‘Me?’ We swayed as the train moved on the tracks, our bodies aligned but not touching, forwards and backwards. ‘I love them. I’m not allergic to fun.’
He didn’t bite back at my little dig. ‘I meant your day. How is your work going? You said you were struggling with your book and helping me was supposed to alleviate your writer’s block.’
‘Oh.’ I tightened my grip around the grab rail, a little flummoxed by the sheer fact he’d remembered and asked. ‘I’m making some ground. I’m still majorly panicking, and mydeadline is a better work of fiction than anything I’ve ever written but…’ I shrugged ‘…that’s kinda normal.’
‘Panic is normal?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘Absolutely. This is our first stop, c’mon.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Stephen
Iwas not allergic to fun. I was simply not a fan of places like Coney Island, packed full of people barely secured into towering rides and screaming as they plummeted towards the ground. Elle wasn’t to know that though, so I was doing my best not to sulk about her comment on the train.
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 blared 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 Elle 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 from work. 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 to 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 taking a turn on the 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?’ I commented, dragging myself by my bootstraps out of my introspection.
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. There wasn’t a lot of room and it was hard to avoid brushing up against her, just like on the subway train.
‘My family come here at least once every summer,’ she said once we’d joined the line. ‘And when Lucy, Tim and I got to 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 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 ordered and when I went to pay, she grabbed my hand before I could tap my phone against the reader.
‘You know I was only kidding the other day,’ I said. ‘About you getting free food and drinks? I’m happy to foot the bill. We’re only here because you’re helping me.’
‘That’s not strictly true. You’re helping me, too.’ She used her free hand to pull out her bank card and I would have had to wrestle myself free to beat her to paying. It didn’t sit well withme but I sensed that any further debate about it could easily veer off into something heated and not in a good way.
