The UFO reached maximum velocity. I let my feet slam back down. I wanted to feel like this all the time, like I was rushing through the universe, everything intense and pressed right up against my skin. The Guy gave a wild, jubilant yell. The giggling girl sounded like she was drowning. At that moment I knew every single person on the ride wanted it to go faster, faster, blood pooling at the backs of our skulls, until we were tingling and dizzy and flew apart into a million particles of happiness.
I had trouble getting my balance when we came down. The Guy rooted in his pocket for something. He took my hand.
“What—”
He pressed a five dollar bill into my palm. “You win.”
I felt weirdly sheepish. I didn’t want to take his money. “I was just kidding.”
“I’m a man of my word.”
Yes. You’re a man, a very pretty one who’s being very nice to me, and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
“Fine. Let’s support the economy,” I said, waving the bill at the game stalls.
We decided the least-rigged game was the water gun race, because it had a winner every round. I paid up and sat next to a little boy whose mom stood behind him, maneuvering his arms like a puppet. On my other side was a fat drunk guy who smelled like sausage. He leered at me.
This would be cake.
I grabbed my WWII-era machine water gun and took aim at the bullseye dead ahead. The carnie counted down. Three. Two.
I brushed Fatso’s bare leg with my calf.
One.
Fssssshhhhhh.
The little boy lost before it even began. He started crying, and his mom snapped at him and seized the gun. She only managed to squirt out a tragic, flaccid little stream before her kid burst into wails and she pulled him off the seat.
“And Seven drops out,” The Guy announced, as the carnie stared at us with sullen boredom. “A sad day for Team Seven. Six has the lead now, but Five is gaining fast.”
I hit my bullseye flawlessly. My marker rose smooth and steady.
Fatso had pretty good aim, too. We were neck and neck.
I rubbed my calf along his hairy shin.
“But wait! Five is falling behind! He seems to be losing focus. Can he pull it together?”
I hooked my foot around the back of Fatso’s leg. Dragged my toes up his meaty hamhock.
Ding ding ding!
“Winner! Number Six by a landslide.”
I turned a huge smile on Fatso. “Sorry, mister.”
He wasn’t mad at all. His piggish eyes gleamed. “I got another game you can beat me at.”
“Dad,” I said brightly, “this man wants to play a different game with me.”
Fatso heaved himself off the stool, his hands up in the surrender/I-didn’t-touch-her position, and backed into the crowd.
“You’re a dangerous girl,” The Guy said softly.
I made a gun with my fingers and blew imaginary smoke away.
My choice of prize was a weepy-eyed velvet pony. It was the look on its face—soulful, hopeful, earnest—that appealed to me. I crushed it to my chest, getting my smell all over it as we strolled aimlessly through the crowd. Mostly older, drunker people now. Two veiny guys yelling, inching into each other’s faces. A man chasing a woman who kept saying it was too late, he blew it.
“I’m thirsty,” The Guy said. “You want something?”
I shrugged, which apparently meant yes. He bought two plastic cups of beer.
“How old are you?” he said again as he watched me drink.
“Twenty-one.”
“When’s your birthday?” he said fast.
My reply was just as quick. “August 17, 1992.” I’ve memorized dates for getting into clubs since the dawn of time. Last year I was born in 1991.
He relaxed, smiling, sipping. “Congratulations. You can do everything now but be the President.”
I thought about why he was so fixated on my age. What he was thinking of doing.
“Are you in college?” he said.
“Dropped out.”
“Why?”
“To strip.”
His eyebrows rose. I laughed.
“Kidding. I never went.”
We still hadn’t told each other our names. It was beginning to feel deliberate.
“You’re not from around here,” I said.
He gave me a funny look, half flattered, half perplexed. “Why do you say that?”
“For starters, stripping is a respectable profession in these parts. It’s gainful employment. Plus you don’t have an accent.”
“Neither do you.”
“Well, golly, Mr. Man,” I drawled, “you sure are right about that.”
He laughed. “So you hide it. You’ve reinvented yourself. A self-made woman.”
I think he’d been drinking earlier that night, like me. His eyes were glassy and a bit feverish.
“Maybe,” I said mysteriously, trying on the idea in my head. A self-made woman. I threw back the rest of my beer. The Guy stared at my throat, and I swanned for him as I swallowed. When my head came down my eyes were lazily half-closed, my mouth pouty. That f**k-me look I’ve used to great effect on other men.
The Guy averted his eyes. Took a drink. Scanned the crowd.
I felt stupid. I hugged the stuffed pony under my arm.
“Why are you here alone?” I said.
“What?”
“I said—”
He touched my elbow and bent close. “You want to go somewhere quieter where we can actually talk?”