Vanishing Girls

The front gate is hanging open, even though the park won’t officially open for another half hour, but there’s no one in the front office, no sound except for the gentle whir of the refrigerator that contains all of Donna’s precious Diet Cokes. I grab my red shirt from my assigned cubby—yes, I get a cubby, like in kindergarten—and do a quick armpit sniff. Not bad, but I’ll definitely have to wash it after today. Already the parrot-shaped thermometer registers ninety-three degrees.

I reemerge, blinking, into the sun. Still no one. I take the path that winds down past the big public bathrooms, toward the Lagoon—also known informally as the Martini, the Cesspool, and the Piss ’N’ Play—where all the water rides are. The wind rustles the leaves, both plastic and real, lining the path, and I have a memory of watching Dara, knock-kneed and skinny as a stick, running ahead of me, laughing. Then I turn the corner and see the park employees, all of them, sitting in a semicircle in the sunken outdoor amphitheater the park uses for birthday parties and special performances. Mr. Wilcox is standing on an overturned wooden crate, like a crazy man spouting off about religion. Fifty pairs of eyes turn to me simultaneously.

Funny that even in a crowd, it’s Parker I see first.

“Warren, so nice of you to join us!” Mr. Wilcox booms. But he doesn’t sound too angry. I can’t actually picture him angry; it’s like trying to imagine a skinny Santa Claus. “Come on, cop a squat, pull up a chair.”

There are no chairs, of course. I sit cross-legged at the edge of the crowd, my face hot, wishing everyone would stop staring. I catch Parker’s eye and try to smile, but he turns away.

“We were just discussing plans for the big day,” Mr. Wilcox says, addressing me. “FanLand’s seventy-fifth-anniversary party! We’ll need all hands on deck, and we’ll be coordinating a special volunteer force, too, with some local middle school recruits. The concession stands and pavilions will be working double time, and we’re expecting more than three thousand people over the course of the day.”

Mr. Wilcox rattles on about delegating special task forces and the importance of teamwork and organization, like we’re heading out to do major battle instead of throwing a party for a bunch of pukey children and their exhausted parents. I half listen, while thinking of Dara’s birthday two years ago and how she insisted we go out to this sleazy under-eighteen club near Chippewa Beach with a Halloween theme all year long. She knew the DJ—Goose or Hawk or something—and I remember how she stood on the table to dance, her mask looped around her neck, fake blood oozing down into the hollow of her clavicle.

Dara’s always liked that kind of thing: dressing up, green on Saint Patrick’s Day, bunny ears for Easter. Any excuse to do something out of the ordinary.

If there’s one thing she’s bad at, it’s ordinary.

After the staff meeting, Mr. Wilcox instructs me to help Maude “prep” the park. Maude has a pinched face, almost as if it went through a vise; short hair, white-blond with blue streaks; and spacers in her ears. She’s dressed like a hippie from the sixties, wearing a long flowing skirt and leather sandals that make her standard red T-shirt look even more ridiculous. She looks like a Maude; it’s easy to imagine that in forty years she’ll be hand-knitting a cover for her toilet seat and cursing at all the neighborhood kids pegging her porch with baseballs. Her face is twisted into a permanent scowl.

“What’s the point of a dry run?” I ask, trying to make conversation. We’re standing in front of the Cobra, the park’s largest, and oldest, roller coaster. I shield my eyes against the sun and watch the empty cars rattle along the toothy track, eating it. From a distance, it does look like a snake.

“Gotta warm ’em up,” she says. Her voice is surprisingly deep and husky, like a smoker’s. Definitely a Maude. “Get ’em on their feet, wake ’em up, make sure there’s no glitches.”

“You’re talking about them like they’re alive,” I say, only half joking. This makes her scowl even harder.

We make the rounds, testing the Plank and the Whirling Dervish, Pirate’s Cove and Treasure Island, the Black Star and the Marauder. The sun is creeping higher in the sky and the park has officially opened; the concession stands and gamers have unshuttered their booths, and already the air is scented with fried dough. Families are streaming in, little kids trailing the paper flags we give out at the entryway, moms shouting for them to Slow down, slow down.

Mr. Wilcox is parked by the front gate, talking with two cops wearing identical mirrored sunglasses and scowls. With them is a girl who looks familiar. Her blond hair is pulled into a high ponytail, her eyes swollen like she’s been crying.

In the distance, I spot Alice and Parker painting a long canvas banner stretched between them on the pavement. I can’t make out what the banner says: just blocky red and black lettering and blue splashes that might be flowers. Parker is shirtless again, his hair hanging long over his eyes, the muscles in his back contracting every time he moves the brush. Alice catches me watching and gives me a big wave, smiling broadly. Parker looks up, too, but when I wave to him he looks down, frowning. It’s the second time today he’s avoided eye contact. Maybe he’s mad that I skipped the party.

“All done,” Maude says, after we send the line of interconnected boats through the Haunted Ship and watch them emerge, passenger-less, on the other side. Faint screams and roars emanate from inside: a scream track, Alice told me yesterday, to get everyone into the right mood.