As if her determination were a summoning, he materializes before her, one hand extended for the plate and the other to take her shoulder and kiss her quickly in hello. He’s got crow’s feet and spectacles now, and he’s thicker in the middle than when they were lovers. The hair slicked back into his ponytail is more silver than ginger.
He points to the brownies with the corner of his eyeglasses. “Adulterated table?”
“Would I let you down?”
He grins, a grin that pays for all their long and questionable history, and takes her arm. Progress to the refreshments is slow—the penalty for traveling with the guest of honor—but the inevitable interruptions allow January to gaze her fill upon the carousel.
Because she was curious, and because she has the research skills of any good children’s librarian, she knows that it was carved between 1911 and 1914 by Russian Jews who had immigrated to Ohio. She knows that their previous work was carving ladies’ hair ornaments, and she knows that the carousel stood in its original setting for fifty years before being shipped east to its new place of pride as the focal point of a municipal park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted—where you can rent it for birthday parties at night or in the off-season.
But that’s not the kind of knowledge that can prepare one for the glow of lights and the flash of mirrors, the chiaroscuro and the colors. The crashing of the Wurlitzer echoes until January can only make out what Martin is saying because she knows him so well, and eventually they find themselves by the snack tables.
The larger one has a white cloth, and is covered with casseroles and chips and desserts. A cooler must contain cans of soda. The smaller one has a tie-dyed cloth, and the cooler underneath contains beer.
Martin sets her plate in the center of the display, whisking off the plastic to reveal a stack of two-bite chocolate squares, each stuck with a toothpick with a paper cannabis leaf glued to the top—just in case there should be any misunderstandings. Before he turns away, he liberates a brownie. “You made these kind of small.”
“I made them kind of strong,” she answers. A responsible herbalist always tests the merchandise before turning it loose. “Anyway, there’s three-quarters of a pound of chocolate in those things.”
Judging by the blissful expression that crosses his face when he sniffs the brownie, that’s the right ratio. “Someday, these will be nearly legal again.”
“Nah,” January says. She takes Martin’s arm and leads him toward the carousel. “It’ll take generations to recover from the eighties. Come on. Let’s ride.”
Despite the crush of people, there’s no real line, and even if there were, clinging to the birthday boy’s arm has its benefits. Martin, licking brownie grease off his opposite thumb, hands January up onto the deck of the carousel, which—unlike the smaller merry-go-rounds she rode as a kid—doesn’t settle beneath her weight.
Martin releases her hand. The Wurlitzer hesitates.
The carousel has more than just horses. The closest animals, three abreast, are giraffes, vivid yellow and chocolate brown with caparisons of gold and red and blue. Their long necks look knotty; January can see the places where one piece of wood was joined to another to make up the length. The giraffes look awkward and their blown-glass eyes bulge unnaturally, catching the harsh glow and reflecting it back like raccoon eyes in headlights.
“Lasers fully charged.”
“I don’t think the carvers ever saw a live giraffe.” Martin’s a contractor now—four years of college and it turns out he’s that much happier with a hammer in his hands. It took him years of thrashing to figure it out, but the fun of being fifty is having done the figuring.
He ducks to inspect the hooves. “These don’t move. Do giraffes really have hooves? I’d have thought camel feet.”
“They really do.” She reaches way up to pat the nearest giraffe on the nose. “And the next row go up and down. It looks like just the circus animals don’t move.”
Martin stands as if the rising thunder of the Wurlitzer raised him. He leans around the giraffe to follow her gaze. The next row of three is horses, and if the giraffes are stiff, the horses are stunning. The Russian cousins were apparently better at familiar animals, because these breathe. They’re slightly caricatured, flaring nostrils and bulging eyes—glass again, too-round bubbles affixed to the insides of the hollow heads, so the carousel lights shine through them—but the cartoonishness expresses itself as heroism rather than ridiculousness. The carved necks arch, the carved teeth champ, the carved manes mount like breaking waves. The outside horse in each row is larger and braver than his brothers, the exterior side of each pony more brilliantly decorated than the one inside.
January touches a palomino ear and feels a thrill. She walks the length of the horse, letting her fingers trail down his neck and across the saddle. The saddlecloth sparkles with silver gilt, though the stirrup irons hanging from stretched leathers are worn. When her fingers reach the tail, she almost jerks back; there’s hide under the cream-colored locks. It’s a real horsetail.
“Better pick a pony,” Martin says. “The ride is filling up.”
She smiles and moves on. Past a lovers’ carriage—red and gold, and decorated with cherubs even more uncanny than the giraffes—and another row of standees—elephant, lion, and tiger. (“How come the giraffes get three representatives?” Martin wants to know, and under her breath January answers, “Quotas.”) The elephant is a little questionable, and the lion and tiger are not to scale—the lion is largest of the three—but the carving on the big cats is spectacular. Their eyes squint over frozen snarls. Pink tongues roll slickly behind curved yellow fangs. Small chips at the tops of each canine tooth must be from children shoving their hands into the big cats’ mouths. She shudders. Even in play, who would want to do that?
Behind them are grays—and January’s heart skips. The inside pony might be the plainest on the carousel—in fact, January wonders if she was borrowed from an older merry-go-round to make up a gap—and the stallion on the outside is a heavy-hoofed, broad-shouldered draught horse, his whiskery head so huge it looks like his neck is bowed under the weight of it. But the mare in the middle is perfect—medium sized, caught at the bottom of her leap for easy mounting, and with a gentle expression and crimson leaves braided into the toss of her mane.
“Her,” January says, and strokes the pale-pink wooden muzzle under the long, dappled wooden nose.
“Oh, not the middle one,” says Martin. “You can’t catch the brass ring if you’re on the middle one.”
“Brass ring?” January tucks her long, felted-wool skirt around her tights.
“Sure,” Martin says. “This carousel still has brass rings. Catch one, and you get a free ride.”
“But the rides are all free—”
He waves his hand in that airy manner that used to make her want to kiss him, dismissing all protests. “It’s the principle.”
She rolls her eyes and puts on her best I’m humoring Martin face. Recognizing it, he grins.
“Fine, but I’m riding Buttercup next time.”
“Buttercup? You’re not keeping her—”