Fireworks

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The next day starts what Harriet refers to lovingly as 'Hell Week.' Hell Week doesn't actually last seven days, but she says that the stand gets so busy between the 2nd and 4th that time warps and it may as well be a week. She's right.

It's hectic. We're running out of the most popular fireworks and people are pissy. Harriet starts more sales but forgets to tell the people running registers, so more people get pissy that they didn't get their discounts. Kids are constantly running around and knocking things over and crying. One toddler wanders too far into Godzilla's bosom and we have to deflate him to find the child. The porta-potty overflows, the camper's out of water (which means Isa and I show up early to help Harriet shower with gallons of water from the 7/11), the fans have miraculously broken again, a register's cash drawer is jammed and deemed unusable, and the check out lines get so long the aisle is never clear for shoppers. Liam comes along with some other firemen to oversee things, and a sheriff parks at the front of the tent to hand out stuffed animals to the kids and mingle with the customers. Every so often, Liam will take a kid into the fire truck parked by the camper and let them sound the siren, and it always scares the pee out of everyone in a five-mile radius. The parking lot overflows and people park on the road, which causes a traffic jam and more cops have to come to direct traffic and yell at Harriet. To top things off, mother nature decides that the hottest days of summer should also happen to fall on the exact dates of Hell Week.

I wish I could say that Arlo and I enjoy our first few days of being an official 'item,' but we barely see each other with how hectic work is. It feels like an ominous start to the relationship, but I push my doubts to the back of my mind.

After every day of work, Arlo walks me to my car, pecks my cheek, and tells me to drive carefully. I drive home feeling like I'm in a dream, shower the sweat, dust, and gunpowder off of my skin, and then fall into bed before doing it all over again. My entire body is sore, and I'm perpetually in the weird stage between sunburn and tan.

I don't think I've ever experienced a more grueling 3 days in my entire life.

It's ending, though. It never occurred to me that as soon as the Fourth of July passes, the Firework stand shuts down. No one wants fireworks on the 5th of July. I knew that, but it's shocking now that it's actually here. I won't have a job anymore.

On the day of the Fourth, the fireworks start going off as soon as the sun starts to dip. All around town people are having their own celebrations, and a symphony of explosions have been going on since close to 6:00. We've sold out of almost all of our fireworks, and Harriet has collapsed tables and rearranged our remaining stock in a pathetic attempt at preserving the pretty presentation it was a few weeks ago. It's fruitless, though, and people are mad we're out of fireworks, so Harriet drives to a firework stand across town and buys some of theirs and brings them back to sell them at an extraordinarily jacked up price. I don't know if it's legal, but no one questions it.

Then, suddenly, it all stops.

We have no customers. It's over. They're all out celebrating and blowing things up.

Everyone celebrates with sodas and a massage train. We all sit in the soft summer grass and rub each other's aching shoulders, laughing and singing and smiling.

It's perfect.

Arlo finds me after the massage train collapses, and he leads me over to where Mom, Dad, Harriet and he have been setting some things up. They start a bonfire in a metal trash can they found somewhere to keep the bugs away, and then break out all of the illegal fireworks they had been saving for us to use after everyone was gone.

He grabs a quilt, a bottle of apple cider, and some sweaters from his truck, and we separate from the group. While everyone else surrounds the bonfire and takes turns lighting fireworks, we lay out on the other side of the field together, passing the cider back and forth and talking. We watch the fireworks, and after they're all gone, we watch the stars. It's the first time we're able to really talk since our phone call days ago.