Billie gave the girls $30 and a handshake apiece. He stepped back. “Good havin’ you,” he said, touching the bill of his John Deere baseball hat pulled down tight over his brow. Billie and Sher stuffed their hands in their pockets, studied the hay-covered floor.
“Sure thing,” Kris said.
Sher nodded.
The girls put the sweaty bills in their pockets. They were glad to have so much money, but more than the money, they wanted to continue to work in the Horse Barn—to ignore the rest of the fair and the world. To stay in the barn that had become like a nest for them. The girls left the Art Deco Horse Barn, Billie, and the horses. Wandering out into the mix of the fair—the bright sun and the enormous crowds of bobbing blond heads, screaming toddlers, hawkers, and high school marching bands snaki
