Bittersweet (10 page)

We had to stand in a short line for the skull ride because Spook Alley was filling up with little kids. We were the oldest ones in line. When it was our turn, Dallas stepped in front of me.

“I present you with Floating Skulls.” He bowed and opened the door to the basket on the skull. I climbed in and he climbed in after me. “A little more exciting than the Ghosts.”

He sat across from me and spun the wheel in the middle. I wasn’t prepared for it and went flying around the bench and careened right into him.

“That’s better,” he said and held me close. “Do you wanna spin some more?” I shook my head and tried to steady my breathing. He relaxed against the bench and cleared his throat.

“Will you answer a question for me? Honestly.”

I turned to face him. It took quite a bit of effort on my part to get any words out at all.

“That’s going to depend entirely on the question.”

“What bad memories do roller coasters hold for you?”

He stirred up butterflies. I suppose I owed him that one. But I couldn’t look at him and answer. Instead I leaned back against his arm. Dad would’ve never answered that question. He kept everything buried deep inside. I did not want to be like him.

“My dad and I spent every summer riding roller coasters. Each year we would do at least two or three parks. We always did Cedar Point, that was our favorite, and then we’d travel to another park. It wasn’t about little rides like this, it was about coasters. The bigger the better. He was the only one I ever rode with. He died two years ago and I vowed I’d never get on a roller coaster again. It’s too painful.”

No need to tell him the whole story. If I went any further, I might start crying. Plus, there were some parts of this story that I would never tell. Dallas looked at me for a long time as the ride bobbed up and down. His face was close to mine, too close, and for a crazy second I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead he spoke, his voice low and full of emotion.

“I’ve already broken my vow of honesty. Maybe we can figure out a way to get you to break your vow, too.”

I
ARRIVED AT THE MORNING MEETING
before most of the others. Becca sat alone at her table so I chose to sit with the boys again. The sun was bright and I was already sweating. This would be a long day. Jeff didn’t say much but Paris talked my ear off. He’d gone to a party the night before and thought I needed to be regaled with the dirty details.

“And this chick whips off her shirt and her melons are bigger than my head.” He paused and took a breath. I took advantage of his momentary silence.

“Paris. I hate to break it to you, but I don’t care. Plus, I find the whole thing disgusting.”

He frowned. “What, sex?”

I sighed. “No, not sex. Just the whole idea of getting drunk and sleeping with whoever appears in front of you. No one remembers the night and it’s just another notch in some guy’s belt.”

A girl snickered behind me.

Normally I would’ve just let it go, but, for some reason, I felt the need to pick a fight.

“Do you have something you want to say, Becca?”

“Only that I didn’t think a girl stupid enough to shave her head could be such a prude.”

“I’d rather be a prude than a slut like you.” Oops, I said that out loud. I debated disappearing into the purple flowered bushes on the other side of the picnic area. But I’d started it, so I probably should stick it out.

After a long minute she spoke.

“I’m not a slut.”

“Oh yeah? How many one night stands have you had?” Classic sign of sluttiness, just like Candie. Hopefully, she’d prove me right.

Paris, oblivious to the tension, piped off with an answer. “Twelve.”

I turned to him. “Gee, thanks for that Paris, but I was asking Becca.”

“No not me, I’ve had way more than that.” Of course he had. He winked at me and continued. “That’s how many Becca’s had. She told me one night when we all went out and she got drunk. I would’ve made it thirteen but she passed out before I even got so much as a kiss.”
Angelica and Deanna showed up and Becca turned to her table.

The rest of the day didn’t go much better. Angelica decided to train me on the other ride the Demon Drop crew operated. Cyclops Revenge was a horrible, horrible ride. There were three restraint systems on the ride and they were all designed to crush the living daylights out of you. First you put on a seatbelt, then you pulled down an overhead bar that smushed your chest, and finally a massive lap bar came down and, as one six year old boy stated, “crushed your balls.”

As a ride operator, it was easy to forget a step when checking the restraints. Forget I did.
A lot
. But nobody died that morning so I wasn’t fired again. However, my coworkers constantly seemed annoyed with me. I didn’t think any of them liked me. Except Paris. But I only got to work with him for fifteen minutes before being sent to lunch.

On my break I ran into Julia.

“Hey girl, how do you like your new position?” she asked.

“It’s good. Better than HOLE for sure. Where’s your survey partner?”

Yeah. I wanted to know where he was. No shame there.

“He has the day off. Should I tell him you were asking about him?”

I blushed. “No, I was just curious.” And disappointed that he wasn’t here today. I’d been a fool to think that he actually meant he wanted to go out with me every night. If he meant it, he would’ve told me he wouldn’t be here today.

She rolled her eyes. “Sure. Hey you wanna go shopping tomorrow? I saw that you get off at four and I’m having a shoe crisis. My aunt stole my son for the week, so I’m totally free.”

Since Dallas and I didn’t have a standing date, I was totally free too. I needed new sneakers that didn’t have blue spit and nacho cheese stains.

“Sure. I’ll meet you here tomorrow after my shift.”

She left with a smile and a wave. At least
she
liked me.

That evening I worked entrance and loader at the Demon Drop. I looked covetously at the control booth. Angelica had trained me on Cyclops controls, which was cool, but that was nothing compared to a big coaster.

I did get moved to Fast Lane for closing. Which rocked. Fast Lane was for people who paid a boatload of money to jump the line and all I had to do was make sure they wore the purple Fast Lane wristbands. Yesterday I watched Paris stand there for two hours and only have eight people come through his line. It was the slacker position. Perfect for closing.

“Angelica, how come I haven’t been trained on controls yet?”

She didn’t even glance up from her paperwork. “Because, sweetheart, we’ve been running two trains most of the day. You can’t learn controls until we only have one train running. You can go do locks with Deanna tonight. You might as well learn that part.”

Deanna was one of the girls that always sat with Angelica and Becca in the morning. She hadn’t said much to me in two days, but then she hadn’t said anything mean either.

We closed right on time and I waited for Deanna outside the control booth. Angelica and Becca were at the bottom of the stairs teasing Deanna about something, but I didn’t pay attention until I heard my name.

“Hurry up and finish locks with Savannah. We’ll meet you at Perkin’s. Want us to order you a drink?” Angelica asked.

Deanna looked up from the control paperwork. “Yeah, get me an iced tea. We’ll hurry.” She handed me a flashlight. “Let’s go.”

She wore a ridiculous orange vest and swung a set of keys from a lanyard.

“Locks aren’t hard. You just gotta remember to do them all. If you forget one you’ll be in deep doo-doo. It’s hard at closing because it’s dark.”
Like I didn’t have a problem remembering things. I could already tell that locks and I were not going to get along.

“They are an extra safety measure for the maintenance crew. They work on the rides during the off hours. We unlock gates around the ride so they can get in underneath it. In the morning we lock them all up again. There are eleven gates. If we do it right, no one gets hurt.”

We walked the perimeter of the coaster and unlocked all the gates. It wasn’t so bad if you were with someone, but I wouldn’t want to do it on my own.

Deanna jabbered on about her favorite maintenance guy. I pretended to listen but all I could think about was that I had been deliberately left out of the gang going out after work. A lot of the crews went out after closing. I’d never been invited out at HOLE either, but there I didn’t care. Here, I wanted to belong.

Before my dad died I had a lot of friends. Candie was my best friend, but we’d had a large group we hung out with. Our weekends were packed and I never really felt lonely. But after he died, I made no effort to fit in. Life didn’t seem worth it. Candie stuck by me though. And for that, I will be forever grateful. I just wish I could forgive her. If I’d never gone to that party with her, I’d have never met Zane, and Candie would still be my friend.

We walked back to the office and I traced figure eights on the ground with the flashlight. The park was so quiet after dark—it was a little unnerving. No rides whizzed by, no passengers screaming, nothing except Deanna’s voice. It took me a second to realize she’d actually addressed me.

“Earth to Savannah.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll take the stuff to the office, you can just go to the locker room. Thanks for coming with me. You’re not so bad. I don’t know what Becca is talking about.”

I gave her a weak smile, handed her the flashlight and twisted my hands. She disappeared into the office and I went around back to the locker rooms. I hoped I wouldn’t see anyone in there. As much as I wanted to go out with my crew, I didn’t want someone asking me out of obligation.

This was one issue my dad would’ve never faced. He was always the first one invited to a party; hell, he was usually the one throwing it.

As I grabbed the door handle to the locker room a hand brushed my elbow. I jumped and spun around. Dallas stood there, grinning.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my heart racing.

He looked down and shrugged. “I thought we had plans.”

“But you had the day off.” I stood about a foot away from him and wondered if he’d touch me like he had the day before.

“I thought we agreed that we’d go out every night after work. If you don’t want to…” The butterflies started up again. His eyes were on the ground. He seemed a little unsure of himself.

“No, I do. Let me go change.”

I changed quickly, trying to make sense of his actions. He came to see me even on his day off. Could this really be happening? Did the most gorgeous man in Haunted Valley actually want me? Back outside he waited alone by the rock.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we made our way to the parking lot.

“McDonalds.”

“Ooh, hot date.” I smiled to show him I was joking. He laughed.

“Yeah, well, they have ice cream and it’s ten-thirty at night. Nothing else is open. Except Perkin’s, but if we go there it will be midnight before we get any food.”

I got out my keys. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Nonsense. It’s not that far. Ride with me and I’ll bring you back here after we are done.”

More butterflies. He even opened the door for me. Yeah, I was so done with high school boys.

On the way, he kept his physical distance. Which bothered me way more than it should have. It wasn’t often that I saw him wear anything but his uniform. Tonight he wore a black t-shirt with a funky purple design. It was a little tight across his chest and I could tell he had a nice build. Oh, to see that boy without a shirt. I blushed and was grateful it was dark in the car.

As we drove into the semi-full parking lot he sighed.

“Do you mind if we just go through the drive though and eat in the car?”

“Um, I guess so. Why?”

He pointed at the window where a large group sat.

“The Spook Alley crew is here.”

I laughed.

“I take it you don’t want to run into the future Mrs. Dallas…” I paused. “I don’t know your last name.”

“It’s Jensen, and no, I don’t want to run into her. Plus, believe it or not, I’d like to spend time with you. Alone.”