Free Twenty Grand by Rebecca Curtis Page A

Fourth came it was so humid that the air seemed tinged by the colors of people’s clothes. Dewdrops formed on the slide, and every half hour two of us had to ride down pushing towels in front of our sleds with our feet to dry it off. We never closed unless we felt drops or saw lightning—so we were open, but no one came. That night the fireworks above the lake were blurry, and mosquitoes made a faint sound like the echo of a tuning fork.
    It wasn’t just us. The economy was strong, but our town was dead. The swarm of tourists that had arrived in past years hadn’t materialized. The boardwalk at Bear Beach was quiet, the lake a vast blue. Lone motorboats buzzed by empty beaches. Our local news reported that the people who’d come to our town in the past, mostly from Massachusetts, weren’t coming now because they had more money now and could go to Europe.
    â€œI could have told him,” my father said. “The alpine slide is just not a great idea. I’m not sure why he thought he could do what no one else could.”
    Jacques announced a tightening of the belt. He spoke about the difference between the behavior he’d seen and the behavior he wanted to see. He said that he thought we could work a little harder. He said it with perfect equanimity, and soon afterward Amy Goldman and Dave Z. quarreled. He was going back to college in a month. He was thinking about the future. He wanted to date other people. She gave him an ultimatum. Out of all or nothing, he chose nothing. Now when he spoke to her it was the same way he spoke to everyone else, to tell her to hose out the rest rooms. Their awkwardness would have affected us, but we were busy working hard, which was difficult, since it was quiet and there was little to do.
    In mid-July, we each met with Jacques Michaud in his office to see if we’d get a raise. When I went in he was sitting behind his desk, a dinged-up metal one that had been in the basement office for at least ten years. He was smoking a cigar.
    â€œI don’t need a raise,” I said. I told him I was worried about the park. I explained it stupidly, in detail. I was so nervous I was stuttering. He grinned.
    â€œWe’re doing okay,” he said. “We’re doing all right. Don’t worry about the park.” Then he said something strange. He said I was the best worker he had. He said that I had the nicest smile. He said that I made customers feel happy they’d come. “Everyone should treat customers like you treat them,” he said. “You think I haven’t seen you, but I have. You work hard.”
    On my way out, he stopped me. “Come by after work and have a drink with us sometime,” he said. “Stay and talk.”
    I wanted to. But from then on the gatherings were canceled, because the next day, a day when we were actually busy, a woman came down the slide with her face burned off. It was a beautiful morning, and an alabaster light had clapped down over the entire park. Mica gleamed on the sandy paths, and the upturned orange flowers were white at their tips. I was stationed at the bottom of the slide. I’d been telling people to hurry up and get off so that the people behind them could come down. The woman’s sled was moving slowly. She was leaning forward, but she had no momentum and the sled just stopped fifty feet up the hill. I yelled at her to keep going, and then two sleds came down fast behind her and bumped her rear and her sled inched forward a bit. She looked up. Her cheeks, nose, and forehead were the red of semiprecious gems. She didn’t move—she sat in her sled and stared ahead. A line of kids waited morosely behind her while I climbed up the hill. I helped her up and pulled her sled off the track. The woman walked with me quietly. She had short curly brown hair, thinning at the crown, and was stout. She was maybe thirty-five or forty. I asked her what had happened, and she said that