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“I had to if I wanted to come tonight.”
“Yeah? How was it?”
“Depressing. I probably should’ve watched the movie.”
“But you pushed through? Just to go ride a Ferris wheel?”
To spend an evening with you, I wanted to say. I didn’t have the guts. “No. I don’t go on the Ferris wheel.”
“How come?”
Something like that, you could fall off at any time, I was sure. It probably happened all the time. I didn’t want to admit I was scared, though. “I get sick.”
“You throw up?” he asked.
“No. Gross.”
“What then?”
I nudged the curb with the toe of my sneaker. The ashes of his cigarette were like silver confetti on the concrete. Big, dark Manning would’ve blended right in with the night if not for his bleach-white t-shirt.
“If you’re scared, it’s okay to admit it.”
Tiffany had snuck me onto a pendulum ride at a carnival when I was little and I’d peed my pants, terrified. My Dad had spanked her and we’d gone home early. “I don’t think scared is the right word . . . I just don’t trust it.”
He checked his watch. “What’s your curfew?”
“How do you know I have one?”
He raised his eyes to mine. “You don’t?”
I wished I didn’t. Not that I planned to stay out all night with my sister and him, but it bothered me that Manning might think I was childish. “Ten,” I said.
“Your parents know I’m taking you guys?”
“No.”
With a grunt, he tilted his head toward the sky, but quickly looked back at the house. Sawdust and cigarette smoke lingered in the air, but standing close to him, I mostly smelled men’s deodorant and soap.
“How about the bumper cars?” he asked.
“What?”
“Are you afraid of a little turbulence?”
I smiled. “No.”
Tiffany came outside. In the porch light, her blonde hair yellowed. Her denim shorts were a few inches shorter than mine, her ponytail and hoop earrings swinging. For all the time and effort it took her to get ready, she looked breezy. Confident.
Manning kept his eyes on the pavement as she approached.
“Why’re you guys standing in the dark?” She was chewing gum. “Hi, Manning.”
“Hey.” He pushed off the side of the car, rounding the hood to open the passenger’s side door. “Should we get going?”
Tiffany and I followed. There was no backseat in the truck, just one long bench. I didn’t even have a limb inside when Tiffany cut in to climb between Manning and me. Considering his size, I wasn’t even sure all three of us would fit, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem. Tiffany slid as close to Manning as she could get without sitting in his lap. “Oh, I want to make one stop,” Tiffany said when he started the car.
He sat back and looked over at her. “Where?”
“There’s this party—”
“We’re not going to a party,” he said.
“But Lake’s never been to one.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “It’s huge. I bet even your loser friends will be there.”
Mona and Vicki actually looked up to Tiffany. There was no reason to call them losers except that they were my friends, not hers. “Dad specifically told us not to,” I reminded her.
“Five minutes. I just want you to see what it’s like.”
Manning pulled away from the curb. “She doesn’t want to.”
“But she will. Soon. And it’s better if she goes with me her first time rather than her friends.” She pointed to an upcoming stop sign. “Take a right here. It’s on the way.”
Manning stuck his elbow on the window ledge and steered with one hand. Tiffany’s knee knocked against Manning’s every time the truck bounced. She murmured directions to him. With each turn, envy grew in me, unwelcome and unfamiliar. I couldn’t stop watching their legs. What would it feel like, to have Manning’s jeans scrape against my bare outer thigh? The hair on my legs prickled to life. I should’ve shaved all the way up my leg. I didn’t always, since the hair on my thighs was fine and blonde. But Tiffany’s smooth, tan skin made me realize mine was white and furry. I angled my offensive legs toward the car door, away from the cozy couple.
“I can’t shift,” Manning said.
“Oops.” Tiffany peeled her shoulder from his, but her knee stayed put.
Manning kept a strong grip on the steering wheel. His forearms were all dark, thick hair and corded veins, his skin brown from working in the sun.
“Turn here, on Marigold,” Tiffany said. “See?”
Parked cars lined the curb all the way up and down both sides of the block. People loitered on a lawn in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. Tiffany said my friends might be here, but what if they weren’t? What if Tiffany ditched me as we walked in the door? I’d never been to a party for reasons that had nothing to do with my strict dad—I had no desire to get drunk and stupid. It was dumb how Tiffany and her friends wore hangovers like gold medals. But that didn’t mean I wanted to stand alone in a corner drinking water.
