“That’s not saying much.”
“Guess not.”
She strapped herself in next to me, then reached over and grabbed my hand. Her face poked around the divider, and of her I could see only that face, the tips of her breasts, her shoes and the flare of her jeans. A metallic groan issued from beneath us, and we slowly began to turn. In half a minute, we were spinning at breathtaking speed, and the entire apparatus began to tilt. Gillian screamed. I screamed. I pictured all the blood in my body pooling at my back, my spine swimming in it. I pictured the Centrifuge breaking free, rolling toward the river, crushing revelers in its path, sinking slowly in the water while I struggled to extricate myself from the belt. The sky and treetops wheeled madly, and I shut my eyes.
For the rest of the ride, Gillian Millstone told me, at a near-shriek, her story: that her parents, both doctors, were killed two years before in a plane crash in Montana, where they had gone to attend a conference on expert witnessing; that she had fought to be declared an adult a year early to prevent falling into the custody of her aunt and uncle, whom she detested; that she lived alone in an old house in the Pines once owned by her grandfather, and lived off the money from the sale of the family home and grew cranberries in a bog; that she met Pierce when he drove into the Pines and tried to drown himself by plunging the Cadillac into a nearby pond. The pond had been insufficiently deep. She had the car towed at her own expense.
She said she loved Pierce, that he talked incessantly about our father and acted like he wasn’t really dead, and that the Pines was the only place where he never felt him watching. That his greatest fear now was the key he had been willed, that it represented dangerous knowledge, that he didn’t deserve to have it, that he could not rid himself of it lest he suffer dire consequences, that because of it his father could still control his thoughts, his death notwithstanding. And throughout this gush she held my hand tightly, her fingers linked with mine, and sweat from her palm mingled with mine and disappeared in the wake of the Centrifuge’s crosswinds.
We leveled out, slowed down. The last revolution was the worst, when the spinning had slowed too much to seem incredible, thus potentially imaginary, but was fast enough to toss my meager lunch around in my stomach like a whirlwind of autumn leaves. I wrenched the belt free, staggered off the ride and out into the world, listing slightly to the left. I found a bench and collapsed into it. Soon enough I felt Gillian collapse there next to me. I flinched. The ride seemed a betrayal, though nothing untoward had occurred. I thought about the cool sensation of another person’s sweat evaporating from my hand.
“So will you help me?”
“Help you?” I gasped.
“By helping Pierce.”
“By doing what? He doesn’t need my help.”
“You could open the safety deposit box for him, find what’s inside. He trusts you. If there’s something in there that would scare him, something that could convince him your father still holds power over him, you could lie.”
I opened my eyes and looked into hers. They had taken on a startling and persuasive intelligence. I considered this, in light of what I now knew about her. I could see it, her and Pierce.
“I bet you’re good for him,” I said.
“He needs me.”
“I can’t lie to my brother. Whatever’s in there, I’ll have to tell him.”
“That’s selfish,” she said. “That’s you holding on to a habit because it’s easier to do that than to take responsibility for him. He wants you to be responsible for him, you know. He trusts you.”
“You said that.”
“It’s true.”
“Before I came back here, I hadn’t been close to him in years. Why would he trust me?”
She shrugged. “Beats me.”
* * *
I finally found Susan standing in the middle of the food vendors’ circle, blankly glancing around through her glasses, as she had at my father’s wake. I noticed for the first time that the circle looked much like a ring of covered wagons, cowering in the dust on a prairie of the American West, shielding itself from an attack by marauding Indians. Susan seemed unaware of any such attack. She took a bite out of something in her hand, and as I came closer I noticed it was a corn dog. She saw me, made a move to hide the corn dog, then gave up and brought it back into view.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “The ultimate popular culture nostalgia cliché food. Would you believe I’ve never had one before?”
“Hmm,” I said.
“Really, this is my first.”
“I’m sorry,” I said suddenly, surprising myself with my vehemence.
She started. “About what?”
“Leaving you to your own devices this morning. Not letting you know I’d be going out to see our mom.”
“Good Lord, Tim, I don’t care about that. I’m a big girl.”
“I’m just not used to dealing with all these new people,” I said. “And old people too. Not that you personally are hard to deal with.”
“No offense taken.”
“I don’t feel like myself,” I said. “Do you know what I’m saying?”
She nodded. “I never feel like myself. Or rather I never feel like the person I think of myself as actually being, the sort of Platonic ideal of myself I always picture doing the things I’m about to do. And then when I do them this other person takes over and screws them up.”
We stood silently in all the commotion, nodding. Susan offered me a bite of her corn dog. I refused, still queasy from the Centrifuge of Death, but I didn’t tell her this, and I feared that this rebuff without explanation would give offense. Then I came to my senses and simply let it go. It was a wonderful feeling, like dropping a box off at the Goodwill.
“Is this on?” came a shrill voice, then a squeal of feedback. I turned to see the mayor, perched on the bandstand with a brass band setting up behind him, peering at the microphone as if it were a mutant strain of lab rat.
“Speaking of clichés,” Susan said.
“Hello? Hello?” The mayor was wearing a Family Funnies T-shirt, the one with a picture of Bobby saying, “Why’s it called a tea shirt? There’s no tea on it!” He also wore a deep, rich tan he hadn’t had the day before.
“It’s five o’clock,” Susan said. She pulled a folded schedule from her shorts pocket. “Time for the election results.”
“I forgot about that.”
Francobolli was fumbling with his notes now. A few people had gathered in the field, not many. I wondered how many townspeople had actually voted.
And then, something very strange happened: I became suddenly, inexplicably happy. It came to me like a faint, delicious scent swept from a distant place, and tumbled over and over itself, snowballing inside me, taking on weight. I shifted my feet to support it. Then the mayor coughed, bent to receive a sealed envelope, and just like that it left me. But its faint impression remained, lending me lightness, the way an extra bat gives the slugger in the on-deck circle his effortless swing at the plate. I hopped once, then again, testing it.
“What?” Susan said with a puzzled smile.
“Nothing, nothing.”
The mayor gave a brief speech. He talked about the things that made Riverbank great, its natural beauty, its notable figures of the past, then segued into my father, then into the town council’s decision to change the name in his honor. He clawed at the envelope.
Not Familytown, I begged him silently.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the mayor announced. Behind him, the trombone player raised the trombone to his lips and adjusted the slide. “I’m pleased to report that our town is now called…”