Gone, Gone, Gone(57)

Noah says, “Hmm,” and sticks the paperback in his pocket. “All right. You kids ready to go?”

The Jolly Roger isn’t much of an amusement park, and it’s farther away than we’ll usually stand to travel when we’re down here, but every few years we all get it in our heads that we need to go. We grab Shannon and Gideon from the living room, stuff ourselves into the van, and we’re off to see the creaky fun house and the carousel and the clumsy juggler.

All the windows are down and the wind sounds like someone yelling at us, but we’re laughing so hard we barely hear it. The girls rake their fingers through their hair to keep the tangles out, but it’s hopeless and they know it and it’s okay. The lights on every restaurant, mini-golf-course, icecream stand, and motel rush by just like the people, who are all dressed ten times better than they ever are during the year and trying ten times less hard. I feel like we’re stuck in a movie reel, roaring through as hard as we can and spinning the world into streaks. “‘Gods of summer they were at twenty,’” Melinda says.

It takes Noah a few minutes to find this quote in his book. “‘Gods of summer they were at twenty by their enthusiasm for life, and they still are, deprived of all hope. I have seen two of them die. They were full of horror, but silent.’”

Melinda takes her eyes off the road to examine us all in the rearview mirror. Claudia, for a minute, stops punching Gideon and looks at us, her artificially enlarged eyes artificially sparkling. She’s beautiful—just normal, unscary beautiful— without all the makeup, but she never carries herself like she is.

“Which two?” Claudia asks.

Noah’s glued back to the book. “It could be an exaggeration.”

“I need to get a copy of this book,” I say.

Noah nods. “You so do, Chase. And so do I. . . .”

“What’s mine is yours,” Melinda says softly. “As long as I eventually get it back.”

We park and wait by the ticket booths, calculating how much money we have and how many rides we need to go on. I’m trying to track everyone with my eyes; I feel older than the twins but younger than Claudia, who’s standing with Melinda, tossing her matted hair, while Bella and Shannon shriek and climb on each other’s backs. Gideon falls down. “Everyone needs tickets,” I say. “Someone has to watch—”

“I’ve got it.” Noah gives me one of those rare, reassuring smiles. “Melinda and I will take Gideon, okay? And you stay with Claude and the twins.”

I yank Gideon off the ground and sign Noah stay.

Noah run Gideon says, and I try not to concentrate on that.

Stay me? Noah signs.

I realize that we never try to do anything to Gideon without asking his permission. Even though he’s six, and I don’t think considering a six-year-old’s opinion usually comes with the territory. Some parts of being deaf are pretty sweet, I guess.

Gid spins around for a little while, then falls down again and signs OK.

“C’mere, you.” Noah hauls Gideon onto his back and smiles at Melinda. “We’ve got him.”

This finally hits me. “Yeah, and what are you going to do with Gideon while you’re with Melinda?”

“Cover his eyes.”

“Oh, ha ha,” I call to their backs.

Claudia and Shannon want to ride the log flume, so we walk across the park, crunching the gravel beneath our sandals. Every few steps Bella will look at me and smile. Whenever a girl from school is nice to me like this, I’m always tripping over myself figuring out how far I’m going to try to get with her and freezing up before I can do anything. But here, I have this feeling that I can’t screw this up, and there’s no point in planning anything, because what’s going to happen is going to happen. It’s as predictable as the carousel.

She doesn’t want to get splashed, so we stand under the pavilion while Shannon and Claude get in line. Bella’s wearing a pink skirt, and the breeze sometimes hitches it above her knees. Her legs are starting to tan, or maybe it’s that brown lotion girls use to pretend. Either way, I like it even more than I would have expected.

“Really nice night, isn’t it?” she says.

“Mmm-hmm.”

She revolves, looking at the lights from the Ferris wheel bouncing off the water for the paddleboats. “I love it here.”

“I love everywhere here.” I rub the back of my neck. “I seriously wish we could live here, even in the off-season. Like, even when it’s cold, this has got to be good.”

“We come down in the fall and winter sometimes. I almost like it better. No people around, everything so gray . . . It feels really old. Like you’re looking at this town a hundred years ago.”

“When our forefathers ran around barefoot.”

She smiles at me. “Exactly.”

There’s no one else under the pavilion, and with the amusement park bouncing off Bella’s eyes and the dusty pink of her skirt, I can almost pretend we are a hundred years old and we know everything. When, really, the only thing I know is that I’m going to kiss her, but I’m not going to try anything more. And she’s smiling because she knows it too.

It’s not really that we’re old so much as we’ve existed forever. We’re in a black-and-white photo. The only color comes from the Ferris wheel lights and her skirt.