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Bunny looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Moby Dick,” she said. “I call him ‘Moby’ for short.”
“Heh,” said the man, catching up and walking alongside us. “You can’t go treating a good-lookin’ fish with that kind of disrespect. You got to treat him formal-like. I think I’ll address him as ‘Mr. Dick.’ ”
Bunny stopped and looked the man over. “Mr. Dick,” she said. “Hah, hah, hah, hah.” Her laugh came out in sharp, unnatural spurts.
“Let’s go,” I said softly.
Bunny stared at me blankly, as if she were confused, and then she turned back to him. He was smiling and nodding his head, letting his eyes drift down her body and then back to her face.
“Hah, hah,” Bunny laughed again.
The man said his name was Frank. He tagged along as Bunny toured the 4-H tents—the sweet-smelling one where big-eyed calves stared out at us silently, the noisy one where pig families were crowded together in wooden enclosures like immigrants in the hold of a ship. In the food tent, the entries were lined up on shelves in glass-fronted wooden cabinets. Some of the food had already been judged, and the plates of pies, cakes, breads, and muffins dripped bright ribbons. The tent for the vegetable competition had an entire table of cherry tomatoes. Each entry of three tomatoes sat on a small, white paper plate, looking like an idiot’s idea of a salad. Another table had the winner of the “Best Vegetable in Fair” ribbon, a pumpkin so big it was losing shape, melting under its own size.
Bunny moved quickly through the tents, and Frank hurried to keep up, all the time trying to make jokes and splashing water out of the goldfish bowl. I lingered behind, always keeping them in sight and hoping that Bunny would look back for me. She never did, and Frank eventually steered her away from the exhibits and into a beer tent. Three big,
silver kegs were resting in troughs of crushed ice. A makeshift bar had been set up, and four men in Budweiser hats were serving beer in tall paper cups. I came up while Frank was saying that he worked on a farm over in Edenboro, and he was going to compete in the tractor pull tomorrow. Bunny barely seemed to be listening.
“Beer, miss?” one of the bartenders asked me.
“Oh, no,” I said, hopping back. Did I really look that old? I stood near a tent pole, glaring at Bunny, though she didn’t seem to notice.
“What’s the matter with your daughter?” Frank asked after a while. “How come she’s not out with her friends?”
“We’re here together,” said Bunny. She looked at me for the first time in minutes. Her face broke into a smile—the same proud, open smile that’s hanging over my head like a moon, just out of reach, in my earliest memory.
“I don’t think the girl likes me,” said Frank.
“Of course she does. She’s just a little shy.”
“Let’s go, Bunny,” I said. I didn’t care if Frank heard. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I just want to finish this beer,” Bunny said, taking a small swallow.
“See,” said Frank. “I told you she didn’t like me.”
“Oh, hush,” said Bunny. “She likes you all right. Don’t you, Martha? Tell Frank you like him.”
I turned away and faced the tent pole.
“Martha,” said Bunny, raising her voice. “Do what your mother says. Tell Frank you like him.”
I crushed my eyes closed. Outside, you could hear the sharp clang of the strongman’s bell and the tooty music of a merry-go-round.
After a few seconds, Frank said, “The hell with you two. You know what? The hell with you two.” I opened my eyes just as he was stalking away. I noticed that he was wearing cowboy boots.
“Now look what you did,” said Bunny. “You’ve offended him.”
“Who cares. Let’s get out of here.”
“I told you, I want to finish my beer,” she said flatly. She took another sip. “Oh, look, he left the goldfish. Think of his poor little girl.” Bunny flicked her fingernail twice on the side of the bowl, and the terrorized fish began circling again.
“Well, I’m going,” I said.
“So, go,” said Bunny.
I turned and stomped away. I was angry, but frightened, too. I’d never seen her like this before. She was like another person—selfish, uncontrollable. Was this what it was going to be like from now on?
I decided to go back and wait in the car. Walking down a path, I passed a shooting gallery, another game where you tried to tip over three milk bottles with a baseball, another where the idea was to knock a furry doll off a shelf. People were standing around and playing in groups, I was the only person alone. The fair seemed dirtier than ever. Everything was cotton-candy sticky, and dust thickened the air.
