Joyland

burst out laughing when I started to fulminate.
    I called Annie Ross later that morning, using the same phone Lane had used to call the ambulance. I told her I’d set up a tour of the park the following Tuesday morning, if the weather was good—Wednesday or Thursday if it wasn’t. Then I held my breath.
    There was a long pause, followed by a sigh.
    Then she said okay.

    That was a busy Friday. I left the park early, drove to Wilmington, and was waiting when Tom and Erin stepped off the train. Erin ran the length of the platform, threw herself into my arms, and kissed me on both cheeks and the tip of my nose. She made a lovely armful, but it’s impossible to mistake sisterly kisses for anything other than what they are. I let her go and allowed Tom to pull me into an enthusiastic back-thumping manhug. It was as if we hadn’t seen each other in five years instead of five weeks. I was a working stiff now, and although I had put on my best chinos and a sport-shirt, I looked it. Even with my grease-spotted jeans and sun-faded dogtop back in the closet of my room at Mrs. S.’s, I looked it.
    “It’s so great to see you!” Erin said. “My God, what a tan!”
    I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m working in the northernmost province of the Redneck Riviera.”
    “You made the right call,” Tom said. “I never would have believed it when you said you weren’t going back to school, but you made the right call. Maybe I should have stayed at Joyland.”
    He smiled—that I-French-kissed-the-Blarney-Stone smile of his that could charm the birdies down from the trees—but it didn’t quite dispel the shadow that crossed his face. He could never have stayed at Joyland, not after our dark ride.
    They stayed the weekend at Mrs. Shoplaw’s Beachside Accommodations (Mrs. S. was delighted to have them, and Tina Ackerley was delighted to see them) and all five of us had a hilarious half-drunk picnic supper on the beach, with a roaring bonfire to provide warmth. But on Saturday afternoon, when it came time for Erin to share her troubling information with me, Tom declared his intention to whip Tina and Mrs. S. at Scrabble and sent us off alone. I thought that if Annie and Mike were at the end of their boardwalk, I’d introduce Erin to them. But the day was chilly, the wind off the ocean was downright cold, and the picnic table at the end of the boardwalk was deserted. Even the umbrella was gone, taken in and stored for the winter.
    At Joyland, all four parking lots were empty save for the little fleet of service trucks. Erin—dressed in a heavy turtleneck sweater and wool pants, carrying a slim and very businesslike briefcase with her initials embossed on it—raised her eyebrows when I produced my keyring and used the biggest key to open the gate.
    “So,” she said. “You’re one of them now.”
    That embarrassed me—aren’t we all embarrassed (even if we don’t know why) when someone says we’re one of them ?
    “Not really. I carry a gate-key in case I get here before anyone else, or if I’m the last to leave, but only Fred and Lane have all the Keys to the Kingdom.”
    She laughed as if I’d said something silly. “The key to the gate is the key to the kingdom, that’s what I think.” Then she sobered and gave me a long, measuring stare. “You look older, Devin. I thought so even before we got off the train, when I saw you waiting on the platform. Now I know why. You went to work and we went back to Never Never Land to play with the Lost Boys and Girls. The ones who will eventually turn up in suits from Brooks Brothers and with MBAs in their pockets.”
    I pointed to the briefcase. “That would go with a suit from Brooks Brothers . . . if they really make suits for women, that is.”
    She sighed. “It was a gift from my parents. My father wants me to be a lawyer, like him. So far I haven’t gotten up the nerve to tell him I want to be a freelance photographer. He’ll blow his stack.”
    We walked up Joyland Avenue in silence—except for the bonelike rattle of the fallen leaves. She looked at the covered rides, the dry fountain, the frozen horses on the merry-go-round, the empty Story Stage in the deserted Wiggle-Waggle Village.
    “Kind of sad, seeing it this way. It makes me think mortal thoughts.” She looked at me appraisingly. “We saw the paper. Mrs. Shoplaw made sure to leave it in our room. You did it again.”
    “Eddie? I just happened to be there.” We had reached Madame Fortuna’s shy.