One Night Only (4 page)

“Another thing,” he pokes his head back around the corner.
“Don't fuck with my business again. I don't pay you to give me ulcers.”
I really gotta take him with me next time.
I almost laugh; no doubt in my mind there will be a repeat. Maybe next time, I'll scale up.

 

 

 

 

 

D
eep-fried cheesecake?” Isabel gestured at the vendor as we passed to prove she wasn't making the referenced item up. The food at the state fair was, of course, famous, and in the several years since I had been back to attend, the list of offered items had grown exponentially. My understanding was that the category of “deep-fried” in particular seemed to get more outrageous every year.

“I'm saving up for a funnel cake,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the idea of cheesecake in deep-fried form. I scanned the food stands that stretched as far as we could see. I remembered funnel cake fondly as part of virtually every trip I'd made to the fair as a kid—a classic fair staple, the smell of which still instantly transported me back there any time I encountered it.

Spotting a stand nearby, I started to charge forward but was cut off by a family with a stroller crossing in front of me. I held up and waited as my body stood coiled, ready to move at the first opportunity. As soon as I began to advance through a
clearing, a couple veered across my path, and I tapped my foot.

“What are you so impatient about?” Isabel said from behind me. “We're not in a hurry.”

I stopped, feeling the adrenaline chasing through me as I stood consciously still. She was right. I stayed in one place until the automatic forward momentum I felt rushing through my system faded.

“I'm not used to the Midwest anymore,” I said.

It was startling to realize how true it was. The rushed, impersonal environment I had grown used to for almost the last decade was simply missing here, and while I found it unnerving in a way, there was a place too where I experienced it as relieving—as well as undeniably familiar. I had grown up amongst the sedate, grounded undercurrent of the Midwest, unmistakable even here among the energy and extravagance of the state fair.

In the nine years since I'd moved away, I'd been back at least once each year for Christmas, and sometimes more often, but this was the first time in almost as many years as I'd been away that I'd been back at the time of the state fair. Though my own days of rooster-crowing contests and 4-H projects and prizewinning bell peppers now seemed like a lifetime ago, from the second we entered the parking lot it had felt like just last week that I was here at the fair with my two older brothers, perusing the industrial building, prepping for the swine show, going to see everyone from the local country artists on the free stage to George Strait at the grandstand in full country garb from boots to hat. Every summer of my childhood had included the anticipation of those eleven days in August, and I had continued to frequent the fair, often with Isabel, throughout my high school years and right up to the summer before I left home.

Isabel still looked the quintessential cowgirl in her no-pocket Wrangler jeans and brown, round-toe, lace-up boots. There was
a time when we were younger when we often looked like twins, side by side in our similar country-girl styles and ubiquitous cowboy boots, all of which we often traded back and forth. My country wardrobe had long since been discarded or donated, down to the last pair of boots I owned up until the day I took off for the East Coast. I was leaving that identity behind me, packing up for a shiny new one in the land of skyscrapers and glamour and busy streets—and, I had found, relentless pacing, ubiquitous traffic and pervasive pollution. Give and take.

Isabel had offered to lend me a pair of boots for the day. I had taken her up on the offer for old times' sake, pairing the pointed-toe, white-stitched, black leather style with a pair of cutoffs, a look I'd sported commonly during my teenage years. The outfit soon felt as familiar as the fair itself, even as I sensed the irrevocable distance of almost ten years in some intangible way. I was grateful for the sturdiness of the steel and leather that hugged my feet as we picked our way over the mud-formed tire tracks and stiff peaks of earth the rain earlier in the week had left on our route to the livestock area.

It was between the sheep and cattle barns that I saw him. He was dressed like a cowboy, which didn't really set him apart around here. The features and physique that made him look like Christian Bale in a hat, however, certainly did. My eyes barely had time to run from the black felt to the slate-gray boots he had on before gravitating magnetically to his eyes—which were looking at mine.

My lips parted, and instinctively I took a step toward him. There were twenty-five yards separating us, but I noticed nothing that was between us as my gaze zeroed in on him like a laser. It was a focus I didn't really even feel like I controlled; it was simply how I looked at people I wanted to fuck.

For a second he held my gaze, and I couldn't tell for sure if it
reflected what was in mine before a wave of people intersected the distance between us, sweeping him from sight as Isabel asked what I was doing and nudged me along. I looked back as we approached the cattle barn, but none of the plethora of black cowboy hats in view sat atop the specimen of walking masculine sex appeal I had just glimpsed.

As we entered the cattle barn, my focus had already crystallized around finding him. Of course, the probability of such was low; though I felt quite content now to remain on the premises until my flight back East was scheduled to depart the day after tomorrow, the fair would close before then. Even in the several hours we had between then and now, we were unlikely to encounter him again among the hundreds of acres and tens of thousands of fair attendees surrounding us.

Such logic did nothing to stop the fixation on meeting him from rising up and locking into place inside me. Large fans blasted furiously from the corners of the animals' stalls as I turned my attention to the cows around us. The air was sticky with the notorious Midwestern August humidity, and Isabel fanned her top away from her chest as we walked out the other side of the cattle barn back into the searing afternoon sunlight. I blinked and scanned the swirling crowd, an activity my eyes rarely stopped for the next few hours as we perused the karaoke stage, took refuge in the air-conditioned 4-H exhibit building and stopped for ice cream on our way to the state historic display property.

All, alas, to no avail.

“I want to ride the sky glider,” Isabel said as she polished off her ice-cream cone. “That'll take us over to the agriculture building, and then we'll be close to the midway when it gets dark.”

Treetops moved slowly by and then below us as the ski-lift-like ride of colored roofs connected to benches with backs
inched along its suspension. Isabel hung her arm out the side of our bright blue one, tilting her face up to the sun.

“I've always found this ride so relaxing,” she said.

“Nothing like being suspended fifty feet in the air in a box held up by a wire.” I was about to comment further when I saw a black cowboy hat beneath us to our left. That wasn't much of a stretch, since there was a ratio of about one black cowboy hat per four people at the fair, but I sensed the distinctiveness of this particular figure and craned my neck to look past Isabel. A jolt sizzled through me as I caught a glimpse of slate-gray boots.

I almost swore out loud, maddened by the re-spotting of him at a time when there was nothing I could do to make contact with him. I glanced at a passing tree, pondering for a split second the effectiveness of dropping into it and climbing to the ground as my cowboy, facing away from us, receded in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?” Isabel asked, turning toward where I looked as I practically climbed on top of her to keep sight of my visual target. “You see somebody you want to fuck, don't you?” she demanded as she looked back at me. “You have that primal look you get when that's become your focus.”

I ignored her, trying to discern where the cowboy might be headed as our sky box crept along at the pace of a sloth swimming through honey. As we began to slope downward, a large maple tree emerged between us and the ground, neatly eradicating my view of him.

“Dammit,” I swore as I sat back.

“Is it someone you know?” Isabel asked, looking in the direction of the tree.

“Not yet,” I said as we approached the disembarkation station. “And at this point I probably won't, since I'm not likely to find him again in this crowd.”

“Hard as I know you'll try to!” Isabel said cheerfully as we
stepped off the ride. I glowered at her as she linked arms with me, turning us toward the agricultural building as she continued her uninvited monologue. “Well, if you're looking to get laid—which I'm sure you are because I've never known you not to be—I'm sure you'll find someone amongst the eighty thousand people here who does it for you. It's like the famous fair food,” she added as she glanced at the jam-packed food concourse. “Just about anything you've got a taste for, you can find here.”

I didn't respond. Admittedly, Isabel was right; there probably was someone satisfactory I could find for the purpose. But having seen the Christian Bale look-alike, it would be like settling for fast food (or deep-fried cheesecake) after knowing filet mignon was in the vicinity.

“We'll see.” My tone indicated the closing of the conversation.

“Oh, hey look, it's Lisa,” Isabel said, raising her arm and calling out. I turned to see Lisa with two other of our high school friends smiling as they headed toward us. It had been a couple years since I'd seen any of them, and we exchanged warm greetings as the five of us congregated under the cover of a sycamore tree.

Dusk was beginning to hover, and the multitude of nighttime lights started to blink on all around the nearby midway. Although lighting up randomly, the myriad small, large, clear and colored bulbs seemed like a cued light show as they seized attention and bounced it from one attraction to another until the entire area was a gleaming display of sparkling lights.

I checked out of the conversation for a moment to observe the natural light in the form of the sunset lounging casually along the horizon. Its effortless peacefulness was contagious, and I took a deep breath and felt my body relax a notch as I turned back to Isabel and company.

And there he was. Right on the other side of the path, standing with his friends at the edge of the midway as they engaged in animated conversation. He wasn't looking at me this time, but as I stared, he turned his head. He did a double take as he caught my eye.

I held his gaze, throwing an “I'll catch up with you guys later” over my shoulder as I started across the asphalt. I heard the smile in Isabel's voice behind me as she filled our friends in on what I was undoubtedly doing. I didn't turn around, but I could sense the quartet grinning in support at my back as my cowboy maintained eye contact with me while I crossed the expanse between us. As I approached he took a few steps away from his friends to meet me at the edge of the path.

“Hi.” I held out my hand. “I'm June.”

“Travis,” he said, shaking it. Sparks shot from where our skin touched to every extremity in my body as he seemed in no hurry to let go. He looked me up and down. “Are you from around here?”

“Visiting,” I said. “I live in New York.”

He nodded, glancing down at my boots. “I thought so.” I raised my eyebrows, and he grinned a little. “You're dressed the part, but I get a city-girl vibe from you somehow. I just guessed you weren't local.”

I smiled, finding I had to work slightly to keep the wistfulness from showing in it. Years ago I would have been thrilled by such a comment. I wasn't sure now how it struck me that I seemed so obviously out of place here.

“Does that mean you are?” I asked.

He nodded and named a small town in the southern part of the state, a couple of hours away from my own hometown and the fairgrounds themselves.

“So, June.” His eyes shifted to the midway. “Can I interest
you in a ferris wheel ride?”

I hid a smile. Travis was looking to break the ice. He didn't understand yet that there was no ice with me—it was long melted, the water cool and inviting and just waiting for an occupant.

I leaned toward him almost imperceptibly. “Actually, the tilt-a-whirl's a little more my speed,” I said as I held his gaze.

There was the slightest of pauses before he gave an agreeable nod, and his countenance was impassive as he gestured toward the midway. The uncertainty of this reception seemed to fuel the desire in me, and arousal coiled in my stomach as I fell into step beside him, my borrowed black boots striking the pavement rhythmically.

We entered the crowded midway, where excited screams overlapped the whistles and jingles of various games and attractions and hundreds of multilevel voices. Gears and levers cranked around us as we approached the tilt-a-whirl, and we waited in the short line for the current ride to come to an end. Travis pulled a folded stack of tickets from his pocket as he approached the conductor, and our matching boot thumps rattled the metal as we ascended the steps and walked around to a car. Travis stepped back to let me in, flashing me a smile as I slid past him and dropped onto the bench. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he settled in beside me.

“I hope this ride's okay with you,” it occurred to me to say.

Travis's grin made me catch my breath, and suddenly there was no longer a question that we both knew what we were doing. “It's fine with me. I just wanted to offer something slow to start with, not knowing what you liked.”