Wild Ride (9 page)

“There's always a way,” a light voice said from behind her, and she turned to see the guy with the good shoulders from the Dream Cream there in the twilight, taller than she remembered, more curly-headed than she remembered, but just as cheerful as she remembered, his hands in his pockets, relaxed and smiling that crooked smile at her again. “I'm Joe. From this morning in the Dream Cream, remember?”

She pulled her paint coat closer around her. “Yes.” She turned back to Vanth to get her bearings. It wasn't like he was drop-dead handsome. Or built like a wrestler. Or—

He came closer. “What's the problem?”

“The latch.” Mab gestured to the box so she wouldn't have to look at him because her brain seemed to short out when she did that. “On the back, the latch that opens the door. It's . . . strange.”

“Let's see it,” Joe said, and walked around to the back.

“It's complicated.” Mab went around the other side of the machine in time to see him pull the door open a couple of inches, using the tail of his shirt. “How did you do that?”

“You push it and lift it.” Joe tugged on the door again to open it the rest of the way, and Mab heard metal complaining.

“Wait a minute.” She went back to her paint bag to get her WD-40 and pumped oil into the hinges and then rocked the door gently back and forth so that it opened a little more. “This is
excellent
. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

She pumped in more oil and rocked the door again, and it gave up another couple of inches, enough that she could see inside.

It was a mess: dust and cobwebs and rust, all of it shrouding the back of the iron statue of Vanth—

Joe moved in closer to see, too, and she was so aware he was there and near that she stopped thinking about Vanth.

“Wouldn't it be better if you did this in daylight?” Joe said.

Mab swallowed. “I have the light on my hat. I can do it now. Thank you for helping. Good-bye.”

“Or you could have dinner,” Joe said. “With me.”

She lost her breath again. It was ridiculous. She hadn't been this lame in junior high.

Of course, no boys had talked to her in junior high. And there hadn't been any boys like this in junior high, not even close.

“I just got this open, so I should keep working.”

“Did you have lunch?” he said, his voice full of laughter.

“No. I was working.”

“So it's been, what, nine hours since you had food?”

“Yes,” Mab said, suddenly feeling hungry. “Could you show me how you opened this latch so I can do it, too?”

“If you'll have dinner with me.”

Mab frowned, caught between exasperation and increasing stirrings. “This box is open
now
.”

“Look, you have to eat,” Joe said reasonably. “Starving yourself will not help you work. Show me the park between here and the Pavilion, and I'll feed you.” He grinned at her. “They do have food, right?”

“Hot dogs. But this box is—”

“Dinner first. Then I'll show you the latch. And then tomorrow in the light of day, you can see what you're doing.”

“I have my miner's hat,” Mab said, pushing it back off her forehead.

His smile widened, and Mab remembered the Dream Cream that morning. How had he managed to pass by Cindy to come find her in her paint-stained canvas coat and yellow miner's hat? What kind of guy found that attractive? “What are you up to?”

“I'm hungry,” Joe said. “I want to eat. With you. Soon. Are you always this difficult?”

“Yes,” Mab said, and considered the situation. She did have to eat, in fact, she was starving now that she thought about it. And it was growing dark, and she did need daylight to see the entire inside of the machine; a miner's hat could only do so much.

And she really wanted to go with him.

“Okay, but we go dutch,” she told him.

Joe sighed. “Fine. Which way do we go to get to the Pavilion?”

“Either way around the lake,” Mab said. “Although it's shorter if we go to the right.”

“The left it is.” Joe closed the door to the Fortune-Telling Machine and then took her elbow and steered her toward the midway. She tried to
look back, and he said, “Nope, keep your eyes ahead so you can see what's coming for you.”

“What's coming for me?” Mab said, looking around.

“Me,” Joe said, and she gave up and let him take her where he wanted to go.

 

E
than decided he'd more than earned his pay in the last twenty-four hours. Getting shot had not been in the job description, and when it had been in his previous job, he hadn't much cared for the experience. And then there was his mother and Gus, losing their minds. He pulled his flask out and took a long swallow.
The hell with this.

He looked up, searching in the fading daylight for the highest point in the park: the blinking lights on the star-shaped top of the Devil's Drop, conveniently located right in front of the Beer Pavilion and therefore his star to steer by in his quest for drink and Ashley. She'd acted weird this morning, but then again, so had everyone else in Dreamland. He walked around the lake that surrounded the Keep, being careful not to trip any more of the cheesecloth ghosts, past the Worm and the Tunnel of Love and the OK Corral games and the Devil's Drop, and on up to the Pavilion, where he heard voices raised in drunken revelry.

There wasn't much time could do to the Beer Pavilion. Long wooden tables that had been scarred and splintery before the Depression were scattered around an open fire pit in front of the newly repainted bar. Behind the bar was a row of kegs, a Coke cooler, a hot dog grill and bun steamer, and a girl dressed in Dreamland's version of German Oktoberfest, accepting the one-dollar per plastic cup and two-dollar hot dog fees along with whatever tips her cleavage drew. The place was packed with regulars from Parkersburg; even Ray was leaning on the bar, watching the crowd.

Gus waved Ethan over from a table near the back, but Ethan looked for Ashley, stopping when he found her sitting close to some balding guy he didn't recognize. She looked different—older, harder, not as bouncy. Ethan walked right past her table, and she didn't even give him a glance, although he slowed enough to give her plenty of time to see him, enough time for him to see the wedding ring on the guy's hand as it moved to
Ashley's thigh. He felt stupid, then angry, then sad, like three blinks of the eye, and then he sank back into the hopelessness that had been ruling his life since Afghanistan and the bullet threatening his heart.

“Ethan!” Gus called, and Ethan stopped by the bar to grab a plastic cup of Ohio's finest, whatever the hell it was, and dropped two bucks on the table—one for the beer, one for the tip—which made the girl in the peasant top smile at him before she moved on to smile at the next guy. He stopped beside Ray, who now seemed to be coin-checking complete strangers—some guys couldn't leave the Army behind—and caught his eye.

“Found your statue,” Ethan said.

Ray smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Great.” He went back to doing coin challenges with his ugly iron coin.

Ethan went to the back of the Pavilion and sat down. Gus acknowledged his presence with a nod, his sagging face even saggier.

Ethan's eyes slid back to Ashley. She was leaning on the guy now, whispering in his ear.

“Demons,” Gus muttered.

“Women,” Ethan said, and drank some of his beer.

 

M
ab had started down the midway with Joe, trying not to hyperventilate like a teenager on her first date. It was just so unlike her to be swamped with . . . well, feelings.
Maybe it's because I hit my head last night—

“What's that?” Joe pointed to the blue-striped wooden Oracle booth to the left of the Fortune-Telling Machine, festooned with signs—
CAREER PROSPECTS, TRUE LOVE, FAMILY AND FRIENDS
—under a much bigger sign in gold that said
DELPHA'S ORACLE: DREAMLAND PSYCHIC
.

“That's where Delpha tells fortunes during the summer. It was built in '72, so it's got that hippie-dippie thing going for it, but I still like it. It wasn't too hard to restore except for a hole some delinquent had carved in the back.” Mab nodded at the next ride on the left as they followed the curved flagstones around the lake. “The Double Ferris Wheel is from 1926. Incredible detail.” She nodded to the right, at a black ship half in the waters of the Keep lake, its deck full of plastic pirates. “Pirate Ship. They put that in during the fifties.” She scowled up at it. “I spent way too long
on those pirates. Some idiot had beaten them with a board or something, and they were a mess.” She pulled him into the center of the midway as they walked. “Stay away from the fence, that's where the triggers for the ghosts are. They're just cheesecloth and papier-mâché but they'll still scare the hell out of you.” She smiled at the thought. “It's an old-fashioned way to make ghosts, but it's good.”

“You like the old stuff,” Joe said.

“I like the stuff with craftsmanship.” Mab dismissed the Pirate Cove Games to their left in their boxy little striped orange buildings and pointed to the Dragon Coaster with its loading dock in the lake to the right. “Like that. Another ride from '26. That thing is a work of art. It took me and six interns three weeks just to paint the dragon tunnel and the cars. Gus worked for three days replacing lightbulbs.” She pointed to the Test Your Strength machine next to it, an ugly orange Strong Man statue standing guard over it. “Then I spent a week on all the detail on the Strong Man statue. And then there's the wrought-iron fence that's all over the park. Took interns weeks to regild all the spear tips, but it was worth it.”

“You really love this place,” Joe said.

“Well, I did a good job on it, so I'm proud,” Mab said. “I don't know that you can
love
a place—”

“You really love this place,” Joe said again, stopping in the middle of the midway.

Mab blinked at him.

“Come on,” Joe said. “How do you
feel
about it?”

“Uh . . .” Mab looked around at color and pattern, beautifully designed machinery and sturdy construction, and more than that, her work, her very good work, and realized that the park did make her feel . . . “I don't know. It's a good feeling.”

“Happiness, maybe?” Joe said, laughter in his voice.

“Maybe,” Mab said, and he shook his head and they walked on.

They passed under the tallest loop of the coaster, and she pointed to a row of three pink striped buildings to their left, closed now but emblazoned with signs for funnel cakes and french fries and sno-cones. “Anything painted pink in the park sells food and Cindy runs it. Anything painted orange is games, and different families in town run them, they're
all hereditary.” She gestured to one booth, full of fluorescent-furred teddy bears with a huge green velvet stuffed dragon at the top, hovering over a counter full of holes with padded hammers lined up in back of them. “Like Carl Jenkins runs the Whack-A-Mole because the Jenkinses have always run the Whack-A-Mole, so everybody calls him Carl Whack-A-Mole. And this,” she added as they rounded the farthest curve and came up on a towering piece of tarnished black metalwork, “is the Devil's Drop.” She looked up into darkening twilight, finding the top of the Drop by the lights pulsing up there to warn wayward aircraft, the tattered black and red parachutes on the ends of the five points fluttering in the wind. “It's a parachute ride, but Glenda won't run it. I think that's a bad idea. It's like having a dead body in the park. The rides were built to run.”

“You didn't restore it,” Joe said.

“Glenda didn't want it restored.” Mab jerked her thumb at the seven-foot-tall statue of the glowering red devil in front of it. “I did him, though. Hate him. Ugly, ugly statue. Every minute of restoring him was awful.” She gestured up the rise behind the Devil's Drop to a white open building with a pink pergola on top. “And that is the Beer Pavilion. If it gets really cold, they pull canvas curtains over the openings, but there's a big fire pit in the middle, so it's usually good in there through October. Then even Glenda gives up until April.”

They walked up to the main opening of the Pavilion as she said, “That's your tour. The left half of it, anyway.”

“So anything strange ever happen here?” Joe said, looking back at the park.

“A lot of people are asking me that lately.” Mab tilted her head at him and realized what was going on. “You're a reporter.”

“What?” Joe said.

“You're a reporter. You're here to get a jump on the big Halloween deal in two weeks. That's why you picked me up and tried to bribe me with dinner.” It all made sense now.

“Because it's not possible that I'd want to feed you just to be with you?” Joe said.

“Well, it's unlikely,” Mab said. “I have no charm. I'm no beauty. I dress like a tramp and not the slutty kind. What would draw you?”

“You,” Joe said, and he made it sound like the truth.

She really wanted it to be the truth.

“Yeah, you're a reporter,” Mab said, and went into the Pavilion.

 

E
than was not enjoying the Beer Pavilion.

Ashley was dividing her time between necking with the bald guy and watching the room, sizing up everybody as if making notes for later. She was nothing like he remembered her from his first meeting at the picnic table, but then he was lousy with women anyway. Maybe if he'd talked to her more that morning. He was trying to remember what he'd done or said to bring about the sudden change in her mood, but was drawing a blank. Several parts of his life since July 29 were blanks, so maybe . . .

Gus looked in the direction of Ethan's gaze. “Ashley? You can do better than that.”