“Somebody’s coming,” a warning lilt from the man in one of the lawn chairs.

“No one’s coming, Hector,” says May, in the other. “Cats would’ve said.”

“Ask him yourself, then,” says the man, with a wave off that way, past the front end of the motorcoach. Distant crunch of gravel, footfall yet loud enough to carry all that way. Jo, sat on the grass before them, hikes up on a knee. A man’s approaching down the dirt track that’s not quite a driveway, tall in trim black trousers and a bright white shirt, skinny black tie, and a pair of classic black sunglasses. “May,” says Jo, and then, sharper, louder, “May.”

“Go on,” says May, without turning to look. “We got this. Go.”

Up on her feet, jug in her hand, Jo heads away around the back of the motorcoach, out of sight of the track, into the scrub, to crouch under heavy, breathless trees. “Excuse me,” someone’s saying, that man, “if you could give me a hand,” maybe, and May’s response can’t be made out. “Looking for,” the man’s saying. Jo heads further into the deepening shade. “Johanna Draper,” the last that can be heard.

She hauls herself from gnarled and crooked trunk to trunk, mismatched Chucks uncertain in the rootily treacherous underbrush. Winking in and out to the left a stretch of water coolly green, littered with fallen leaves and occasional twigs, a twitching cloud of midges on the penumbral threshold of the opposite bank, flickering as they pass in and out of the sunlight. She turns away from the water, up through the trees to the scrub that untidily edges the vast field, where she crouches, looking back. Mounds of junk, a couple cars now between her and the motorcoach, there’s the tall man, black suit coat over his shoulder, genially chatting with May and Hector. Keeping low she darts across the field from mound to pile, from fender-shade to high-kicked trailer, past a tent, the tarp-awned side of a van, and someone sat on the floorboard of it, leafing through a tiny notebook. Ahead now the largest mound, a low wide tummock of cinderblocks and upended pallets, stuffed garbage bags, the torn remains of unidentifiable clothing, a wheelless bicycle frame, a bent torchiere. She sets the jug up as high as she can reach and follows it, feet choosing steps more stable than they seem, hands grasping holds that do not falter, over the top to hang a moment on the other side, the mound a wall encircling a little paddock cleanly scraped, green grass cropped close, the little dome tent beige and orange pitched atop some wooden pallets, and looking up at her, black eyes unblinking, the tiny unicorn.

“Roy,” she says, “I’m just gonna,” freezing when he steps toward her, chewing thoughtfully, maybe five hands high at the most, his palely glossy coat of rosy grey, the mane of him iridescent in the hot flat light, the horn even now the color of the inside of a shell. “I’m just gonna climb down,” she says, lowering a foot, freezing again as he takes another step with a daintily cloven hoof. “Jack?” she calls, but quietly. “Jack!” again, with more urgency than volume. “You back? Tell me you’re back.”

A boot’s thrust through the tent-flap, followed by a blue-denimed leg, another boot, probing for the ground, blue-denimed buttocks under the flap of a blue denim jacket tugged clattering down as he settles himself on his knees, wavering, “Jo?” he says, blinking, looking about.

“Call off your horse,” she says.

Turning about he nearly topples. “Whoa,” he says, “what are you,” shaking his head, holding out a hand to Roy.

“Somebody’s out there,” she says, dropping to the grass, fetching down the jug.

“More of your guys?”

“They wouldn’t dare.” She edges along the paddock wall to a lap of cloudy plastic. Lifting it, peering through the rust-feathered mesh of an upended shopping cart. There’s the motorcoach, the tall man laughing at something maybe Hector’s said. “I don’t know him,” she says, “but I’ve seen guys like him.”

“Looks like a cop,” says Jack, close over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” says Jo. “Asking about somebody named Johanna.”

Jack blinks. Roy’s nuzzling his distracted hand. “Not you?” he says.

“My name’s not Johanna.” And then, looking back at him, “Jesus, Jack, are you high?”

He grins. “Shit, I hope so.” An enormous sniff. “Want some?”

“No,” she snaps, turning back to the impromptu loophole.

•

Becker’s working the strap of his messenger bag up over his head with one hand, repeatedly stabbing the Lobby button with the other. Settling the strap on his shoulder, untwisting it about. Music jangles, a quietly sashay, the lights are on, and someone’s home, but I’m not sure if they’re alone. A bare arm slips between the closing doors, tripping the mechanism that slides them open again, Jimmy, beaming, “Arnie!” he cries, shoving his way in, “it’s five hours past the meridian! We’ve worked hard,” leaning over to press the Lobby button firmly, once, “so now, it’s time to play hard!”

“I, ah, I don’t know, Jimmy,” says Becker, squeezed back into a corner. It’s not a large elevator.

“I said play hard, Arnie. Not hard to get. We’re going to the carnival.” Hauling his backpack up on a shoulder, Jimmy reaches to take hold of Becker’s yellow tie, gently tugging it out from behind the strap of the messenger bag that crosses his chest. “It’s but a short walk away through lovely weather, there’s an alcohol pavilion, and as I’m management, the first round will be on me.” Smoothing the drape of it with his fingertips. “One of those droits du seignuer they don’t so much advertise.” He’s ditched the cardigan, and the pale swell of his belly there, through the gaps in the sides of that Panama Jack T-shirt, dark hair a touch too long, waves of it cresting in tufts and spikes that don’t quite know what to do. “I just,” says Becker, “can’t see you as a manager.” His smile a touch to genial to be a smirk. “Hit your rate, get me fifteen on the coding floor, stat! Who knew.”

“What is it they say? We contain multitudes?”

“You were carrying a clipboard.”

“A sight you shall take to your grave,” says Jimmy. The doors slide open. “So tell me, Arnie,” stepping out into the lobby, “what do you think of this industry in which you’ve found a new home?”

“I think,” says Becker, following after, “I like how I didn’t have to talk,” frowning, slowing, “to anyone,” he says, “on the phone,” and stops, there in the middle of that cramped little lobby, that once had been richly appointed, brass trim and fittings pitted now, cloudy gold-veined marble chipped, spare deco chandelier in need of dusting. “Arnie?” says Jimmy, turning back from the vestibule doors. Becker’s looking through another door that leads to a tiny storefront off the lobby, Moonstruck Café, says the darkly blue sign in the glass of it. A man on the other side, his brawny back to them, shoulders straining his blue T-shirt, and past him another, a wide red scarf tying back his hair.

“Who is that?” says Jimmy.

Becker opens the door, and that man turns about, mustaches a-sway, “What,” he says, “what are you, how did you, how are you here? I didn’t even know I was going to be here. How did you know. How did you know where I was?”

The hiss and gurgle of a milk steamer. “My love,” says Pyrocles, “though I’ve sworn to see you safe, it’s not – ”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“Don’t,” says Becker, “say that. Don’t call me that.”

“This is coincidence,” says Pyrocles, “and nothing more.”

“Your cocoas, gentlemen,” says the woman behind the counter, pushing forth two white paper cups, each topped with a paper-wrapped truffle. “Habanero and sea-salt caramel, and Wild Card absinthe.”

“We’re here at my request,” says the man with the wide red scarf. “I wished to try your chocolate.” Taking the cups, he leaves a stack of heavy silver coins.

“Oh, but you’re our guest,” says Pyrocles.

“I insist.”

“So,” says Jimmy, there behind Becker, as the woman behind the counter picks up the coins with a frown, and a shrug, “Of course,” says Pyrocles. “May I present Joaquin, of Sacramento, and of course, this is Arnold Becker.”

“Of Portland,” says Becker.

“Your pardon, sir,” looking past Becker, “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Oh,” says Becker, “this is,” but Jimmy’s reaching past him, “James Dupris,” he says, offering a hand to Pyrocles, as “Jimmy,” says Becker, with a sigh. Pyrocles shakes Jimmy’s hand, “And I,” he says, “am Pyrocles, the Anvil.”

“Ah,” says Jimmy.

“We should probably,” says Becker, turning, but Jimmy’s hand’s on his shoulder. “Out on the town?” he says, sprightly.

“I’ve found myself with time on my hands,” says Joaquin. “The Anvil has offered to fill it.”

“There’s a carnival but a few blocks away,” says Jimmy. “Let’s make it a double date!”

Becker closes his eyes.

•

A cramped low space, lit by neon laser lines across the ceiling, vermillions and violets and bright lime greens that chase their reaching arms, their knees, that pulse in time with a loping beat under stabs of brass, an airhorn, die Wasserbetten durchzuroken und die Nachbarn zu schocken, “I forget,” says the one girl, tall and blond, who’s traded her school T-shirt for a halter of silver lamé. “Is it high pH that’s good? Or low?” Perched on the edge of the padded bench that runs down the one long side, lifting and tilting bottles from the bar that runs down the other, peering at the labels in what light’s afforded.

“This one’s from glaciers in Iceland,” says the girl in the hijab, magenta of it weirdly teal in this light. “Apparently, it’s the first bottled water to be declared carbon neutral.”

“Ooh,” says the blond girl.

“It’s all just tap water,” says the girl in the overall shorts. “I saw it on Penn and Teller.”

“Not all of it, Olivia,” says the girl in the oversized dress shirt.

“There’s also some fruit juice,” says the girl in the expertly shredded jeans. “Oh, hey, kombucha!”

“The heck is yuzu?” says the girl with a clatter of beads and bangles about her wrists.

“They get the water from the sink, Edith, okay?” says the girl in the overall shorts.

“It’s like a lemon, Lizzi,” says the girl in the hijab.

“It is a lemon,” says the girl in the jeans.

“Basically? You’re paying five bucks for a label.”

“Not tonight, Olivia,” says the blond girl. “Wet bar’s comped with the wheels!” Sitting back, grinning amidst the whooping and the laughter, “Little Suzie Wilson ain’t the only one who can throw daddy’s plastic around.”

“Gloria Monday,” says Olivia, grabbing a bottle that says Le Bleu, Ultra Pure.

“Sic transit blah blah,” says the blond girl.

“It’s her name, Chloe,” says the bangled girl, grimacing as she tries to push the marble into a Codd-necked bottle of soda.

“Whatever. She’s taking forever to get ready.”

“You have to admit,” says the girl in the hijab, “what she’s got going on here’s on a whole other level than covering transpo for a girls’ night out.”

“Please, Sanaa,” says Chloe, rolling her eyes, “it’s like a jumped-up community center or something. I was led to expect the second coming of the Holocene.”

“It’s not even six!” says the girl in the hijab.

“You think the joint starts jumping after dinner?”

“There was some music,” says Olivia.

“Totally Riverdance,” says Lizzi.

“Those little galleries are cool,” says the girl in the oversized dress shirt.

“And the murals!” says the girl in the jeans.

“How true, Penelope!” says Chloe. “It’s a McMenamins. What was I thinking.”

“It’s a sad leftover corner of First Thursday crammed into a dorm for homeless freaks,” says Lizzi.

“Actually,” says Sanaa, “the preferred term, these days, is unhoused.”

Chloe’s the first to laugh, and Lizzi, Edith and Penelope, Olivia, as Sanaa just sits there smirking, an unopened bottle of lime seltzer in her hand.

“If this is what you get for banging a vampire,” says Edith, “I say bring it on, Vlad.”

“He was not a vampire,” says Chloe, and “There’s no such thing as vampires,” says Sanaa, “I don’t know,” says Penelope, “did he sparkle?”

“He totally murdered her dad, is what he did,” says Lizzi, to gasps and whoas and a forceful “He did not,” from Sanaa. Chloe says, “I thought that was a home invasion or whatever.”

“Her father’s dead?”

“Jesus, Olivia, keep up.”

“It was a domestic thing, is what I heard,” says Edith.

“How,” says Penelope. “Suzie’s mom was long gone.”

“Gloria’s,” says Olivia, and “Whatever,” says Penelope, and “It’s her name,” says Lizzi. “It wasn’t her mom,” says Edith.

“Well, there wasn’t a stepmom,” says Chloe. “Or a girlfriend.”

“Maybe, it was a boyfriend?” says Penelope.

“Maybe it was the vampire,” says Edith.

“There are! No! Vampires!” shouts Sanaa, through the shrieks and clamoring peals of laughter, swigs and swallows, clacks and clinks of bottles toasted, the thumping beat, “So anyway,” says Edith, adjusting the undone collar of her shirt, “when I tell you, believe me when – ”

“Here she comes!” shouts Lizzi, leaned forward, peering through the heavily tinted window above the bar, and “Stations!” shouts Chloe. “Cue it up,” to Sanaa, who’s already grabbing a charm-bedecked phone from the bar, “get those sun roofs open,” to Lizzi and Olivia, who reach for buttons set in discreet wall panels. The music stops to start up again, a stomping piano-driven hook, volume climbing as the lasers flicker away. Panels lift and slide apart to reveal the barely evening light, and they leap to their feet, pushing up and out.

The limo long and pink is parked along the loading dock, the smaller stall doors cranked up as people gathered about take in the improbable bulk of it, the music swelling from it, ain’t being fun, an aggrieved voice sings, I know another bee’s been in that hon, the girls popped up through the sun roofs, waving in a sort of unison as sweeping out from under the largest overhead door, Gloria Monday in a black high-waisted gown, arms socked in black-striped white, her jet-black hair threaded with silver ribbons and gathered in two great hanks over either shoulder, her bangs a virulent pink, her face lighting up with laughter that doubles her over, clutching Melissa beside her for support, as the girls in the limo bellow along with the chorus, “We miss that pussy, that pussy, that pussy, that pussy, no, no!”

Melissa in her motorcycle jacket, her flowery sundress, helps Gloria push herself upright, smiling, shaking her head, and Sanaa eyes them, frowning even as she waves, as Gloria shimmies toward the steps down from the dock, and Melissa’s stumping after. Sanaa leans toward swaying Chloe there beside her to mutter, “Looks like she’s bringing the babysitter.” Chloe shrugs.

•

The gate, a skeletal stretch of scaffolding hung between two scaffolded towers, each wrapped in roughly woven tarps of this one black and that one red, and great yellow letters across the length of it, CityFair, they say, under a stylized rose. Beyond it over a stretch of flattened grass a couple of booths under signs that say Tickets in patriotic colors, but stretched across beneath a taut red ribbon holding at bay a crowd queued restlessly between spindly barricades wound back and forth to the sidewalk. Pop and crackle the speakers hung about, “Ladies and gentlemen!” a booming voice, “and those otherwise defined, developed, and endowered! It is with the greatest pleasure and the utmost pride that we are privileged here today to welcome you to the verdant sward of the Tom McCall Waterfront Park for our opening night, and you all know what that means,” the cheers, the whoops, the claps, “fireworks! As soon as night falls, folks, but till then, we’re about to open the gates, and you, yes, you, in your multitudinous and your splendiferously spectacular glory, all y’all here assembled, get to play the games and scream your screams as you ride our rides, the Kamikaze!” and bang! a burst of confetti from the black tower, “The Inferno!” and another burst from the red, “The Paratrooper, and the Hard Rocker!” and fluttering explosions from them both. “Alien Abduction! The Extreme Scream!” Ribbons dance upright in roaring gusts, and even more confetti, “and all your tested, tried, and true-blue favorites, the Scrambler, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and of course the tallest Ferris wheel this side of the Willamette!” The shrieks, the yells, the rattling of barricades. “And we have shows!” A sprightly riff starts revving from those speakers, and a brightly blat of horns. “Tonight only, on the RoZone Stage, we have Whenever Buckingham warming you up as only they can for the one, the only, Nu Shooz Orchestra! Admittance free with a wristband or a badge. Are you ready?” The cheers, the whoops, the applause. “Are you ready?” The music ratchets, the crowd roars, the streamers dance, the driver of a passing truck leans on the horn. “Then without further ado! Friends and neighbors! It gives us more joy than we could possibly hope to express or contain to throw open the gates to you, one and all, on the opening night of this, the greatest show on the riverfront, the wondrous, the fantastical, the serendipitiously stupendous, the exquisitely ecstatic and soaringly supreme, the absolute acme, the one, the only, the Portland Rose Festival CityFair!”

Pop! and the taut red ribbon leaps apart in a clap of sparks, a fluff of smoke, signed ends of it twisting, rippling, falling, kicked aside and trampled to the grass as the crowd surges in, waving armbands, flashing badges, heading for the ticket booths.

“Brought to you by Xfinity!”