What We Knew (8 page)

But the places where bad things happen aren’t always so ominous, I thought, stopping to buy a blue raspberry taffy from the Snack Shack. A few days before, a boy with a bee allergy died right here in front of the candy counter.

I took the shortcut through the pines back to the pool. When I’d left, Lisa was propped on her elbows watching Katie practice handstands in the shallow end. But now Katie was crouched on the grass with the towel over her head and Lisa was screaming and gesturing at a woman in a mom bathing suit. The mom flailed angrily right back.

Conflict makes my knees go wobbly. I wanted to climb under the towel with Katie. I caught enough of the shouting to hear that the woman’s son had yanked down Katie’s bikini bottom. I didn’t know if Katie was hiding because everyone had seen or because her sister had morphed into a raging psycho.

“If your son
ever
touches my sister again, I’ll break his little arm!” Lisa shrieked. Which was exactly the wrong thing to be yelling when park security showed up to investigate the disturbance. The guard listened to the lifeguard and then the mom. A few minutes later, he was escorting Lisa through the crowd toward Katie and me. I pulled on my T-shirt and then peeked under the towel and handed Katie hers.

“Get this,” Lisa said, shoving her book in her bag. “He’s asking
us
to leave.”

The officer just stood there, clutching his belt, looking bored.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s cloudy anyway.”

“It’s sexual harassment!” Lisa shouted to anyone still listening. “My sister has a right to go swimming without being felt up!” She reached under the towel for Katie’s hand and guided her up the knoll to the jogging path. When we got to the play area with the rocket slide, I tugged Lisa’s shirt to slow down. I started to apologize, but she cut me off.

“Save it,” she growled. She stuck her head under the towel to talk with Katie. “You can come out now,” she said gently. Katie’s eyes were red from crying. Her breath escaped in uneven bursts.

“Stupid scummy slimeball jerks,” Lisa muttered, doing her best not to curse in front of Katie.

Then the sky opened up, pelting the hot asphalt with warm summer rain. A low rumble rippled across the park. Two seconds later, the air horn sounded. Everybody out of the pool.

“Good,” Lisa said, finally smiling. “I hope those lowlifes get struck by lightning.”

I’d always known Lisa was fiercely protective. Once she’d yelled in our math teacher’s face to defend me after he accused me of cheating. I hadn’t. I’d just studied really hard—all weekend, at the diner with Lisa. Her reaction today made me wonder what she would have done to the jerk from Troy.

If I’d told her.

Why hadn’t I told her?

I’d skulked home that day feeling shivery and brittle, thinking everybody looking at me knew, like what had happened was as visible as a big black eye.

We waited out the storm in the Snack Shack, and then we cheered Katie with a trip to the big-box drugstore they tore down all those houses to build. She loves that place. Actually, Lisa and I love that place, too. I hate running errands for my mom, but I never complain when she sends me down there. It’s in a crummy part of town, but as soon as those sliding glass doors part, you could be anywhere. That day: Alaska. A blast of frigid air turned my skin to goose bumps. I checked my reflection in the giant round mirror in the ceiling and made a beeline for cosmetics.

“I look like a quarterback,” I said, wiping the black smudges from under my eyes.

“Cotton Candy Frenzy?” Lisa asked, spritzing my wrist.

I sniffed. “Nice,” I said. “If you want to attract clowns and carnies.”

I moved down the aisle toward the lipsticks. Uncapping a tester, I asked Lisa if she liked the color. She shrugged. “Not on you.” I drew a stripe on the back of my hand. Too dark.

“These are your shades,” she said, gathering a handful of tubes and pots.

After she did my makeup, we wandered over to the magazines and browsed fall fashions. It’s hard to get excited about boots and sweaters when it’s ninety degrees. Everything looked binding and itchy. End-of-summer colors did nothing for me either: brown and ocher and maple leaf.

“I’m getting these,” Katie said, running up with a pair of kiwi-green eyelashes.

“Where’d you get money?” Lisa asked.

“Mom.”

“Buy me something, too?” Lisa pleaded

Katie counted her bills. “What do you want?”

Lisa came back with a bottle of pearly nail polish.

“Okay,” Katie said. “I owe you for sticking up for me. Even if we are banned from the pool.”

“We’re not banned,” Lisa said. “And you don’t owe me. He had no right to touch you.”

“Pervert,” Katie said. “We should tie him up in the woods. Sacrifice him to Banana Man.”

“That kid’s not a pervert,” Lisa said. “Just a horndog. Please don’t make me explain the difference.” She turned Katie by the shoulders and sent her toward the registers. “Go pay.”

“I never should’ve told her he’s real,” Lisa whispered. “It’s all she talks about.”

It’s all
you
talk about,
I thought. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and say
Wake up. You’re not a little kid. Monsters don’t exist.
Instead I said, “You didn’t tell her about the eye, did you?”

She picked up a box of hair color and put it back down. “I’m not stupid.”

“Doesn’t she wonder why you’re sleeping in her room?”

“I told her my room’s too hot. It’s true. She’s got the better fan.”

I knew it was the wrong time to bring it up, but I told Lisa that my mom wanted her to stay over Friday night, so we could get an early start on Saturday. The company picnic was at an amusement park this year—something new. They used to hold it at the Rod and Gun Club. Hamburgers and hot dogs and contests for the kids. Scott and I always went home with half the prizes.

Lisa sighed heavily.

“If you don’t want to go,” I said, “tell me now. I’ll bring Adam. He hates rides—”

“No, I want to go.” She sounded torn. “Can I let you know tomorrow?”

Katie came back waving four dollar bills. Outside, she dragged us toward the yellow arch shining brightly against the storm-bruised sky. “That’s a lot of food if we order off the Value Menu,” she said. She was right. Four bucks won’t buy a grilled chicken salad, but it will buy two cherry pies, a strawberry shake, and a hot fudge sundae. When my mother got home from work, I wasn’t hungry. Which was too bad—she was actually planning to cook. Parmesan chicken and the first green beans from the garden. She made herself a frozen dinner instead.

“Can Adam come over and watch a movie?” I asked.

My mom blew on her fork. “Sure,” she said. “I need to do some weeding tonight, anyway.”

“You don’t have to hide,” I said. “We won’t get anything scary. Nothing sexy, either.”

The phone rang. My mother froze. “If that’s Chip, I’m not here,” she whispered.

I picked up the receiver. “This is Tracy,” I said. I looked at my mother; a mouthful of beef tips squirreled in her cheeks like she was afraid whoever was on the other end would hear her chewing. “Chip?” I said. “That’s so funny! We were just talking about you. Yeah. Hold on, she’s here.”

My mother bulged her eyes angrily and swallowed. Putting the phone to her ear, she croaked, “Hi!” As soon as she realized it was a recorded message for some company trying to sell us something, her face relaxed into a smile. “Ha-ha,” she said, hanging up. She tossed the black plastic tray in the trash and her fork in the sink. She was smiling. Good. It was the perfect time to ask what I’d been wondering about since the drugstore: “Can we bring Katie to the picnic?”

My mother went to the fridge and pulled a couple of plastic deli bags from the meat drawer. Her silence meant she was considering my request. I got out the chips and stuck a fruit cup in her insulated lunch bag. “She’s a good kid,” I said, trying to sway her. “She’ll do whatever you say.”

“Katie’s not the problem.” My mother chucked a loaf of moldy bread. “I’ll have to pay full-price at the gate. And she wouldn’t get any lunch. You need a special wristband for that. They came with the tickets I got through work.”

“The problem is, Larry might have to do overtime,” I said. “If she can’t go, Lisa can’t go.”

I hated lying, but the truth was ridiculous: my best friend was afraid of the bogeyman.

“Let me see what I can do,” she said. “Maybe somebody has an extra ticket.”

Leaning on the counter, watching her build a sandwich, I asked if she’d ever heard a creepy story about a guy called Banana Man.

“Banana Man? Like the fruit?” She rolled a slice of turkey and popped it in her mouth. “Sounds kind of silly. Where’d you get that from?”

“Never mind.”

My mom screwed the lid on the mayonnaise and rinsed the knife. After everything was put away, she sat next to me at the counter and dug into the chips. “When I was a kid we were all afraid of the Hillhurst Demon,” she said crunching. “He stalked the triangle of woods between the park and the hospital. You know where I mean?”

My temples throbbed. The kitchen started spinning. I nodded for her to go on.

“My friends used to say that if you ever saw the creature—even just a quick glimpse—your eyes would melt like wax.” My mother elbowed me and then offered me a chip. “Kinda scary, huh? What’s your monster do?”

nine

The last time we went to Action Adventure, my family was happy. At least we seemed happy. I guess if I put it on a timeline, my dad was already cheating, Scott was sorting through some crazy emotions, and my mom was getting all kinds of grief over her promotion to supervisor. And I was plotting the death of my tormentor, a mean girl who nicknamed me Melon Head after a really horrible failed attempt to dye my hair.

A lot has changed since then. The security checkpoint at the gate was new. Plus the rule about no coolers. Then there were these special bracelets they were selling that let you cut to the front of the lines. But we didn’t need them. We had my mom. It’s her job to know all about traffic and how to deal with it. She snatched a guide from a friendly dinosaur and steered us through the crush of families clogging the winding streets of Ye Olde Village. Her strategy—go directly to the farthest point on the map—worked. Ghost Town was a ghost town.

“What’s first?” my mom asked, surveying the massive metal monsters crouched between the false front buildings and wooden sidewalks. Katie oo-ooed for the swings. Lisa, the free-fall tower. Everybody rolled their eyes at my pick: Tornado Alley, a dark ride through a wind tunnel, with flying Day-Glo cows and hypnotic spirals and air horns. My favorite ride ever, even if it was the cheesiest. My mom’s eyes drifted to the giant corkscrew rising up behind the saloon and dance hall. The Gold Rush. My mom is the Roller-Coaster Queen. She’ll ride anything: sketchy wooden deathtraps; neck-snapping figure eights—the suspended kind, where the cart dangles from a track above your head.

My mom pulled rank. We ducked under the switchback of ropes and claimed the first two cars.

It’s amazing what a jolt of adrenaline can do. My mom was rowdy and giddy, throwing her arms over her head while I gripped the safety bar like a chicken. Maybe this would remind her who she was before my dad left and turned her world upside down. Maybe she’d try dating again. Just because she hadn’t hit it off with Chip didn’t mean there wasn’t someone out there for her. She should add “thrill seeker” to her profile.

“That was sick!” Lisa shouted.

Katie and I bumped fists.

“Who wants to go again?” my mom asked.

After the fourth run, lines had formed behind the chains. We moved on. Log Jam. Tornado Alley. The Tumbleweed. My mom and Katie sat out the Thunderbird because Katie’s stomach felt weird. Warm and woozy, we showed our wristbands at the saloon for free soda and hiked down the hill to Jungle Land, which was a rip-off—the one big ride was closed for repairs—but Katie wanted to see the animals.

That was always Scott’s least favorite part. Even when we were little, he hated seeing them in their sad, lonely cages. I hated the rope bridge, with its animatronic alligators lurking in the muddy waters below. Once, the bridge bounced so hard I started crying. Clinging to the net, I was sure I’d tumble over and die, impaled on those long sharp teeth. But my dad saved me. Rushing out, he snatched me up and carried me to solid ground.

My mother asked if I remembered the time he won me an enormous pink panda. But I didn’t. “You were only two. That thing was bigger than you,” she said. “He must have spent fifty bucks trying.”

“Hey guys, there’s no line there,” Katie said, pointing to an oblong wheel ringed with cages—a Ferris wheel on steroids. The Zipper. I’m not afraid of anything, but that ride freaks me out. It’s Scott’s fault. He used to torture me when we were kids, pointing out rust spots, making me think the bolts were bad. Since Scott wasn’t there to torture me, I tortured Katie.

“That doesn’t sound safe,” I said, furrowing my brow at the creaking noise above our heads.

Lisa buckled us in, and then she got the cart rocking. “You know this thing’s gonna flip, right?”

“You guys,” Katie whined. “Why are you always mean to me?”

“Mean to you?” I said, bumping Katie’s shoulder.

Lisa winked. “Maybe she’s talking about the time we read her diary.”

“‘My hamster died today,’” I quoted from memory. “‘It is the saddest day ever.’”

When the guy came around and rattled the cage door, Katie wanted off. She crawled over my lap and flew down the ramp and joined my mother on the bench next to the snow cone stand.

“Is she mad?” I asked. “We were just joking.”

“That
was
kind of cruel, making her think that pin is coming loose.”

It was just like Lisa to turn things around and make me the bad guy.
She
was the reason her sister was having nightmares. Last night Katie woke the whole house because she thought she heard tapping at the window. But I wasn’t going to let Lisa’s dumb comment ruin my day. Besides, she smacked her head on the cage. Hard. She got off dizzy and queasy.

My mom went for water and came back with sunscreen. “You’re looking a little red,” she said. Cupping Lisa’s chin, she dabbed her forehead and nose and cheeks. She did Katie’s face, too, and then mine. Her fingers felt good—cool and soft.