Time in the Fair

Diverse vendors of more diverse wares stood or sat by their bright roofed tents without walls watching people’s eyes as they peered into what seemed a never ending treasured bazaar set up on the closed downtown street. Jewelry, paintings, sculpture and ice cream enticed and inspired eyes to come and see. There’s something there for the bare space above the mantle, a center piece for the dining room table, a tasty snack to make this first year anniversary date special. Everything here presented a keystone to focus on or a fringe adding a content smile to something not yet completed.

The view from where Andrea and Max sat disappeared under the moving of comfortable walking shoes. Against a red brick building, they watched the open aired annual fair, started up again, on the first official week of summer. They watched the crowd’s knees from their perch, licking like lollipops their pink and raspberry flavored ice cream dripping down the cones and onto their arms.

No one shouted. The vendors didn’t sell headlines. They patiently waited for someone to walk by, unconsciously slowing at the sight of an attraction. ‘Would you like to come inside?’ one vendor politely offered, and quietly someone approached the tent and passed the imaginary line separating the street from the tent, their eyes alight in fizzing art hesitating as they rose up to see the sun illuminating the overhead canopy; beauty all around. Others, people old and young, parents and children, strolled the avenues more for taking in the scenery or for the novelty of walking unabated by vehicles though the usual fussy downtown.

Andrea and Max sat as onlookers to the action. They sat and waited, parked against a corner building, for each other to lick the last of the dripping ice cream. Andrea finished, but she knew even when Max finished his, they would wait some more.

“I don’t know when I was this relaxed.” Andrea finally said. “When I was younger, I used to wait for the bus like this when my legs were tired. I just put my headphones on and sat. Just content to sit.”

“Especially on a hot day.” Max slurped. “Cold stone on a day like this...”

“Yeah. Keeping cool is key.”

Max rolled his eyes but smiled at the alliteration.

From their left two children in a radio flyer wagon pulled by their mother approached. One boy and one girl, their heads turning in all directions of the fair until one focused on the pink and sloppy ice cream in Max’s hand.

“Ooo, ice cream!” the boy said. The little girl’s head spun.

“Ice cream!” she said. “Mommy look!”

She saw it and sighed. “Maybe later.”

Andrea and Max smiled at the mother and she half smiled back. Andrea waved to the two children and they waved back. Max waved at them as they turned in their little red wagon, seeing the ice cream inside the cone fall onto the concrete.

“Crap.” He still held the two-thirds eaten cone and popped it in his mouth.

“That sucks.” she said.

“It’s still good though.” he said fumbling out words through waffle cone.

“The messy things usually are.”

They sat in silence looking at people from the eye level of children. It was something more pleasant than what either expected, a more than comfortable silence in which both knew the other there, but they registered only on each other’s peripheral. Neither one wanted to break the quiet between the two, both content to listen to smiles of the fair and let the people move around them. Max licked his arm clean of sweet pink milk. He finished and wiped up, crumpling the napkin and palming it.

“Thanks for the ice cream.”

“More like milk today.” she smiled. “You want to walk?”

“Sure.”

Andrea got up first and Max reached out his hand. Andrea held it and pulled him to his feet. They held hands as they walked from the building to the curb. Stepping slowly over it, they looked at the fair as if for the first time. Each saw the possibility of what could happen depending on the way they chose to walk; metal sculpture to their left blinding in the sun, paintings of farmhouses and scenic pastures to their right. Beyond that were dresses of bright fabric hanging with shirts and skirts, bracelets and necklaces, purses and bags, hats with plumes, hats in subtle earthen colors and some cut like flappers and bowlers. There were rings and fake tattoos, a crone reading palms, a fifty something man selling guitars in the middle of showing off one’s tone with a quiet finger plucking, and a parrot perched on a woman’s shoulder telling people their weight for a dollar. Either way they went, they would be pleasantly surprised with what they saw. The sights building on each other and creating a magic that only mystery and potential held. Of course, they couldn’t see everything from where they stood. There was just too much. They would have to walk a ways to see it all.

“Which way?”

“Let’s just stroll.”

They took to the street glancing at the spectacles inside each tent, holding each other's hand and pointing at an interesting item so the other could see and share in the visual experience. People walked in the same manner they did. Some moving faster than others, as if they had to see it all at once. Others moved slower, just there for leisure and a way to spend the afternoon.

Andrea saw three giggling teenagers start to run from a few tents down. One was on roller blades. They brushed past the two of them almost knocking Max in his arm. They left behind Max and Andrea laughing at something unheard.

“What the hell?” he said offended on the extreme side of pleasant.

“Let ‘em go. They’re kids.”

“Whatever. They should look where they’re going.”

Andrea dismissed his angst and they continued walking on the asphalt still hand in hand.

They stalled in the street, peering into a tent littered with watercolor illustrations. Some were of houses, some of children playing in a stream like they came out of a picture book.

“Excuse me.” a voice said behind them. They turned to see a man in a wheelchair, a paper plate of rice, beans and chicken in his lap. He’d been slightly following them.

“Oh, sorry.” They stepped to the side, letting the man pass. They watched the black and gray steel wool hair and the tips of his glasses poking out behind his ears slide by them. Once he was gone Max said:

“That’s gotta suck.”

“The guy in the wheelchair?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’s that?”

“This fair is kinda the land of the walking y’know? He’s gotta sit.”

“I’d think it’d be nice. Not walking around all day.”

“You think he’s a vendor?”

“I dunno. You see his arms? Could be a sculptor. You’d be good to get arms like that. Nice and strong.” she smiled. “I’m gonna get you a wheelchair. You think someone’s selling wheelchairs here?”

“Ha. Funny. Ask the guy.”

Andrea continued smiling. Her teasing got the desired effect. Max no longer thought about the pessimism that rose from seeing something he thought uncouth. They continued walking, forgetting about the colorful illustrations they just passed.

They continued their stroll. A cloud overtook the sun and shaded the fair in muted versions of what seemed so bright a minute ago. Both quietly realized they were no longer holding hands and tried to remember when they stopped and who dropped whose hand. They wanted to hold each other’s again but thought that the other didn’t and neither wanted to bring it up.

A forty-something couple stood in front of them. They were in the middle of an argument and starting to make a scene.

“I don’t have a problem with spending money.” the man said. “I just want to spend it on something we both like.”

“Don’t start. You’re so cheap it’s insane. That time in Malibu?”

“Malibu again. You’re a damn elephant with that. Just drop it.”

“All I want is this in our house. It’d go perfect in our dining room.”

“No. It would fit with anything.”

“Ugh, You’re impossible.”

Andrea and Max walked around them, Andrea to their left and Max to the right, trying to escape the unpleasant tones emanating from the couple. They joined up beyond them, accidentally knocking into one another after they passed.

“Geez.” Andrea said. “Couldn’t they wait till they got home?”

“What better time to have a fight? Where everyone can see.”

“Pssh.” she said. “You think we’ll get like that?”

“I’m sure we will.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“You think we’re both gonna be roses and candy forever?”

“No. But still... You shouldn’t say something like that.”

“Alright. We’re gonna be as happy as sunshine for the rest of our lives.”

“You’re a dick.”

Max looked away not wanting to continue the conversation, knowing full well if he continued it, the two of them would be acting just like the couple they just passed. They let it drop and walked some more. The sun started to poke through from its hiding place and they spotted a tent full of wooden furniture about a half block up.

“You see that?” Max said. “You wanna go?”

Andrea nodded and they started over to it.

“Do you want kids?” she said.

“Kids? What brings that up?”

“I don’t know. You see the look on those kids' faces back there? In the wagon? They were looking at your ice cream and their faces were so bright. I’d like to see that every day.”

“Did you see the look on the mother’s face? That’s what you should look at.”

Andrea half smiled. She wanted to keep talking about it but didn’t. Another time, maybe. After a bottle of wine and a meal where they both laughed a lot.

They stopped outside the tent and looked in at the benches, tables and chairs all in different shades of brown and tan. They lined the imaginary walls of the tent, none protruding outside onto the street. Two kids sat on matching rocking chairs bounding back and forth, seeing how close they could swing before they knocked the chair over or fell off.

Andrea and Max sat on a bench, a solid one with an off reddish tint that smelled like pine and lacquer. Its back curved slightly and fit two people comfortably. There might be room for one more if they worked it right. Max put his arm around Andrea and extended his legs out in the floor in front of him and crossed them. Andrea leaned against him and thought about putting her head on his shoulder.

“Smells good.” Max said thinking about his father’s work table in his old basement and the sawdust that beat into the air after a circular saw took to a plank. It was a smell of comradery, two people working on a project together.

“Yeah.” Andrea said, remembering a trip she took with college friends to a cabin by a secluded lake. She woke up early to see the sun rise and smell the woods. She smelled the peaceful nature and possibilities of a new day.

“This would go good on our porch.”

“Yep.”

They sat a moment more, not wanting to leave.

The man they saw before in the wheelchair came up to them. Andrea and Max smiled at him not registering why he would be there.

“You guys look good on it.” he said.

“I’m sorry?” Max said, coming out of his memory.

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“You made this?” Andrea said.

“Yep. Made it for me and my wife a long ways back. It was an anniversary present to her, y’know?”

“Why are you selling it?” Max asked.

“Got no one to sit with. She passed a while back.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” he said.

“Thank ya. Yeah, we sat for hours at a time on this. It’s a good bench. I told myself that I wasn’t gonna sell it to just nobody, neither. Been trying to sell it for a bit - keep taking it back and finding something that I want to fix.”

“This looks great to me.” Andrea said.

“Ya. I could take it back again and try and rework an angle or the varnish, but really; I think I just need to let it go.” he said.

“You two look good on it, though. You should have it.”

“Thank you.” Andrea said. She looked at Max and he looked back. “How much?”

He named a price and they agreed.

“I’ll leave you two to take it in. You can come back later to pick it up. I’ll save it for you.”

They nodded and went back to their memories, knowing that they were creating one of their own. Andrea let her head rest on Max’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Max tilted his head back looking up. The canopy overhead shone brilliant and illuminated everything around them. They almost fell asleep listening to the sounds of the fair and the children rocking back and forth and laughing on their chairs.