you can tell him this is a one-time thing. Once for the summer, and I’m not doing it again in the fall. He’s got tuition covered and that ought to be enough. And not next summer either. If he needs more money then, he can come home and work for me. He knows I’ll make it worthwhile. He’s just needs to embrace the work. That’s something he can think about, when he’s planning for next summer.”

  There was silence for a minute. “Uh-huh. Sure, Krista. You know, he’s lucky I’m willing to take him back. You have no idea how much money he cost me last summer, that kid. Him and his big head.

  “But—never mind.

  “No…never mind.

  “Yep. See ya.”

  Then I heard a sigh and a clunk and a gulp. Then I heard my dad mutter, “Poor little pansy ass.” Then he changed his voice and kind of sang the same thing. “Poor lit-tle pansy ass.”

  I pressed the Stop button, eyeing my bedroom door, wishing I could swing it open and chew my dad out for saying this. But he hadn’t said it to Jason’s face or to mine. He’d said it while he was by himself. Calling him out—on what was essentially a private thought—would be complicated. And I’d kind of given up trying to get my dad to adjust his vocabulary a couple of years ago.

  Dad and Jason used to get along really well. But things hadn’t been great between them since Jason left for Syracuse two years ago. And this summer Jason decided not to come back home and work for Dad like he did last year. He got a summer job as an RA and an assistant writing instructor for a high school arts program on campus. Dad had been complaining since May that Jason would make about half the income at that program than at Fabuland. But I could see why Jason wanted to do it. He was majoring in English and music. The campus job was something he could put on his résumé that was more impressive than working rides and frying wads of dough.

  Reluctant to hear what else my dad might say when he was thinking out loud, I picked up my phone and texted Jason a simple Hey just to see if he’d answer right away. The three dots popped up almost immediately.

  Oh hi, what’s up?

  Princess parade was today. I added a few emojis: shooting star, red dress girl, tired face.

  Oh yeah was it okay?

  Sure. Dad seemed happy. Did Mom or Dad tell you about Morgan?

  Haven’t talked to them. What’s with Morgan?

  Actually, can I call?

  Yeah

  When Jason answered, I told him about Morgan and the Ferris wheel. He already knew about Ethan because we’d been texting and talking while I was in North Carolina, but I hadn’t had time to give him an update in the last few days.

  After I was all done, he was silent for a moment. “That’s…quite a story, Ivy. Whose idea was it for you to go up and get her?”

  “Dad’s,” I admitted, even though I wished it had been mine. It would make me feel braver.

  I heard Jason snorting.

  “Of course it was,” he said. “You okay?”

  “It’s been a few days. I’m fine. It’s Morgan I’m still worried about.”

  I told him about the scorpion paperweight. I felt Morgan had given it to me in confidence, but I didn’t think she would mind me telling Jason.

  “Huh,” my brother said, after thinking it over. “You’ll definitely want to talk to Reggie.”

  Reggie Wiggins, the Laser Coaster operator the night Ethan died. He was on my list, especially since Dad said he had done the locking up at the park. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Reggie since I’d come back home.

  “Maybe he saw something,” Jason continued. “And Lucas Andries—although I’d be careful how you ask that guy questions. I mean, I don’t think anyone would want to push Ethan off a bridge or anything. But Lucas is the sort of guy who maybe would be dishonest about what exactly happened. Like, I wouldn’t put it past him to refuse someone like Ethan a ride, and then lie about it later because he knows it makes him look like an asshole.”

  “That wouldn’t explain the paperweight on the path, though.”

  “I know that. I just mean that kind of thing could be happening. But you know…if you want to talk about Ethan…just generally what could have been in his head that night…Katy’s a good one to go to.”

  “Oh. Katy.” Katy was Jason’s best friend from high school. She volunteered for an after-school sports program for special needs kids. She had known Ethan pretty well. In fact, she lived in the same neighborhood as his cousins, Winnie and Tim.

  “She wasn’t around last summer,” I pointed out. “Is she in Danville now?”

  “She went home this summer, yeah. I think someone said she’d be working at the library.” Jason was trying to sound casual, like he wasn’t sure, but I knew he always kept tabs on Katy. He was kind of in love with her. Even though technically he had a girlfriend in Connecticut. Still, he’d probably drop her in a second if he thought Katy would give him a chance.

  “I called her right after I heard about Ethan,” Jason admitted after a moment. “To see how she was holding up.”

  “And how was she?”

  “Not so good, but that was the day after. I’ve been meaning to check in again.”

  I stared down at the digital recorder on my bed. I wasn’t sure if I should tell Jason about it. I wanted to figure out whose it was first. Plus it would feel like lying, to tell him about the recorder without telling him about pansy ass.

  “When are you gonna come home and visit?” I asked instead.

  “I’ve got a week off between the July session and the August one. So, the last week in July, maybe. How’s Mom?”

  “Uh…okay, I guess. Tired.”

  “Right,” Jason said. Mom was usually tired.

  “Jason? Can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you come home this summer?”

  “I got a better job. You know that.”

  “But…”

  Something Dad had said on the recording was stuck in my brain, that Jason had cost him a lot of money last summer. I wasn’t sure if it was typical Dad ranting or something specific worth knowing about.

  “Listen, Ivy. You know how much Dad and I fought last summer. You saw it yourself. I’m kind of over Fabuland. I think you get that.”

  Yeah. I got it. It wasn’t easy work. But we were supposed to be building something together. Dad’s parents had opened the first Cork’s doughnut shop, and Dad had grown it into a bigger chain. Even if Dad sometimes had an offbeat way of talking about it, or even of going about it—it was all about taking what our grandparents had built and making something even bigger.

  “I get it, but it’s not really—”

  “Hey, can we talk about this a little later? I didn’t have dinner and somebody’s waiting for me.”

  “Okay. Text you later, then, bye.” I tossed my phone down on my bed.

  Fair. That was the word I’d been about to say before Jason interrupted.

  I knew I shouldn’t throw around the word fair. If life was fair, Ethan wouldn’t have died. And Morgan would have enough money to go to college. And Mom wouldn’t be exhausted by life all the time. And I’d have more friends. I knew I should forget about fair. But still, it felt like Jason was cheating somehow, getting to hide at his fancy college while scoffing at all Dad’s endea
vors that had helped get him there.

  I picked up the recorder. I was pretty sure my dad wasn’t being cagey when he said the recorder wasn’t his. Most likely it was Chris’s then, since he was the other person most often in Dad’s office. But why would Chris be bugging it?

  Chris had worked for my dad for as long as I could remember. Dad said Chris was a teenager when he started working at the original Doughnut Dynasty on Main Street—before I was born, and when my grandfather was still alive and running things. Chris was assistant manager at the first branch shop in Goffsbridge and moved on up from there. After my parents divorced and my mom stopped working for my dad, he gave Chris her old job, putting him in charge of all the sprinkle party managers. It was sort of an important job because it’s those parties that made Doughnut Dynasty so popular.

  I was in one of the commercials when I was a little kid. I wore fairy wings and a tiara and I said, Mommeee! Let’s have a sprinkle partyyy!

  My mom insisted that I stop being in the commercials after I started kindergarten. I’d been devastated at the time, but now I understand that that was a pretty prescient move on her part. That role would’ve been difficult to live down.

  Given all their history, why would Chris want to secretly record my dad? If in fact that had been his intention. All that right-hand man stuff aside, I didn’t know how well Dad really knew Chris. He often said Chris was loyal, but that might just be because Chris was quiet and had a military-style haircut. How things appeared to Dad was sometimes how they were.

  If I wanted to know whether this was Chris’s recorder, I needed to figure out a way to ask him indirectly. In the meantime, I needed to listen to everything that had been recorded. I pressed Rewind until the recorder clicked. Then I hit Play and waited.

  There was a thump and then a rustling and then the faint sound of creaking floorboards. Then a door. And then silence. Whoever had started the recorder didn’t have distinctive footsteps and didn’t stay long.

  The silence went on so long that I got out my iPad and flicked through my Instagram feed, waiting out the recording. Dani Erwin had put up a cute picture of herself as Sleeping Beauty riding one of the horses. A lot of people had liked it, which was encouraging. Especially after Dad’s mixed response to the event.