The Moon and More(53)
Author: Sarah Dessen

When I walked up to get tickets, pulling a couple of bills from my pocket, Josh Elliott, who worked there most days, waved me off. “You know your money’s no good here, Emaline.”

“You never let me pay,” I said to him, as he grabbed a ring of keys on his way outside.

“High School Special,” he replied. Which was what he always said, even though he’d been on his second senior year when I was a freshman, and even then never graduated. “Hop on.”

I walked over to the wheel, climbed onto the bucket nearest the ground, then pulled the door shut behind me. Josh disappeared into the booth, and a moment later the engine started up and I began to rise.

There might have been more beautiful places than the top of the Surfside Ferris wheel, but I didn’t know of any. I’d always felt something magical as I got higher and higher above the boardwalk, beach, and ocean. It was like resetting myself, and I’d come here often during the last year when the stuff with my father and college was weighing heavily. It calmed me, a reminder there was something else to this world than just Colby. I always knew, logically, this was true. But some days, I needed to see it to be sure.

When I reached the highest point, Josh stopped the wheel so I could sit there for a while. At first, I traced my day from a distance, finding the Washroom, the office, Wave Nails, Big Club, Sand Dollars, Last Chance. Then I turned and looked at the ocean, amazed, as always, by this greatest of contrasts. One side was populated, housing everything, and the other, nothing but blue. In between and high above, I did all I could to soak up the stillness while it lasted.

*   *   *

When I knocked on the door of Sand Dollars later that night, at first there was no answer. Then, finally, the intercom—fixed, thanks to my call to maintenance—buzzed.

“Yes? Who is it?” I heard Theo say.

“Cinderella,” I answered. I heard him laugh. Then there was a buzz, and the door clicked open.

Inside, I found the entire place dark, the only light coming from the pool sconces outside. I came up the stairs, then stood for just a minute on the landing, letting my eyes adjust. Finally, I made him out, over at one of the tables, a pair of headphones around his neck.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re in the dark.”

“It’s part of the job.” There was a click and a monitor came on; now I could see him. He waved me over to where he was sitting. “Come check this out.”

I went, relieved to see no sign of Ivy. Over at the table, he moved some books off the chair beside his, then gestured for me to take a seat.

“He was a little stiff, but it was the first interview,” he said, reaching forward to the keyboard in front of him. The screen came to life before me, showing Clyde in a freeze-frame. A couple of keystrokes, and he was talking.

“—never planned on it for a living,” he said. “People didn’t do that around here.”

Then came Ivy’s voice, off camera. “But you did.”

“Well, someone’s got to be first to buck the trend,” Clyde said with a shrug. “Might as well be me.”

“And Henrikson? He was part of that as well?”

I felt Theo lean closer to my ear, his voice low. “That’s Dale Henrikson. Abstract painter, worked mostly in the late nineteen fifties. Very well esteemed, until he lost his tenured position at Cal Arts after a scandal involving a student who was a minor at the time. He ended up teaching Clyde here at Weymar.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“Not that he,” Clyde was saying on the screen now, “was exactly at the height of his own career. I didn’t know that, though. Had no idea who he was. Only ended up in that class because welding was full.”

“You wanted to be a welder?”

“I wanted to be anything but a farmer. And I liked fire.”

I felt Theo shift. When I turned to look at him, he was grinning. “See that?” he said, nodding at the screen. “You can just see him warming up. It’s golden.”

He rewound the clip again, and we both watched Clyde move in reverse, taking back these words. “So it went well,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Ivy was really happy. And she’s never happy.” He paused the tape again, then pushed back from the table. “And you know what? I’m happy, too.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Sure. You’re here.”

I felt myself blush, then redden even more as I realized it. Theo might have been dorky in some ways, but he’d already emoted more than Luke had in our first three months of dating. Maybe it was true: outside of Colby, everything and everyone moved faster.

As if to emphasize this, Theo leaned in and brushed my hair back. He was just leaning in closer when I said, “What time is it, exactly?”

He sighed, then looked at the computer screen. “I had a feeling you might point that out. Eleven forty-six. And thirty seconds.”

“So,” I said, “it’s not tomorrow.”

“Not technically, no.” He sat back in his chair. “Although if we were in Australia, I could make a compelling argument for us to have been together long enough to be engaged.”

I raised my eyebrows, startled at this. Clearly I wasn’t the only one. Even in the dark, I could see him redden. “Well,” I said, swallowing. “I guess it’s a good thing we’re here, then. Because that would be crackers.”

“Be what?”

I cleared my throat. “Crackers. You know, crazy. Insane.”

“I’ve never heard that term before,” he commented.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a Morris original.”

“A what?’

“Never mind.” I looked at the clock again. “Anyway, you do make a good point. Time is relative, right? At least in physics. What’s fourteen minutes, really, in the great scheme of things?”

“Thirteen,” he corrected me, nodding at the clock.

I snapped my fingers. “Exactly.”

At this, he grinned, and I found myself smiling back. He had one of those faces, so wide and open that whatever expression he made, you couldn’t help but mirror it. “No, no,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re right. Demarcation is important. We’ll just keep busy until midnight.”

I looked around the dark room. “Doing . . . ?”

“Whatever it is platonic friends who have no romantic involvement yet do together,” he said.

“Like watch the clock and discuss physics?”