Sullivan shrugged. “Nah.”
“I want to live my father’s values,” Kia said as they continued. “He said you should always leave a place as good or better than you found it. The first time was in Arkansas right about the timeI really started drawing crowds. It was at a fair. I was making way more money than the local people. But their fry oil was stale. They all sold the same bad elephant ears people had been eating at fairs since forever. So I closed my truck and went around to each of the other chefs and helped them think of one thing they could do to distinguish or improve their food. They didn’t love me at first. Young, know-it-all kid busting in on their thing, but they made more money that night than in the last three nights. I realized, this is what I want to do.”
“So you started hiring local people?”
“And featuring local restaurants. If there’s a food truck that’s struggling, I give them some good recipes, show them how to be more efficient. But I’ve lost that vibe. I only do bigger fairs now. That’s what my sponsors want. I’m sick of pushing American Spirit breakfast sausage and Fizz Bang soda.” She hadn’t realized how adamant she felt until she spoke the words. “That’s why I want to start Taste the Love Land.” It mattered that Sullivan got it.Please, see me.“My cousin’s girlfriend has been in Portland for years. She says people are getting priced out of neighborhoods their families lived in for generations. A lot of people of color. Taste the Love Land can be an incubator or a place for people to survive if they’ve lost their brick-and-mortar.”
They’d reached the end of the exhibition hall and stepped out. Beyond a fence made of orange plastic netting, the dusty parking lot stretched into the darkness. A plane crossed the sky, looking large in its proximity. The airport was just a mile away. Sullivan watched its ascent, then closed her eyes to the sky.
“Are we going to get through this lawsuit thing?” Kia asked, although it was hard to imagine a world where things did work out. If they lost the lawsuit, they were fucked on so many levels. And they probably would lose if Judge Harper was on Mega Eats’side. But if they won and Kia built Taste the Love Land, Sullivan would hate her for the rest of their lives. If Sullivan didn’t hate her, Sullivan would at least feel terrible about the Bois. That kind of terrible wasn’t the foundation for a relationship. “I feel like it’s wrong to have fun or relax with Mega Eats at the door.”
“Where there’s life, there’s hope. My grandpa used to say that.” Sullivan hesitated for a moment, then added, “He said happy people don’t wait until they’ve got everything they want to be happy. The art of living well is learning that you can be happy and worried at the same time. You can be sad and joyful. You can even be angry and at peace. The best activists are like that. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. Let’s go do something fun even though we might be fucked.”
Kia looked up at the spinning carts on the roller coaster. How many scenes like this had she seen? Hundreds? Tonight it felt special. It was beautiful and bright, as though someone had plucked the stars out of the sky and adorned the roller coaster with their glow.
Sullivan caught her looking, smiled, and then took her hand as easily as if they’d been holding hands forever.
“Come on,” Sullivan said. “I have a wonderful ride for a photo op.”
The ride, if it could be called that, looked like two mobile homes strung together and painted in shades of pink, with hearts lined with light bulbs, some burnt out, some flashing erratically. A sign above the contraption readTHE LOVE TUNNEL.
“When I was a kid, if you really liked someone, you took them to the Love Tunnel,” Sullivan said. “If you really, really liked each other, you’d make out.”
No one else was in line. Sullivan gave the attendant two tickets.
“Did you ever make out with someone in the Love Tunnel?” Kia asked when they were settled in their seats.
“Brian Cotswell. Sixth grade. My true love.” The cart rattled and began moving slowly toward an arch of pink lights.
The cart rumbled past a scene painted on plywood. Silhouettes of a man and woman stood near a lake. Hidden lights above the scene faded from bright daylight to twilight to night, and stars twinkled in the plywood.
“And then there was Daisy… I can’t remember her last name,” Sullivan went on. “She broke my heart as much as someone can when you’re fourteen and don’t know their last name.”
Sullivan rested her hand on Kia’s knee. The lights dimmed.
“This is the part where I kissed Brian Cotswell.”
“Does that mean these exact same rides have been going around since you were in sixth grade, and we should be worried?”
“Every summer. A few nights and then they’re gone. Like you,” Sullivan added pensively.
“But I’ll come back. Lillian and Izzy will move back to Portland eventually. Taste the Love will be my home base.”
“It’ll be a business that you visit. It’s not the same thing as home,” Sullivan said gently.
What if I stayed?The thought appeared in Kia’s mind like a package at one of the FedEx stores she used as a traveling mailbox.
“Would you like to… kiss?” Sullivan touched Kia’s cheek. Kia covered Sullivan’s hand and held it in place. The neon lights in the tunnel turned Sullivan’s curls a chestnut pink. “In honor of my thirteen-year-old self who thought this was the most romantic place to kiss?”
“Yes,” Kia breathed.
Sullivan’s kiss was as gentle as sunlight and cotton candy. Butshe had a storm chaser’s confidence, tempered with a strength that didn’t need a storm to feel alive. Kia melted like sugar into caramel. She closed her eyes. Sullivan was kissing her the way Sullivan did everything. Like the way she rolled up her cuffs, the way she stretched her shoulders, or tasted a sauce, like she was completely alive in her body. Kia melted and glowed and throbbed. Sullivan’s lips parted. Their tongues touched. Sullivan moaned softly. It was everything, and Kia had never neededmoreso badly.
Then Sullivan pulled away and handed Kia her phone. Kia didn’t realize Sullivan had been holding it. The screen was open to a picture.
“Are you proud of me?” Sullivan said, pulling away. “This is the first picture I’ve taken for your followers.”
In the picture, Sullivan leaned in for a kiss. Kia beamed.
