All the Pretty Things

by Emily Arsenault

  “I don’t know,” I admitted finally.

  I turned to go, and she didn’t stop me.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The sun was starting to go down as I parked at Fabuland.

  It was almost dark by the time I reached the Starship 360. It was in full swing, and there was only a handful of people waiting to go on next. I didn’t watch the ride as I waited for my turn. I didn’t want to change my mind. On the drive over, I’d convinced myself that this was what I needed to do in this moment.

  My heart and my stomach felt numb as those of us waiting were herded onto the ride. Whatever happened in the air, I decided, could not be worse than what I’d felt at Morgan’s house. So what if I fell right out of the sky, really? The worst had already happened.

  I got onto one of the black seats and buckled the seat belt. I was in a row all by myself. The ride operator—whose name I think was Dave—did only a cursory check of everyone’s belts. Then the familiar hum of the ride’s motor and the initial creaking of its metal started. I thought about how many times I’d passed this ride, heard these sounds, and dreaded the day I might find myself here. Among these people who loved to see things upside down. I’d never seen the park that way. Any time I’d been forced into going on a ride like this, I’d kept my eyes shut tight and made myself breathe after every count of five.

  How come so many people handled this better than I did? Seeing the horizon rise, and the ground disappear? Seeing all blue sky for a moment? Realizing that your feet don’t really have the permanent place on the ground you thought they did? Realizing how easily you can be lifted and thrown?

  I forced my eyes to stay open as the ride started. I watched the ground become sky. And found I was too heartbroken to feel much fear.

  Around me, people were screaming and hooting, but there was a dark place in my brain that had become completely silent.

  I loved my dad. I loved his passion for spectacles and his belief that he could make them happen better than anyone. I loved that he made me a part of it. I always had—whenever he had been willing. For as long as I could remember. Probably longer. And I loved that he had made me a sprinkle sandbox.

  But I believed Morgan.

  I didn’t know if I was allowed to do both. It didn’t seem like I could. Or like I should. But I did.

  For the last two summers I’d rushed in and out of this park, running from the cotton candy stand to the waterslide to the administrative office. Surrounded by people seeing it from every which way all the time—people willing to go upside down and sideways. And yet I’d kept my eyes shut, and looked at it only one way.

  Even just a few days ago, I’d convinced myself that Winnie had backed out of her shift whenever Chris had done the same because she wanted to be with him. But the real explanation was obvious, if you could just turn it upside down for a second. It wasn’t about who she wanted to be with. It was about who she didn’t want to be with. Who she was avoiding. Alone at night, particularly.

  And now I thought too about Shiny Penny—the young woman at Doughnut Dynasty who used to laugh at Dad’s jokes. About how she’d left the job suddenly, and Dad didn’t seem to know why or where she’d gone. At the time, I couldn’t articulate why that had bothered me. But I’d only been thirteen then. I was older now.

  It had been here from this perspective the whole time—creaking away in the background, behind all the good-natured screaming. I’d always heard it, humming along in the distance, day in and day out. I was just afraid to open my eyes and look.

  THIRTY

  It was officially my night with my mom, so I didn’t need to make excuses with my dad. After I’d gotten off the Starship 360, I drove to her place. I had no idea where Jason was. He was over eighteen, so he didn’t have to honor old custody arrangements anyway.

  My silence was making my mom nervous. I felt bad for that, but I couldn’t bring myself to say much. She flitted around me in the kitchen, preparing me a sandwich I didn’t ask for, followed by a bowl of blueberries.

  “I bought them to make a pie,” she said, pulling up a stool to sit with me at the kitchen counter. “But I got some extra for eating.”

  I nodded. Blueberry pie was Jason’s favorite dessert. Maybe she had designs on making him stay longer. It was kind of sad, actually. She could bake all she wanted—the length of Jason’s stay would only ever come down to how long he could endure Dad. And Dad was something she couldn’t control. She’d figured that out a long time ago.

  “Tired?” she coaxed.

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “Maybe you should try to go to bed early.”

  I took a handful of blueberries out of the bowl and put them on the counter in front of me. I started to arrange them into a little design. At first the blueberries formed a flower. But I had leftover blueberries, so I started over.

  “I have a question,” I murmured.

  The berries formed themselves into a spiral, my fingers working furiously. I was thinking about my father—about how he had always seemed to steer Mom around by the elbow or the shoulder. Sometimes his grip was gentle. Sometimes it wasn’t. It all seemed to depend on how much effort she was putting into making him feel good. Or making him look good.

  “Yeah?”

  “You didn’t fall on the ice when I was seven, did you?”

  Mom didn’t look angry. Just a little sad. Her eyes flickered to the countertop and she ate a single blueberry.

  “What?” she said, even though it was clear she’d heard me.

  “When I was seven. You hurt your arm. You said you fell on the ice.”

  I was still adding blueberries to my spiral, but it was getting too big and sloppy. A blueberry rolled off the counter.

  “I don’t want to upset you,” I said. “I just want to know. I think Jason knows, but he’d never tell me.”

  My mother put her hands over mine, stopping their frenetic movement but sending more blueberries rolling off the counter.

  “No,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t fall on the ice.”

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed.

  I didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t tell if she wanted me to. The look in her eyes reminded me of Morgan’s earlier that day. And even Morgan’s on the Ferris wheel.

  Like I had betrayed her somehow, just by not knowing—not seeing—for so long.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I waited until my mother was asleep to leave. It was after eleven by then—long past Fabuland’s closing time, so it was unlikely I’d run into any last few workers shortcutting through Brewer’s Creek Park.

  I parked my car on Brewer Road and walked through the woods, shining my phone’s flashlight ahead of me. I was still too numb to be very scared. When I got to the trestle, I sat down on the edge and looked down. Nothing but blackness this time. It was too dark. The stream wasn’t visible, so I couldn’t see myself at all.

  I thought about my father and my mother. My father and Winnie. My father and Morgan. Somewhere deep in my heart, I’d known about it all along. “It” wasn’t the fact of any of these relationships in particular, but the reality of who my dad was. What he was capable of. If I was going to be honest with myself, I’d sensed it for years, without being able to put it into words.

  I was his exception. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t see it. As much as I’d tried not to.

  I stared into the blackness below the trestle. Last time I was here, I’d considered the possibility of Ethan jumping. And yet I’d never really believed he had jumped.

  The one I’d wondered about all along was me.

  Because how could I live with being his daughter? In this moment, I couldn’t think of anything more lonely, even if Jason could almost understand. I was my father’s exception. Just for now, as Jason had once been? Or forever? Was I lucky, then? Or terribly unlucky? Or was I worse than my father, to kn
ow what I knew and still accept him and all the nice pretty things he offered only me?

  It wasn’t just those things that had made me so sure I loved him in the past, was it? Because if it was only those pretty privileged things, I wouldn’t be a very good or genuine daughter, would I? If my love could drain away as fast as it had today, was I ever a loving daughter, really?

  Was it ever real? Was any part of it still real?

  And how could I not hate my father but somehow, simultaneously, manage not to hate myself?

  I started to cry.

  And kept on crying for a while. The crickets seemed to kick up their song just for me. I sniffled myself into silence and reminded myself I didn’t really want to be here. Sitting at the edge of the trestle, staring into the blackness below.

  I thought of texting Jason, but I knew he wouldn’t have an answer. He’d barely started to figure out how to live with himself. I could tell. And as I’d pointed out to him a few days ago, it was different for me. There was a part of this he could never understand. I had to figure that part out myself.

  I turned off my phone.

  More tears rolled down my face, and I tried to make a plan.

  At the very least, my father had to know that I knew and I saw. That now I knew the things I’d pretended not to see. And that I wasn’t willing to pretend anymore. He would need to change to get back in my favor—however long it would take, and for whatever it was worth. The specifics of how he would change weren’t up to me. I knew he didn’t take kindly to being told what to do. And there were some things it wasn’t up to a daughter to tell a father to do. Just as the reverse was true. But if he understood and cared how much he had hurt me, maybe he would start to see how much he’d hurt everyone.

  Tomorrow I would go in to work and do everything he wanted. To show him I still had a reserve of love for him and believed in his big ideas. And that I still wanted to be a part of them, to a point. But after that would be the hard part. I would tell him I knew about Winnie and Morgan. And that I needed for him to be better.

  Tomorrow. I mopped up my tears with the hem of my dress.

  Tomorrow. After the giant doughnut. After the photos were taken and the crowds went home. After he got to see all his hard work pay off. After all that, my real work would start.

  I drove back to my mom’s apartment and fell into bed with my clothes on, exhausted by all the things I knew, and all that my lucky life now demanded of me.

  THIRTY-TWO

  There were already a dozen workers buzzing around the grounds when I got to Fabuland.

  Jason was waiting for me near the main entrance.

  “Are you okay?” he said. “You look tired.”

  “Just sleep deprived. And excited,” I lied. I’d decided last night I needed to get through the day before saying anything else to him. “What’s happening? Has Dad given you an official job yet?”

  He handed me a shovel with its long, sturdy wooden handle painted with lavender and white stripes.

  “Who painted the shovels?” I said, surprised our dad hadn’t asked me to help.

  Jason shrugged. “One of the girls who does the game booths, I think. He wanted me to make sure and save you this one. He thought it was the prettiest.”

  “Oh.” I took the shovel reluctantly.

  “Wait’ll you see the doughnut. Jesus. It is something.”

  Jason led me to the open area in front of the Laser Coaster. And there it was. Ten beautiful golden puffs, nearly my height, arranged in a circle. They looked bigger here than they had on the lawn behind the pavilion—probably because the space was more crowded.

  I stepped up close to one of the puffs and ran my hand along its side. It was firm and crisp on the outside, but soft when you pressed. It was perfect.

  Jason led me up into the Starship 360 ride, from which the view of the whole doughnut was better. There was white frosting across the tops of each puff.

  “What are the shovels for if it’s already frosted?” I asked.

  “They needed to frost some of the tops early since they were trimmed to make them all the same height,” Jason said. “But the frosting will be finished as part of the festivities at nine-thirty. Dad liked the idea of making a little show of that part.”

  “Right,” I said, noticing that Jason didn’t have a shovel. “Are you going to be frosting too?”

  “Not if I can help it. He’s got me on sound equipment with Chris. I’m ‘assistant sound administrator,’ apparently.”

  “Chris is here?”

  “Yeah. Just for the day, I guess. By the way, in addition to whatever else Dad’s got you doing, I’m pretty sure you’re in charge of sprinkles. Like, putting them in the cute little buckets he got and making sure they get distributed in an…organized way.”

  “Sprinkle administrator,” I mumbled as he steered me toward the Food Zone.

  * * *

  • • •

  I put sprinkles into little buckets and sandwich bags until nine o’clock, when people started coming into the park and the first musical act started setting up near the bleachers. I was glad for the excuse not to have to go to the office and see my dad face to face. I still had no idea how it would feel to talk to him, so I welcomed the numbing distraction. Even if it did keep reminding me of my sprinkle sandbox.

  By now there was thick plastic purple tape—like crime scene tape, but festive—around the immediate vicinity of the doughnut so no one would touch it before they were given permission.

  I was lining up the last of about fifty buckets of sprinkles along the first row of the bleachers when my father thumped me on the shoulder.

  “Ivy.”

  I felt myself recoil but sucked in a breath to hide it. When I turned around, I saw he was standing with a tall, blond young woman with prominent teeth and severe-looking glasses.

  “I want to introduce you to someone,” Dad said. “This is Lexi Givens. She’s from Channel 12 News.”

  “Oh!” I exclaimed, rearranging my face and forcing a smile as I extended my hand. I’d forgotten all about her. Another welcome distraction.

  “Nice to meet you after our chats on the phone.” She shook my hand. “My camera guy and our assistant are looking for a good place to set up. Can you tell me where would be okay? We want a good view of the doughnut and the opening speech, but don’t want to be in the way.”

  “Ivy here’ll be happy to help you.” Dad beamed. “I’ll be fairly busy and don’t want anyone to feel neglected. Ivy will show you around and—”

  “Actually, Mr. Cork,” Lexi said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but before the festivities get started, I was curious if this event is in some way commemorative of or going to recognize the young man who died a few weeks ago?”

  Dad looked taken aback.

  “Um, Ivy here can answer your questions, and I’ll see if I have more time after the doughnut festivities are over.”

  Lexi pushed her glasses more firmly up the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I hope you’ll have time for a few comments after the main presentation then.”

  “Let’s hope, yeah. In the meantime, Ivy’s going to give you an exclusive look behind the purple tape, let you get up close to the doughnut, even touch it if you want—but no tasting for now! And she’ll give you a blow-by-blow of how we constructed the doughnut. But I’ve got to run. We’ve been having problems with the microphone, and I’ve got a few more things to square away.”

  With that, my father was off, winking his appreciation at me for this media win, then jogging toward the administration building, where he was probably going to reconsider his “remarks” and whether they should mention Ethan. I breathed a deep sigh of relief that he was gone, turning away from Lexi so she wouldn’t see it.

  “Feel free to film from anywhere,” I told Lexi, turning back to her with a smile. “Even from behind the purple
ribbon, if that helps you get good footage. We just didn’t want anyone rushing the doughnut before the official time.”

  Lexi nodded, and waved to two guys who had just appeared from the other side of the bleachers, one with an enormous camera on his shoulder, the other carrying a duffel bag and a tripod.

  “This is surreal,” the tripod guy said when he came over to us. “What next? Did this guy fill one of the swimming pools with some steaming-hot coffee?”

  Lexi ignored him, blushing a little as she turned to me. “I meant to ask about your name, after our emails. Ivy Cork. You’re a Cork. Are you the owner’s daughter, then? He didn’t say.”

  “I am,” I said softly. And then I had a sudden fear she was going to ask me to make some on-camera comments.

  “Listen, you guys make yourselves at home and film from wherever,” I said. “We’re just so glad you’re here. I’ve got a few things to do before the official start.”

  I tried to look busy and important as I walked away. But then I went back to my sprinkles.

  * * *

  • • •

  By 10:29, the bleachers and Starship 360 were filled with people, and the local band was just finishing its plodding version of “What a Wonderful World.” As the song ended, Dad stepped up to the microphone.

  He tugged at the lapels of his dark-blue suit coat, stiffening its shoulders, before he spoke.

  “Over the past couple of weeks, people have been asking me why,” he said, and then paused for a moment and looked out at the crowd. “Why do all this?”

  He stretched one arm out, floating it slowly over his view of the doughnut.

  “And I have two answers,” Dad continued, glancing at the news camera that was hoisted up on the tripod to the side of the platform. “One, because it’s fun, and so, why not? And the other is that it’s a gift to you. You, our community. Thank you for coming to Fabuland and making it the great and spirited place that it is.”