The Funhouse

one woke her for dinner or for Mass the next morning. When she opened her eyes again, it was eleven o'clock Sunday morning, and scattered, white clouds were racing like great sailing ships across the sea-blue sky beyond her window. She had slept eighteen hours straight through.
        As far as she could remember, this was only the second time she had missed Sunday Mass since she was a few months old. The other time had been when she was nine and in the hospital, recovering from an emergency appendectomy. She had been scheduled to be discharged on Monday, and her mother had argued with the doctor about letting her out one day early so she could be taken to church, but the doctor had said that church wasn't the best place for a child recuperating from surgery.
        She was relieved that Mama hadn't forced her to go to church this morning. Apparently Mama didn't think that her wicked daughter belonged in a church anymore.
        And maybe Mama was right.
        
        * * *
        
        The following day, Monday, May 26, two sign painters went to work on the large billboard at the entrance to the county fairgrounds, just outside the Royal City limits. By midafternoon they were finished.
        
        COMING COMING COMING
        ** JUNE 30 THROUGH JULY 5 **
        THE ANNUAL ROYAL COUNTY FAIR
        *HARNESS RACING
        *ARTS & CRAFTS SHOW
        *LIVESTOCK AUCTIONS
        *GAMES, THRILL RIDES
        MIDWAY ATTRACTION BY:
        BIG AMERICAN MIDWAY SHOWS****

PART TWO
        
    The Carnival Is coming…

----
        

    9
        
        A month after the abortion, the last week of June, Amy was working at The Dive, nine-to-five Monday through Friday, and noon-to-six on Saturday. The place was jumping every minute with a tanned and energetic crowd of teenagers.
        At six o'clock Saturday evening, as Amy was getting ready to go home, Liz Duncan came in, looking like a million bucks in tight red shorts and a white T-shirt, no bra. “I've got a date with Richie tonight. He's going to meet me here at six-thirty. Want to wait with me so I don't get lonely?”
        “You wouldn't get lonely,” Amy said. “If you sat down alone, every guy in the place would be hanging on you in two minutes.”
        Liz looked speculatively at the kids in The Dive, then shook her head. “Nope. Once I've dated a guy and then dropped him, he knows it's over for good, he knows it isn't worth his time to pitch me for a rematch.”
        “So?”
        “So most of the guys in here wouldn't bother me if I sat down alone because I've already screwed most of them.”
        “Gross,” Amy said.
        “But almost true,” Liz said.
        “You're bad.”
        “That's why the boys like me. Listen, are you going to keep me company till Richie gets here?”
        “Sure,” Amy said.
        She went to the fountain and drew down two Cokes, and she and Liz took the first booth at the front of the room, where they had a view of Main Street. Liz's car was parked out front. It was a yellow Toyota Celica. Her parents had given it to her as a surprise graduation gift.
        “No matter how hard I try,” Amy said, “I can't picture you and Richie Atterbury as a couple.”
        “Why not? We were both unique in school,” Liz said. “He was the class genius with an IQ of one-eighty, and I was the class slut with a hundred and eighty names on my scorecard.”
        “I don't know why you keep putting yourself down like that,” Amy said. “You haven't had anywhere near a hundred and eighty guys, for God's sake.”
        “I'm not putting myself down,” Liz said. “Honey, I revel in it. I love what I am. It's the only way to fly.”
        “Richie was always so shy.”
        “He's not so shy anymore,” Liz said. She winked. Listen, it's been a ball teaching Richie what the game is all about. He was so gangly and clumsy and naive! A real challenge. But he's coming along. He's coming along real nice. He has a real taste for corruption.”
        “And you're corrupting him?”
        “Exactly.”
        Isn't that a bit melodramatic?”
        “No. Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm corrupting Richie Atterbury, boy genius.”
        “Elizabeth Ann Duncan, sultry temptress, the b all-knowing wanton woman of exotic Royal City,” Amy said sarcastically.
        Liz grinned. “That's me. You know, just three weeks ago, when I first started going out with him, Richie