Oh those summer nights

The fair grounds were hot that day, hot and sticky in the way that's perfect for carmel apples and cotton candy. You were trying to hold my hand as I squirmed away, to warm for close contact.  Instead I let my fingers linger across the back of your neck, playing with the curls that turned in on themselves in a messy haphazard way.

"You're silly," you said causally indicating my crisp new wedge shoes.  This morning they had been bright cherry red, now they were covered with dusty brown dirt. 

"It doesn't matter" I replied, "These shoes were meant for the fair."  It's true; they fit with my sundress and with the ferris wheel and the pigs and the pie competitions.  The whole thing was lost in time somewhere between 1950 and the present day-somehow Charlotte could be weaving messages into her web at this very fair and no one would bat an eye.

After the daredevil motorcycle show we hung back in the grandstand.  We could smell the animals from here, comforting smell of straw and manure.  Somewhere below and beyond women discussed the results of the squash judging, a mix of "ahyup's" and "mhm's" drifted lazily across the evening.  And night was falling now, lights were coming on as the rides became landmarks of blue, red, white, green sparkling lights.  The ferris wheel twirled and a band played and children screamed and below us, a couple stopped to embrace.  

And we stood there, gazing out at it all and at each other, feeling only endings.  Somehow part of me is still standing there.  And now I see you sometimes; and I'm not in wedges but in stilettos, my sundress traded for pinstripes and you are still in your dingy old carhartts.  My EB White fairy tale at an end and you were right, it was silly.  And I was right.  It doesn't matter.