Pink Flamingos

Candy Store

Whether I liked it or not, I had to keep going to back to the candy store. In my boredom, I had become addicted to sweets. It became part of my routine to walk up every morning, pick out my share, laugh with Barbara over something for a little while, then amble back home.

She seemed even sweeter than the candy she sold. There was an understanding aura about her. Much in the way that Eddie always had amusement in his eyes, Barbara seemed fundamentally joyful. Despite that, knowing that she had her own difficulties, her own troubles in life, only made me like her more. She was a very real person, and that was what I needed in life.

“Have you met many more people around these parts yet?” She asked me as she wrote out a receipt.

“Not really,” I said, “I just keep to myself. It’s fine.”

“You like being alone?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes I need to be alone. Other times, it all just feels lonely. I’ve learnt the difference by now,” I said quietly. “Besides, it’s hard to make friends when you’re not at school.”

“Not that kids at school are always great,” she replied with a sad smile.

I nodded. Yeah, I thought to myself, she gets it. She seemed to get everything, even though I knew that I was only idealizing her.

“Do you have many friends then?” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. They sounded sad, lonely and desperate. In that moment, I felt like a young child looking up at someone much older and trying to emulate their life. But we were both about the same age. She probably thought I was just pitiable.

“Yeah,” she said with a smile, “I’ve got a few good ones. A really nice group of girls, and a few guys too. I guess everyone’s got good intentions for everyone else. And that’s all that matters really, isn’t it?”

I nodded, pursing my lips and focusing intently on the wall behind her, dotted with packets of different types of cotton candy. Narrowing my eyes to read the labels, observing the different brands. “Yeah, that’s what really matters.”

Silently, she handed me my candy. The packet crinkled in my fingers but it didn’t matter – I was going to tear it open and eat everything on the way home, after all. So, like everything else, it was only pointless.

I was almost at the door, the hot streets waiting for me, when Barbara’s voice stopped me. “Wait!” I turned and she continued. “Are you free tomorrow night?”

“Uhhhhhh…. I think so?”

There was silence.

“Why do you ask?”

It was the first time I’d ever seen her look sheepish. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and her gaze flickered from me to my shoes. For once, we were on the same page – we were both a little shy and awkward.

“Well, a friend of mine is having a party tomorrow night,” she said. “It’s only small, you know – it’s not one of those ones that are gonna get out of control. It’s just meant to be fun. And I’m sure my friends would love to have you there. So why don’t you come along?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Really?” I asked hopefully, feeling a smile slowly creep onto my face.

She looked relieved. “Of course! You need to know more people, and I think you’d all get along great. What’s one more, anyway? The more the merrier, right?”

“Right,” I replied with a grin, my mind already envisioning what Barbara’s party could be like. I imagined all the fun I could have. “The more the merrier.”

After quickly running over to the counter to grab a pen, Barbara wrote the address and the time down on my hand. “It’s not far,” she said as she wrote and my hand twitched from the tickling of the pen, “just a few streets away from here.”

“Everything is a few streets away from here,” I said, trying very hard to keep still, and she laughed.

I looked at the slightly smudged writing on my hand, written in dark black fuzzy ink; 78 Wicker Street, 7.30. Her writing was neat, every letter was written clearly and carefully. “I’ll be there,” I said softly. Then again, louder, more confidently; “I’ll be there.”

She smiled at me, tucking her pen in her pocket. “See you then.”

In a happy haze, I walked away, hearing the bell jingle as the door shut behind me. All of a sudden, things were a little less lonely. At the very least, there was a possibility of having friends. And maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to be alone all the time.

As I walked down the streets, I felt younger than ever. I felt sixteen, like I had my whole life ahead of me – and really, I did. For once, the world was spinning the right way.

I started to head for where I always did – the city limits. I needed to go see my star. Putting one foot in front of the other, I murmured to myself, “I, Nancy Reed, am young. I, Nancy Reed, am sixteen. I, Nancy Reed, am going to my first party tomorrow night. I, Nancy Reed, am going to be okay. If only for a little while.”

Apparently during the day, Las Vegas really wasn’t much. It was just a relic of the wild night before, with a million broken, joyous people getting their morning coffee with bloodshot eyes, last night’s clothes, dry mouths and a mind full of mistakes. But I still wanted to be there. Unfortunately, the city limits were as close as I could get to my fantasy.

I sat there and tried to comprehend everything that had bought me to that point. Somewhere in the back of my mind were my memories of everything before – the death of my father, the simultaneous disconnect and attachment that I felt for everyone and everything. Mama Chelsea coming into my life, my mother being happy again. And finally, the move to Nevada.

Sitting in my bedroom wasn’t so different to sitting at the city limits and eating jersey caramels – after all, I was always alone and I was always dreaming. I thought about my first encounters with Barbara and my first encounters with Eddie. Buying candy and talking just as sweetly, going home and listening to the muffled music that thumped dully through the radio outside the door of my trailer.

There were stars on my bedroom ceiling like there were stars in the sky, and they resembled the constellations of thoughts that spread themselves across the farthest flung stretches of my mind. I looked down at the black block letters on my hand that were even more smudged than they were before.

78 Wicker Street, 7.30.

Despite it all, I smiled to myself. “I, Nancy Reed,” I said, “am going to my first party tomorrow night.” I had never felt younger.