Page 83 of Even After Sunset

I don’t answer him, because he could be right.

“Even if it works,” I say instead. “We haven’t decided how much we’ll sell it for, or—”

“Two bucks a pop.” He shrugs. “There. Done.”

“We don’t have the special sugar for it.”

Silas unleashes that mischievous grin again.

“Ahh, but we do.” He squeezes behind me and opens the large cupboard where I keep all my baking supplies. “Check it out.”

He removes two huge bags of floss sugar. Then a bag of narrow paper cones. His grin widens.

I really,reallylike his grin.

“The guy who dropped the machine off at the Book Barn gave them this stuff, too. They threw it in for free. And another three bags of the cone handles.”

I glance at the clock: the gates opened seven minutes ago.

“C’mon Jax…” he coaxes. “Lemme try it. Worst thing that can happen is it doesn’t work.”

Worst thing that can happen is he’ll cover the entire kitchen in sticky pink sugar. But I don’t say that. I don’t get a chance to, because he continues:

“I know you like to plan stuff, and that’s cool. But the worst stuff that happens is shit you didn’t plan for. Like, that you couldn’tpossiblyplan for. Like what happened with our parents. No one saw that coming.”

I can’t believe he just brought that up. I can’t decide if that’s a good sign or a bad sign. I definitely don’t see how he’s proving his point, though.

“But the best things are also stuff you didn’t plan for,” he continues. “I mean, usually. Not always… But come on, it’s a freakin’ cotton candy machine. Maybe it’ll bomb and make a huge mess. But maybe it’ll be a huge hit. Maybe I’m a future gourmet cotton candy chef and you could be ruining that life for me if you shut this down right now.”

I can’t help laughing. “There’s no such thing as a cotton candy chef, you goof.”

He holds up his index finger.

“Yet.”

And I laugh again.

“Okay,” I nod. “Sure, yeah. Go for it.”

“Holy crap,” he grins. “This is gonna be epic.”

As it turns out, Silas’ worst caseandbest-case scenarios are accurate:

The cotton candy is a huge hit.

And also, it makes a huge mess.

Actually, “huge mess” is an understatement: the entire inside of the camper is covered in strings of pink, sticky fluff. Possibly the outside, too. I just haven’t had a free second to step outside. It hangs like pink spiderwebs from the cupboard handles, the cookie racks, the edges of the table, the ceiling… Geez, the ceiling… it’s the worst. I can barely make out the paint color underneath the cloudy puffs of pink.

So - it turns out that spinning cotton candy isn’t as easy as Silas had predicted. It’s a trial by error sort of endeavor. Not that this seems to bother Silas one bit. He struggled with that thing for an hour straight before he finally figured it out. And just in time too, since we sold out of cookies a couple hours into the afternoon.

Trudy is the busiest she’s been this entire road trip. You’d think that cotton candy would be something mainly parents would buy for their kids. But it turns out, the later it gets, and the more the festival kicks into high gear and families with young kids leave for the day, the more customers we have. I’m guessing weed and liquor make the childhood treat even more appealing. Whatever it is, it’s good for business, and the two of us settle into a rhythm. I call out the number of orders, Silas spins them, and I hand them to customers and take their money.

Silas takes a brief five-minute break at ten to check in with Richard, but then he gets right back to spinning. And by the end of the night, we are a well oiled (sticky) machine. I am stunned when there’s a lull in customers and I glance over at the clock and see that it’s just after midnight; the lull is actually the final stragglers spending the last of their change before heading home.

We serve our final customers, exhausted and delirious from the giddiness of success. Silas turns off the outside light and I close the order window. When I turn back around, I bump into something solid.

Silas.

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