“Can I try? Please?” Sis puts her hands together like she’s praying and begs up at me with her wide blue eyes. Mmmm. Hold on. Are they blue?
“Hey, when did you get green eyes?”
“What?”
“Green eyes. You don’t have green eyes.”
She makes a face at me. This face says, You are old and crazy. And maybe I am. I must be. Eye color doesn’t change. I must not have been paying attention when this one was born and I refuse to feel guilty about that. Fucking Veronica needs to slow down in the kid department. It’s been one after the other for the last fifteen years.
“Why are you just standing there doing nothing?”
“What?”
“Can I try for a goldfish?”
I glance at the carnie. He’s smiling at me. Not missing any teeth though. He’s young. A lot younger than me, so he’s cocky too. “What do ya say, Gramps? Ya wanna try yer luck?” He spits some chew out the side of his mouth.
“Gramps?” I huff.
“No, no, no, no.” Princess is tugging on my hand. “Not you. Me. I want to try.”
“Yeah. Let her try her luck, old man.”
I shoot him a look that says this old man could kick his ass, but he just laughs. “Five dollars.” I hand it over and he places three pingpong balls in front of the sis. “Do yer best, little girl. Make sure you aim for the—”
But Sis has already thrown her first ball, and it plunks right into the tiny bowl with a plop.
“I did it!” She squeals this. Loud. People turn to look. A few of them clap.
I smirk up at the dumbass carnie. “Do it again, princess. You have two more tries.”
“Nat-ah,” Carnie says. “One win per person.”
“The fuck?” I narrow my eyes down at this little jerk. “Come again, carnie? Because I thought I heard you say ‘one win per person’ when my little girl has two more tries.”
Carnie and I have a little staring contest. But he breaks off first. “Fine. You can throw. But if you win, they ain’t gonna give you more than one goldfish at the pet store. It’s the rule.”
“You let me worry about the rules there, partner.” Then I look down at my niece and nod. “Throw ’em.”
She nods. Throws ’em. And sinks that pingpong two more times. We leave that booth with vouchers for three goldfish in the pet store down the street from Sick Boyz.
“When can we get them? Can we go now?”
“Nah. It’s closed. But I’ll pick them up tomorrow and bring them to ya.”
“No, no, no. I want to pick. And I need a bowl.”
“Oh, of course you do.”
“And a castle. And rocks. And fish food, and a net, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff.”
“All right. When I drop you off tonight, I’ll tell your mom that I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning and we can go get the fish. Deal?”
She hooks her pinky into mine. “Deal. Now let’s go win me a teddy bear.”
“All right.” I crack my knuckles and take a look up and down the midway. “Which bear do you want?”
She looks hard. We walk a little as she studies the biggest prizes in each booth. “That one!”
I nod. “Now that there is a very nice bear. And you’re in luck. It’s a shooting game.”
I hit all the targets first time out. But I do not win the big bear. I win the tiny bear. Because you gotta keep trading in your prize to get the big one. So it actually takes me thirty minutes and seven tries to finally get the giant pink and white bear that is almost as big as my niece.
She is beaming. Like that smile of hers could not get any bigger. “You happy now, sis?” I ask.
She nods. “Yep. This was best day ever.”
“Good. I’m glad you had fun. But now we’re gonna grab a beer and walk up and down those aisles over there and see if I can find myself a new piece of chrome for the bike.”
She doesn’t even complain. Not once. I keep my eye out for Ronnie and Spencer, just in case they made it up here. But I don’t see them. Maybe they’re still at that art exhibit? Or maybe they came up here yesterday?
At any rate, Princess happily totes her giant bear around behind Bobby and me as we check out all the booths. He gets himself a new seat and I pick up some grips and a cool kickstand.
And then it’s late. Bobby and I are kicking back on the grass just listening to the band, and Sis is passed out with her bear on the ground. He’s chomping on popcorn and I’m thinking it’s about time to head home. So I check my phone for a text from Ronnie. Maybe I didn’t hear it?