Chase
“I didn’t want her to sign it,” I say to Allie Jo as we head up the road. “I just didn’t know how I could say no.”
“I know,” she says.
Tara goes, “It’s cool.”
I look at Tara and laugh. “Excellent!” Man, she’s quick.
The sun blasts us as we work our way up the street, pounding in the new signs. We have two left; they’re on wickets and we’re supposed to stick them in the park where Taste of Hope will be.
Allie Jo tugs the back of my shirt. “Let’s go in here first.”
Joanie’s Closet. Oh, no. I sag, my arms drooping like a toy robot that’s run out of batteries. I hate shopping. My aunt forces me to go with her sometimes. I’d rather scrub toilets with my toothbrush than look at clothes.
“C’mon,” Allie Jo says. “It’ll only take a minute.”
I groan. That’s what they all say.
Joanie’s Closet smells like a basement, musty but good. There is no way I’m looking at clothes, so I kind of wander around and find myself at a jewelry counter.
I take a mood ring from on top of a basket of loose jewelry and put it on.
A lady steps up behind the counter. “What mood are you in?”
I watch the ring as the blackness dissolves into swirls of color. “I don’t know,” I say.
She looks down at the ring through her bifocals, then pulls out a chart. “Violet,” she says, running her finger across the card. She looks up at me and smiles. “You’re feeling happy and romantic.”
“Cheeyah.” I jerk the ring off my finger and drop it into the basket. “Those things don’t really work. They just measure your temperature, that’s all.”
“Not true,” she says. I wonder if she’s Joanie. “It’s all scientific.” She snugs the ring onto her own finger, waits a minute, then says, “See? Blue. I’m relaxed and lovable.” She grins.
I sort through the jewelry and spot a glimmer of green near the bottom. Fishing through all the chains and stuff, I hook the band and pull out a silver ring with a shiny, light green stone shaped like a heart.
Sophie! This will make it official.
“Happy and romantic,” the lady says as she rings me up.
I don’t want Allie Jo and Tara to see it, so I shove it into my pocket and tell them I’ll wait outside for them. When they finally come out, they sit on a bench and pull out everything they just bought and admire it. Now this is something I don’t understand: Didn’t they just spend twenty minutes looking at that stuff? Did they already forget what it looks like? They laugh and giggle, telling each other how good the other will look in this or that shirt. I shake my head. They’re just like my aunt.
I look across to the hilly park, where vendors have parked their trailers and begun to set up.
“Hey, there’s my dad!” I say.
We cross over, shoving the wicket signs in as we climb the slight hill. Cords lie all over the grass, snaking to their owner’s tents. Not all the tents are built yet; some have only the framework up, and some spots have the equipment dumped in a heap. It looks like a battle encampment.
“That’s good,” Dad says, scribbling down the thing about a battle encampment. “Mind if I use it?”
“Don’t forget my percentage,” I say. Onlookers mill around, dodging wires and poles. The smell of cut grass wafts in the air.
“Hi, Mr. Dennison,” Allie Jo says after she and Tara catch up to me. She introduces Tara, then asks, “You getting stuff for your article?”
Dad shakes his head in wonder. “This town went from dead to population explosion overnight. It’s incredible!”
“Almost two hundred thousand people are expected,” Allie Jo says. She talks like a guidebook. “That’s ten times more than the number of people who live here.”
Dad scribbles that in his notebook.
“Just for fireworks?” I can’t believe that.
“Not just fireworks,” Allie Jo says. She gestures toward the tents. “There’ll be painters, street entertainers, food and hospitality booths—this is, like, one of the biggest festivals in Florida.” She looks at Dad. “Did you get all that down?”
He laughs. “Yes, I did.”
She leans over and puts her finger on Dad’s notebook. “Could you put that The Meriwether will be serving five-star food, including blueberry pancakes and shrimp cocktail?”
Pancakes with shrimp. “That’s gross!” I say.
“Not together!” She turns to Dad. “Chef will turn the menu over for lunch and dinner.”
Tara runs her hand over her hair, looks from me to Allie Jo. “I need to go.” Sweat rolls down the side of her face.
Allie Jo points to the portable toilets. “Let’s go.”
Tara’s pupils widen. When she looks at me, I feel pinpricks of heat.
“I don’t think that’s what she means,” I say to Allie Jo, watching Tara warily. Something’s wrong, only I can’t ask in front of Dad. “Can I have my percentage now?” I ask him. “We’re too fried to walk back.”
He gives me bus fare for all of us and says he’ll meet me at the hotel later. Tara walks so briskly to the bus stop that I think we might have gotten back faster just by keeping up with her. But the bus comes around quickly and the air-conditioning chills me as soon as we step on.
I settle in the back with them, slouching in my seat. Finally out of that heat.
Tara’s taken the window, leaning forward just enough to see out. Her back is straight and her hands are clasped in a knot on her lap.
Even though the air-conditioning blows directly on me, the heat pinpricks bristle from my face to my legs. Man, there’s no escape from it.