through our hair, the radio already on, and for a moment, it’s as if we are seventeen all over again.
Susanna makes a turn into the parking lot just after the homemade sign reading, JULY FOURTH EXPLOSION: WESTLAKE CARNIVAL .
By the time we hit the grounds, the fair is bustling. All of the local vendors hawk their eclectic wares from behind flashing booths, some playing country music, some blaring horns, somesimply shouting for us to come over and have a gander. We stroll through the grounds, stopping to buy handheld battery-powered fans for two dollars each—a pittance against the heat—waving at an assortment of friends who have piled up over time. I’ve lived in Westlake since birth; we’ve all raised each other over the years.
The fairgrounds reek, as they always do, of an off-kilter combination of animal stink, fried dough, and human body odor, and the dust immediately layers our skin like spackle. As we walk by the petting farm, I pull my hair, the color of damp straw, into a tight ponytail.
“I’ll meet you in a few,” Susanna says. “Austin is here somewhere with the kids. We’re doing a hand-off.”
“Want me to come?”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. He actually came over for dinner last night.” She shrugs.
“Things any better?”
“We’ll see,” she says, a little too grimly, a little more devoid of the forgiveness I wish she had for Tyler’s best friend, who’s not such a bad guy, but who may have made a marriage-ending mistake by fooling around with his office manager in her car after a very happy happy hour and having the poor sense to do so in his driveway when she dropped him off, just in time for Susie to catch a glimpse out their bedroom window. Not that I don’t understand her bitterness; I do. But I don’t want them to shatter, not the two of them. Not the four of us who have clung together, barnacles, since high school.
I watch her wander off and then scope around for Tyler, but the crowd is too packed to get a real sense of the landscape, so instead, I head for the ice-cream stand.
“Hey, Mrs. F.”
I spin around to see one of my favorite students, ClaudetteJohnson, behind me, in slightly too-short shorts and a slightly too-clingy T-shirt with a winking Mickey Mouse decal, which surely holds some sort of irony that’s over my head. She is lean and tanned and well rested, and if you didn’t know her, you’d never imagine that her prettiness has nothing to do with how she defines herself.
“Hey, CJ, how’s your summer going?”
“Well enough. Last real summer before I’m out of here.” She flashes me a genuine smile that illuminates her entire face, taking her from small-town beautiful to anywhere-in-the-world breathtaking. The same smile I see whenever she comes into my office to discuss launching her life on a bigger stage than Westlake can offer.
I wish she wouldn’t be in such a rush. I always tell her that.
“I wish you wouldn’t be in such a rush, CJ!”
That there are a lot of wonderful things about planting her roots here in town, near her father, who I know will despair at seeing his only child head out into the world that could swallow her whole; near the community who rallied around her and her dad when her mother skipped out seven years ago. But CJ never considers it, never considers a secondary option.
“And are you ready for prom planning? We’re starting next week.”
“I got your e-mail.” She nods. “And I heard you might be doing the musical too.” I notice several of the football players lingering behind her, taking in the view.
“Guilty as charged.” I smile. “Don’t worry; you’ll be the first to hear about auditions.”
The line inches us toward my awaiting Nutty Buddy.
“How’s your break going?” CJ asks. “Do anything major?”
“Nothing much,” I say, thinking of how Tyler has just expressed his regret that we once again didn’t take advantage of mysummer off, didn’t take that virgin trip to Europe or