A Summer Nowhere

Just about everybody I knew was about a hundred times more excited than I was to go out with Gary. In the thirty seconds it had taken him to drive me back to Sam's house the night before, we had decided to be real casual and go to the county fair together. It wasn't a big deal because we'd already planned on going anyway and we would've probably gone together anyway and we would've hung out together there anyway, so there wasn't any pressure.

Except I felt a whole ton of pressure. It just sat on my chest like one of those big, huge dogs that acts like it only weighs ten pounds and wants to sit in your lap, no matter how much it suffocates you.

In less than half an hour, he'd gone home and told his mama. His mama called and told Sam's mama. Then Lynn called my mama. Then they did a three way call and gabbed about it for a good hour or two. I had to sit in Sam's room and listen to them go on and on about hearts and candy and flowers and love and wedding bells and it was enough to make me want to throw up.

Sam had gone through her entire closet, trying to get me to wear a dress. I asked her how I was supposed to be comfortable riding the Tilt-A-Whirl when I had to keep my knees clamped shut. Then I reminded her about what happened the last time she'd talked me into wearing a dress. I was just gonna wear something of my own. It wasn't like I had anybody to impress. It was just Gary.

“But he's not just Gary anymore.” Sam argued with me. “He's not your friend Gary; he's Gary: the guy you're going out on a date with.”

Jenny had begged me to let her do my hair and finally I agreed, as long as it wasn't too crazy. She blew it dry with a big, round, brush until it was mostly straight, but then when the waves set back in a few minutes later, she got pissed and put it into one big, long side braid. Even I had to admit, it looked pretty good. My hair wasn't nearly as long as Sam's, but the braid ended right at my rib cage and it made me feel kinda like a mermaid or something. I decided on a plain gray t shirt with a faded American flag on the front, a pair of frayed denim shorts, and flip flops. That seemed to be the summer uniform around here, I thought.

“You look cute in anything, Jobie.” Jenny told me. “But if I were you, I'd start wearing sexy pajamas at night. When Gary starts throwing pebbles at your window, you don't wanna' look down at him looking a hot mess.”

“Pebbles at her window?” Sam scoffed loudly. “Now you're just being stupid. And what do you mean, look down at him? Her bedroom's on the first floor.”

“But it would be so romantic!” she shrieked, hugging herself tight like she was holding a teddy bear or something.

She kept that far off, dreamy look in her eye all day and I wondered if she wasn't the one who should be going out with Gary.

Alan and Jenny were gonna' go down and give Sam a ride so she could meet Chris there. I watched Jenny bounce up and down on the couch, talking about how it was like a triple date and how sweet it was and how romantic it was gonna' be. I knew she was excited, but she just looked like she really had to pee. When I told her that, she tried her best to sit still. But Jenny wasn't any good at sitting still.

I had been so nervous to leave, but she was driving me so crazy that when Gary pulled into the driveway and honked, I couldn't wait to get out of there. I felt like I was hanging out with a wedding planner who was planning the wedding of somebody I didn't even know. It was uncomfortable and weird and annoying. Sam made sure I had on mascara before I walked out the door, like that was the most important thing on earth.

When he saw me, he laughed. His t shirt was the same color as mine—except solid—and his jeans were the same shade of denim. But of course, Gary was wearing work boots. As usual. For whatever reason, he still managed to look handsome and put together in such a casual outfit. Like he could be in a Calvin Klein advertisement. He'd washed his truck and it was a clean, shiny silver. He looked prepared and I looked like a doofus.

“We look like we're gonna' go take pictures at Wal-Mart.” I noted, squinting against the sun.

“Do you want to do that?” he joked.

“No.” I shook my head, hauling my short frame into the passenger seat of the truck and shutting the door.

I felt kinda bad after I thought about it, because he'd clearly been standing there, waiting to open and close the door for me. He was such a gentleman and I was such an asshole.

“Ready?” he asked, starting up the truck and holding his hand over the gear shift, like he was giving me a chance to back out and pretend none of this had ever happened.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Should be fun.”

The fairgrounds were packed with kids and their parents, plus a ton of teenagers from both county and city schools. Gary got us a couple of arm bands so we wouldn't have to shell out tickets for each ride, and started our date off with a gigantic wad of cotton candy on a stick. We roamed around, pinching off little pieces of pink and blue clouds as we went. He let me hold the stick, but ended up eating more of it than I did, which was okay. I didn't feel much like eating. My stomach felt like it was doing somersaults.

I heard Polly, Sam and Jenny's little sister, before I saw her. She was running at warp speed to catch up to me, all the way from the ticket booth where Lynn called after her. She crashed into my back, scaring me half to death, and wrapped her arms around my waist.

Gary looked down and smiled fondly.

Polly was basically what a Cabbage Patch doll would look like if it turned into a real human child and grew into an eleven year old. She was a little bit chubby, but tall for her age, and her ashy auburn hair was cut in a little bob with bangs straight across her forehead. Jenny and Sam both had blue eyes, like their fathers', but Polly had Lynn's greenish hazel eyes. Except for the fact that Lynn was as skinny as a rail, Polly was her spitting image.

I liked Polly a lot because she had more sass in her little finger than most people had in their whole entire bodies. She was a mean little shit, but if she liked you, she was sweet as pie. I wasn't sure why, but she thought I hung the moon.

“Will you go on the Bullet with me?” she asked, looking up at me like she wasn't gonna' take no for an answer. “I promise not to pee my pants!”

Polly had lived in Kentucky the longest. It's where she learned to talk, so she was just as country sounding as I was and, for whatever reason, it always made me laugh. Sam sounded so proper all the time, but her baby sister talked like a hillbilly.

The Bullet was the scariest ride at the carnival and when anybody went on it, they bragged about it for weeks, like they'd jumped out of an airplane or something. Basically, you sat in a big bullet shaped thing, three people at a time, and it shot into the air and swung you around like you were sitting in the middle of a tire and somebody pushed you down the hill. Except it stayed in place and you were turning upside down and right side up at the speed of light.

I'd never been on and I definitely didn't want to go, but I didn't want to argue with her in the middle of all of those people, either. Because if Polly wanted something and didn't get it, she wasn't too shy to make a scene. Gary gave me an encouraging look, like he'd protect me from harm, and agreed to come along. There wasn't a line, because most people were too afraid, so we got in right away and Polly sat between us, locking her arms with ours over those big cushioned things that locked over our chests.

I let out a deep breath and squeezed my eyes shut. My stomach jumped up into my throat when we flew upward and stayed there when the ride turned us all upside down. I could hear Polly squealing excitedly over the rush of blood that was roaring in my ears. Gary was quiet and even though I didn't want to open my eyes, I did, just to look at him. He was calm, like we were just chilling out somewhere quiet instead of rolling around in the air, inside a locked, metal death trap. I couldn't help but laugh, and then I laughed more when the first laugh came out sounding like I was choking to death.

The ride only lasted about two minutes and when it was over, the braid Jenny had put my hair in was a mess. Little strands of flyaway hair were everywhere and I ended up undoing it and keeping the little elastic band around my wrist. Polly ran off to find Lynn and Gary stood with me by the gate until I gathered my bearings.

“You alright?” he asked.

I nodded, a little dizzy.

“You're sweet to do that for her.” he smiled. “I don't care how mean you are. You've got a big heart.”

“Mean?” I asked. “I am not mean.”

“You are.” he argued, laughing at me.

“Who have I ever been mean to in my life?” I challenged him.

Now he was laughing hard.

“Who have you not been mean to?” he asked. “You're mean to people before they can be mean to you.”

He may have had a point there. And sometimes I was mean without trying. Other times, I guessed I tried on purpose. But I wasn't about to admit that to him.

“I try and be sweet.” I said, shaking my head. “Sometimes I don't have the energy.”

He laughed, shaking is head at me like I never ceased to surprise him with the stuff that came out of my mouth.

We rode the tilt-a-whirl and I let him pin me to the side. Actually, I didn't have a choice. We'd spun the wheel so much that our apple was going around and around at warp speed. My hair flew all over the place and I couldn't manage to grab it because I was holding on too tight. I didn't even realize that the thing I was holding onto was Gary's arm until the ride slowed to a stop.

“Maybe slower next time.” he smiled, blowing my hair out of his mouth and smoothing it back down with his free hand.

His fingers tangled in the messy locks and it and it made me feel kinda stupid that Gary was always touching my hair and I never figured out why. I either didn't think about it or I thought he just liked to keep his hands busy. Then when I thought about some more, I remembered him telling me I had pretty hair. There was that one time he said he thought I was beautiful. He was always getting stuff on tall shelves for me, helping me up when I toppled over, just being generally protective. And here I thought he just didn't have anything else to do.

We walked towards the Octopus and got stopped a few feet away from it.

“Hey!” I heard Heather call from behind us.

I looked back to see her and Brad jogging up, Mama and Dennis trailing behind. Mama was grinning from ear to ear at us, Dennis looked like he wanted to be anywhere else, Brad was shooting daggers at Gary, and Heather was looking at him all dreamy eyed. All of a sudden, I felt real possessive and let our wrists tangle until our fingers were laced together tight as a corset.

“Hey.” I said, trying to look real casual.

“Look at my babies!” Mama squealed like a little girl, looking much younger than she was.

She made us let go of each other so she could wrap Gary in a big, dramatic hug. He looked perfectly comfortable with her little arms around his torso. He patted her back gently and let her lay a kiss on both cheeks like they were just the very best of friends. As soon as she let him go, Gary took my hand again and she grabbed a couple strands of my hair and pushed them behind my ears. They immediately fell out and she let out an exasperated laugh. I'd gotten my daddy's crazy hair, she'd always said.

“I thought we'd haul these two out of the house.” Mama told us, reaching up and resting one arm on Heather's shoulders and the other on Brad's. “It's too pretty not to be outside.”

Gary immediately fell into an easy chat about the weather, commenting on how the humidity hadn't been that bad lately and that because we'd had such a mild summer so far, maybe winter wouldn't be so rough. Mama asked how his parents were doing, even though she'd just talked to his Mama the night before, and he said they were doing fine. He didn't talk to Dennis, because he'd never been too quiet about how much he disliked him. Gary hated a mooch more than anything, he'd always said, much less a drunk one.

Uninvited, Heather and Brad tagged along with us on the Octopus ride. I always expected Heather to try and squeeze in between us, but she sat across from us with her brother and stared at us like she was trying to figure out what was happening. Brad kept his eyes on Gary and when I looked at Gary, his eyes were on Brad, too. Like they were having a face off or a telepathic conversation in their heads that nobody else could hear. It was freaking me out.

“What's wrong with you?” I finally asked Brad when we stepped back onto the gravel.

He looked at me like I had said something to offend him and then laughed at me.

“I just think it's funny how you throw yourself at any guy who gives you attention.” he said. “Except me.”

I scrunched up my nose. The idea of his attention being on me made me want to throw up.

Gary stepped in front of me, using arm to push me back a little bit.

“Am I gonna' have to lay you out right here in front of all these people?” Gary stared down at him.

“You ain't laying me out in front of nobody!” Brad yelled, causing just about everybody in a ten foot radius to slow down and look over at us. “I'll fuck you up, son!”

He sounded like one of those guys at the beginning of a gangster rap song that does the spoken word bit about how how hard his crew is or something like that. If it weren't so embarrassing to be seen with him, I might've thought it was funny.

Gary let a little laugh out through his nose.

“You're in my neck of the woods, little boy.” Gary talked real soft, smiling a little bit. “I know all kinds of places to hide your body where nobody'll find it.”

“Hey!” Heather piped up. “Don't talk to my brother like that!”

It was the first time I'd ever seen her come to Brad's defense. I guessed it was natural for an older sibling to try and protect the younger one, but he didn't deserve it. He was as mean as a snake to her and I wasn't sure why she was coming to his aid. Also, I'd never seen Heather talk to Gary in any way other than syrupy sweet. Usually, she batted her eyelashes at him and giggled like a little school girl. Until a minute ago, she was still doing that. Now she was mad as hell.

“You should teach your brother how to speak to a lady, then.” Gary challenged her before looking back down at Brad, who I had to admit, looked a little scared. “Come find me if you feel like getting your ass kicked.”

We walked a little ways down the gravel bath, not really knowing where were going for sure. Gary stewed quietly for a minute before talking to me.

“I'm not gonna' apologize for what I said to him.” he insisted, even though I hadn't asked him to.

When I told him that, that I hadn't said anything, he did that thing where his jaw muscles tensed up like he was grinding his teeth.

“If I wasn't worried it would embarrass you, I'd go back there and punch him in the face.” he said.

It would be embarrassing, I thought. It would probably be entertaining, too. But I didn't encourage him.

He pulled me gently towards the big slides that were in the same spot every year. One was pretty tame, the other one was steep, going straight down, and the other one was a Helter Skelter, where you climbed up about a mile of stairs from the interior and then went down the spiral slide on a burlap sack. I'd never know how they put those things together and took them apart to haul them off to wherever they went next.

He pointed up at the massive tower that looked like it stretched all the way up to the clouds. It reminded me of Jack and the Beanstalk, except it wasn't a beanstalk. It was just a hell of a lot of wood and metal. Looking up at it made my knees feel weak.

“I'll make you a deal.” Gary told me. “We're gonna' climb up to the top of that thing.”

I laughed at him. He had to be crazy.

“And whoever can slide down the fastest gets whatever they want.” he finished, not paying attention.

“I want a million dollars.” I told him. Because that's how much it was gonna' take to get me to go on that thing.

“Whatever they want within reason.” he corrected himself.

I couldn't think of anything I wanted that was worth being so high up in the sky. If God had intended for me to be at that altitude, I'd have been born a bird.

“Are you chicken?” he grinned at me, watching me bounce nervously, my arms crossed tight across my chest.

I could've smacked him. I hated being called a chicken and he knew that.

“What happened to knowing how to speak to a lady?” I asked, poking him pointedly in the chest, even though I could've broken my finger.

“Are you a lady or a chicken?” he teased, dodging me when I tried to punch him in the arm.

“I'm not scared.” I lied through my teeth. “What happens if you win?”

“Hmm.” he mumbled, tapping his chin with his index finger and looking up like he had to think about it. “I get a kiss.”

I felt my cheeks catch fire and even though I was blushing like an idiot, I couldn't help rolling my eyes.

“That's it?” I asked. “All this for just a kiss?”

“I think it's worth it.” he shrugged. “What do you get if you win?”

I had no earthly idea what to say, so I just made a joke.

“You have to carry me around for the rest of the night.” I laughed. “Because I probably won't be able to walk after going up all those stairs.”

“How 'bout I carry you up the stairs?” he asked.

“Now you're just showing off.” I scoffed at him, marching toward the end of the line of people waiting to get inside.

It was just a wooden cylinder with a wooden spiral staircase. There were cutouts every few feet or so where big, round fans were bolted in to blow air through the cramped space. You could see all of the gigantic screws and hinges and pieces of metal that I couldn't readily identify. I was sure it all had a purpose in holding the thing together, but it looked terrifying to me.

Halfway up the stairs, my nerves started kicking in and I had to take deep breaths in and out.

“I'm gonna' die up here.” I told him. “You know that, right?”

“You're not gonna' die.” he shook his head.

Everybody stood two to a step and Gary made sure I was tucked tightly between him and the wall. There was a rail on each side, but the wall felt safer. He put his hand on my back and rubbed up and down. My skin warmed and I felt butterflies in my stomach and tingles all up and down my spine.

“This has gotta' be a fire hazard.” I continued complaining, looking around. “All these fans in an enclosed space.”

“Relax.” he laughed softly.

By the time we made it to the top, my leg muscles were screaming at me and my heart was racing a hundred miles a minute.

“Ready?” the attendant asked us.

“I'm ready.” Gary said, looking at me as he knelt and planted himself onto a sheet of burlap. “You ready?”

“Uh-huh.” I lied again.

“Go ahead and push yourself off in three...” the attendant started counting back. “Two...one!”

I wanted to close my eyes, but the wind kept them open and I immediately felt them drying up. There were barriers on each side of the slide so nobody flew out and down to their death, but it was easy to see through the wooden posts. The scenery flew by. The carnival was always so loud. There were people and their voices and music and a loudspeaker and buzzing and whizzes and all kinds of clatter. But then I realized I couldn't hear any of it and that was because I was screaming bloody murder.

I didn't care who won the race, as long as I didn't have a heart attack on the way down.

The wooden frame of the slide was lined with shiny, black plastic and the plastic kept going for a few yards after the slide ended, so that you didn't just come to a complete stop and roll into the gravel. By the time I landed, I was pretty sure I'd gotten a permanent face lift and my eyes were so dry, they felt like I'd tried to clean them with dust. The only plus was that my hair was well and truly out of my face, but I probably looked like the Bride of Frankenstein.

Gary was standing in front of me, bent down a little bit with his arms stretched out to help me up. I blinked rapidly, blindly grabbing for his hands and letting him pull me to my feet. My legs immediately wobbled out from underneath me and Gary was laughing into my ear as he tugged me closer to keep me upright.

After he'd managed to get me out of the line of fire for the incoming sliders, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me.

“I won.” he grinned.

“Don't be a sore winner.” I rolled my eyes.

“I'm not sore at all.” he said.

His lips were on mine before I could make a witty comeback. They weren't as soft as they looked, but they were strong and insistent and he tasted like toothpaste and cotton candy and his hands were sliding down to my hips and I couldn't think of anything that had ever felt as good.

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God!” I heard Jenny's screams getting closer as she must've been running up to us. She said it like it was all one big, long word “This makes me so happy!”

When our lips parted, I had to open my eyes real slow and then blink everything back into vision. My head felt like a balloon filled with helium and if I wasn't careful, I was sure I was gonna' float up into the sky.

Jenny and Alan were standing a few feet away from us. Alan looked like he'd witnessed something he wasn't supposed to and Jenny looked like a kid in a candy store. The attention was overwhelming.

“Go away.” I groaned, shooting her a death glare.

She just giggled and grabbed Alan's hand, pulling him off toward the Flying Dragon.

“See?” Gary said, his voice soft and teasing. “I told you you were mean.”