“Of course. You bought them from me, silly.”
Just then, over Sarah’s shoulder, I see Mark and the rest of the guys from the float walk into the pavilion.
“Are you going on the haunted hayride tonight?” Sarah asks.
“Yeah, I was thinking about it.”
“You should, it’s fun. Everybody does it. And it actually gets pretty scary.”
Mark sees Sarah and me talking and scrunches his face into a scowl. He comes walking our way. Same outfit as always—letterman jacket, blue jeans, hair full of gel.
“So you’re going?” I ask Sarah.
Before she can respond Mark interrupts. “How’d you like the parade, Johnny?” he asks. Sarah quickly turns around and glares at him.
“I liked it a lot,” I reply.
“You going on the haunted hayride tonight, or are you going to be too scared?”
I smile at him. “As a matter of fact, I am going.”
“You going to have a freak-out like in school and run out of the woods crying like a baby?”
“Don’t be an ass, Mark,” Sarah says.
He looks at me, seething. With the crowd around there is nothing he can do without causing a scene—and I don’t think he would do anything anyway.
“All in due time,” Mark says.
“You think?”
“Yours is coming,” he says.
“That might be true,” I say. “But it won’t be coming from you.”
“Stop it!” Sarah yells. She works her way in between us, pushing us away from each other. People are watching. She glances around as though embarrassed by the attention, then scowls at Mark first, then at me.
“Fine, then. You guys fight if that’s what you want to do. Good luck with it,” Sarah says, and turns and walks away. I watch her go. Mark doesn’t.
“Sarah,” I call, but she keeps walking and disappears past the pavilion.
“Soon,” Mark says.
I look back to him. “I doubt it.”
He retreats to his group of friends. Henri walks up to me.
“I don’t suppose he was inquiring about yesterday’s math homework?”
“Not quite,” I say.
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Henri says. “He looks to be all talk.”
“I’m not,” I say, and then glance at the spot where Sarah disappeared. “Should I go after her?” I ask, and look at him, pleading to the part of him that was once married and in love, that part that still misses his wife every day, and not the part of him that wants to keep me safe and hidden.
He nods his head. “Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “As much as I hate to admit it, you should probably go after her.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KIDS RUNNING, SCREAMING, ON SLIDES AND jungle gyms. Every kid with a bag of candy in his or her hand, with a mouth stuffed full of sweets. Kids dressed as cartoon characters, monsters, ghouls and ghosts. Every resident of Paradise must be at the park right now. And in the midst of all the madness I see Sarah, sitting alone, gently pushing herself on the swing.
I weave my way through the screams and shrieks. When Sarah sees me she smiles, those big blue eyes of hers like a beacon.
“Need a push?” I ask.
She nods to the swing that has just opened beside her and I sit.
“Doing okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He just wears me down. He always has to act so tough and he’s downright mean when he’s around friends.”
She twists herself on the swing until the rope becomes taut, then she lifts her feet and it spins her around, slowly at first, then gaining speed. She laughs the whole time, her blond hair a trail behind her. I do the same thing. When the swing finally stops the world keeps spinning.
“Where is Bernie Kosar?”
“I left him with Henri,” I say.
“Your dad?”
“Yes, my dad.” I am constantly doing that, calling Henri by his name when I should be saying “Dad.”
The temperature is quickly dropping, and my hands are white knuckled on the rope chain, becoming cold. We watch the kids run amok around us. Sarah looks at me and her eyes seem bluer than ever in the coming dusk. Our gaze stays locked, each of us just staring at the other, no words being said but much passing between us. The children seem to fade into the background. Then she smiles shyly and looks away.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask.
“About what?”
“Mark.”
She shrugs. “What can I do? I’ve already broken up with him. I keep telling him I have no interest in getting back together.”
I nod. I’m not sure how to respond to that.
“But anyway, I should probably try to sell the rest of these tickets. Only an hour before the raffle.”
“Do you want any help?”
“No, that’s okay. You should go have fun. Bernie Kosar is probably missing you right now. But you should definitely stick around for the hayride. Maybe we can go on it together?”
“I will,” I say. A happiness blooms inside of me, but I try to keep it hidden.
“I’ll see you in a little while, then.”
“Good luck with the tickets.”
She reaches over and grabs my hand and holds it for a good three seconds. Then she lets go, jumps off the swing, and hurries away. I sit there, gently swinging, enjoying the brisk wind that I haven’t felt in a very long time because we spent the last winter in Florida, and the one before that in south Texas. When I head back to the pavilion Henri is sitting at a picnic table eating a slice of pie with Bernie Kosar lying at his feet.
“How’d it go?”
“Good,” I say with a smile.
From somewhere an orange and blue firework shoots up and explodes in the sky. It makes me think of Lorien and of the fireworks I saw on the day of the invasion.
“Have you thought any more about the second ship I saw?”
Henri looks around to make sure there’s nobody within earshot. We have the picnic table to ourselves, positioned in the far corner away from the crowd.
“A little. I still have no idea what it means, though.”
“Do you think it could have traveled here?”
“No. It wouldn’t be possible. If it ran on fuel, like you say, it wouldn’t have been able to travel far without refueling.”
I sit for a moment.
“I wish it could have.”
“Could have what?”
“Traveled here, with us.”
“It’s a nice thought,” says Henri.
