“Or not!” said Laura.
“Vanessa, this is Paulina, Laura, and Claudia,” said Thomas. “Don’t get too attached to their names,” he said. “They trade name tags constantly.”
“Did I hear you call them ‘The Blondes’?” Vanessa asked, in a tone that teetered between disapproval and amusement.
Claudia rescued him. “It’s our nickname for ourselves.” She linked arms with her yellow-haired compatriots. “Right, girls?”
“Right!” they chorused, then doubled over in laughter.
Ah, the energy of youth. Thomas snuck a glance at Vanessa, who was smiling, before addressing Claudia again. “Where’s Marco? Did you leave him to wander the underground forever?”
“Who’s Marco?” Vanessa asked.
“He finished training last week,” Thomas replied. “These three talked him into the carriage wash today.”
“We took him on a tour,” said Paulina.
“A long tour,” added Laura.
“Should we go look for him?” asked Vanessa.
The door opened and a young man strolled into the room. The Blondes shouted “Marco!” and surrounded him, hustling him out the break room door and down the hallway. Their boisterous noise echoed back to the break room until the door swung completely shut.
Vanessa looked at Thomas. “Wow,” she said.
“Wow is the word,” he agreed.
“Where are they taking him?”
“Best not to ask.”
She flipped open a pizza box. “More for us, then,” she said, and helped herself to a slice of cheese pizza.
“I couldn’t agree more.” He snagged a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and handed a few to her. “Would you like a plate?”
“You are the wizard of paper towels today, aren’t you?” She put her slice on the towel and sat down at the table.
Thomas sat down across from her. I hope Marco and the Blondes decide to go on another tour. A very long tour. He racked his brain for something intelligent to say. “Where did we leave off last time?”
“Last time?”
“As I recall, you claimed mythological origins.”
Vanessa chuckled. “Right.” She put down her pizza. “You already heard about the little family-owned amusement I used to work for. Nothing like this,” she gestured to their surroundings. “We had a coaster, a flume, a couple of carnival rides, that sort of thing. Anyway, after a while, the maintenance of keeping the place up cost more than it was bringing in. They had to close it down.”
“Then you ended up here.”
“Then I ended up here,” she said.
“Why move so far? You got family down here?”
She shook her head. “All in Tennessee. Most of ‘em in the same county, for that matter.”
“You miss it?”
“I miss some things.”
“Like what?” She’s left behind a handsome mountain man who splits logs single-handedly. That would be my luck.
“The mountains. My mom and dad.”
Yes! No mountain man. “That’s not a long list,” he said.
“I suppose not.” She sighed. “You’re from a small town, though—you know what it’s like.”
“Provincial? Suffocating?”
“Unchanging,” she said. “Which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, but … ” She trailed off, then looked him in the eye. “Sometimes you want to know what’s around the river bend. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Thomas. “I know just what you mean.”
The four other crew members crashed through the door again and snatched up the unopened pizza boxes.
Marco discovered the bag of sodas and handed them out to all present, including Thomas and Vanessa, who had gone quiet, and the Blondes, who were singing a mildly inappropriate sea shanty.
Thomas, who had looked away from Vanessa during the commotion, looked back at Vanessa.
She held the soda can in her hand, unopened.
He wanted to say something profound, but he settled on something mundane. “I’ll get the cleaning supplies,” he said. “You go ahead and finish your pizza.”
Vanessa started as if she had been woken from a dream. She smiled slowly. “I’ll be here,” she said, raising her eyebrows to indicate the company into which she’d fallen.
He went out to the hallway and retrieved a small boombox and a caddy of rags and cleaning spray from the supply closet. He carried them to the attraction loading area and set them on top of the ride control cabinet. He plugged in the boombox and fiddled with the dial to tune in the pop station, then cranked up the volume to a sufficient level.
Pleased with his handiwork, he returned to the break room to collect his fellow crew members and Vanessa.
They descended on the loading area in a festive mood. Each person grabbed a rag and went to work wiping down the carriages. When they finished all the carriages in the loading area, Thomas engaged the ride controls to move the ride vehicles forward so that a new set of carriages took their place in the loading area.
Paulina, Laura, and Claudia kept up a happy stream of chatter, carrying Marco along in their wake. Vanessa seemed to half-listen to the conversation as it ebbed and flowed, but she never stopped moving long enough to join in. Thomas fell into sync with her, scrubbing quickly but thoroughly without saying much.
After a while, they stopped for a break. Marco whirled the radio dial in search of a new station. The speakers spit out bits of talk radio and commercials before he landed on a country station.
“Anything but country,” Thomas said. “Those are the rules.”
“Whose rules? Marco, step aside,” Vanessa said. She turned up the volume and bobbed her head to the rhythm.
Laura and Claudia linked arms and skipped in a circle. Paulina grabbed Marco’s arm and joined in.
“No, no, that’s not how it’s done,” Vanessa said. “Watch.”
She moved to an open part of the loading area and began stepping neatly in time with the song, narrating each step: “Rock step, cha-cha-cha, rock step, cha-cha-cha. Half turn, cha-cha-cha, half turn, cha-cha-cha.”
“Wait!” said Thomas.
Vanessa stopped moving.
He reached in the cabinet and pulled out a Gold Rush hat, then placed it on her head. “Perfect.”