"What are you two love birds doing out here, having all the fun without me, hmm?" said Margaret, properly dressed for the first time in years. We hadn't gone out for so long, I forgot she actually had clothes for the outside world.
I forgot she had other clothes besides the soggy bath towel draped around her shoulders.
Although she didn't look like she was feeling well today.
I said, "Don't ask Liz. She's on her silence vow. All she can say is yes and no."
"That's terrible," Margaret crooned as she scooted closer to wrap her in an embrace. "Where did he touch you, sweetheart?"
"I didn't touch anybody!"
"There, there. It's okay if you don't want to say anything. We'll just go somewhere else that's far, far away from him, okay, sweetie?"
You were supposed to be on my side!
Thanks a lot, Marge.
"I didn't know you were close by," I said.
"Oh, you know. I'm on vacation with Kevin. He already forgot about you."
The twenty-seven-pack guy.
She added, "Kevin's taking his afternoon nap at the hotel. He doesn't know I'm here, of course. This'll be our dirty little secret."
"I am your legal husband!"
"He gets so mad whenever he finds out I still talk to you." She ignored me.
I let out a groan. A vein was popping out of my temple.
Wait a minute.
"You dyed your hair," I pointed out. A perm with a chestnut color instead of the usual shoulder-length straight gold.
"You like it?" Margaret puffed up her hair on one side with her hand then did a twirl before stopping to blink violently at me. "The most beautiful woman on the planet just had a makeover." A bubbly giggle slipped out of her as she did another spin. "Now I am the most beautiful woman in the universe~."
I held back the urge to gag. "If you put on makeup, even the women from other universes will be coming for you."
"Yes, because us women always recognize a fellow beauty."
"No, they are looking for justice. Anybody can claim to be Miss Universe. They just don't want you do it."
The next ride we got on was terrifying. The map said it was eight fireballs out of ten—a huge drop with three separate 60-degree bends half way down. I really couldn'—no, I had to get on. What would they think of me if I backed down now? I was the one who had started this whole thing!
"'S'cuse me, darling?" said Margaret, "I think you're sitting a little too close." She was holding tightly onto Liz.
"I'm literally two seats away behind you!" I yelled from a considerable distance. "What are you talking about??"
I was sitting in the back row.
There was a guy next to me.
"Sup?" he said casually.
I gave a quick nod.
Some people just enjoyed going to theme parks by themselves.
Maybe I should've done the same thing, instead of dragging these harlots with me.
I envied these happy loners.
It was a terrible ride.
Worse yet, the guy sitting next to me walked out with four girls waiting for him from the spectator seats. Not sure why they didn't ride with him. Maybe this ride was so good he wanted seconds and they decided to watch instead.
In the end, I was the real loser here.
Liz still hadn't said a word.
The next one is The Drop of Death.
Another eight-out-of-ten ride, but this one was different. They would strap you to a chair and let you freefall to the ground.
That's not a ride. That's just being suicidal! I might as well jump off a building!
It killed me to say it, but I'd run out of options.
"Sorry girls. You two go ahead—this one's too much for me."
"Why are you still following us?"
"Stop that." I let out a grunt.
"This is a girls' day-out. Right, sweetie?" Margaret squeezed herself against Liz.
They really were going to get on that ride...
No, I shouldn't.
Dammit...
If dad was here, what would he say to me?
Robert, you're a little b****. Back at your age, I had to wake up at two in the morning, then crawl twenty-kilometers non-stop through mud and stones and barbed wires and broken glass and landmines to get to school. There were days where my classmates had to skip school because they were shell shocked. Not me. I always made it to the classroom. Every single day. And you can't even handle a little air time. Man up or crawl back in your mother's womb.
It's a little too late for that, dad.
I had to do it.
This was the last one. All the other rides would be a breeze compared to this. If I could conquer this ride, I'd conquer all of them.
"Don't look over there, sweetie. That man is still following us." Margaret said while sitting in the rear-most seat.
I sighed, pretending not to hear anything from the other end with twenty-three empty seats between us.
I was sweating. It took a while to reach the top.
We got to the tallest point of the ride.
I could see the entire park from up here. Actually, I swore I could almost see the curvature of the Earth.
My heart was pounding.
If I unhooked this belt, I might just float off into space.
Time to rethink your life choices, the audio speaker said.
I couldn't tell whether it was part of the ride, or I was having a near-death experience.
The end of the tunnel was nothing but rides at Three Poles.
Ten seconds passed.
We still hadn't dropped.
I clenched my fists and called out to any deity I could get my hands on.
J***s, B****a, S***a, B***man, O**n, Z**s, The God of A****ment P***s.
Please.
If any of you exist, now's a really good time to call off the ride.
The operator has found stress fractures in the support beam, and is shutting down the ride.
They're calling maintenance.
Hell, they can hire me to fix it!
If there's a God, I'm begging you, call off the ride. I'll burn cinder sticks in your name until the da—
The fall felt like it lasted for an entire hour.
The two of them didn't even break a sweat.
Not a sound from Liz, either, now that she'd become a hardened veteran.
Thrill rides could do that to a person.
I gave up.
The nine and ten-out-of-ten rides were tucked away in the back—I spotted three of them on the map—but cardiac arrest didn't seem worth the risk.
Also, that last one was an eight?
What could be more intense than free falling at three hundred meters from the ground?
The mission ended in complete failure.
At least I hoped the two of them had fun.
We got on the 100m Ferris wheel, a one out of ten ride.
"I told you to pick another cabin." Margaret eyed me in a mean way.
"Stop it, will you? I thought we're married."
"We are? Oh dear."
"What's that supposed to mean?? You hit your head or something?"
"Careful Liz. This one knows how to brainwash people for blackmail."
"I was the one who bought your damn tickets!"
"He's dangerous! Sit closer to me." Margaret pulled the girl's hands.
"Whatever." I crossed my arms. "Hey, are you okay?"
The hands Margaret was holding were shaking.
"Can we…" Liz said, "get off the ride?"
"No," I said, "we're halfway thr—"
"Let me out! Let me out!" She jumped to the gate and pulled on the metal bars.
"Hahahaha what the…"
But Margaret wasn't laughing.
"It's okay sweetie. Come here." She reached out and gently pulled her back to their seat. "Just don't look down. Don't look at him, either. Remember no eye contact." She shielded Liz's eyes with her hand from the sight of my hideous existence. "There, there," Margaret hushed to sooth the girl's nerves as Liz buried her face in the other one's dress.
Now that we were sitting next to one another, I noticed the first sign of gray hair on my wife, just a patch creeping into the very base of the hairline.
I quickly turned my head to look out at the view of the park.
Gray hair at the age of thirty-five. For a housewife with no responsibilities, stress seemed to have got to her somehow.
And I thought she'd promised to let go of the wild animals. Why was she still keeping them? She was waiting for the allergies to go away on their own?
She couldn't do anything without me.
Maybe I should also be responsible.
At the park's main entrance, beneath the giant sign that had grown worn and weathered over the years, Liz and I said our goodbyes to Margaret.
My wife gave me a wink and I had no clue as to what it could possibly mean.
Couldn't be a good thing.
The afternoon sun cast a sheet of red over the entire park. The roof tiles, the ticket booth, the backs of people ambling toward the parking lot. Margaret and Liz.
I noticed Liz was staring intensely at the sunset. She seemed anxious, probably still not having gotten over the Ferris wheel.
"Guess I'll be going now," Margaret said.
"Thanks for coming along with us," I said. "That was fun."
"Well, catch y'all later." She leaned down to beam at Liz before she said, "You both have my number. Give me a call if you need anything."
No problem, I said to her.
We just stood and looked at each other in silence for a while.
This was the part where we were supposed to say goodbye. I thought it should be easy to do—and the two of them were expecting me to say it first—but it was still so hard for some reason.
"Ahh~ my feet are killing me!" Margaret pulled her feet out of her sandals.
"I can't believe you're still putting that stuff on," I whined. It was the rainbow glitter that she always had on her toenails. There were even these tiny hearts and stars on them.
"You want them?" she asked me. Whenever I brought up the topic of her toenails, she'd always come back with, hey, you should try them yourself, then you'll get it, as if that would actually do anything for me.
"Not yet," I said. "Maybe one day if I accidentally fall onto some kids' glitter art table and get some of that stuff on me, that will really change my mind."
"Honey, that will never happen because they'll never let you through the entrance. They don't want you to scare the kids."
"Do I look like a monster to you??"
"It's the child predator mustache, dear."
"I don't even have a mustache!"
"It's the spirit animal thing."
"What?"
"It's the fourteenth Zodiac, Child Predator Mustache."
"That is not my Zodiac Sign!"
"Well, you used to have one, a mustache, not anymore. That's the only reason they allowed you into the park with us."
I should've kept my mouth shut. This war had been lost a long time ago.
Margaret walked barefoot on the asphalt and leaned close to Liz, her back turned to me.
"Cover your ears, sweetie." She cupped the girl's ears and gave me a side-eye. "He's casting another spell. Later on, he's going to sell you on Ebait."
"That's not even a real website!" I shot back with the amazing facts to salvage whatever scrap of dignity I had left.
We stood in silence for a moment.
Some families were walking away in the distance.
Their silhouettes were encased in red.
"Oh, the cab's here," Margaret said, still hugging the girl, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.
A hot wind suddenly picked up, lifting and fraying the hair on their heads. My wife used her hands to keep her hair down—both hers and the girl's.
"Well, that's that," Margaret said in her nonchalant singsong voice as she finally let go of the girl and slipped into her sandals, before straightening herself up to look at me.
I'd forgotten how warm she smiled.
It was time to say goodbye.
My lips parted as if they wanted to say something.
"Take care, you two." She turned around and walked away.
I couldn't let the words out.
Her figure got smaller and smaller under the sunset.
Goodbye, Marge.
That was all that I could say, quietly, weakly. Nothing else.
Whenever you tried to say something, but there were just too many things to get out at once, you'd usually end up not saying anything at all.
The heftier words would get stuck behind.
While the densest stayed at the bottom.
Her figure was barely visible as it slowly melted into the orange ball that burned the sky.