Joyland(37)

"I wonder if I could speak to Mr. Easterbrook."

"He's resting, and I hate to disturb him. He had an awful lot of phone calls to make earlier, and we still have to go over some numbers, much as I hate to bother him with them. He tires very easily these days."

"I wouldn't be long."

She sighed. "I suppose I could see if he's awake. Can you tell me what it's about?"

"A favor," I said. "He'll understand."

?

He did, and only asked me two questions. The first was if I was sure. I said I was. The second . . .

"Have you told your parents yet, Jonesy?"

"It's just me and my dad, Mr. Easterbrook, and I'll do that tonight."

"Very well, then. Put Brenda in the picture before you leave.

She'll have all the necessary paperwork, and you can fill it out. . . "

Before he could finish, his mouth opened and he displayed his horsey teeth in a vast, gaping yawn. "Excuse me, son. It's been a tiring day. A tiring summer."

"Thank you, Mr. Easterbrook."



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He waved his hand. "Very welcome. I'm sure you'll be a great addition, but if you do this without your father's consent, I shall be disappointed in you. Close the door on your way out, please."

I tried not to see Brenda's frown as she searched her file cabinets and hunted out the various forms Joyland, Inc. required for full-time employment. It didn't matter, because I felt her disapproval anyway. I folded the paperwork, stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans, and left.

Beyond the line of donnikers at the far end of the backyard was a little grove of blackgum trees. I went in there, sat down with my back against one, and opened the envelope M adame Fortuna had given me. The note was brief and to the point.

You 're going to Mr. Easterbrook to ask if you can stay on at the park after Labor Day. You know he will not refuse your request.

She was right, I wanted to know if she was a fraud. Here was her answer. And yes, I had made up my mind about what came next in the life of Devin Jones. She had been right about that, too.

But there was one more line.

You saved the little girl, but dear boy! You can't save everyone .

?

After I told my dad I wasn't going back to UNH-that I needed a year off from college and planned to spend it at Joylandthere was a long silence at the southern Maine end of the line. I thought he might yell at me, but he didn't. He only sounded tired. "It's that girl, isn't it?"

I'd told him almost two months earlier that Wendy and I were

"taking some time off," but Dad saw right through that. Since 126

STEPHEN KING

then, he hadn't spoken her name a single time in our weekly phone conversations. Now she was just that girl. After the first couple of times he said it I tried a joke, asking if he thought I'd been going out with Marlo Thomas. He wasn't amused. I didn't try again.

"Wendy's part of it," I admitted, "but not all of it. I just need some time off. A breather. And I've gotten to like it here."

He sighed. "Maybe you do need a break. At least you'll be working instead of hitchhiking around Europe, like Dewey Michaud's girl. Fourteen months in youth hostels! Fourteen and counting! Ye gods! She's apt to come back with ringworm and a bun in the oven."

"Well," I said, "I think I can avoid both of those. If I'm careful."

"Just make sure you avoid the hurricanes . It's supposed to be a bad season for them."

"Are you really all right with this, Dad?"

"Why? Did you want me to argue? Try to talk you out of it?

If that's what you want, I'm willing to give it a shot, but I know what your mother would say-if he's old enough to buy a legal drink, he's old enough to start making decisions about his life."

I smiled. "Yeah. That sounds like her."

"As for me, I guess I don't want you going back to college if you're going to spend all your time mooning over that girl and letting your grades go to hell. If painting rides and fixing up concessions will help get her out of your system, probably that's a good thing. But what about your scholarship and loan package, if you want to go back in the fall of '74?"

"It won't be a problem. I've got a 3.2 cume, which is pretty persuasive."



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"That girl," he said in tones of infinite disgust, and then we moved on to other topics.

?

I was still sad and depressed about how things had ended with Wendy, he was right about that, but I had begun the difficult trip (the journey, as they say in the self-help groups these days) from denial to acceptance. Anything like true serenity was still over the horizon, but I no longer believed-as I had in the long, painful days and nights of June-that serenity was out of the question.

Staying had to do with other things that I couldn't even begin to sort out, because they were piled helter-skelter in an untidy stack and bound with the rough twine of intuition. Hallie Stansfield was there. So was Bradley Easterbrook, way back at the beginning of the summer, saying we sell fun. The sound of the ocean at night was there, and the way a strong onshore breeze would make a little song when it blew through the struts of the Carolina Spin. The cool tunnels under the park were there. So was the Talk, that secret language the other greenies would have forgotten by the time Christmas break rolled around. I didn't want to forget it; it was too rich. I felt that Joyland had something more to give me. I didn't know what, just . . . s'more.