Joyland(26)

"I don't know and don't care," Grumpy Girl said. "I got tired of all the drinking and hen-parties at two in the morning. Some of us actually like to get a little sleep. Strange but true."

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it pulsing in my temples. "Did Renee go with her?"

"No, they had a fight. Over that guy. The one who helped Wennie move out." She said Wennie with a kind of bright contempt that made me sick to my stomach. Surely it wasn't the guy part that made me feel that way; I was her guy. If some friend, someone she'd met at work, had pitched in and helped her move her stuff, what was that to me? Of course she could have guy friends. I had made at least one girl friend, hadn't I?

"Is Renee there? Can I talk to her?"



Joyland

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"No, she had a date." Some penny must have finally dropped, because all at once Grumpy Girl got interested in the conversation. "Heyyy, is your name Devin?"

I hung up. It wasn't something I planned, just something I did. I told myself I hadn't heard Grumpy Girl all of a sudden change into Amused Grumpy Girl, as if there was some sort of joke going on and I was part of it. Maybe even the butt of it. As I believe I have said, the mind defends itself as long as it can .

?

Three days later, I got the only letter I received from Wendy Keegan that summer. The last letter. It was written on her stationery, which was deckle-edged and featured happy kittens playing with balls of yam. It was the stationery of a fifth-grade girl, although that thought didn't occur to me until much later.

There were three breathless pages, mostly saying how sorry she was, and how she had fought against the attraction but it was just hopeless, and she knew I would be hurt so I probably shouldn't call her or try to see her for a while, and she hoped we could be good friends after the initial shock wore off, and he was a nice guy, he went to Dartmouth, he played lacrosse, she knew I'd like him, maybe she could introduce him to me when the fall semester started, etc. etc. f*cking etc.

That night I plopped myself down on the sand fifty yards or so from Mrs. Shoplaw's Beachside Accommodations, planning to get drunk. At least, I thought, it wouldn't be expensive. In those days, a sixpack was all it took to get me pie-eyed. At some point Tom and Erin joined me, and we watched the waves roll in together: the three Joyland Musketeers.

"What's wrong?" Erin asked.



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STEPHEN KING

I shrugged, the way you do when it's small shit but annoying shit, all the same. "Girlfriend broke up with me. Sent me a Dear John letter."

'Which in your case," Tom said, "would be a Dear Dev letter."

"Show a little compassion," Erin told him. "He's sad and hurt and trying not to show it. Are you too much of a dumbass to see that?"

"No," Tom said. He put his arm around my shoulders and briefly hugged me against him. "''m sorry for your pain, pal. I feel it coming off you like a cold wind from Canada or maybe even the Arctic. Can I have one of your beers?"

"Sure."

We sat there for quite a while, and under Erin's gentle questioning, I spilled some of it, but not all of it. I was sad. I was hurt. But there was a lot more, and I didn't want them to see it. This was partly because I'd been raised by my parents to believe barfing your feelings on other people was the height of impoliteness, but mostly because I was dismayed by the depth and strength of my jealousy. I didn't want them to even guess at that lively worm (he was from Dartmouth, oh God yes, he'd probably pledged the best frat and drove a Mustang his folks had given him as a high school graduation present).

Nor was jealousy the worst of it. The worst was the horrifying realization-that night it was just starting to sink in-that I had been really and truly rejected for the first time in my life.

She was through with me, but I couldn't imagine being through with her.

Erin also took a beer, and raised the can. "Let's toast the next one to come along. I don't know who she'll be, Dev, only that meeting you will be her lucky day."



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"Hear-hear! " Tom said, raising his own can. And, because he was Tom , he felt compelled to add "Where-where ! " and

"There-there!"

I don't think either of them realized, then or all the rest of the summer, how fundamentally the ground under my feet had shifted. How lost I felt. I didn't want them to !mow. It was more than embarrassing; it seemed shameful. So I made myself smile, raised my own can of suds, and drank.

At least with them to help me drink the six, I didn't have to wake up the next morning hungover as well as heartbroke. That was good, because when we got to J oyland that morning, I found out from Pop Allen that I was down to wear the fur that afternoon on Joyland Avenue-three fifteen-minute shifts at three, four, and five. I bitched for form's sake (everybody was supposed to bitch about wearing the fur) but I was glad. I liked being mobbed by the kids, and for the next few weeks, playing Howie also had a bitter sort of amusement value. As I made my tail-wagging way down Joyland Avenue, followed by crowds of laughing children, I thought it was no wonder Wendy had dumped me. Her new boyfriend went to Dartmouth and played lacrosse. Her old one was spending the summer in a third-tier amusement park. Where he played a dog .

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Joyland summer.