“Thank you. But secondly,” Milly looked back to Adele, “What do you mean it’s closed? It says right here that it’s open until eight o’clock. We came straight from school. It’s our first visit to the Fun Zone.”
“It’s at our discretion. We can do as we please,” Adele said, feeling just like the mean old lady she was accused of being.
“I’m sorry, I think there’s been some misunderstanding. I’m Milly Kincaid, and this is Jack and Debbie. I saw you gardening; we live one street over from you, on Amethyst.”
“I know who you are,” Adele said curtly. “We are doing some repairs.” She glanced down at the boy and girl as they stared up at her, the boy’s face wet with tears. Then she looked back to Milly, who looked as if she might burst into tears herself.
“Fine,” Adele said, sighing. “Come back in five minutes.” She walked to the office shed, picked up the rag, and began to wipe down the metal seats.
In her youth she’d trained herself to be cruel, uninterested in other people’s feelings. She’d mastered a harshness that allowed her to annihilate her opponents in matches and not even wince when she beat them, game after game. She’d had to. It was what her father had taught her to do, and it had become ingrained in her. She was forty-eight now. She might not be playing tennis anymore, but it was almost impossible to let that part of her go.
When she put the rags away and looked up, her neighbor and the children were waiting patiently at the entrance, and Adele nodded to them to come inside the gate. She opened the latch on seat 1 and the kids climbed in. She fastened the safety belt and released the clutch, sending the children to the very top and bringing seat 9 to the bottom. She nodded for Milly to climb in.
“No, thank you,” Milly said. “I’ll sit this one out.”
“You have to,” Adele said, holding the latch open.
“Oh, but”—Milly shook her head fervently—“I can’t.”
Adele shrugged her shoulders. “Then they can’t ride.”
“But Debbie is very responsible; she’ll take good care of her brother,” Milly said. She looked up to the children, “Hold his hand, Debbie,” she called out. “And don’t let him wriggle around.”
“Oh,mon Dieu,” Adele said visibly annoyed. “It’s about balance. They can either sit there and wait for someone to come along and ride, or they have to get off.”
“Can’t they just—”
“No,” Adele said, before letting Milly finish her thought.
“It’s just that…” Milly looked down at her feet as if she were ashamed. “I’m terribly afraid of heights.”
Adele shook her head. People who were afraid of such things were weak, she thought, and then she wondered for a second if she’d said it out loud. Living alone for all these years, she had a tendency to talk to herself, sometimes out loud, sometimes in her head, sometimes she didn’t know the difference. She glanced at Milly, who was staring up at her children and waving, and was reassured that she’d made that snide comment only to herself.
“Surely there’ll be some others coming along soon, eager to ride,” Milly said.
Adele shrugged.
“I really wanted them to have a little fun today.” Milly smiled at Adele. “It’s just that they’ve been having a tough time lately. Moving is hard, you know? New school, new friends, and their father.” She paused,looked down at her shoes. “Well, it’s not always easy; he works in L.A., a lot. We’ve barely seen him.”
Why was she telling her all this? Adele thought. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to know about them, and she didn’t want them to know about her. Minutes passed, but it felt like hours. Milly waved up at her children again, and Adele stared out at the bay hoping they’d all grow bored and want to leave.
“Adele.” Milly touched Adele’s arm, an alarmingly personal action, she thought. “We have some interested parties.”
“What?” Adele pulled her arm away.
“Children! They would like to ride on the Ferris wheel.”
Adele looked up and saw that a line had formed behind Milly. More children had arrived, and the after-school rush was finally starting. “Ah,” she said. “This way,” and she began seating them until finally the ride could start.
As the wheel began to move, Adele stood back and watched the children waving down at their parents, smiling. She always thought it was strange how this piece of machinery could cause people to experience such joy: They weren’t even doing anything physical, just being lifted in a big circle. When Milly’s kids rose up, the sea breeze blew their hair back from their faces, and they were laughing, mouths open, looking positively gleeful; they even waved to her.
When it was over, the Kincaid children begged to go again, and in a moment of weakness—Adele did feel a pang of guilt for being so mean-spirited to them earlier—she didn’t force them to disembark. Instead, she let them, and whoever else wanted to ride, stay on for a second turn. It wasn’t a full ride but it would be enough once a few others arrived, she reasoned. She returned to the shed and took a bite of her almond cake, waiting for more to join the line. She was refilling her cup with coffee from her thermos when she heard the commotion from the deck. She rushed out to see the wheel rolling backward, fast. Looking up, she realized she’d made the very error she’d been adamant to avoidearlier. When she’d unloaded some of the passengers, she’d left the wheel unbalanced. The first six seats were occupied and the rest were empty, no spaces in between. She rushed to the clutch, but smoke was billowing out from it.
“Merde,” she said under her breath, a sick feeling in her stomach.
“Mommy,” she heard Debbie call out desperately. “Mommy!”
Milly and another mother rushed toward the wheel, but Adele called out to tell them to stay back.
