Chapter Twelve

       “You look nice,” Eric commented, nonchalantly gripping my hand in his own.

       “Thanks, so do you,” I returned. “So, what is this place?”

       As we neared the entrance to the place that still remained a mystery to me, Eric simply laughed softly. “Ever been to a carnival?” he asked.

       Thoughts of the various carnivals I had been to over the years formulated in my mind, and I nodded in response.

       “This one’s referred to as the ‘Westie Carnival’, and it comes here every September, and leaves at the beginning of October,” Alex explained informingly.

       “Oh,” I said, assuming the carnival was some longstanding tradition the suburban city had. As we approached the large gates, I could only imagine what lay within.

       “Do you like Ferris wheels, Liz?” Alex asked, as he walked beside the boy I presumed was his best friend who was also holding my hand, a rather comforting sensation.

       “Yeah,” I said, looking beyond at the small line that was waiting to get onto the fairgrounds.

       “So does Eric,” he noted, as I realized he was playing the role of the wingman. I had witnessed and been apart of many a scheme involving “wingmen”, most of which resulted in humorous disasters. By the end of the night, I’d be able to evaluate Alex’s job, and whether or not he had been successful in his mission.

       The eight of us joined the short line, and waited until it was our turn to address a sketchy looking woman with piercings all along the ridge of her ear, and in several other places on her body. Alex, Eric, and I stood at the back of our group, and were last to communicate with her.

       “How many?” she grunted in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

       “Three,” Eric answered as I held open my mouth to respond.

       “That’ll be thirty-six dollars,” she said, as the three of us shuffled around. I opened my purse, as both Alex and Eric withdrew wallets from their back pockets. After sifting through all the unneeded crap, I found my own wallet, and pulled it out.

       “I got this,” Eric told me, handing the lady a few bills as Alex did the same.

       “No it’s fine,” I objected, taking the needed amount of cash out of my wallet.

       “Liz, it’s already taken care of,” he said gently, pointing to the money he had given the woman. I exhaled, remembering that it was “customary” for the boy to pay for the girl. Etiquette and society could be so stupid sometimes…

       “Thank you,” I settled on.

       “You two done?” the woman asked, clearly annoyed.

       “Yeah, sorry,” I said.

       “Enjoy your visit,” she robotically mumbled, pressing a stamp dipped in purple ink on our hands as we passed by her. Once we had walked a few paces away, I looked down at my hand and saw that the stamp was merely a simple five-point star.

       “So,” Lauren started, after we had caught up with everyone else, “what should we do first?”

       “The airplanes!” Brendon said energetically, causing Tara to giggle, and Joey to hit him on the shoulder.

       “Airplanes?” I questioned.

       “The airplanes,” Brendon repeated seriously. I gave Eric a quizzical look, wondering to what he was denoting.

       Eric pointed his free hand that wasn’t attached to my own in a direction, and my eyes followed. In the distance was a ride with about six miniature airplanes attached on the side to the center, most likely built for kids between the ages of four and nine. I watched as the ride ran, the planes rising and ascending slowly and, almost, gracefully.

       “Ah, the airplanes,” I said, understanding. “I’ll do it.”

       “You will?” Brendon asked, slightly thrown off guard.

       “Sure,” I shrugged.

       “Okay then, let’s go!” he said, smiling at me. “We’ll meet you guys back here in fifteen minutes, so go walk around or something.” He began walking towards the ride, as I did the same, after releasing Eric’s hand.

       The two of us were rather out of place among the line of kids and parents. We were both on the taller side, and clearly weren’t the targeted age the ride was intended for. It didn’t appear to be the most fun ride in the world, but I was willing to go for it, public humiliation not being a factor my mind tended to worry about.

       As we waited in line, Brendon and I discussed how my time at Madison High had been so far, and I kept my opinions on the neutral side. He veered into waters I wasn’t too comfortable talking about, bringing up the subject of lacrosse and baseball- his two favorite sports. He seemed like a respectable guy, and I learned that he and Eric met each other way back when they were eight, playing on the same little league team.

       “You’re kidding, right?” the ride operator uninterestedly directed us as we reached the front of the line, about to go onto the ride.

       “No,” I said blank facedly.

       “Whatever,” she sighed, allowing us to pass by her and enter. Brendon and I found two open airplanes, one behind the other, and got on. After age-appropriate kids filled the rest of the ride, it began.

       Slowly, the center of the ride that the airplanes were attached to began to spin. Cries of excitement were heard from the children on the ride, as Brendon laughed and I cheered. As the rate increased, so did the youthful cries of joy.

       I noticed there was a handle on the plastic dashboard of my plane. I clutched it with both hands, and it somehow moved up, as did my plane. Fascinated, I pressed down, and the plane went down. It was a control.

       “Whoa! It goes up and down!” I stated, having one of my many rare blonde epiphanies.

       “Yes Liz, it does,” Brendon said slowly from the plane behind me.

       After about a minute of going up and down and spinning, the ride ended. Brendon and I got off, and returned to the others who were doing an assortment of activities. Lauren was talking to Joey, and was continuously giggling and smiling at him. Alex had stolen something of Alice’s and was holding it above her reach, causing her to grasp for it at his pleasure. And then, there were Tara and Eric— they were both indifferently fiddling with their phones.

       “Tara!” Brendon called out to her. She peered up from her device, looking in the direction of the voice. Her face brightened as she realized Brendon was back, and gently poked Eric in the side. He jolted up, and saw me as well.

       “Liz!” Eric said in the same manner as Brendon had referred to Tara.

       “Hey,” I responded, as Brendon and I edged our way over to them.

       “Are you two finally done?” Alex asked.

       Brendon moved over to Tara and wrapped his hand around hers before replying, “Yeah.”

       “Good,” Lauren pouted. “Where to now?”

       “Let’s go on the Ferris wheel,” Tara suggested, biting on her lip.

       “Okay,” Eric agreed. The eight of us moved away from the area we had been standing, and began our journey to over to the large wheel in the distance.

       As we walked, words were spoken between the others, but I kept quiet, taking in the fair at my own pace. There was a haunted house, bungee jump, ball toss, a small roller coaster, bumper cars, and an assortment of other rides one would expect. Eric was walking next to me, talking to Alex, and our hands kept brushing together while swaying by our sides. After about the sixth time they met, Eric took the opportunity to interlock our fingers together, ceasing the somewhat-awkward collisions.

       “OMG!” Lauren squealed behind me.

       “What?” Joey whined.

       “Let’s do that,” she said, pointing to game we were passing. As fate should have it, the game just happened to be one involving a basketball… and a basketball hoop. I was so glad the universe was on my side! Oh wait, no it wasn’t!

       We vacated over to the game, and waited as a little boy tried to shoot the ball into the basket, but failed miserably. His stance was off, and he wasn’t bending his knees enough. The way he was shooting was as if he was simply doing a chest pass to the net. He looked to be about seven, so I mentally gave him a pass on his skills not being up to par.

       When the boy had finally finished, we crowded around the miniature court, Eric taking the lead towards the front. The guy running the game explained the rules to us, and it seemed easy enough to me. Basically, one had to shoot the ball from the foul line, and make the shot five times in a row to win a stuffed animal.

       Eric nodded after the instructions were given, and grabbed a basketball. He backed up to the foul line, about to shoot the ball, when he stopped. “You want to try, Liz?” he asked, looking over to me.

       “No, no. I don’t… I can’t shoot a basketball,” I gulped, almost laughing at the fiction of my words.

       “You sure?” he questioned, beginning to form his hands around the blue and green striped ball oppose to the normal orange.

       “Yeah,” I nodded, giving a reassuring smile.

       “Okay,” he said, unfeigned by my response. He carefully flicked the ball out of his hands, his knees bending ever so slightly, and I watched as it swished through the net flawlessly. Not that it surprised me, but he knew how to shoot a basketball… well.

       He was thrown another ball, and without even thinking threw it into the net again. After three more balls, he had successfully completed the challenge. The man moderating the game handed Eric a stuffed crocodile, and muttered a congratulations.

       After accepting the toy, he walked over to where we were standing. He looked me in the eye, and smiled as if he was about to hand the long, green, stuffed thing to me. I prepared to take the animal, the gesture seeming sweet. He walked closer to me, and then unexpectedly bent down. I turned, and saw him hand the little boy who had been trying to shoot the ball before us the crocodile.

       “Wow! Thanks!” the kid said in utter awe of Eric.

       “No problem. Just keep trying,” Eric said to his little fan. The boy nodded, running off to a woman who I assumed to be his mother. Now that, was what I called class.

       “Aw!” Lauren cooed, as I gave Eric a look close to the boy’s. Such a random act of kindness that wasn’t required truly touched me.

       “Let’s go to the Ferris wheel, shall we?” Eric said, minimizing his good deed. We complied, returning to our original track.

       When we finally reached the massive ride, there wasn’t much of a line that needed to be waited in. Twenty people, tops. I stood with Eric in a comfortable silence as Alice and Joey somehow got into some sort of a quarrel. It had something to do with the color of Alice’s purse, which looked like purple, but her continuous argument was that it was “maroon”.

       “So,” I said, breaking the peace between us, “do you play basketball?”

       He let out a soft laugh, before replying. “I used to.”

       “Did you like it?”

       “Yeah, and I was good, but it wasn’t for me, and other priorities in life caught up to me, like football,” he said, explaining his association to the greatest sport known to man… or woman.

       “Oh,” I said plainly.

       “What about you, Liz,” he said thoughtfully.

       “What about me?” I questioned.

       “You don’t seem to talk about your own relationship with sports, care to share?”

       “I don’t like anything having to do with athletics,” I lied nervously. Eric was smart (I knew that from school), and I could see him potentially putting all the puzzle pieces together to form a picture of whom I truly was. If he found out, everything I had worked for up to this point would be over.

       “See, that surprises me, considering you have one of the most toned bodies I have ever seen,” he said, suggestively glancing down at my behind.

       It was my turn to laugh, as I replied, “I have a fast metabolism, and occasionally work out.” It was an easy enough fib. Hell, it was even true! “I don’t like sports.”

       “Oh, come on! There has to be something you like about sports!” he pressed.

       I thought up the most airheaded response I could come up with, “The cute players.”

       “Fair enough, I am pretty good-looking,” he said vainly.

       “Sure,” I muttered, apathetically agreeing.

       “You know it’s true, Liz,” he winked.

       “Course,” I said, a slight hint of sarcasm detectable in my tone.

       “You’re funny, Liz,” he yawned, making the ever so cliché move of putting his arm over my shoulder. I felt his muscles flex along my back, and a shiver ran down my spine at the fact of how close we were to each other.

       “Next!” the ride operator shouted, as the Ferris wheel stopped momentarily.

       “I believe that would be us,” I said, walking forward.

       “Ladies first,” Eric said, allowing me to slide into the car.

       “I’m going with Liz!” Alex shouted, diving in next to me before Eric had a chance to do anything. Eric sighed in response, shaking his head as a bar dropped down in front of Alex and me, sending the Ferris wheel back in motion.

       “You are a very strange boy, Mr. Campbell,” I said, looking straight ahead instead of at him like one would normally do when addressing another.

       “I’ll attest to that,” he said.

       “You kinda suck as a wingman, just for the record,” I said.

       “I’m that bad? Eh, wasn’t my choice to be one. Besides, Eric knew what he was getting when he asked me.”

       “Uh huh. So, why jump on board with me now when he was about to?” I questioned.

       “Because I wanted to talk to you alone,” he said.

       I turned my head, amused at how a few years ago I would’ve been the one in Alex’s position. “What about?”

       “Eric really likes you. He hasn’t felt this way about a girl in a while. Hell, he hasn’t been on a date in, like, three years,” Alex said, as his knee bobbed up and down out of nervousness or habit.

       “But he’s—” I began.

       “Mr. Perfect, I know. He got his heart broken a few years back and it’s been his most guarded organ ever since. And I mean ripped to shreds. The breakup was really bad,” he shared.

       “I don’t mean to question Eric’s sincerity, but I have in my short time here been warned about him,” I said, thinking back to what Dylan said. I didn’t want my opinions to be tainted with what other people told me— I wanted to form my own outlooks on life.

       “He’s not a player if that’s what you’re insinuating. That’s more me… or Joey,” he said genuinely.

       “No, I was just told to me careful.”

       “Who told you that?”

       “Dylan Collins,” I gulped, knowing that Dylan’s name wasn’t one people generally took a liking to.

       “Dylan, huh? Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but Dylan and us don’t really have the best relationship with each other,” Alex said calmly, though his knee was still continuously moving up and down.

       “Why? What happened?” I questioned, suddenly curious.

       He laughed before replying, “It’s not my story to tell, but you’re a smart girl, either ask one of the them, or play detective, and figure it out yourself.”

       “So, back to Eric. Giving the crocodile to the kid was a class act, I was definitely the impressed,” I said, deciding that Dylan’s name wasn’t something that needed to be discussed.

       “Yeah, it was. Best part, it wasn’t even planned! See, Eric’s full of surprises!”

       “I never doubted that.”

       “Yeah. I know he’s the type of guy that you’d expect to be a total douche and player, but he’s not. Liz, I’m begging you, don’t mess with his heart,” he said, proving to me that the two of them were indeed close—something I never once questioned.

       “I’m not a heartbreaker, I’m just Liz,” I said, exhaling, as I noticed the rotation was almost over.

       “Oh, and one more thing before we get off,” he said. I looked at him expectantly. “If it doesn’t work out between the two of you, I’ll gladly be the rebound.” I playfully wacked the side of his head, laughing as the ride came to a complete and final stop.

       “Bro, you didn’t go on?” Alex asked an unamused Eric, who was standing stiffly beside Alice.

       “Funny,” Eric said in a humorless tone, as we stumbled out of the small Ferris wheel car.

       “I know, I really am,” Alex laughed.

       “Where’s everyone else?” I asked, noting that we were missing four people. Alice pointed up at the round ride, and I saw the four others split up by two rides.

       “They’re going to go again,” Alice stated.

       “Well in the meantime let’s do something else!” Alex exclaimed.

       “Like what?” Alice questioned, clearly pissed off.

       “Like… the haunted house!” he said, pointing to an attraction that looked less than haunted and not even close to being a house.

       “I’m down for that,” Eric agreed. “Do you scare easily, Liz?”

       “No,” I shook my head truthfully.

       “Alice, here, does!” Alex laughed as Alice groaned, smacking his side.

       “No, I don’t,” she objected. “Let’s go.”

       Without a second thought, the four of us backtracked to the haunted house, and got into the line. Eric and Alex began talking about the football season, and though I would’ve loved to discreetly follow their conversation, Alice started to discuss with me Marc whoever’s new fashion something. The boys by far had the more interesting topic. Football always won when in comparison to fashion.

       The line moved relatively quickly and within fifteen minutes it was our turn to board the ride. There were carts that fit two, and this time Eric held my hand to not get separated. The two of us soundly got on the ride, and a bar dropped down in front of us.

       “You sure you don’t get scared?” Eric asked, as the ride started up.

       “Nope,” I said dully.

       “Well, I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispered into my ear, “I do.”

       “Uh huh,” I said, playing along, “and what would like me to do about that?”

       “Well… kisses make everything better, so…” he said, indirectly asking for me to kiss him.

       “You’re right, they do, don’t they?” I said, nodding my head as if he had just told me circles were round and it was the most intelligent thing I had ever heard.

       “Yeah,” he said, nervously placing his arm over my shoulder, “they do.”

       Darkness took over our vision, and I placed my lips up to his cheek, tenderly pressing them to the smooth surface. I pulled back, and laughed as a mummy jumped out of nowhere, trying to scare the average ride goer.

       “All better?” I asked Eric, resting my head comfortably on his shoulder.

       “Much,” he replied, his voice almost smiling. Though he couldn’t see due to the blackness, I too was grinning. I had had a good evening so far, and I was happy.