You’ve never heard of Mr. Stitch? Tamara had asked between bites of caramel corn.
What? Is he an ex of yours?
Oh yeah, she said, playing along. Best boyfriend I ever had. I’ll introduce you two. Just be careful. He’s a real jealous type.
Am I gonna have to take him down?
Mr. Stitch? Tamara laughed. Oh, hon, I love you and all but nobody can take Stitch.
We kissed on the carousel, practically in front of the whole town, thereby announcing our relationship to the rest of Danvers. Sure, there had been whispers, but rumors are just rumors that can always been denied. We shot them down all through the previous school year. But here we were, finally making it public. Coming out of hiding. Follow me, I remember her saying, taking me by both hands and dragging me into the maze. The outside world washed away. There was nothing to hear but the winding channels of cornstalks bristling in the breeze.
Better block out an hour before braving the maze. An hour, at least. Ol’ Hal prided himself on crafting an expansive labyrinth full of twists and turns. This wasn’t a simple in-and-out affair. I learned that the hard way, losing myself alongside Tamara in its meandering corridors. Losing ourselves. But we held each other’s hands the whole time. I sensed everyone’s eyes on us, neighbors and coworkers processing this new bit of information: They’re a couple.
Tamara wanted to flaunt it. Be loud and be proud, she insisted. Kissing me at every corner, electric with this revelation. She pulled me further into the maze, until I felt completely discombobulated, losing my sense of space. Of time. How far had we gone? Tamara kept leading the way, as if she knew exactly where she was going. The spider luring in the fly.
When we reached Mr. Stitch, I remember feeling the tug in my arms as Tamara pulled me up to his post, until we were standing directly before him. His burlap sack of a head slumped over his right shoulder. Tamara grinned, still out of breath, and asked, What if we tied the knot?
I laughed, unsure if she was kidding or not. You mean like, right here? With him?
I’m sure Mr. Stitch has officiated plenty of weddings. She leaned into my ear and whispered, Dare you to say his name three times.
For real?
Everyone in Danvers does it. It’s the rules. Now it’s your turn.
Okay, I said, playing along. Mr. Stitch.
Tamara grinned.
Mr. Stitch…Just as I was about to say his name a third time, my throat caught. I couldn’t say it. Not two breaths before, I would have laughed at myself for feeling afraid, but now, out here, in the cornfield, sensing Mr. Stitch’s button eyes pressing down on me…I couldn’t do it.
That was last year.
Tonight, Elijah tags along. He’s insisting he’s ready to finally brave the maze, demanding from the back seat that we take him. Tamara is indecisive, but Elijah begs for the entire ride. When begging doesn’t work, he moves to whining. And when whining doesn’t do the trick, he shifts to shouting. “I wanna go in the maze! I wanna go in the maze! I wanna go in the—”
“Funny,” Tamara says from behind the wheel. “I didn’t hear a magic word, did you?”
“Please! Please! Pleeeeeeeease!”
Opening night is always the most crowded. That’s when the high schoolers take over the fair for the night. All the seniors, out on their dates, making out in the maze.
I campaigned for opening night.
You sure we shouldn’t wait till Sunday? Tamara asked. It’ll be hormone central.
That’s exactly the point…We might as well be eighteen. Sixteen! I’ll take feeling any other age again before the oppressive weight of adulthood starts to weigh me down…
I didn’t know you were feeling so weighed down, Tamara said.
That’s not what I meant…
She didn’t say anything for a while, lost in thought. Know how they used to kill witches?
Uh, burning them at the stake?
Pressing, she says. They were made to lie on their backs. A wooden board was place on their chests and weighed down with one rock after another. Their chests eventually collapsed…Is that what parenthood feels like to you?
Clearly I had said the wrong thing. Putting my foot in my mouth is nothing new, but Tamara has a rather novel way of making me twist in the wind whenever I do this.
She turns into the lot, letting the air-traffic-control kids guide her Cherokee toward the designated lane.
“Please, Mom?” Elijah whimpers. “Can we? I really wanna go.”
“I already said no, hon. Not tonight. It’s too spooky in the dark.”
“What’s it gonna hurt?” I ask. “Maybe he’s ready.”
“Whose side are you on again?” Tamara side-eyes me. “Don’t you dare team up on me.”
“If Dad says I’m ready, then can’t I go?” The name rolls right off his tongue.
“I’m sold,” I say.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” she says to Eli through the rearview mirror. She’s always making deals with him. “We’ll come back on Sunday. You and I can do the maze then, okay?”
“Nooo! Sunday’s boring!”
Sunday afternoon is “family day,” which is to say the church-going crowd, of which the surrounding county still has its fair share. Opening night might be when all the teens come out, sneaking flasks topped off with peach schnapps pilfered from their parents’ liquor cabinets, but Sunday is a much more, well, chaste affair, for the stroller crowd. The maze will be full of families guiding their tykes through in full daylight.
Not like tonight. Not in the dark.
“Please, Dad? Pleeease?”
This kid is good, I’ll give him that. I glance at Tamara before answering to see if she caught it. I almost miss the look in her eye that very clearly states: Don’t you fucking dare, pal.
“Sorry, bud,” I say, defeated by Look #34. “We’ll come back first thing
