The Summer of Lost Wishes (12 page)

“Okay, okay. I’ll stop hating on the guy,
but only because it means so much to you,” Rooks says. He flashes
me a smile before pulling into a gravel parking lot. “Welcome to
the county fair.”

The sparkling lights on the rides and game
booths flicker like magical fireflies that were exported from a
magical world. It’s as if they were given the night off from
sparkle duty and invited to Coral Sands to light up the summertime
sky. The colors swirl around like pieces of the sunset captured in
bulbs.

I haven’t even walked through the gate yet,
and I already feel the colors buzzing inside of me like adrenaline
mixed with magical bumblebees. I bet this is the same place Seth
met his mystery girl, the one who fascinated him and captivated him
to a point that he was willing to put his entire future on the line
just to be with her.

Seth was right about the carnival
atmosphere. Maybe it is something about the lights or the smell of
hot dogs and nachos. Maybe it’s the whirlwind of magic that is the
carousel spinning or the sweetness of the cotton candy. But
something about this place could make the biggest skeptic fall in
love at a glance.

“Hector said they’re trying to find
parking,” Rooks says, looking up from his phone. He slips it into
his pocket and steps closer to me. “So what’s going on in that
pretty head of yours? I can tell you’re thinking.”

“Flattery won’t give you my secrets, Mr.
Carter,” I tell him, folding my arms over my chest. “You’re going
to have to work harder than that to pick my brain.”

He narrows his eyes at me but smirks, which
kills the serious vibe he was going for. I’m lucky that my poker
face is better than his. There’s no way I would have told him that
I think carnival lights put people under a love spell.

“I can’t believe you dragged us out here,”
Hector mumbles as he and a brunette girl approach us. He’s clearly
immune to the magic of this place.

“Hush,” she snaps back. “This is better than
sitting at my house helping Mom plan for the big fifty-year
anniversary memorial. This is something to do, so I’ll take
it.”

Hector sighs in defeat and then throws his
arm around his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Natalie, meet Piper. You
probably remember Rooks,” Hector says, motioning to Rooks and me
with his free hand.

Natalie shrugs out from under her
boyfriend’s arm. She’s not exactly what I expected. She wears
cut-off jean shorts and a black baby tee with The Little Mermaid
logo on it. I figured she’d be well-dressed, even for a summertime
fair. She’d be presentable and not like a normal teen.

Natalie smiles. “Natalie Rhodes,” she says.
“Daughter of Mayor Abigail Rhodes. Great-niece of Shark Island
tragedy victim, Eileen Baker. You usually hear one of those phrases
after you hear my name, but really, I just prefer Natalie.”

“Piper Davenport,” I say. “Girl who just
moved into the Calloway Cottage. Hopefully I’ll be able to drop
that phrase once the newness wears off.”

She laughs. “I really hate to be the one to
tell you, but that will never wear off. This town refuses to let
anyone move on. It’s still 1965, and we’re all mourning like it was
yesterday. You’ll get used to it, though,” she says. She tosses her
hair over her shoulder and links arms with Hector. “Let’s go escape
for tonight.”

High-pitched screams come from a ride called
The Cyclone that spins around in the air. A Ferris wheel sits
toward the back of the fair. Its lights change from blue to purple
to red to orange, glistening like an arcade game against the night
sky.

Rows of vendors lead toward the Ferris
wheel, games on the left and food on the right. The red and yellow
signs advertise caramel apples, snowcones, funnel cakes, cotton
candy, popcorn, hot dogs, and ‘the best lemonade on the
planet.’

“Oh, how cute,” Natalie says, pointing
toward a booth with a wall of balloons at the back of it. “I love
the purple one.”

I follow her finger to a purple and white
penguin hanging from the prize rack. Hector studies the balloons
for a moment while the man behind the counter offers him a free
dart throw, just to test his skills. Hector takes the bait. He
pulls his arm back and throws the dart toward what are probably
rubber balloons that are impenetrable. The dart bounces back and
falls to the ground.

“Just two tickets to play,” the man says.
“I’ll even give you a bonus dart.”

Rooks shakes his head. “It’s rigged, dude.
Those things aren’t popping,” he says.

The word ‘rigged’ means nothing when
testosterone is involved. Hector fishes into his back pocket for
his wallet and heads toward the ticket stand that’s in between a
cotton candy stand and Coca-Cola vendor.

“Wait up,” Rooks says, running behind
Hector.

“Boys,” Natalie mumbles. She watches them
purchase overpriced tickets, and then she looks at me. “So are you
and Rooks dating or…?”

I shake my head. “He’s helping renovate my
house,” I say. I completely hate saying it too. “We’ve been hanging
out, but we’re not dating or anything.”

She doesn’t say anything else as the guys
approach us. Hector hands over two tickets and takes another chance
with the darts. It’s another epic failure. He forks over more
tickets, and Rooks sighs dramatically.

“C’mon,” Rooks says, reaching for my arm.
“We’re moving along. This will take all night.”

Hector says they’ll catch up before drawing
back for another dart throw. Rooks and I stroll down past the
caramel apples. A man shouts out for more people to give the
Tilt-a-Whirl a spin, but only a few girls seem interested. They all
huddle close together in the spinning cup, giggling before the ride
even starts.

“Did you buy tickets too?” I ask Rooks.

He smirks. “Yeah, I’m going to try to beat
this thing up here,” he says, pointing ahead.

A wooden booth, much like the others, has a
blue and red sign advertising the Milk Bottle Throw. The man
handling the booth tosses a ball into the air and catches it. He
asks a man with small kids if he wants to give it a try, but the
man declines and walks on.

“I thought these things were rigged,” I
remind Rooks.

“They are,” he agrees. “Like the dart throw
back there? Those balloons are barely inflated, and the darts are
dulled so they pretty useless. And this? The bottles are weighed
down and the softball isn’t a match for it. You have to know the
trick.”

“And let me guess – you know the trick,” I
assume.

“I guess you’ll see,” Rooks says.

He strolls up toward the booth, but another
guy jumps in front of him. This guy is slightly taller than Rooks,
maybe six-foot-one or six-foot-two, but he’s built like a defensive
lineman. Rooks is tall but lanky. He’s fit, no doubt, but he’s more
suited for baseball or basketball than football. This guy’s T-shirt
hugs his body, showing off every ripple and muscle he’s worked so
hard to build.

“Three tries,” the worker says, handing the
guy a softball.

The girl with him takes his tub of popcorn
and stands back as he flexes. She’s blonde, a shade lighter than my
own hair, but she’s got awesome wavy beach hair that I don’t know
if I’ll ever master. She watches him with a proud smile. She’s
gotta be the girlfriend.

“Alright, babe,” the guy says. “This one’s
for you.”

He smiles in a way that makes her swoon like
a lovesick puppy. If she were a Disney cartoon, her eyes would
bulge and sparkle with stars while pretty little hearts floated
around her hair. She giggles and pops a piece of popcorn into her
mouth.

The guy draws back and hurls the ball toward
the middle of the pyramid of bottles. They don’t budge.

“That was a test run,” he says. “Let’s go
again.”

Another miss. He tries a final time, but
it’s another failure. He tells the man working the booth that it’s
rigged and how he ought to be ashamed of hassling money out of
people when he knows they can’t win. He wraps his girlfriend up in
his arm, and they move along.

“Who’s next?” the man calls out, looking
over at Rooks and me.

“Right here,” Rooks says, handing over the
minimal tickets he bought with Hector.

I stand back awkwardly, refusing to look too
hopeful or smiley like the last girl. Rooks squints his eyes and
analyzes the position of the bottles while he twists the softball
around in his hand. He shrugs his shoulders a few times to loosen
up, and then he concentrates on the pyramid of milk bottles.

He hurls the ball toward them, in his best
pitcher stance, but it bounces back unsuccessfully. He inhales and
exhales before the second throw. Another bounce. The guy reminds
him that this is his last shot, but Rooks seems unfazed. He
repositions, like he’s about to throw the last pitch of a
no-hitter, and then lets the ball fly toward the base of the
bottles. They collapse.

An accomplished smile sweeps across his
face. “How’s that for pitching?” he asks.

The man just shakes his head and tells him
to ‘take your pick,’ pointing to the stuffed animals hanging from
the ceiling. Rooks steps over toward them, studying them like this
is the biggest decision he’ll make tonight. It reminds me of Mom’s
great debate about Iceberg Blue.

“Since you don’t have any deer heads for the
Tennessee girl, let me have that flamingo,” Rooks tells him,
pointing toward a plushy pink stuffed flamingo.

The man grabs his rod and unhooks the
flamingo from the ceiling. He hands it over to Rooks in defeat.
It’s impossible to hide my own smile. I’m pretty sure this guy
didn’t expect Rooks to pull it off when the previous guy
couldn’t.

“For you,” Rooks says, handing the flamingo
to me. “Your own little piece of Florida.”

I clutch the animal to my chest. “I’ll
cherish it forever,” I tell him.

He laughs but Hector and Natalie interrupt
before he can reply with a witty comeback. Natalie carries the
purple penguin in one hand and has her other arm hooked around
Hector’s arm.

“You actually won that?” Rooks asks, shocked
yet slightly impressed.

“Nah,” Hector says. “You were right. It’s
rigged. I finally just bought it off the guy. Gotta keep my girl
happy, you know?”

Hector wiggles his arm free from Natalie’s
grasp and pulls her to him in a hug. I imagined they would be an
odd pairing, with Hector’s jaded attitude and Natalie’s family
history, but they mesh together as well as caramel apples and
cotton candy do at a county fair.

“We’re headed to ride The Cyclone next,”
Natalie says. “You guys want to come with?”

Rooks shakes his head. “Thrill rides aren’t
really my thing,” he says. “You’d have to carry me out of here.
That stuff messes with my head.”

“Suit yourself,” Hector says. He laughs and
looks at me. “Sorry you’ve got a boring date.”

Natalie waves back at us over her shoulder
as they stroll toward the Tilt-a-Whirl and The Cyclone. The couple
from earlier is in line at the The Cyclone, and Natalie rushes
toward them. I didn’t take Hector to be the type to hang out with
jocks, but he high-fives the guy.

“Well,” Rooks says, moving aside for a group
of middle schoolers to rush by. “Where to?”

“Cotton candy,” I say impulsively. “Blue
cotton candy, on a stick, not in a bag.”

“Wish granted,” Rooks says.

Rooks picks the last pieces of blue cotton
off of the stick before I chuck it in a nearby trash can. Natalie
and Hector were on their way to pick up a funnel cake for her mom
before heading out. It’s been a long night of strolling past dart
games and listening to the squeals from the rides that flip upside
down.

But I’m not ready to leave. The atmosphere
itself is alive and glowing, even late into the night with cars
slowly leaving and the Katy Perry music dying out. There’s a sense
of innocence and never-ending happiness here. It’s a sense of
freedom, of throwing your worries away the second you step under
the lights and hear the game booths ring when there’s a winner.

I hope the girl in the letters was able to
find her escape and whatever she was looking for. Maybe it was her
own version of Titanic. Maybe Seth was the Jack to her Rose,
helping her break free before his own ship wrecked and left him
stranded for eternity on the ocean bottom. Maybe this girl was able
to get away and live the life she dreamed of in memory of him.

The lights of the carousel glow yellow like
distant headlights dancing together along the interstate. It spins
slowly, carrying its horses in a circle. That’s when I see it – a
tiger. Then a frog. And a zebra.

“Oh my God,” I say out loud before I even
realize it. “The camel.”

“Wow,” Rooks says, staring at the ride. He
quickly moves over to the outer railing and cranes his neck to see
it moving around. “I bet it’s the same one.”

“You really think so?” I ask. That was over
fifty years ago. I can’t imagine the carousel still running after
all this time. “There’s no way.”

Rooks nods his head. “They’ve probably
updated the lighting and maybe had a paint job or two over the
years, but this is the same carnival that’s been hosting our county
fair for decades. People love it because it reminds them of growing
up and coming here. I bet it’s the same one.”

“This is where he first saw her,” I say,
trying to conjure up a memory that isn’t my own. “She was with her
friends, and she chose to ride the camel instead of a horse. She
wanted to be different.”

A voice comes over the loudspeaker
announcing the time and that this is the final call for all sales,
games, and rides. What a buzzkill.

“I guess that’s our hint to get out,” I say,
hugging the flamingo to my side. I’m never letting this thing go.
Cliché as it may be, I’m secretly super goofy-happy that I’ve
officially had a guy win a prize at a fair for me.