“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
She creates a sound that is almost a laugh. She converts it into a breath out, but I heard it. I absolutely heard it and I am filing it away because it sounded like something she doesn’t do a lot and I want to hear it again.
We stop at the ring toss frame. She looks at it with the eye of someone doing an automatic calculation of distances, angles, the geometry of games designed to be almost-but-not-quite winnable.
“The toss is rigged,” she says.
“All ring tosses are rigged.”
“That one more than average.” She tilts her head at the bottle arrangement. “The spacing’s off. You’d have to throw at an angle that the booth design discourages.”
I look at her. “You’ve worked a carnival?”
“I’ve been to carnivals.”
“That’s not the same level of analysis.”
She shrugs, one shoulder, the international signal forI don’t want to get into it.“Some people pay attention.”
“Some people,” I agree, “and then there are people like you, who pay attention like it’s a full-contact sport.” I lean against the frame. “The spacing is off because it was set by someone who’d hadthree drinks. I’ll fix it before opening.”
“How?”
“Move the center bottles two inches left. Changes the throw angle and gives the outside approach a real chance.” I pause. “Still not easy. But fair.”
She looks at me with that expression again, the recalibrating one. Like she keeps encountering a version of me that’s slightly different from the one she’d prepared for. I find this enormously satisfying.
“Why bother?” she asks. “Rigged makes more money.”
“Sure. And people feel cheated, and they don’t come back. They don’t tell their friends the carnival’s worth it.” I shrug. “Short con versus long game. I prefer the long game. Reputation means a lot in this town.”
“You don’t seem like a long game person.”
“I seem like a lot of things I’m not,” I say pleasantly. “You probably know something about that.”
The beat that follows is different from the previous ones. Quieter. She holds my gaze for a second and what’s in her eyes is sharp and real and something I can’t entirely name. It’s not quite a warning, not quite acknowledgment. Somewhere in between.
Then she looks away at the prize display. “What’s the best prize?”
“Depends on your criteria.”
“Assume my criteria is beating the game.”
“The oversized bear is the obvious marker, but it’s also the decoy. Everyone shoots for the bear, no onewants to carry the bear. The real prize is that.” I point at a small, battered-looking trophy cup on the top shelf, incongruent among the plush animals. “It’s from the very first carnival. Sixty years old. We put it up every year and nobody’s ever asked for it.”
She looks at it for a long moment. “Because nobody knows what it is.”
“Because nobody asks.”
“I’m asking.”
“It’s not open yet.”
She turns to look at me. “I know it’s not open yet. I’m asking what it is.”
“First prize from the 1964 inaugural carnival. Pie competition, I think, which is embarrassing given what the games have become, but history is history.” I pause. “Why do you want it?”
“I don’t. I just want to know how things truly exist as opposed to how they are shown.
