We got to the Boardwalk as the sun was setting; the coloured flashing signs a garish contrast to the soft pinks and peaches spilling across the sky. We walked along the wooden decking and the pop music was blaring so loudly I couldn’t hear the sea but I could see it, lapping at a sandy shore, glittering with the fading summer light. Would I be able to convince Noelle to take a walk down there with me, or would she be too suspicious of my intentions?
‘Oh wow, d’you smell that?’ She breathed in a deep lungful, and looked at me with that smile she had, like she’d figured out some secret to life no one else had.
‘Fried onions?’
‘No, thesea. Fresh air. Isn’t it so much easier to breathe now?’
‘Definitely.’ After a stuffy hour crammed onto public transport, anywhere would have felt more refreshing than a subway carriage but there was a tang of salt beneath the waft of food, which helped me shake off some of the fatigue of the office. Perhaps I would be able to convince her to walk down to the shore after all. ‘So, where is this office we’re supposed to meet him at?’
‘He said to head for the margarita hut and take a left by Hook a Duck. It’s a prime location.’
Only if a prime location could also be a small tin shed, down an unlit alleyway between the games and beverage huts. There was also no one there.
‘Great,’ I muttered. ‘It’s the bar all over again. This was a long way to come to get stood up. Or worse.’
When she offered to call the man, I’d forgotten that I’d made her agree not to meet up with people anymore if they could provide us with the information over the phone. And then she’d gone ahead and made the arrangement. I could hardly leave her to go on her own after the incident at the bar, even if I suspected the only reason we were here was because she wanted an evening at the fair.
‘He’s probably just gone to fix a ride. That’s his job right?’ She shook her head and turned on her heel. ‘Let’s give it a half hour and try again. We can get margaritas and corn dogs. You ever had a corn dog?’
‘No. I don’t think so,’ I said warily, following her back the way we came. I avoided looking at the swooping, spinning cars of the ride in the distance, but the shrieks fading in and out carried over to us and made me just as tense.
‘Oh, you have to try one.’ She was practically bouncing along, wearing a bright green sundress that tied up with a bow at the back. I wanted to hook my finger in it and pull her back against me. To get her from stop focusing all her happiness on the crazy, clichéd madness around us and maybe concentrate a bit on me. I wished I could show her I enjoyed fun too, but nothing about this situation was making me relaxed. We had time to kill at a fairground, so she was no doubt going to suggest going on rides until we chased up the lead for my no-account father again. I was between a rock and a hard place and she was the only soft thing nearby.
‘You weren’t kidding about loving funfairs, were you?’
Margarita Island was bustling with customers queuing and standing around the small shaded tables. She beckoned for me to catch up before she began threading her way through the crowd to find the end of the queue. We were forced to squeeze in close and it was hard to avoid brushing up against her. ‘My family come here at least once every summer,’ she told me once we’d joined the line. ‘And when Lucy, Tim and I were in middle school, Mom and Dad would let us travel here by ourselves. We’d spend a couple of weeks saving up all our allowance, then blow it on all those rigged games and cotton candy and make ourselves sick. It was brilliant.’
‘Lucy and Tim are your brother and sister?’
‘Yeah. Well, two of them. Lucy is oldest, then me, then Tim.’
‘He was the one who called you at the bar the other day.’
‘Yep.’ She averted her gaze and we shuffled closer to the window, which was bordered by rope lights. So, she still wanted to avoid talking about dating, did she? I might have taken some pleasure in persisting on that topic, just to rile her, but tonight I found I had no desire to ruin her good mood. Fond family memories were precious things.
When we got to the bar, she insisted on ordering and paying for the drinks and we made it over to a table near the edge of the boardwalk.
‘Who are your other siblings then?’ I asked, taking a healthy gulp of alcohol.
‘You really want to know?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
She shrugged a little and licked some salt off her lips. ‘After Tim, it’s Sam, then the twins, Alfie and Teddy, then there’s Daisy, the baby – who is now thirteen.’
‘Are you close?’
‘There’s no option but to be close, growing up in a modestly sized house, as one of seven.’ She laughed.
‘I don’t believe that’s true.’
She cocked her head at me like she didn’t understand, and it occurred to me that maybe she didn’t. For all her smarts about people, she couldn’t fathom not being close to her family. Something like envy filled me. I had my fair share of love with my immediate family, so I understood it, but I also knew that family didn’t always have to love you. That was the whole reason we were here after all.
‘It must have been a challenge though. How did your parents manage when you were small?’
‘Oh, organised chaos I suppose you’d call it. And we all had to pitch in. We still do.’
‘You helped a lot with the younger ones then?’
