“I am always sure of everything I do,” Terry says proudly. “Grandma said I was born without the self-doubt gene.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse,” Hunter says.
Terry shrugs, then leans over and kisses me on the forehead. “You’ll be just fine,” he says, then skips away.
Hunter and I walk around the rides, the air light with laughter and the smell of popcorn. I worry for Terry. I worry about his enthusiasm, his confidence, his hope. We live in a world that eats people like him. How can he not know that? How can he think he is safe among all these people who will never understand him? I don’t feel safe, and I’ve been playing their game perfectly my entire life.
The paint on the rides is peeling. The metal creaks with years of travel, of being dismantled and put together again, city after city. Are there inspections? How do these people know the rides are safe? How can they trust their children to these rickety contraptions run by strangers?
“Kinsey, what’s going on with you?” Hunter asks me as we pass the merry-go-round, all the smiling, unassuming kids who have no idea how dangerous the world is.
“Nothing.”
“I thought we agreed you were going to stop with that shit.”
I sigh. “Just something Terry said.”
Hunter laughs. “Everything that comes out of that kid’s mouth is nonsense. What could he possibly have said that upset you so much?”
“He’s said things,” I say carefully. “Things I don’t think you heard.” I search Hunter’s face for signs he thinks I’m crazy, for a signal that I should either stop now or continue, but he’s barely listening. He’s looking at the row of carnival games. He doesn’t want to hear my crazy theory that Terry is psychic, that he knows things about Camille. About me.
“Hey, let’s play a game,” Hunter says, pulling me in their direction.
“Those games are expensive.”
“It’ll be worth it, I swear.”
“But they’re all rigged.”
“Oh, Kinsey, where’s your sense of adventure?”
Hunter takes me to a booth with a bunch of balloons stuck to the wall, manned by a pockmarked guy with stringy red hair and a stained Confederate flag T-shirt. “Five dollars for three tries,” the guy says without enthusiasm. “If you get all three, you get one of the prizes on the first level here.” He points to the smallest row of cheap stuffed animals that probably cost a penny to make in China.
“You may not know this,” Hunter says to me as he hands the guy his money and collects his three darts, “but I am quite the dart champion. Eli had a dartboard in his basement. I could get a bull’s-eye even after a six-pack and a couple of joints.”
“That’s really something to be proud of.”
“So,” Hunter says, ignoring my sarcasm. “Let’s make a bet. You decide what I have to do if I lose.”
“Drive the rest of the way to San Francisco.”
“Really, that’s the best you got?”
I shrug. I’m obviously not finding this as amusing as he is. “And if you win?”
He smiles. “If I win, I quit drinking. For good.”
I search his face for a sign that he’s kidding, that he’s just screwing with me. But his smile is genuine.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“You could just lose on purpose.”
“That’s true. I could.”
The game attendant yawns. He has no idea how important his stupid dart game is right now.
Hunter takes a dart in his fingers, aims, and throws. He pops a blue balloon.
“Good job,” the attendant says. He could not be any less excited.
Hunter aims again. A red balloon explodes.
“The moment of truth,” Hunter says. “Pick a color.”
“Yellow,” I say.
He makes a big production about aiming, repositioning himself several times. “Yellow, you say?” He rocks back and forth on his feet. He turns around. Turns around again.
“Come on!”
He smiles, aims, and pops a yellow balloon.
“Congratulations,” the attendant says in a dreary monotone. “Take your pick of these wonderful prizes or play again for the next row up.”
“What do you think, Kins? Should I try again?”
“Let’s quit while we’re ahead.”
“Then pick the prize,” Hunter says, throwing his arm around my shoulders. “Will it be the rubber snake, the inflatable beer can, or this blue bear-looking thing?”
“The bear,” I say. “The one with the pink nose.”
The attendant hands it to me and I can’t help but smile. This is the best five-dollar piece of crap I’ve ever gotten.
“You should name him,” Hunter says.
“How about Terry Junior?”
He laughs and squeezes me against him. We walk like that back to the grassy patch to meet Terry, Hunter’s arm around my shoulders like we could be any happy couple at the fair. Hunter could be any boy who won his girl a prize. I could be that girl.
We find Terry sitting on the grassy patch with his backpack on. Even from several yards away, I can see him bouncing on his seat, unable to sit still; he’s practically vibrating. He jumps up when he sees us, as if there are springs under him.
“Look what Hunter won,” I say, holding out the cheap blue bear. “We named him after you.”
“I’m honored,” Terry gasps.
“What’s with the backpack?” Hunter asks.
“Oh!” he cries, overcome with emotion. He grabs my shoulder for balance. “You won’t believe it! Dreams do come true. This is a magical place. I knew it the second I saw the sign on the freeway.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I look at Terry Junior in my hands and have to agree.
“I got a job! With the rodeo! I start right now!” Terry says, grabbing both our hands.
“Did I leave the car unlocked?” Hunter says.
“I’m a stable boy!” he exclaims. “Doesn’t that sound sexy?”
“Wait, you’re leaving us?” I say. I’m shocked by how sad this makes me. Wasn’t it just a few hours ago that I couldn’t stand Terry?
“Was our stuff okay?” Hunter says.
“I get to help take care of the horses and the cows and feed them and brush them and go on the road and hang out with the cowboys,” he says as he unwinds his scarf from around his neck. “With my cowboy. Jimmy. His name is Jimmy.” Terry is breathless, love struck. “I met him. He likes me.”
“How did all this happen in less than an hour?” I say.
“I told you this place is magic,” he says. He holds out the slightly moist pile of scarf. Without it wrapped around his thin neck, he is suddenly transformed, an ugly duck turned into a swan, almost beautiful. His black hair makes his pale skin porcelain. His glasses enhance his long curled lashes and bright blue eyes. His long neck makes him regal, elegant.
He dumps the scarf in my hands, makes a nest, and plops Terry Junior in the middle.
“I want you and Terry Junior to have this.”
“Terry, I can’t. It’s from your grandma.”
“She’d want you to have it.” Something tells me not to object. “It’s a good luck scarf. I got my wish. Now it’s your turn.”
I throw my arms around him and squeeze him tight. He’s so thin, but not fragile like I first thought, not brittle like a bird.
“There he is!” Terry cries when I let go. I turn around and see the handsome rodeo cowboy, riding toward us on a big black horse. He waves and Terry bounces over to Hunter for a hug good-bye. Hunter looks confused, half his mind still worried about the car, not comprehending the surreal scene in front of us: the cowboy offering his hand and pulling Terry onto the horse, Terry wrapping his arm around his waist, the cowbo
y tipping his hat to us, Terry waving like a beauty queen in a parade as the horse takes them into the sunset, the sky an explosion of orange neon behind them, their entwined figures receding into its flashy brilliance until all that’s left is the romantic afterglow.
“Did that just really happen?” Hunter says.
“I’m not sure.” I look at the cheap blue bear nestled in the homely scarf in my hands, and I don’t think I’ve ever held anything so valuable.
My heart aches a little as I realize I’ll miss Terry. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe he was supposed to touch my life in exactly this way, bless it with his special magic, then move on to share it with someone else.
Maybe Terry found his cowboy. Maybe they really did just ride off into the sunset together. Maybe I was wrong and the world isn’t as cruel as I think it is. Maybe there are happy endings, even for kids like Terry. Even for Hunter, and even for me.
The next five hours are too quiet without Terry. There are no decent radio stations in the middle of nowhere and neither Hunter nor I want to talk. It’s not an unpleasant silence, but it seems heavy with meaning, full of things that need to be said. I can’t stop thinking about what Terry said on the grass. I can’t stop wondering if what he said was more than nonsense, if loneliness alone can make somebody crazy.
Terry Junior sits on the dashboard facing us, his calm smile unchanging, watching over us with his shiny black plastic eyes.
Wyoming is rugged in a way Michigan is not, even the Upper Peninsula. Everywhere we’ve been so far—Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, even South Dakota—seems so tame in comparison. It feels like an entry to somewhere wild and primal. The farther we drive into the harsh scrub, the farther from civilization I feel, the farther from everything familiar. The huge sky surrounds us on all sides and there is no turning back.
We camp for the night in a place whose sign said it was an RV park and campground, but it is really just a big, empty, dusty parking lot. A few broken-down RVs seem to have set up camp a few years ago and aren’t going anywhere. One is wheel-less and up on blocks. Another has pots of faded fake flowers outside the door. An old dog is chained up to a fence and is too depressed to even bark at us as we park on our designated concrete slab. The night is lit by the blinking light of televisions inside the RVs.
Hunter makes a fire and gets dinner ready while I set up the tent. After all these stops, we’ve finally developed a good system for setting up camp. But it barely matters now. We’re only two states away from the end. Our trip is almost over.
We cook hot dogs on sticks over the fire. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I miss Terry,” I say.
“I miss him too,” Hunter says. “Crazy bastard.”
We sit in silence for a while, watching the hot dogs turn brown and bubbly. As the sky darkens and we finish dinner, Hunter suddenly jumps up and starts running in place.
“What are you doing?”
He stops running, clenches his fists, and makes a sound like a pained growl. “I feel itchy.”
“I have some calamine lotion. It works pretty well on mosquito bites.”
“No,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. “Like itchy inside. Like I’ve been sitting in a car too long. Like I need a drink.”
My heart drops and I say nothing. What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to forbid it like I’m his mother? Am I supposed to beg him not to?
He runs over to the car and opens the trunk, where the box of remaining bottles has been waiting like a loaded gun these fragile days he’s been sober. I can’t watch this. I can’t just sit here while he does this. I stand up, but I don’t have the anger to storm off. I’m just sad. Deflated.
“Watch this,” he says. Watch what? Watch you destroy yourself? Watch you turn into a drooling, puking fool? For a moment, I think of running over to the car and getting Terry Junior and throwing him into the fire to make a point.
Hunter pulls a bottle out of the box, unscrews the cap, and pours it into the fire.
Red light blinds me as the fire explodes. My face burns.
Glass breaks and car tires squeal and I am lost and alone on a road in the night.
No. I open my eyes and the fire has returned to normal. There is no glass and no car and no road, just the air tinged with the sweet acid smell of burning alcohol. Hunter stands beside me. He pulls another bottle out of the box and hands it to me. “You try.”
The bottle is cool and so solid in my hands. I pour it in slowly and the fire sputters.
“You have to do it with more pizzazz,” Hunter says. He waves a bottle around, the splashes of liquor making little bursts of pyrotechnics.
We drain the rest of the bottles like that, cackling into the night like mad witches, pouring our potions into the fire and making magic. The fire grabs at Hunter with its red hands; it lights his face, burns its reflection into his eyes. But Hunter is its master tonight, scars and all. The fire cannot hurt him now.
And then all we have left is a cardboard box and empty bottles. We sit on a log, staring at the fire that looks like any old fire, not one that just burned and evaporated so much poison.
“It’s all gone,” Hunter says.
“How does it feel?”
“Kind of awesome. Kind of scary,” he says. Then after a pause, “Really scary.”
I reach over and hold his hand. The people in the RVs have turned off their TVs and gone to bed. The night is black around us, but the fire bathes us in warm light. We are surrounded by the unknown, but I feel safer than I have in a long time. And what’s the point of safety but to make us brave enough to do something that will scare us again?
Hunter did something that scared him. He took back the fire. He tamed the thing that scarred him. Now it is my turn.
I take a deep breath. “What did Camille say about me?” I say.
He looks at me, his face throbbing with firelight.
“Tell me. I can handle it.”
“She said you were best friends since you were four.” He’s trying to make his voice light, casual, as if this is going to be a light conversation. “She loved you very much.”
“You’re patronizing me.”
“No I’m not.”
“Tell me the hard stuff.”
“Really?”
“All of it.”
Hunter takes a deep breath and squeezes my hand. “She said you were too attached to your plans.”
“Yeah, she always teases me about that,” I say. “I mean, teased.”
“She said you were too attached to her.” He looks at me to see if he should go further. He cannot see my heart torn to shreds. “It drove her crazy. She said you treated her like you were both still ten years old. You refused to accept that she was changing. She said she tried to talk to you but you refused to hear her. You couldn’t let go of the way things used to be, the way she used to be.”
The memories don’t quite surface, but I know that they’re there. I know Camille had tried to break through my fantasy, but I hadn’t let her. I can feel the memory of her pulling away, the tug on my heart as the distance between us increased and I refused to believe it.
“She was worried about you being roommates,” Hunter continues. “She was afraid you wouldn’t make any of your own friends, that you’d rely on her forever.”
The fire suddenly seems too bright. It is exposing too much. I want to tell Hunter to shut up. I want to tell him things Camille said about him that would hurt him. But I have nothing to tell him. She told me nothing. He was one of so many of her new secrets.
“She didn’t want to move to San Francisco with you after college,” he says. “She wanted to sign up for the Peace Corps or Teach for America. She wanted to do something on her own. Something away from you.”
San Francisco. What a stupid destination. One of the most sophisticated and expensive cities in the world to liv
e in, and we were two country girls with no money and no skills. And now I am one country girl, alone, on my way to a place that I imagined as ours. But it never was, and it never will be. She wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere far away from me. And now she is.
Camille would never choose to stick around as a ghost, would never have the kind of troubled soul that tethers itself to the world it’s supposed to leave behind. Camille is not the one holding on to a long-gone past. Terry was right—if you’re lonely enough, even a ghost will keep you company.
“Are you okay?” Hunter says softly.
“Yeah,” I say, but I’m not sure if I mean it. I’m not sure if I even know what okay feels like.
We sit on the log and watch the fire die out. There is no more need to talk; enough has been said for tonight. Coyotes or wolves howl and they sound closer than they should be. They could eat us in the night. We could be killed before we even knew what was happening. The fire turns to embers and we go silently to bed. Hunter falls asleep quickly, but I can’t. I feel so on edge, so shaky, so close to shattering. I need something, someone, to help hold me together.
I know I shouldn’t, but the night is so big and empty, the wolves are so close and hungry, my arms need to be around someone warm and solid, and Hunter is so close. He fits so perfectly in my arms. My body curls around his. His warmth is my warmth. He is asleep, so it doesn’t matter that I’m crying, that my sobs are mixing with howls of the wolves and turning the night even blacker.
But his arms wrap around me and squeeze back. The night is black and the world is empty, but he is here and I am not alone.
We hold on to each other as the wolves take over the night. But we are safe from them in here. This is the solid place. Everything else drifts away, leaving only us, holding on, curling into each other. I listen to him breathe as sleep falls over me. I let myself feel the dull pain grinding inside my chest, but I also let myself feel Hunter’s warmth around me. I let myself feel held and safe, even in the midst of so much pain.