Joyland Ch. 3

         Luckily, if Emily or Lucas noticed the time she’d spent on the Ferris wheel with Stanley Kouchet, neither of them said anything. The only difference in either of their behavior was that Lucas’ eyes lingered as if rummaging through what she knew was a very distracted expression on her face. Stanley’s gaze was omnipresent, warm on her cheek.
         She felt as if she held her breath during the first four hours of her shift. She ignored the gathering of employees who were gossiping about the sudden and prolonged visit of three individuals who seemed to be stalking around aimlessly. Stephanie didn’t flinch at all when one of them, a short, charmless man with glasses, approached her at the arcade and asked her for change.
         “What’s the matter with you?” Emily asked—she was managing to get along with Lucas long enough to discuss their mutual friend’s strange distraction and the seemingly random appearance of the bizarre, out of place men.
         “Yeah, the guy was creepy,” Lucas agreed suspiciously, glowering at Stephanie as she responded with “I’m just tired.”
         And they knew she was lying. She could see it in Luke’s hurt expression, in Emily’s prying eyes. She felt guilty for alienating them, but at the same time, knew they could not begin to understand her obsession. She had felt closer to Stanley in the twenty minutes she’d spent with him than she did with either of her fellow coworkers.
         Her relief arrived during her lunch break. To avoid having to come into contact with anyone, she sat in the corner of the land—as far from the public and the worker’s lodge as was possible without leaving the grounds. She lay on her stomach in the field, burying her nose in the grass and smelling the earth. There, she could escape from Stanley Kouchet and the industrial revolution that was Joyland. There was no gravel, no concrete, no artificially sweetened cotton candy or giant steel contraptions built to entertain the increasingly ADHD generations of modern society. Her nostrils were not filled with the overpowering scent of sauerkraut, but with the sweet musky smell of the soil and the foliage behind her. The mystery of the trees seemed to her more perplexing, more sensually enticing than the laws of physics pertaining to roller coasters and Ferris wheels.
         A single presence padded softly toward her, and she almost groaned with disappointment before lifting her face from the ground. The smiling face of her strange new friend greeted her. Exhilarated, she exhaled for the first time that day. Stanley was her forest, her wild mystery.
         He bit into a carrot stick, resting his cane across his lap as he sat cross-legged beside her.
         “Hello,” he said.
         “How did you find me all the way over here?”
         He grinned at her, uttering a brief laugh before shaking his head.
         She stared at him, his brown boots, faded jeans, neatly pressed shirt, sunglasses and hat. She did not feel self-conscious as he stared back. Silently, he bit into another carrot stick.
         A few moments later, he stood, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a neatly folded piece of paper. She lifted her head to look at him.
         “Open your hand,” he said, and when she obeyed he pressed the note against her palm. Wordlessly, he walked away. She waiting until he was out of the clearing to anxiously unfold the note.
         “Stephanie,” it said, his handwriting as neatly slanted as his smile. “If you wait until dark, the pond mirrors the sky. And I promise I would never fire you for making yourself comfortable.”
         She giggled adolescently at the somewhat flirtatious last sentence. She rolled onto her back, reading and re-reading the words as if to uncover a hidden meaning behind them. It was obvious that he wanted her to meet him at the pond after her shift—but she couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted from her. It was impossible that her fascination was reciprocated.
         She returned to the arcade dreamily, though more alert than she had been because she no longer had to wonder when she would talk to him next. An hour before her shift ended, she was absentmindedly re-pinning balloons to the dart wall when she hear someone slide something over the counter.
         “Can I get some change?” the man drawled politely.  She turned around; the man was another of the strange suit-wearing trio. His hand rested over a ten dollar bill near the cash register.
         “What do you want?” she asked, searching an empty face. He was the type of person who looked cruel; he had sharp, dark eyebrows, no hair, and was at least 6’4”. His eyes were a deep brown.
         “A five, five ones,” he replied, smiling with cold eyes that froze the now-constant sparkler in her abdomen. “How long have you worked here, ma’am?”
         “Since the beginning of the summer,” she replied, her face growing annoyingly hot.
         “Who interviewed you?” he asked.
         “Who are you?” she asked boldly, irritated with his presence.
         “I have an interest in this land,” he said simply, opening his billfold and pressing the money into it.
         “Well, with all due respect, sir,” she spat. “I don’t see what my employment process has to do with your interest in the land.”
         He nodded, smiling disdainfully and staring down his nose.
         “Of course,” he said, shaking her hand politely. “I’ll let you work. I’m sure we’ll see you around.”
         She shuddered as he walked away, trying no to think that his tone sounded more like a threat than a promise.