Bittersweet

by Loth, Kimberly

  I was in for a long, boring day. After three hours, about a hundred crazy people, and several empty cars, Becca came back. She wanted to train me on other positions at the Executioner but freaked when I told her I couldn’t get wet.

  “This is the Plunge, you will get wet. Even us. Even the controls.” She waved her hand back at the ride. “Look at all that water.”

  I shrugged.

  “Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “You can just stay and be the entrance person all day, see if I care. Go to lunch.”

  The employee lunchroom was freezing. But they had a slew of foods that were offered in the park for a fraction of the cost. That twelve-dollar hamburger suddenly cost only one. Cheese fries, a dollar fifty. At least I wouldn’t go broke on the food.

  I took my lunch outside because I didn’t want to freeze to death. The tables were full of smokers. Something else I wasn’t crazy about. Food tainted with cigarette smoke was nasty.

  I almost took my lunch to Grant’s office in the hope that I’d run into hottie Dallas again, but decided against having him see me stuffing my face and wearing the ugliest clothes known to man.

  The uniforms were straight out of the 1970s. A black button down shirt that hung loose everywhere and knee length khaki shorts that fit at the waist. Not flattering for any figure. I doubted even leggy Julia would look good in them. Though the advantage was that no one looked good so it leveled the playing field. I wondered how, in all my years of visiting parks, I’d never noticed uniforms before. My mother always told me I was extremely unobservant. Just like Dad.

  I walked around the main office building and found a large rock that I could sit on. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I could handle working here for the summer. Eurochocolate would be worth it. I shoved the last bite of my hamburger in my mouth when Dallas appeared in front of me.

  “You weren’t kidding about not liking people, were you? Why aren’t you eating lunch with your coworkers?”

  I swallowed and gave him a closed mouth grin. What if I had crap in my teeth?

  “It’s too cold in the lunchroom and I don’t like the smell of smoke.”

  He cocked his head.

  “Well said. But you’ll be grateful for the AC in about three weeks when it’s over a hundred.”

  I decided to deflect the attention off of me.

  “Shouldn’t you be out in the park with Julia, exploiting your good looks and coercing people into giving you awesome reviews?”

  He blushed and grinned.

  “Yeah, I was heading that way when I saw you sitting here and wondered what was up. See ya ’round.”

  I watched him walk back to the park and sighed. Way out of my league.

  The rest of the day dragged by. Becca trained me on the Headless Horseman and left me there. It was worse than telling people to go put on shoes. Dead boring. At first it seems cool. A carousel ride with a mirror that makes it look like you’re headless and riding horses that are foaming at the mouth. But after about the third time around, the novelty wears off.

  The hours were brutal. The next three days I worked open to close. Which was from nine in the morning until eight at night. I was told that after Memorial Day we’d be open every night until ten, except on Saturdays when we were open until eleven. People work open to close on those days, too. This was truly hell on earth.

  May 20

  From: coasterdaddy@email.com

  To: chocolatequeen@email.com

  Hey Hon,

  Have I told you lately how much I miss you? How much I miss life? I miss having fun. I miss roller coasters and movies. I miss parties and beer. I miss driving and baseball games. I miss my wife and quiet nights. I miss football and food. I miss coffee and birds. I miss the stars and the fireworks.

  I miss you.

  Dad

  ON MONDAY, Becca sent me to the Headless Horseman. The ride sucked. Especially during the last two weeks of May. School days. The ride stayed mostly empty except for teenage boys who thought it was the one ride in the park where they didn’t have to follow the rules. They laughed when I stopped the ride and kicked them off.

  I approached one guy who’d been goofing off. He had a Twins cap on backwards and would probably be cute if he wasn’t my current source of annoyance.

  “You can’t stand on the saddle. I thought I made that clear when I said no standing during the ride.” He grinned at his friends, climbed off the horse, and stood about six inches from me.

  “Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Kick me out?”

  “Not from the park, but you’ll have to leave the ride.”

  He looked at me for a second and shook his head. Then he spat on my shoe. Bright cotton candy blue spit on my almost-new white shoes. So gross.

  I knew the right thing to do. I should walk away, call security, and let them deal with him. I knew that. But for some reason I couldn’t help myself.

  I spat right back at him. But I got his face instead of his feet. Unfortunately, Becca chose that moment to walk up to the ride. She witnessed the whole thing.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she gushed.

  The boy wiped the spit out of his eye and snarled at me.

  “Bitch. What’d you do that for?”

  “You spit on my shoe, I simply returned the favor.”

  I dropped the key to the ride into Becca’s hand.

  “I need to go to the bathroom. Good timing.”

  I turned on my heel and stalked off to the bathroom. I sat in the stall for a minute and tried to process what I’d just done. I ran my hand over my head. There was stubble now. A few more weeks and I’d be able to style it.

  I knew I was in trouble. Anger wasn’t an issue. The move was instinctual. He spit on me and I spit back. But I should’ve controlled myself.

  I took a couple of deep breaths and went back.

  A slew of people stood near the Headless Horseman. Becca, the area manager, and Karl. The queue line was empty.

  Here it comes.

  I played the stupid card.

  “Thanks for watching the ride for me. Drank too much water.” I held out my hand for the key and all three of them stared at me like I’d grown horns. Which I suppose I could have, since when I looked past them into the mirror on the ride my head was missing.

  Karl was the first one to speak.

  “Did you really spit on a guest?” He spoke slowly like I wouldn’t quite understand if he didn’t fully annunciate his words.

  “Yeah, got him right in the eye. He deserved it.” I bobbed up and down a bit to see if my head would appear. Nope. The technology was incredible.

  “Spitting is neither courteous nor good customer service. We’ve pulled someone from the Demon Drop to take your place for the rest of the day. You need to think about what you’ve done. This stunt earned you four points. Don’t let it happen again.”

  I focused on him. “How many points until I’m fired?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. I hated the fact that I couldn’t feel a darn thing. I knew I should feel shame. That’s what any normal person would feel, but since I had no feelings I knew I came across as flippant. I didn’t want to be fired. Not really.

  “Twenty-four.”

  I nodded to show that I understood. Eurochocolate, I reminded myself. This job is for Eurochocolate.

  “Okay, I guess I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” I said with a little wave.

  Karl wagged his finger in my face.

  “Oh no missy, you aren’t going home. You are Park Services for the rest of the day.”

  Park Services kept the park clean. A broom and a dustpan wouldn’t have been that bad. Maybe a little boring, but otherwise it would’ve been okay. But I wasn’t so lucky.

  Karl marched me back to the dumpsters and handed me over to Leonard, a Park Services team lead. Leonard was about ninety years old and deafer than I was. It was his job to train me.

  He pointed to a trashcan.

  “This here is the refuse bin we use at Haunted Val
ley. The lid comes off like this.”

  He removed the lid and then replaced it.

  “Now you try.”

  I rolled my eyes. Really, I had to be trained on how to remove a lid from a trashcan? Oh well, at least this would kill some time.

  An hour later I was officially trained on how to empty a trashcan and replace the bag. Part of that hour was walking around the park and looking inside various bins to decide if they were worth emptying or not. Leonard wouldn’t call me completely trained until he was convinced I knew the difference between a full trashcan and an empty one.

  He took another half hour to show me how to push the stupid barrels around that I had to throw the bags into.

  “Now yer gonna need a partner. Park Services works in pairs. I think Julia will be here soon, you can pair with her. She’s good at this. She’ll make sure you don’t screw up.”

  I sat on the low brick wall and waited. A few minutes later Julia came bouncing toward us. I thought it’d be someone else that had the same name. But it was the same gorgeous girl who did surveys with Dallas. Finally, someone who might actually be decent to me.

  “Oh hey, Savannah. You must’ve screwed up if you got sent here to work with me.” She beamed.

  “I thought you did surveys.”

  “I do, but it’s only thirty hours a week so I pick up extra hours in Park Services.” Why would she want more hours? Maybe she was saving up for something, too.

  She took the big rolling bin and pushed it toward the cedar gates, back into the park. I shrugged and followed her. She kept talking and I found that I liked it. For the last week I’d been working in near silence with Becca who gave me a death stare just for being in her presence. Julia was a nice change.

  “I like Park Services. It’s hard to mess up. It’s quiet. No one messes with you much. Most Ride Ops hate it.” She grinned at me.

  “I’ve never done it before so I’m not sure if I’m going to hate it or not.”

  Yeah, I pretty much hated it.

  The whole day was spent emptying trash barrels and putting in new bags. It was smelly, boring, sticky work. The only good thing about it was Julia. She made the day go by fast.

  At first we talked about superficial things. TV shows, music, boys. Eventually though, she brought up Dallas.

  “What do you think of him?”

  My heart began to beat a little faster. Just the thought of that smile. I felt a grin spread over my lips. Oh gosh. She’s gonna see right through me.

  “Um, I don’t really know him that well. I thought maybe you two had something going on.” Deflect, deflect, deflect.

  She snorted.

  “He’d never go for a girl like me.”

  “Why?” I asked, wondering what would make her think she wasn’t worthy of someone like Dallas. She was gorgeous.

  “Because, I have a son. Three and a half years old.”

  Holy smokes. Julia had a kid. Inside I recoiled, but I kept my face blank. The idea terrified me but I didn’t want her to know that. Kids change everything. You have to worry about screwing up two lives instead of just one.

  She dug out her phone from her pocket to show me a picture. “His name is A.J. Looks just like his Daddy.”

  A smiling face with a mop of dark brown curls shone out of the picture.

  “So, where is Dad?”

  She took the picture back and emptied the trash out of a bin in the queue line at Zombie Run.

  “Disappeared right after I told him I was pregnant. I was sixteen. Now my mom and I are trying to raise him on our own. I got my high school diploma and now I’m working to try to pay for college. I’m going to give him a good life.”

  She was quiet after that. I thought about how easy my life had been. I didn’t have to worry about a baby. I couldn’t imagine how hard that would be on top of grieving for my dad. If I had a kid, I’d have to pretend like life was okay when it was not. Julia was a hundred times stronger than I’d ever be.

  An hour later we were almost done and I was ready to go home.

  “I’ll go catch the trash cans at the Witches’ Wheel. Will you grab the ones by the picnic tables?”

  “Sure.”

  I hadn’t really been paying attention to my surroundings. It wasn’t until I was on top of the trash can that I saw who was sitting at the table right next to it.

  Spitter and two of his buddies. Damn.

  He, however, noticed me right away.

  “Well, if it isn’t the garbage queen. Did I get ya demoted?”

  My face burned but I ignored him and took the bag out of the bin.

  “I am talking to you, bitch. Didn’t your mother teach you to respect your betters? Answer me.”

  I continued to pretend like I couldn’t hear him. It was better that way. Plus, I’d gotten pretty swift at rebagging. But before I could leave, he was standing right in front of me.

  “Answer me.” In one hand he held an empty hamburger basket and in the other a half empty cup of Coke. He smirked.

  “Move,” I demanded, looking him straight in the eye. Then I took a step to the side.

  An ice-cold chill sank into my chest. I gasped. He’d poured his Coke all down my front.

  “Oops, I must’ve mistaken you for the trash can, garbage queen.”

  I was speechless. Didn’t have time to react, which was probably a good thing. His buddies followed his lead. Within seconds I had nacho cheese poured over my shoes and the remains of an ice cream cone smushed into my face.

  Europe was not worth this.

  “I’ve got a season pass so I’ll be around all summer, bald-garbage-bitch. You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  Before I could so much as yell “Asshole,” he was gone and Julia was by my side. She handed me a bunch of napkins and knelt to wipe off my shoes.

  “The nastier side of Park Services, I’m afraid. People think we are lower than dirt. It’s too bad security wasn’t around. They would’ve kicked them out. This is probably going to stain.” She pointed to my shoes.

  I wiped the ice cream from around my nose and looked down. Nacho cheese everywhere.

  “You asked earlier what I’d done. I spit in his face after he spit on my shoes.”

  Julia laughed. “You should’ve done it again.”

  “Right, and risk the wagging finger of Karl again? No, thank you.”

  Julia grinned and wagged her finger in my face. She looped her arm through mine and led me to the bathroom.

  I cleaned up as best I could. My once white shoes were now a pukey yellow color and one had a touch of blue. A mall trip might be in order this weekend. Those poor shoes didn’t even last two weeks. At this rate I would never afford Europe.

  Julia and I both clocked out. She had some paperwork to take care of so I walked to the lockers by myself. I practically ran into Dallas just before I reached the door.

  “Hey, I was just looking for you. We’re going out, you wanna come?”

  His eyes held absolute sincerity. He wanted me to come. The ugly-bald-garbage-queen. I was sticky, cold, smelly, exhausted, and I almost said yes.

  “Who’s going?” I asked, to buy some time.

  “Becca, Karl, and few others. We’re planning to eat at the Casino and play some slots. You only have to be eighteen. Please come. It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m really tired and it has been a shitty day. I just want to go home and head straight to bed. Maybe another time.” My stomach clenched.

  No need to tell him that I didn’t want to go because Becca hated my guts. If I told him, I’d have to explain why. That was one story he didn’t need to hear.

  I was surprised to find that he looked disappointed, but he recovered quickly and smiled. With that smile I very nearly changed my answer. How did he do that? But before I could say anything, he waved and walked away.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  My locker was right next to the door so I didn’t have walk far to get out of those horrid clothes. I wished they had s
howers. I stripped off my shirt and shorts and wondered how awful it would be to go commando. My underwear was drenched in coke. Thank heavens my bank of lockers was empty. No one needed to see my predicament.

  Voices floated over from the next set of lockers.

  “Can you believe she spit on a guest, who does that kind of stuff?” Becca’s voice was clear.

  Another girl replied, the area manager who’d been at the ride when I came back from the bathroom. “I don’t know. She acted all blasé about it too, like it didn’t matter. You know the only reason she didn’t get fired was because Grant is her uncle.”

  “I know, it makes me sick. She’s so whiny too. ‘Oh my ears. If they get wet I’ll die.’” Becca’s mocking voice was strangely high pitched.

  “We’re in a freakin’ amusement park, you work outside. She’s gonna have to deal with the fact that her ears are going to get wet. If she wanted to be inside all day she should’ve gone to work at the Mall of America. Maybe you should dump a pail of water on her head. Do you think that’ll get rid of her?”

  Becca laughed.

  “She’s bald, too. Am I the only who finds that weird? I wanted to ask why’d she deliberately make herself look ugly, but thought that would be rude.”

  They came around the corner just as Becca finished her sentence. I stood there clutching my soaked clothes, wearing only my bra and underwear. They stopped immediately when they saw me. Lucky for me, I recovered quickly.

  “Yeah, that would be rude. But while we’re on the subject of rudeness, is there anything else you’d like to ask?”

  I turned around and opened my locker. Neither girl responded, not that I expected them to. A minute later, the door closed behind them and I sighed. Humiliation swam through my veins. I should be grateful that I actually felt something other than numbness. Instead, I was horrified that a girl who was supposed to be my boss was badmouthing me.

  Julia poked her head around the corner.

  “You wanna go to the park with A.J. and me? It’s such a nice day, I don’t want to waste it. I could use some adult conversation. Most of the other mothers at the park just ignore me.” I knew she thought it was because she’s young. That they were judging her. But I suspected it was because she’s gorgeous and they were either intimidated or jealous.