July 2085: in between days, part 5

Charlie Roseland is 20. Sophia Nelson is 21. Ingrid Thompson and Benny Winters are 22. 

Soundtrack, "In Between Days" by The Cure

Thursday, July 27, 2085: 5:30 pm


"It's the last day for the summer fair, Charlie. Five hours is not even enough time. Carpe diem. Let's seize the fucking day."

Charlie didn't stop home after work. He threw his gear into the dusty crevice behind the front seat of his truck and drove over to the county fairgrounds. Ingrid waited in the center of the midway with his friends, like they were already her friends now too, like she'd transplanted herself into the middle of his whole universe so she wouldn't be missed or forgotten. Her lips curved into a pleased smile.



"You came," she said.

"I said I might."

"I wasn't sure what my chances were. Twenty percent?"

"Nah," Charlie said. "At least forty-five."

"You don't hate me."

"I never said I did."

"You like me then?"

Charlie smiled. "Luck was in your favor."

"I don't believe in luck," Ingrid said. "I think if you want something to happen, you make it happen."

"And what do you do if you can't make it happen?"

She seemed genuinely stumped. "I don't know. You keep trying? Or else maybe you must not have wanted it that bad."


She threw open her hands, inviting the world to come at her. “The world is our oyster, Charlie. The world is our playground. What do you want? Whatever you wanna do, let's do it.”

“I wanna play the shit out of some skeeball.”

Ingrid laughed. “You are so tame.”

“I am not tame,” Charlie said.


She came up inches from his nose and said, “Prove it.”

Charlie didn't need to prove anything to her, but for some reason he felt like he wanted to.

He laughed it off and went to play the shit out of some skeeball.


Twilight fell over the fair and the game booths lit up with bright lights, colorful prizes, and upbeat music. The four of them each bought a ticket to play. The lane Charlie chose had a purple unicorn standing watch over it, taunting him. Win me. Take me home. Love me. It was the saddest purple unicorn in the world.

Charlie was not tame. Charlie built things out of scrap metal and a blow torch. Charlie kissed his girlfriend for the first time in a haunted house. Charlie was going to buy a motorcycle... some day.


It only made him throw the ball harder, which did awful things for his accuracy. He played badly, too much force, not enough finesse.


Benny won.

Maybe it didn't matter. Natty had so many stuffed animals they could have had their own room in the apartment.

"You know what I want," Charlie said. "I want an elephant ear. That's what I want."


They all bought elephant ears and sat down to overdose on greasy, fried, powdered-sugared dough.

Ingrid said, "Charlie, it's okay that you're tame. Actually, I find it cute."

"But I'm not tame," Charlie said. "In eleventh grade, I got three-days suspension for building a remote control firework launcher in shop class."

"But I bet it was mostly protocol. Your teacher was secretly impressed."

She was right. He was. "How about this. Last month, when my parents were in China, I let Gabby have some beer."

"True story," Benny said. "And she puked it up all over my camp chairs."


"But," Ingrid said. "You only let her have one and you kept an eye on her the whole time. She didn't puke either; she spit it out because she thought it tasted bad."

Ingrid was right again.

"Would you ever get a tattoo?"

"Maybe I would," Charlie said. "Maybe I just never thought of something I wanted to get. If you're gonna ink yourself for life, you should probably be sure about what you want to get."

"Eh, it's just skin." Ingrid shrugged. "If you want one, just do it."

"Is that a dare?"

"Always choose dare," Ingrid said.


The line for the Ferris wheel was not long. They could have each had their own private gondolas, had they wanted to. But Benny and Sophia didn't seem bothered when Charlie climbed in after them, Ingrid following behind. He wasn't scared of being alone with her, but maybe he should be. "If you guys rock this gondola, I'm gonna cry," Sophia said.

"We won't," Charlie said. "And if she does, I'll sit on her."

Ingrid grinned, full of mischief. "Is that a promise?"

Sophia climbed into the gondola with a furrow between her eyebrows, but nobody rocked it. They began to go around.

"If I was scared," Ingrid said to Charlie, "would you hold my hand?"

"You don't seem like the kind of girl who needs hand-holding," Charlie said.

"You like girls like that though, don't you?"

Natty, Charlie thought. He knew Ingrid meant it too. Well, Natty didn't need his hand-holding anymore either, apparently. Or maybe she was only trying to prove something to herself too. Maybe everybody was always trying to prove something. I don't know what I'm doing, she wrote to him. He couldn't get that part out of his head. Maybe she still did need his hand-holding—it just looked a little different now that they were older. He felt like he should have done something differently, but he didn't know what that was.

Charlie didn't answer Ingrid. "I thought you said Ian was coming."

"He is," Ingrid said. "Later, maybe. Or maybe not. I don't care what my brother's doing. Tell me something, Charlie. I'm dying to figure you out. What's in that quiet head of yours?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, just tell me something."


"The square root of two is one-point-four-one."

"Ha, tell me something else."

"The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line."

"You are an epic smart-ass."

Charlie shrugged. "At least I'm epic?"


"Okay, how about this." He leaned in closer. "If you mix potassium and water you get a bright, sparkling purple flame. But then, after about six seconds, it explodes. And I'm not talking about just a little pop. I'm talking, it'll blow your goddamn hand off."

Ingrid looked mystified, intrigued, a little bit irritated, and totally turned on. "That sounds hot."

Her smile promised so much, and Charlie wanted to kiss Ingrid like he wanted that motorcycle he kept not buying—he wanted it because it was fun to think about, because it promised adventure and surprise, because it was probably a little bit bad for him too. But people didn’t need everything they wanted all the time. And maybe, in the end, that made Charlie tame after all.


Sophia’s hair fluttered in the high, cool drafts off the lake, and Ingrid scooted close enough that her leg touched Charlie's leg the whole length down from hip to knee to ankle. Across the gondola, Benny watched them both with a worried suspicion on his face, and Charlie knew Benny’s loyalties were with Natty. Benny was Natty's friend first, even if she wasn’t here right now. What did he think was happening here?

Nothing is happening here, Charlie told himself. Nothing. Dammit, Natty, I don't want to be doing this.

Tonight was one of those defining nights in a lifetime. So many dimensions, perfect mirror images of each other up to this point, and then they split, violently and clean, into several very different futures. Charlie didn’t want to make any choices. He wanted down off this Ferris wheel. He wanted to go home and watch MacGyver and eat pizza and wait for everything to sort itself out. He just wanted to wait a little bit longer, but life wasn’t interested in waiting any longer.


After the ride let them out, Charlie went back to the skee ball booth with his last few quarters. He played for that sad purple unicorn like he had something to prove, because he did have something to prove.

—