Whisper to Me (20 page)

“That was wild,” said Paris, after.

“Yeah. It’s good for an old ride.”

“No, I mean that guy. Pete? Giving us these.” She held up her VIP pass on the gold lanyard.

“Cool, isn’t it?” We had breezed past the line for the Accelerator, as people looked at us enviously. It felt like being famous. The park was pretty full—some parents and kids, the older ones, because it was already dark. Young guys in baseball caps; girls in short skirts and short shorts. A bunch of bros from a frat somewhere, leaning on one another and whooping. There was a smell of popcorn and beer and sweat, all mingled together, and beneath it, an under note from a perfume bottle, the ever-present scent of the sea.

“I wish I had it,” said Paris.

“Wish you had what?”

Paris swept a hand over the park. “It’s like … a whole family. As well as your dad.”

I thought about that. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Seriously? That Pete guy? And Finn? Those guys love you; you can see it.”

“Hmm.”

“And what was that woman’s name? The one who let us on the Accelerator?”

“Sweet Sarah?”

“You’re kidding me? That’s her name?”

“Yeah.”

“She hugged you. She was smiling like she just won the lottery, just because you turned up at the ride.”

I shrugged. “They’re just people who know my dad. Who eat at the restaurant.”

“The restaurant?”

Oh.

“Yeah … ,” I said. “My dad has an Italian place. On the boardwalk—up by Pier Two.”

“Donato’s?”

“You know it?”

“Oh, come on. It’s like the best pizza in the state. Your dad owns it?”

“Donato was my grandfather.”

“Holy ****,” said Paris. “You’re, like, New Jersey mob. I mean, you’re like a Soprano.”

“It’s just a restaurant. It’s not a gang.”

“Yeah, right. I figure there are fridges in back full of coke and heroin in big white bricks. Does your dad keep a gun under the counter? I bet he keeps a gun under the counter.”

“No,” I said, my voice flat; hard. I must have flinched, bodily.

“Whatever, moody,” said Paris. “So your dad isn’t some kind of mob boss. But, still, must have been cool growing up with your own pizza restaurant.”

I shrugged. I wanted this conversation to be over. “It was okay.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“It was
fine
,” I said, frustrated and not totally sure why I was so frustrated. “I used to hang out there after school. Do my assignments at one of the small tables, you know? All the waiters knew me of course, and they’d help me out sometimes. Frank was good at math. I had my own pizza on the menu—it was, like, a ham and mushroom with artichoke and egg.” As I spoke, I realized how much I missed the place, how much a small part of me missed it anyway. “It was … it was an extension of home, I guess. I’d walk in there and I was like a mascot. It was great.”

Paris looked at me. “I think that’s the longest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Hmm.”

“That’s more like you, yep.” Then she touched her stomach. “I’m hungry. Let’s go get pizza at your dad’s place.”

“No,” I said, too quickly.

“Why not?”

“I … It was great when I was a kid. Now it’s not.”

“Ri-i-i-ght,” said Paris, in that
there’s a story here and I want to know what it is but I’m not going to pry for now
tone.

“It’s my family restaurant, you know?” I said, trying to cover myself. “Boring.”

“Okay. I get that. Well, I see a hot dog stand. You can eat those, right? I mean, with your peanut thing?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Processed meat. Kind of an issue.”

“Just the bun, then.”

“Have to be careful with bread too.”

“You’re that allergic?”

“I’m
oh, she’s not breathing
allergic. I’m
the funeral is on Saturday, no flowers
allergic.” I held up my ugly purse with the insulating sides.

“Fries then?”

“The oil is often unrefined peanut oil.”

“Jesus. The world is full of peril for you, huh?”

She didn’t know how right she was.

We rode the Spin-Dry.

We rode the Barrel Roll.

We rode the Spraymaker, our little boat crashing into the water at the bottom, soaking us from head to waist, the drops shimmering in the neon lights of the fair on our Danny Dolphin ponchos.

The Elevator, the Ferris wheel, we left for last. It was on Pier Two so we had to cut back to the boardwalk and keep walking. We passed the stalls lined up on the ocean side of the boardwalk—the Pro Basketball Challenge, the T-Rex Ring Toss. Now, when I saw these places, I noticed the stacks of plush toys on the back walls. The prizes—all delivered by you. The thought of you gave me a strange feeling inside, something unfolding in my stomach, some delicate carapace turning to wings.

He might be close by
, I thought.
Driving his truck. His arm resting on the door …

“Control yourself, slut,” said the voice. “You’re like a ***** in heat.”

“After six,” I said automatically.

“It is,” said the voice.

Dammit.

Paris and I kept going toward the wheel. As we walked, we could hear the patter of the kid running the basketball game.

“Come on by,

Give it a try,

We’ve got prizes money can’t buy …”

Paris was looking around like someone transported from the seventeenth century.

“This is amazing,” she said.

“You haven’t been before?”

“No.”

“Never? But you live, like, one block away.”

“I know.”

“Your parents never took you? In the summer or—”

She held my eyes for a moment. “No.”

“Oh. Sorry. Of course. So why didn’t you go on your own? Or with Julie?”

“I don’t know. I think I was waiting for you to come along.”

Silence. I didn’t know what to say to that.

Then she grabbed my arm. “Anyway, it’s awesome. The guys doing little poems, to draw in players, you know? It’s like … Like something out of a story. But it’s real. You know?”

“It’s just patter,” I said.

“Pat—”

“Patter. Everyone has a different one. I—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

We’d stopped now. There were people separating and streaming around us, like those illustrations of air going around a plane’s wing.

“You were going to say you could do it, weren’t you?”

“No.”

“You
were
.” Her eyes were flashing in the electric light of the stores and stands. We were right in the middle of the pier; it was like being inside a pinball machine. People and music and games all around. “You totally worked one of these things, didn’t you?”

My shoulders slumped. “Basketball hoops. Two summers.”

“Oh,
Cass
. You’re doing it. Your patter. You’re doing it for me right now.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Paris, there are people.”

“Pretend they’re not there. I do it all the time, with clients. It’s easy.”

An uncomfortable moment.

“Yeah, okay, TMI,” said Paris. “But you’re still doing it.”

“No way.”

“Please. I’ll be your friend.”

“You’re already my friend.”

“Curse your fiendish intelligence. I’ll buy you a pony.”

“I don’t want a pony.”

“I’ll buy you—”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “If it’ll shut you up.”

Paris clapped her hands. She pulled me over to the side of the pier, by one of the circular stands that are dotted all over—some of them with games, shooting galleries, some of them selling ice cream and hot dogs and whatever. “Go,” she said.

“I’m rusty,” I said. “Wait.”

I took a breath.

“Hey,” I said, “don’t walk on by,

Come on in and give it a try,

It’s a simple game

If you’ve got aim,

Split a buck

To double your luck,

A quarter won’t break you

But it might just make you.”

I gave a little bow.

“Wow,” said Paris. “My little carny.”

“They’re not called—”

“I know. I’m ****** with you. That was amazing. Thank you.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay.”

“Gracious as an Austen heroine.”

“Whatever,” I said.

“As Elizabeth Bennet herself declared.”

“
Paris
. Let’s ride the Elevator now.”

“Oh, yes. Let’s.”

We skirted around the stand—it was a rings-on-the-jars game—and worked our way to the end of the pier. Then we passed Hook-the-Duck in its circular island. The water was bright green under neon lights; the sky above almost entirely black now. Katy Perry was blasting from the speakers hung above. Also hanging were all the toys you could win—the plush and the cheap stereos and stuff. Every color in the spectrum, just pulsing at you, and the music too.

“—this,” said Paris, and I realized I’d missed the start of whatever she had said.

“What?”

“I want to play.”

“You want to hook a duck?” I was kind of shouting over the music.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just feel like hooking a duck.”

I did a not-real sigh and handed her one of the ten-spots. I don’t know why I just wrote “ten-spots.” That’s not how I speak. I think it’s writing about Paris. I mean, she was just so cool, you know? And she didn’t even mean to be. She was just a hundred-watt bulb in a world of forty-watt bulbs. She
shone
. When she walked by, you saw people following her with their eyes, like it would hurt them to look away.

Anyway.

She got a fishing rod and she was
terrible
. Pretty soon I was laughing as she knocked the ducks together, sent them spinning, flipped their backs under the water. Eventually she hooked one sad little blue duck and yelled with triumph and the girl on the stand said, bored,

“You can have anything from the outer ring.”

Paris looked up. “I’ll take that red monkey thing.”

“That’s Elmo.”

“Yeah, him.”

The girl pulled down the little Elmo stuffed toy and handed it to Paris. Paris clutched it to her chest. “It’s mi-i-i-ine,” she said dramatically. “It’s finally mi-i-i-ine.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Come on.”

She pretended to be a chastised kid, kind of moping along behind me, pulling a moue of exaggerated sadness, lips pushed out.

“Stop that.”

“Spoilsport.”

Then I saw something from the corner of my eye. We were near the side of the pier. It was a white F-150 truck, driving across the sand of the beach, toward us. I could see a stack of clear plastic bags in back, full of toys. You? It had to be you. “Follow me,” I said, and I started walking, keeping an eye on the truck to see where it was headed.

“Where are we going?” asked Paris.

I didn’t answer. I swerved past a group of women on a bachelorette thing, pink furry mouse ears on their heads, angel wings fluttering out behind them. Between two of the round stalls, along the side of the Sidewinder. Beyond its steel struts and riveted crosspieces, there was a little gate, waist high. A wood-sided office was next to it. A sign said
STAFF ONLY AFTER THIS POINT
. It wasn’t locked—I pushed it open and walked through, and then there was the side of the pier—a sheer drop to the beach below.

“Cass, what the—”

I held up a hand to cut her off. I walked right up to the edge and looked down.

“Jump,” said the voice. It was only the fourth time I had heard it that day, I realized. The schedule thing was really working.

“Jump,” it repeated. “Break your legs.”

“Shush,” I said.

“You little *****. Don’t you d—”

“Not now,” I said.

“Uh, Cass?” asked Paris from behind me. “Cass, are you all right? What are you doing?”

“Wait,” I said. I looked down.

“Wait for what?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Is this, like, some kind of bravery thing? Like Chicken? How close will you go? Okay, I’ll play.”

“What?” I said, turning to her. But she was already coming up beside me, shuffling her feet till her toes were over the edge of the wooden planks. Then she leaned forward, right over the edge, almost ready to topple.

I looked down. The hard gray sand was easily fifteen feet below us.

“Jesus,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

“Just because I’m winning,” she said. She leaned right out now, ten degrees or something. I don’t know degrees. I don’t even know why I’m making that analogy. Let’s say instead: she leaned out till she looked like the woman on the prow of an old ship, her hair stirring in the breeze.

“It’s not a
game
,” I said.

“Not if you’re losing,” she said. Leaned more.

I backed away from the edge. “Seriously, I’m not competing with you.”

She turned, looked quizzically at me. And that’s when she lost balance, her arms wheeling as she began to fall. Her eyes went comic-book wide, and I lunged without thinking and caught her wrists. I then did a beautiful move where I just kind of sat down, all my weight at once, to pull her back onto the pier.

She collapsed on top of me. “Thanks,” she said, with a grin, the fear already gone from her eyes, as if it had never been there.

“You’re welcome.”

We stood up.

“So what were you doing at the edge?” she said.

I pointed down. “Waiting for him,” I said. You had just pulled up in your truck and were climbing out of it; you hadn’t looked up yet, and consequently had not noticed us standing there.

“
Oh
,” said Paris. “That makes much more sense.”

Below us, you closed the door of the truck and walked around to the back. Then you leaped up onto the tailgate.

“Hey,” I said.

You looked up. You raised your eyebrows and smiled. “Hey, yourself,” you said. “What are you doing there? Where’s Pedro?”

“I don’t know who Pedro is.”

You sighed. “Always late.”

“It’s him!” said Paris, moving to stand next to me. “Hello, cute boy who lives at Cass’s place.”

You blinked at her. “Uh, hello, um …”

“Paris.”

“Hello, Paris.”

I looked down at the bags of toys. “So you just throw them up on the pier?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Then Pedro carries them to the stalls that need them. When he’s around anyway.” You saw the toy in Paris’s hand. “You won that?”