What Happens Now (17 page)

The county fair always seemed so magical to me. The fact that a small, snow-covered field in winter could transform into a planet unto itself for seven glorious days in the middle of summer. Every inch of grass packed with booths and rides.
The livestock buildings that sit empty most of the year densely alive with animals and noises and smells. The lights and colors, which somehow look artificial and natural at the same time. When I was younger, I would imagine that the fair was always happening in some alternate dimension, but we could only see it for that one special week.

Once inside the gates, we huddled in front of a cotton candy booth so Max could check his phone.

“They’re here,” he said. “We’re supposed to meet them at the Ferris wheel.”

The Ferris wheel was in its customary corner of the fairgrounds, set against an iconic mix of sky and clouds as if it had brought its own backdrop. We walked over to it, but saw no Camden or Eliza. Max checked his phone again.

“She says they’re on the other side where the exit is. She says you should go look, Ari.”

“Me?”

Max shrugged. I exchanged a confused glance with Kendall and walked around the base of the Ferris wheel, past people who had just gotten off. A small patch of grass and then a chain-link fence separated the fair from the sad yet alluring shantytown of carny workers’ RVs.

But then, there was also this:

Azor Ray, coming toward me.

Azor Ray, in his familiar collarless maroon tunic with the buttons down one side, the black pants and the shiny black boots. His eyes full of purpose.

I caught my breath because Azor often made me catch my breath. Something about him had a direct line to the center of me.

Then I caught my breath again. Because this was not Eliza. Too tall to be Eliza. Too
Azor
to be Eliza.

It was Camden.

In Azor’s clothes. In Azor’s hair, which was barely a shade darker than Camden’s but shorter and neat and parted hard on one side. A wig. It was so obvious, suddenly, how much they naturally resembled each other.

Camden, Azor. Azor, Camden.
Camdenazorcamden.

He stepped toward me and smiled.

“What?” I said, feeling like I’d suddenly changed from a solid to a liquid. Where had my bones gone? What was holding me up?

“Hey, Satina,” said Camden. “Wait, sorry. That was stupid.” He cleared his throat and made a serious Azor face. “Hello, Specialist Galt. I am getting a highly excited pathos wave from you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, taking one step toward him. “When did this happen?”

“A few days ago,” replied Camden, as Camden again. “I thought it would be a great surprise for you and see, I’m totally right.” His eyes traveled all over my costume and he appeared stricken. “You look amazing, by the way.”

I took another step. My left hand brushed his right one, and our fingers intertwined.

“You did this for
me
?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I knew we’d barely kissed a couple of times. I knew we were in a public place, surrounded by people, and our friends were waiting for us. I knew I was not a bold girl, a brash girl, a girl who took what she wanted when she wanted it. All these things I knew tumbled away.

“Come here,” I said, yanking him toward me.

For the record, our mouths met halfway. It wasn’t like I attacked him. We attacked each other.

We kissed hard. Our two unfinished kisses plus a hundred more, to make up for lost time. We kissed desperately, voraciously, the way you think you only can in your mind until you do it for real. This was so completely for real. I wrapped my arms under his armpits and up his back, the fabric of his uniform as soft as I always imagined it might be. Camden put both hands on my face, anchoring me to the spot I belonged in.

Azor. Mine. Azor. Mine, mine, mine. Lips, wet, taste. Skin, heat, pressure. Give, take, fall, climb.

Had I always been this greedy?

After a time, Camden drew away. Somewhere in the kissing, he’d threaded his fingers through the hair of my wig. I’d clutched parts of his uniform that I quickly smoothed down, hoping I hadn’t ruined them.

“Okay,” he simply said, trying to recover his breath. He glanced over my shoulder, then leaned in to whisper. “They’re coming.”

We broke apart to see the others gathering around us in a circle. Eliza was wearing Camden’s Marr costume, but it had been altered to fit her. Her natural bravado and swagger went a long way toward filling an
Arrow One
command uniform.

“Oh please, you two,” said Eliza, surveying us, our hands still intertwined. “Don’t get all county-fair cute on me. Remember, we’re subverting.”

“You can be cute and subvert at the same time,” said Camden casually, like we had not just done this gorgeous damage to each other, our lips moist and swollen. “You can’t tell me you don’t want to kiss Max on top of the Ferris wheel or have a bumper-car war.”

“I don’t want to kiss Max on top of the Ferris wheel,” she said firmly. “Although
other
things would be acceptable.”

“You guys,” said James. “Don’t be gross tonight.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Max to Eliza. “Be gross. Please, please,
please
be gross.”

Eliza and Max held each other’s glance. Then Eliza looked at me and Camden with pride, and I realized how she’d set it all up. Them coming separately, Camden waiting behind the Ferris wheel so we’d be alone in the moments we first saw each other.

Kendall and James stood side by side with a comfortable gap between them, both clutching their cameras around their necks.

“Okay, here’s my plan,” said Eliza. “We head straight over to the fun house, because those shots may take us the longest
and I want to get them out of the way while there’s still natural light.”

James nodded. “Golden time, as they say.”

“So where’s the fun house?” asked Camden.

“It’s in the same place every year,” I said. “Follow me.”

As we walked, I let go of Camden’s hand to fall into step next to Kendall, then lean in to whisper in her ear.

“When we’re done with the shoot, you and Jamie should go do your own thing. Something’s bound to happen at the fair, right?”

Kendall shrugged. “You’d think so.”

Fortunately, there was no line for the fun house, which was decorated, as always, with gigantic, distorted portraits of music icons. The leather-skinned carny guy at the entrance looked at us for only two seconds longer than he looked at everyone else.

“They must see it all,” said Camden as we walked over the rickety bridge.

“I wonder what it would take to really ruffle them,” I said.

Camden shuddered. “I actually don’t want to wonder that.”

We climbed to the second level where the maze of mirrors started. “Okay!” said Eliza. “This is it. Right here. Things are starting to feel awesome.”

She directed me to stand by one mirror, opened her purse, and handed me Satina’s trademark measuring-everything device. It was light as Styrofoam, and I remembered that night they were dumpster diving. I laughed, then held it skyward like Satina often did.

“You feel stupid, right?” asked Eliza. I nodded. “It’s okay. Embrace that. But in your mind, try to turn the
stupid
into
fun
. And
free
.”

I said the word
Satina
in my head.
Do it, Ari. Shake off your skin and feel hers.

With silence and great seriousness, Camden crouched in front of me, his bare palm spread out on the floor like Azor did when he was telepathically reading a time and place.

“Look at that messed-up picture of Britney Spears,” said Eliza, directing us to look at the wall mural. “Keep your eyes on that.” She backed up to where James stood with his camera. “Yes! That is so perfect. Hold it there!”

James and Kendall stood on opposite sides of us, moving around a bit to get different angles. We got really into character now. Camden drew his gun and aimed it off camera, and I held out my device to test the atmosphere. After a few minutes, we had to pause to let a group of kids go through. They scanned us up and down, then giggled and kept going.

“Maybe they think we’re part of the fun house,” I said to Camden.

“I’m sad nobody’s recognizing us,” he said.

“I’m glad they’re not. I’m glad this just belongs to us.”

He leaned down and quickly kissed me, then grinned.

“Hey, ’Lize,” called Camden. “What about all that sexual tension between Azor and Satina?”

“They never hooked up,” said Eliza.

“But everyone imagined it,” I said.

We watched her smile. “They sure as hell did. Okay, let’s do a little fanfic version.”

Camden leaned in close to me, and in this space that was tiny but also infinite because of the reflections, I could truly imagine he was Azor and I was Satina. I had always, always wanted him and now he was renouncing his vow of celibacy. For me. Decades of fans had fantasized about being the one he did it for, but here, now, it was
me
.

Did we kiss for a minute? Five? An hour? I wanted to catapult out of myself again, the way I had for those few forever-moments behind the Ferris wheel, but we were on display now. We were putting on a show.

After we made our way through the rest of the fun house and stepped back onto the midway, Eliza said, “Let’s take our time getting over to the dairy pavilion. Just walk. Be
them
.”

So we did. I tried to look at the world of the fair through Satina’s eyes. This travel-weary woman who had seen so much, but nothing like this. She was trying to get her bearings as to where and when she was, and what was important to the people here. It must have been hard for her every time, despite her strength and independence. And of course, she was secretly, desperately in love with Azor, the man who could not give her what she needed most because he did not understand what it was.

James and Kendall together took about five hundred pictures as we walked. Heads turned, but it was the fair, after all. Everyone seemed to accept us as part of the absurdity they
were there for in the first place. When we reached the dairy pavilion, Eliza handed me the plaid shirt and gave Camden Azor’s stolen 1950s leather bomber jacket—another thrift store find that Eliza had tweaked.

Max slipped on Bram’s silver wig, which really was the attention-getter. I could tell he was trying hard not to feel uncomfortable, and I thought of his comment at the Barn about how he was only doing this for Eliza.

“The cows?” asked Camden.

“Yes, the cows,” replied Eliza.

The second scene we re-created was where Satina—who had never tasted real cheese before, what with cows being extinct in the
Silver Arrow
universe—was loading up on free samples while Azor begged them to move on to the Ferris wheel so they could investigate the anomaly. In another part of the sprawling pavilion, Atticus Marr and Bram were trying to find them.

The third series of photos were over by the Ferris wheel itself, and included all four of us—a scene after everyone had been reunited. Eliza wanted the ride in the background as we pretended to be running from angry fifties-era locals.

When we were done, we crowded around James and Kendall as they scrolled through the shots they’d taken. They looked better than I thought they would. I was not convinced that Satina was me.

“I cannot
wait
to post these,” said Eliza. “I’m not sure I can even stay at the fair.”

“You’re staying,” said Max. “We’re having some fair fun whether you like it or not.”

She smiled at him mischievously. “Only if you keep your costume on.”

Max’s expression flickered with doubt. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not kidding. I’ll stay in mine.” Eliza stepped up to Max and put one arm around his waist, the other on his chest, her fingers spread. “It’ll be memorable.”

Max laughed, grabbed the hand that was on his chest, and kissed it. “Fine. But you’re buying me a bag of deep-fried Oreos.”

They took off. I raised my eyebrows at Kendall.

“I like to see the animals,” she said to James. “Some interesting photo ops there. Wanna come?”

“Sure,” he said with a smile that could have meant anything.
Sure, let’s do that and then finally go hook up somewhere.
Or,
Sure, that sounds safely unromantic, I’m in.

Kendall led James away toward the rabbit pavilion.

Camden turned to me. “What about me? Should I change or not?”

Our costumes were barely costumes, out of context. My oversized plaid shirt and Camden’s leather jacket with our leggings and boots just looked sort of arty. You couldn’t even tell we were wearing wigs.

“I’d like to stay at the fair with Azor,” I said.

I took his hand and held my breath, until he tugged me
closer to him and rewrapped our hands so our whole arms were intertwined. The leather jacket, heavy and unfamiliar against me, something I knew instinctively that Camden would never wear. We walked away from the pavilion and back toward the midway. The sun had halfway set behind the mountains and the changing colors in the sky made the electric lights of the fair glow even more brilliantly.

Now I could take it all in. The predatory leer of game runners as we walked by and tried not to make eye contact. The little shacks that sold deep-fried everything or food on sticks that really shouldn’t be on sticks. The energy between Camden and me felt thick and awkward with questions. I didn’t expect it to be so suddenly weird, to be on our own but still in costume. Were we done being Satina and Azor? Were we just Ari and Camden now, but with accessories?

I thought back to last summer. When I came here with Dani and we went on all the kiddie rides together. When I was looking for Camden, because I was always looking for Camden. Thinking once that I saw him walk onto a ride, and waiting until it was over, and then realizing it was not him at all. How stupid I felt.

We stopped when we got to the Scrambler.

“I’ve only been on this kind of ride once, when I was a kid,” said Camden. “Some girl threw up and the barf went flying and hit me in the face.”