I open my mouth to ask two lifetimes’ worth of questions when she flaps her fingers wildly in Aimee’s direction and says, “You, come.” Then to me, “You, go.”

My friend takes a slow step toward the woman, handing me the bag of popcorn, then dusts her hands off on her jean shorts. “Sorry. Cheese.”

“Comes with the territory,” the woman says, gesturing at our surroundings. As Aimee sits down, the woman reaches for her. “Show me.”

Aimee hesitates. I wrinkle my eyebrows at her. She doesn’t believe in this kind of thing, does she? Why is she being cagey about it?

She puts the teddy bear between her knees and gives over her palm.

The woman looks at it for a long, silent time. Too long, too silent. You know when it’s someone’s turn to talk and then they don’t? And then they don’t again?

The silence stretches on for probably only two or three minutes in real time, but in a context like this it feels like a very, very long time. And Aimee doesn’t look at me once. Neither of them do.

Aimee stares at the woman.

The woman stares at her palm.

I stare at both of them.

Around us, the world spins. The jazz plays on, a song my dad likes called “Where or When.” The crooning voice singing, Oh the tricks your mind can play …

The golden string lights cast a glow on future memories of hundreds of sugar-high kids as they laugh and push each other and hold hands for the first time. The old rides creak and spin and rotate as they’ve done countless times before and will do until they break. Corn pops and cotton candy is spun; apples are dipped in salty, sticky caramel or molten hot, toxically red sugar. Our moms sit at some splintery picnic table somewhere with that wine I hate the smell of, chatting about who knows what.

And then there are the three of us, locked in an endless moment that feels altogether different in a sudden and dark way I cannot describe.

You are smiling, you were smiling then, but I can’t remember where or when …

The candle on the table flickers violently, growing double in size, and I see Aimee’s and the woman’s eyes jerk in unison toward the flame.

The woman releases Aimee’s hand, abruptly but kindly and without a word. Her sudden benevolence is somehow more unnerving than the curtness of before.

Aimee gives a small shake of her head, like, well?

The woman responds with a sad, sorry sort of smile, her eyes tenting into an empathetic expression that makes no sense.

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Um, excuse me? What’s going on?”

“Be well, little girls.”

My skin rises in goose bumps.