By a Charm and a Curse(37)
Chapter Fifteen
Emma
A carnival is a sad and desolate place on a weekday morning. No matter how brightly painted the stalls and booths are, no matter how loud the music (because apparently Whiskey and Duncan have convinced the carousel operator to let them ride, and their whooping has a kind of Doppler effect as they turn around and around), it’s still an empty carnival. It’s veins without blood. It’s lungs with no air.
Either Ben or his mom is hammering away at something fiercely, like whatever it is will escape if they don’t nail it down. A horse whickers. The sun shines like a spotlight in the drab gray sky. A red-and-white striped popcorn bag drifts down the lane.
“Hey,” Sidney says, nudging my arm with his elbow, “lookit.” Between two pinched fingers, I see a single, shimmering strand of hair. “My first gray!” He brings the strand so close to his face his eyes cross as he stares at it. “Shit. Am I going to have to color my hair now? Am I that vain? I think I am.”
He’s still babbling about whether or not he’ll have his hair professionally done or get Mrs. Potter to do it as we round the corner of Gin and Whiskey’s tent when we see Ben. And Ben looks pissed.
A happy bubble of delight fills my chest near to bursting. Then I find myself quickly trying to puzzle out why he’s angry. Did I do something? I couldn’t have done anything. Unless his mom was mad at him last night? She’d seemed pretty pissed for some reason, and he’d taken off in a hurry.
Sidney pushes me away with the tips of his fingers. “Better stay back, Em. I’ve been waiting a long time for Audrey Jr. to get pissed at me.”
He drops his arms to his sides, slightly spread out in welcome, an almost beatific expression on his face. Benjamin barrels toward him, and I figure out his intentions about a second too late. Benjamin draws his fist back, and with the momentum of his harried walk still with him, he punches Sidney in the jaw. Sidney goes sprawling into the dust.
Benjamin stands over him but doesn’t make a move to hit him again. “That,” he says, his voice uneven as if he ran over here, “was for my mom.” He turns abruptly and walks away, the dust kicked up by his heel drifting into Sidney’s face.
I run over to Sidney. A bright pink patch and smudge of blood mark the place where Benjamin hit him. It’s going to be a terrible bruise. He touches the corner of his mouth tenderly, wincing as he makes contact. As he examines the blood on his fingertip, he says, “It’s okay. That was about fifty years coming.”
“What are you talking about?”
Sidney looks at Benjamin’s retreating form. “Why don’t you go ask him?”
I must hesitate, because he waves his hand at me like he’s got it under control. I chase after Benjamin.
He’s pissed.
“Hey,” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
“Hey!”
Now he stops. I walk around him until we’re facing each other.
“What was that about?” I ask.
He pushes his hand up under his glasses to press against his eyelids. “That was stupid. I shouldn’t have. But I found out something Sidney did a long time ago, and—”
“Oh no,” I say, interrupting him. “Sidney’s an ass. I don’t know what he did, but I have no trouble believing that he deserved it.” Ben gives me a small smile that makes me disproportionately happy. “What I want to know is why you shook me off. What did I do wrong?”
The smile vanishes. “Nothing. I let her get in my head and I don’t know why she’d even— It’s like she thinks I’m a moron or something—I’m sorry.”
He starts walking again, headed vaguely to the backyard.
“Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“Apparently,” he says, talking slowly like he’s having trouble corralling his thoughts, “Sidney and my mom had a thing. Before I was born, and before he was trapped in the curse. In fact”—he laughs a bitter laugh—“kissing the Girl in the Box was him cheating on my mom.”
We’ve stopped in front of the carousel, where Pia has joined her brother and Whiskey. The girl chases the spinning platform and jumps on.
“Do it, Whiskey!” Pia yells.
On the next rotation, Whiskey climbs onto the back of her slowly rising and falling carousel horse she’s riding.
A breeze ruffles Benjamin’s hair just as the sun’s coming out, making it glint in the light. His eyelashes are golden with it. “I guess if it weren’t for him being an idiot, I wouldn’t have been born, but that doesn’t make it any better. Damn.”
It isn’t hard to put together the rest. Audrey doesn’t want what happened to Sidney to happen to Ben. Which makes me the lecherous villain in this story, preying on her precious son. Suddenly I feel guilty, even though I wanted nothing more than to be around her son. Last night’s almost kiss flashes through my brain, momentarily leaving me giddy. Maybe I want to do more than just be around her son.
Time is one frozen moment as my mind works out what I’m thinking. Kissing Benjamin. I so, so want to. I’ve imagined it. I wish he’d been my first kiss and not Sidney. I wish I’d found him at a different time in my life. I wish a thousand things that all culminate in his lips on mine. When I look at him, his eyes are the clearest, prettiest aquamarine I’ve ever seen.