“Carrie?” Ripley asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t try it,” Cara warns, giving Ripley a stern look. “It’s only okay when he says it.”
“I bet. Drive safe, Care…ah.” She blows a kiss at her friend’s outstretched middle finger and walks over to hug Griff. “Don’t let my girl drive too fast.”
“Your babies are safe with me, Rip.” He swings up into the truck, patting the door frame for emphasis. “I booked the one with extra-cushy shocks.”
“Thanks, Griff.” Then, because it feels like it might be the last time, she adds, “Israttle our dagsreally a thing they say in Australia?”
He looks at her incredulously. “ ’Course it is. Who would make up a thing like that?”
“This may come as a surprise, but I haven’t ridden that many horses.” Ripley looks doubtfully at the saddled pair James led out from the barn.
“There’s nothing to it, Ripley. You climb on and sit tight. Keep your spine loose. Move with the horse. And—erm, that’s all, really,” James finishes hastily at her death stare. “Also, Geraldine says the car park is ridiculous and someone always gets sideswiped.”
“All right, all right,” she says, sure she’s going to regret this.
She doesn’t regret it. She does suspect he touches her morethan necessary when he’s adjusting her saddle. And she gets to watch James Smithson ride a horse for fifteen minutes, which is basically like watching a centaur except with way more thighs.
“Show-off,” she scoffs when he makes Hoodoo dance in a tight circle.
“She noticed us,” he tells the horse. “Keep it up, and there’s extra oats in it for you.”
From the outside, the fair looks every bit as dinged up and creaky as you’d expect a traveling carnival would. Ripley’s not entirely sure James will like it, but they tie the horses’ reins to the hitching post, fork over twenty bucks apiece to the bored teen sitting in the entry kiosk, and head in.
Inside, there’s a surprisingly fancy merry-go-round, a kiddie roller coaster in the shape of a rainbow caterpillar, and a giant slide that looks like it could tell a few tales of bloody noses. James very seriously fills out a ballot judging the delightfully bonkers flower arrangements by local grade-schoolers.
Ripley decides she doesn’t have to tell him they’re on a date. He might know it, though. He buys her an enormous cone of rainbow cotton candy and plays the tub toss until he’s won her a gigantic stuffed Dalmatian with a suggestively lolling pink tongue. He tucks it under her arm, takes her chin in his hand, and kisses her right in the middle of the midway for so long that people yell at them to get a room.
For her part, she buys him the most American carnival foods she can find, just so he’ll give her his ramrod-spined British opinions about them.
Banana-battered peanut butter cups: “Only the Americans remain unaware of the horror that is peanut butter. And please don’t tell me your President Carter was a peanut farmer. On behalf of all foreigners everywhere,we know.”
Chocolate-covered bacon on a stick: “Now,thisI can get behind.”
Deep-fried beer pockets: “These are entirely inexplicable. Wait, are you videoing me?”
She is. She doesn’t take pictures on the dig, because backgrounds can be zoomed in on and cloud files can be hacked. But she wants to have an image of him to remind her of when they were happy. She wants to replay his voice sayinginexplicablewith that unhurried cadence. She wants to feel her heart swell and ache in equal measure as she harvests memories, hoping they can be preserved.
Ripley’s phone chimes as they’re browsing novelty belt buckles. She ignores it.
“Do people actually wear these?” James asks, contemplating one that saysI Love Hoseover a dripping nozzle.
“You’d have to be pretty…cocky,” she says, flashing him one with a winking rooster.
“Perhaps I am,” he says archly, holding the hose one up to his jeans. Ripley doesn’t know where he got those thrift-store Levi’s, but they are absolutely criminal on his legs.
Thismoment is the one she wants to keep. She wishes it were possible to photograph the feeling of wandering through stalls, looking for nothing in particular. Of being full of delicious, life-shortening food and sipping on giant containers of electric-blue slush to counteract the sun’s heat. Of not being in a rush to go anywhere or do anything. It’s a silly waste of an afternoon, and she’s never loved anything more.
The second chime comes a minute later, after they’ve moved on to the display of prizewinning produce. It’s chased by two more before Ripley can put down the Dalmatian and fumble the phone from her bag.
Only Cara blows up her phone like this, and Cara shouldn’t have a free hand available for texting right now. She should be wheeling the fossils through the airport on her way to the scanner.
“Ripley?” James puts down a zucchini the size of a baseball bat.
CALL ME NOW, says the first text.
NOW GODDAMMIT NOW, says the second.
