“I can’t, man. Your kids are big and they are boys. She’s a little girl. But I’ll meet you in the beer tent in an hour. Just let me take her on the rides—”
“And win me a teddy bear!”
“—and win her a teddy bear, and then we’ll be good.” I look down at my niece. “Right, sis? You get your fun time, I get mine? Deal?”
She nods. “Deal.”
Bobby gives me a little salute, then wanders off towards the alcohol.
I take her over to the kiddie section to buy a wristband.
“No,” she whines.
And this is really the first time today that she’s complained. So I take notice. “What’s wrong?”
“Not the kiddie ones. Those.” She points to the spider ride, and that bobsled thing, and something with a cage that tips upside down.
“I don’t think you’re tall enough, Princess.”
“Let’s measure me.”
So we walk over there, and sure enough, she’s too short. I shrug. “Sorry, kid. You’re just not ready for the big time yet.”
“Oh, don’t be like that.”
I turn and find a very pretty redhead smirking at me. She’s a carnie girl, you can tell. She’s wearing a brightly-colored scarf over her head and has giant gold hoop earrings, like maybe she moonlights as a fortune teller. “Be like what?” I ask.
“She’s like half an inch too short. Are you afraid of the rides, big boy?”
“What?” I scoff. “No. She’s just… look.” I point to the you-must-be-this-tall sign. “She’s not tall enough.”
Gypsy Girl winks at me. “I’ll put in a good word for her.”
“Yes!” Princess pumps her fist. “Thank you!”
“I dunno.” I rub my hand over my scruffy chin. “Don’t they have these height requirements for safety reasons?”
“She’s not an infant.” Gypsy Girl laughs. “How old are you, sweetie?”
“Six,” Princess answers. “I’m in first grade this year.”
First grade. I think about this for a moment. That can’t be right. Oliver is in kindergarten this year and—
But my thoughts are interrupted by Madam Sexy when she says, “That’s the perfect age, sweets. Go ahead. I’ll let Tiger know she’s good.”
Still, I hesitate. I channel Veronica, trying to figure out which side of the issue she would be on. Here’s the problem with that. They don’t call her Ron the Bomb for nothing. She’s wild. She’s less wild now that she’s a mom six times over, but every now and then she does a Ron the Bomb kind of thing. Like pose nude for one of Spencer’s body-painting competitions. And Spencer’s not that black and white either. On the one hand, he sends these kids to Catholic school. But he also has a whole kids’ clothing section in his biker stores. And all his girls wear the logo.
So how the fuck should I know if they’re for or against rollercoasters?
I throw up my hands. “Fine. We’ll ride.”
“Yay!” The sis starts jumping up and down, clapping her hands.
Gypsy Girl pulls a wristband from her apron and says, “Twenty bucks each. Gets you on all the rides. And look here.” She winks at my niece. “This little tiger tag is special. It means you can get on the big rides.”
“Cooool.” Princess is impressed. She grabs the wristband and trots off to hold our place in line.
But I know better. “Did you just hustle me?”
“What?” Gypsy Girl looks offended. “Your kid wants to have a good time. All I did was make you a hero. She’s gonna go home to her mom tonight and tell her all about how Daddy broke the rules and she had the time of her life.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re divorced, right? This little munchkin is your prodigy? She looks just like you. And you…” She clicks her tongue at me. “You’re quite the bad-boy catch, handsome. Ex-wife couldn’t handle you, could she? All that masculine alpha dripping out of your pores like sweat. Now you have joint custody—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? This is my niece.”
“Oh.” She laughs. “Oops. Close though, right? Your sis is uptight and you’re the asshole older brother—”
“Just give me the fucking wristband.” I shove forty bucks at her and snatch the band, then look over my shoulder as I join Princess in line and say, “And your fortune-telling skills suck ass. So you better not quit the grifter job.”
Gypsy Girl flips me off and turns away with a swing of her hair.
We go on all the rides. Sis puked after the octopus, but she held it in until we got off and the whole SpaghettiOs mess plopped right into a trash can I held her over.
She’s a champion.
And then she was hungry and ready to win prizes. So we got a bag of fried mac and cheese bites and hit the games.
“Ooooh!” She tugs on my hand, pulling me towards a booth that has fifty little goldfish bowls lined up. In the old days, they used to have live goldfish in these things. But now they give out tickets for the local pet store so you can go pick it up and then spend a hundred bucks on the bowl and food.