Free Other People We Married by Emma Straub

ever. She’d only imagined a girl like Franny, kissing her back and meaning it. The longer they stood there, the more Jackie knew that Fran understood what she had never told her. That it wasn’t a game. Now she could guess why Jane hadn’t been invited along, why she had been chosen in her place. The kiss in the bathroom had not been Jackie’s first, of course not. There were so many things Jackie wanted Franny to do, and one of them was fly across the sand, into the legion of girls like Jackie and Jane, not caring if her borrowed dress was torn to pieces in the surf. Jackie could have made a flying leap, an Olympic leap, right from where she stood into Franny’s arms. She could have spun her out and in, out and in, until their arms were tired and so they’d use their mouths instead. But that was not what shewanted; even in the dark, that much was clear. Franny’s face was blank and white. She was shivering. Jackie started walking back toward her, her shoulders collapsing with each step, and Jackie turned toward the ocean, offering Fran her profile so that she couldn’t see her face. Jackie didn’t stop when she reached her. Instead, Jackie pointed her body back to the hotel and said, “Well, you coming?” They flew back a few days later and never talked about the tripagain.

Abraham’s
Enchanted Forest
    O ld rides were easy to come by if you knew where to look. Places went out of business all the time. Abraham drove to Pennsylvania and Ohio to check out people’s old Scramblers and Whack-a-Moles and Zip-Dee-Doos. If Greta was out of school, she went with him and gave her opinion on the rusting metal giants. She was sixteen now and could be trusted with important decisions. He rarely bought anything, though. Most of the time he’d come home and say, “You know what? I’ve got an idea!” Then he’d vanish into his shop for a few hours or a few days and come out with something strung together with pieces of old tires. All of the attractions at the Forest were homemade except for the lonely Ferris wheel, which poked dramatically over the tree line. There was a guy in Big Sur who carved things with a chainsaw, and he and Abraham had some kind of deal going. Ithad something to do with weed. Every now and then a truck would pull up and deposit a burl dwarf or wizard or unicorn, and there’d be something else inside, too. Abraham liked it when things looked like they could have occurred organically, like when a tree stump looked enough like a miniature castle to label it as such, but you’d still have to squint and maybe put in some windows and turrets in your head.
    Greta knew that things were confusing on purpose. The Enchanted Forest was an actual place, that’s why lots of people stopped. On the map, there was a small triangle of green, labeled
Enchanted National Forest and State Park
, and Abraham’s Enchanted Forest roadside attraction was on the highway headed in that direction. Before Greta was born, her parents, Abraham and Judy, had made enough signs to divert even the most dedicated of road warriors.
Look out, goblins ahead! Magical pony crossing! Entering Fairy Dust Area! Food! Rides! Unexplainable phenomena! Visit the Enchanted Forest, Five Miles!
His goal was to be the Northeast’s answer to Wall Drug and South of the Border, but to actually give people a good reason to stop. Sure, he wanted them to pay admission, but more than that, he wanted to give them a worthwhile experience. He wanted to give them poetry and apple pie, the good kind of Americana. He and Judy had bought the land for nothing and then built the whole Forest from scratch, except for the trees. Greta knew that tourists considered the Forest a rip-off; after all, it was mainly a path through big old trees with some plaques telling you to look out for some imaginary thing, a Ferris wheel, and a place to eat lunch. But she also knew the truth: most people didn’t look hard enough.
    Apparently, you could see the upper rim of the