“But yeah. She hides it well. My dad was the love of her life. He was a liver surgeon at Penn. Constantly getting called in like Kev—saving their lives, leaving his life. And then, one day, he gets a call for a liver harvest—” her mouth turns up at the corner, “just before the call he threw a piece of toast at me and said ‘Can’t wait totoastyour mother.’ He made the worst dad jokes.” She sucks in a breath and looks out over the river.
“Then he left—got in the helicopter with the team to go be a hero like the thousand times before. Did you know they don’t use helicopters for procurements anymore? Because of the danger. Of course they figured that outafter. Too late.” She shakes her head and lifts her eyes to the sky. Her voice drops so low that it’s nearly carried away in the screams and laughter around us.
“We were celebrating my parents’ anniversary with dinner in the city that night and he just—didn’t show up. And that was that. End of story,” she says.
End of story. The way she says those words makes the bright lights around us dim to grey. Her pain rushes through me, a flash flood that steals the words and breath from my throat. I force myself to ignore it, just like I do when I need to deliver bad news to a family after an operation gone wrong.
“I’m so sorry, Devon,” I tell her, tipping her chin back toward me so she knows I mean it. A tear slides down the side of her face and I catch it with my thumb. “His story goes on with you and Tara and your mom. You are his story.”
She nods like she knows this, but I can see by the set of her mouth that the words aren’t helping.
“I can’t help but think—if he’d just been something boring. Sold copy machines or worked at a desk. He’d still be here. My mom would be?—”
Shrieking laughter cuts her short when a lone seagull attacks a group of girls behind us and they bump into her as they run for cover, clutching their funnel cakes to their chests.
“Sorry,” one girl says as she swats at the bird.
Devon laughs as they retreat, then looks up at me and smiles.
“I’m ok. By Monday, I’ll be good as new. Right as rain.”
She lifts her brows and tilts her head, asking me to play along. So I do.
“By Monday, you’ll be dancing around and singing like Julia Andrews for your students.”
She fights a laugh.
“You got a thing for Julia Andrews?” she asks.
“My sister used to make me pretend to be Bert from Mary Poppins.”
She chuckles and I feel it warm the air around me.
“I’d love to see a little Chim Chim Cher-ee action. You want a drink, first?” she asks, tilting her head toward a shipping container lined with taps. The lights from the Ferris wheel are spinning in her glassy eyes.
I step toward her, lower my face closer to hers. Her hair smells like the lavender my mom grows along the side of the house. She smells like home. She closes her eyes, her lips part just enough for me to see her tongue and remember how it felt on mine.
“A drink sounds good,” I whisper against her ear lobe. She shudders and leans into me. My body responds and I know she feels it from the hitch in her breathing and the flush of her cheeks. I feel buzzed already, no beer required. I plant a soft kiss on her cheekbone and tear myself away to grab some liquid distraction.
When I return with two plastic pints, she’s talking to the little boy who’d been screaming for cotton candy, the Dad smiling at her while she hands the kid one of her blue multi-stringed bracelets that she wears around her wrist. The little boy is clearly smitten. I don’t blame him because Devon is giving him the most dazzling smile in her arsenal and telling him that the bracelet grants whoever wears it the power to change the world. She has lots of these little string bracelets, a collection of causes that she supports.
I wait until the little boy runs off pretending to shoot web from the new gift on his wrist, his father close behind yelling thank you over his shoulder, then I close the distance and hand her the drink.
“Why don’t you teach elementary school?” I ask.
She thanks me for the beer and gives me a look that say Oh-Fuck-No.
“I’m serious. You’re obviously great with younger kids.”
We start to walk along the boardwalk, sipping our beers as the sky over the river begins to bleed and burn with layers of red and orange. The sun dips lower between the towering buildings to the west and the reflection of the lights hanging in the trees around us swims and glitters along the surface of the dark water. The sweet smell of funnel cake mingles with fried steak and I watch Devon check out every food vendor that we pass.
“I love kids. They can sense that. But middle schoolers are where it’s at,” she tells me.
Interesting. From what I understand of adolescence, “middle schooler” is the least beloved stage of development.
“I don’t think everyone would agree with you,” I point out, adding on, “you want something to eat?” When I see her eyes widen at the sight of a taco truck, I know her answer.
“Everyone who doesn’t agree is wrong,” she tells me. “And hell yes.”
