Carousel Nights

“And did you always have a date?”

He laughed. “With a cheeseburger.” He fumbled in his front shirt pocket. “Speaking of which...”

“Don’t tell me you have a cheeseburger in there.”

“Nope. Mini doughnuts from the vending machine. I can’t bring you one, but I can toss it.”

“Risky. I’m not a great catch.”

Mel grinned. “Lucky for you, I’m a good throw. Can’t miss.”

He fished a mini doughnut from the half-eaten package and tossed it carefully to June. She caught it left-handed and popped it in her mouth.

“Impressive,” Mel said.

“Had to,” she mumbled, her mouth full of doughnut. “My right hand is full of paint.”

“I’ve never doubted your talent.”

June chewed slowly, keeping her eyes on Mel. “But you’ve doubted other things about me,” she finally said.

He shook his head. “No.”

She resumed painting, only a quarter of the stage to go before she backed out a stage left door. Mel pulled up a chair at one of the many tables in the saloon. Unlike the big theater on the front midway, this one didn’t have orderly rows of pull-down seats numbering in the hundreds. Instead, high-top tables were surrounded by four chairs and scattered around the floor, each of them with a view of the raised stage. The room had an old dance hall feel, like in a Western movie.

“Think I need an audience for this?” she asked.

“Just keeping you company and waiting to offer you a ride home.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, her tone implying he was not unwelcome.

“I’d like to help paint, but there’s only room for one in that pattern you’ve got going. Wish I had a cold beer in my front pocket I could toss you next.”

She laughed. “Now, that would be risky. Either I’d miss and splatter it everywhere, or I’d catch it and not give a darn if I finished this job tonight.”

“Could finish it tomorrow,” Mel suggested.

June shook her head, never slowing with her roller. “My big plan is to give this all night to dry so we can walk on it tomorrow—at least a little bit—as we continue bringing this stage up-to-date. I ordered some big props and they’ll be in tomorrow or the next day, and I assume you don’t want to store them in Receiving or Maintenance.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Well, when you’re one-third owner of a struggling amusement park, you have to use your head.” She glanced up and grinned. “Otherwise you’ll have your back against a wall.”

“You’ll probably be glad when you get to the wall—then you can go home.”

“Almost there,” she said.

“You’re not going to be able to walk tomorrow after kneeling all this time,” Mel observed.

She glanced up sharply. “What do you mean?” Her tone was almost confrontational.

“I just mean a job like that is a knee killer,” he said. “I pawn off those jobs on the young guys.”

Her shoulders relaxed and Mel could tell, even from across the room, her expression did, too.

“Oh,” she said. “I see what you mean.”

“You’ve got talent for renovation projects,” Mel continued, filling in the silence as June painted. “Good ideas. A real eye for design. If you ever give up performing, we could put you to work in the maintenance department.”