Dizzyland

Abby has to use a stool to climb into bed with me.

She puts her chubby hands on my cheeks, her blonde ringlets falling into her blue eyes. “My mommy.”

“My baby,” I say.

She wants snuggles, so I pull her close.

When I glance at it, the clock has only ticked forward six minutes. But the child next to me is longer, her face not as round, her curls looser, shoulder-length.

“My, you’re growing fast, Abby!”

“I’m a big girl!”

She sits up, stretches. Didn’t her pink nightie used to have ruffles on it?

Abby scrambles down the bed. She hops onto the carpet, darting out of the room like she can’t wait to get away from me.

“Baby?” I call. “Wait on Mommy! Don’t pour the milk yourself!”

The clock ticks forward another minute and as I’m fumbling to get my feet in my slippers, she reappears in the doorway. Her hair cascades down to her waist in loose waves. She is at least a foot taller. She has on pajamas I know I didn’t buy her with the face of a dreamy teenaged boy grinning at me from the top.

By the time she reaches me, where I am still sitting on the edge of the bed, she can look me in the eye without standing on her tiptoes.

She presses her lips against my forehead and whispers, “See you later, Ms. Smith.”

I blink, and she darts out. “Wait. What did you call me?”

Her father pokes his head in. A ridiculous straw hat covers his balding head. He has on the dreadful tie-dye shorts he wore on our honeymoon in Hawaii.

“Did you hear what Abby called me? I knew she’d outgrow Mommy at some point, but when she does, she is going to call me Mom.”

Her father shrugs. “I don’t see the problem. It’s a phase.”

“She called me Ms. Smith,” I mutter, disbelieving.

“That’s what all her friends call you. That’s what your employees call you.”

“I am not the mother of her friends. I am not the mother of my employees!” The spark of outrage inside me ignites, the hot emotion spreads through my torso, spilling into my limbs. “No. This is not okay. Abby, this is not okay!”

“She prefers Abigail now, and we’re going to Dizzyland.”

I blink again.

“What?” I demand. Why can’t I get on my frigging slippers? “You’re not taking her to Dizzyland. It’s a school day and besides, she called me Ms. Smith! And we agreed on no amusement parks! And Dizzyland! That place only has rides that spin and spin and spin faster and faster and faster.” I hold my pointer finger in the air, gesturing with it in frantic circles. “They make you sign waivers saying you won’t sue in case of dismemberment. Do you remember the story on the news about the man who got flung to Cleveland? From Dallas! One malfunctioning latch on a safety bar. That’s all it took.”

“We won’t let you ruin our fun, Alice.” Like they’re a team and I’m a super-villain, out to defeat them.

“Do you think getting thrown across the country like a rag doll is fun? Do you think dismemberment is fun?”

Abby peeks back in, around him. “We’ll buy you a souvenir, Ms. Smith!”

“No. This is not acceptable. You cannot call me Ms. Smith.”

“I still love you, Ms. Smith.” I don’t like the defiance in her voice.

“You’re not going anywhere. Bad behavior will not be rewarded in this house,” I tell them both.

“Which is why we’re going to reward it at Dizzyland!” Abby, this older Abby, this Abigail, informs me with a whoop.

“We have to discipline her. We can’t just let disobedience slide. If we do, we’ll be on the Dr. Jerry show, with a teenaged addict who is snorting crushed up antacids to get high.”

“You’re overreacting, Ms. Smith.” Her hair is stick-straight, as if she’s taken my flat iron to it.

“Stop calling me that.” I sound more petulant than stern. I cannot stop blinking. It’s like someone has a remote control that works my face and their finger is frenetic on the pause button. Pause, un-pause, pause, un-pause.

“Well, we’re off!” Abby’s father says, and they most certainly are. I trip downstairs after the two of them.

They’re in his car, backing down the driveway.

Hollering at them to stop, I throw on my bathrobe and some flip-flops.

I can’t find my keys, so I race to the corner and hop onto the bus waiting there. Flinging my breathless self into the first empty seat, I huff, “Dizzyland! Step on it. Please.”

The driver tells me he needs to see my pass.

“I don’t have one. I don’t take busses. Not that there’s anything wrong with busses.” I dig into the pocket of my robe and give him the change I find there.

He nods, finding my offering satisfactory. I plunk back into my seat.

“Your hair’s a mess, dear,” the lady across the aisle tells me.

“My life’s a mess.” With a grateful smile I have to force, I take the comb she’s proffered. Half-heartedly tugging it through a terrible tangle, I hope she doesn’t have lice. If I gave Abby lice, I’d never forgive myself.

“Did you forget to get dressed, dear?” Comb Lady asks me in a hushed voice.

“No, I didn’t forget, I…” I shake my head. How can I explain to anyone, what’s happening right now?

At last, I hear the Dizzyland theme song. The tune is the musical equivalent of bubblegum-flavored ice cream and it plays in your head for weeks after you leave. You’ll unintentionally hum it at your desk on random mornings. By mid-afternoon, everyone else will have joined in, whistling from their cubicles.

As soon as it stops, I stumble off the bus and race to the vast Dizzyland parking lot, where I board the pastel train that circles the park before stopping at the ornate arches to the entrance. Everything is artificial. Even the leaves on the trees sparkle in the sunlight. The air, heavy with the scents of dough frying and cotton candy, makes me light-headed.

A cheery voice pre-recorded voice, piped through the speakers, welcomes me, hopeful that I’ll enjoy my visit. I’m given a brief history of the theme park. Dismemberment is not mentioned.

We inch our way around the perimeter at a maddeningly slow pace. The evenly spaced gaps between the boards of the seven or eight feet high white picket fence are wide enough to allow you a sneak peek at the attractions inside while keeping you out until you’ve paid. I stare and try to find Abby and her father amongst the crowd. His garish shorts will stand out, beckoning like a neon sign announcing Here We Are, Alice!

But I haven’t spotted them by the time I get in the endless line. Parents stand in an orderly queue, like a stretch of dominoes. Each adult holds the hand of at least one kid.

When I reach the ticket booth, the attendant at the window smiles beatifically.

“I’d like one adult ticket,” I tell her, trying not to sound desperate. I’m afraid any minute, my lips will part and I’ll shriek “let me in this terrible place!” at the top of my lungs.

“And how many kidlets?” she asks.

I blink at her. How many whats?

“You’re purchasing one adult ticket and how many kids do you have with you?”

“Oh,” I said. “I don’t have any. I mean, I do. Abby. But it’s just me. Just one adult ticket.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she smiles again. “We don’t sell allow adults in without at least one child. Company policy, you see.”

I then do something irrational.

I turn to the lady behind me, with a little boy flanking her left side and a little girl clinging to her right.

“Could I borrow one of your kids? To get in?” I realize I left my purse at home and have no money. “And $50?”

Her eyes resemble the double Ferris wheel at the moment it goes horizontal. She pulls both children in tight, as if I might try to snatch them. “Absolutely not!”

The girl at the window clears her throat several times. “Ma’am, you’re kind of holding up the line here. I’m going to have to ask you to step aside.”

“You don’t understand,” I lean in. “My daughter is in there with her father. He’s only supposed to have her on the weekends and it’s Tuesday, and he came to my house and took her without my permission, so technically, it’s a kidnapping!”

The window slams shut, as I hear the girl saying into her mouthpiece. “Code 5647. Code 5647.”

A burly man is at my side within seconds. He wears oversized overalls, baby blue and white pinstriped, with a pink polka dotted shirt underneath. His cap matches the overalls. He may’ve fallen out of a cartoon.

He flashes a badge at me. “Park security.”

“Oh, good. I need your help because—”

“Ma’am,” he said. “You’re causing a disturbance. If you’ll come with me…”

“Please let me go in and find Abby!” I cry and kick a skinny tree for emphasis, causing it to shake. Glitter rains down.

“All right. Hands behind your back,” he says.

“What?”

“Are you resisting arrest, ma’am?”

“Arrest? What?”

“You assaulted that tree.”

“I what…?”

“You assaulted that tree,” he repeats, pulling out handcuffs. They’re oversized and furry, like they’d been a stuffed animal in a previous incarnation.

I become aware, like waking slowly from a dream, that around me all the adults were comforting or trying to distract their children, many of whom were in tears, some who were all out wailing, and others who stared eyes wide and curious.

“You’re ruining these folks’ day, lady,” the officer whispers. “Please come with me.”

“For assaulting a tree.”

“It’s a living being. It has feelings. Like me. Like you. Like all these little ones.”

“Okay, okay. But…”

He shakes the handcuffs. Gestures for me to follow him. I do.

We get to a small brick office and he motions for me to sit in a plastic chair in the corner.

“Do I get a phone call?” I don’t know what the rules are here.

“I think it would be a most excellent idea for you to phone someone and ask them to come pick you up.”

“But my daughter, Abby…”

He nods at the phone, the old-fashioned rotary kind.

I think he enjoys as I fumble, trying to remember how to do this. Any muscle memory I had is gone. Dialing my sister, Casey’s, memorized number is a Herculean task.

“I’m at Dizzyland. I’m being detained by their security for assaulting a tree,” I say.

“I haven’t had coffee yet. You said you’re being detained?” she asks. “Do I have to bring bail money?”

“I don’t think so, but maybe bring me some clothes.”

“Are you naked?” she sounds both scandalized and intrigued.

“Casey,” I pause. “How old is Abby?”

“Are you drinking? Or high? Did you smoke something? Abby is four.”

“RIGHT!” I yell. The security guard raises his eyebrows. “Abby is four. She was four when I woke up this morning. Then she was 8 or 9. Then she was like 12. And then my idiot ex left with her, to bring her to Dizzyland, and by the time you get here, she’ll probably be on Social Security, so could you please hurry?”

“All right. But I’m not bringing you any clothes, because you borrowed my yellow and gray striped sweater and I never saw it again…”

I hang up on her.

“Do you have an intercom system?” I ask the guard. “Could you page Abby?”

“That would disturb the experience.”

“So if children get lost, you let them wander while their parents panic? That doesn’t disturb the experience?”

He rubs at his eyes. “We send the Dino Squad out. They have a 100% success rate at finding the wayward kidlet in under 10 minutes.”

His walkie talkie crackles. A voice squawks, “Code 8700. Code 8700.”

“What’s an 8700?”

“Our code system is proprietary information, miss,” he stands up, straightening the straps of his overalls. “Aww, heck. 8700 means a kidlet fell into the lemonade river. If you promise you won’t cause anymore problems, I’ll let you go outside and wait for your ride. You go straight to the train and to the parking lot.”

“But it might’ve been Abby that fell in the lemonade river!” I protest.

“Go,” he tells me. “If I see your face again, I will call the actual police, whose handcuffs won’t be fuzzy, I assure you.”

I want to fight him on this, but I feel old. Old and used up. I get back on the train, go back to the parking lot. Sit on a bench that looks like a giant ice cream sandwich while I wait on Casey. While I wait, I decide that when she arrives, I’ll send her away. Sooner or later, Abby is going to have to leave Dizzyland, and I’ll be here waiting for her.

“Mom?” I hear a voice, but do not turn, because it doesn’t sound like Abby.

“Mom?” the voice says again. I glance over my shoulder.

Behind me stands a young blonde woman, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. She is holding the hand of a dark-haired little girl. There is a baby with golden ringlets on her hip.

“Mom?” the young woman asks again. “What are you doing here? You hate Dizzyland.”

“MeeMaw!” The toddler lurches towards me on her unsteady legs.

I look at the young woman again. “Abby?” I blink.

“Mother, you know I prefer Abigail now.”

I glance up at the Dizzyland sign, noticing for the first time the letters are topsy-turvy, some leaning this way, some leaning that, as if they’ve taken a few too many spins on some of the park’s rides.

Mother, she calls me. Mother. I can’t decide whether that’s worse than Ms. Smith.

“Where’s your father?” I ask.

“I don’t know. How should I know? I haven’t seen Dad in years. You know that. I think the last time I saw him was…that’s so weird. It was here, at Dizzyland,” she says, switching the baby to her other hip. “Yes. Remember? The day before he moved to Wisconsin. He kept me out of school and brought me here. Oooh, you were mad. I’d completely forgotten that.”

Wisconsin?

Abigail shakes her head. “Dad fell in the Lemonade River that day. It was hilarious.”

Her smile is bittersweet.

The baby’s face scrunches up, either about to have a good poo or a good cry.

“Smith is getting fussy. I need to get the kids home,” Abigail cocks her head, studying me, “Do you need a ride?”

“No. Your Aunt Casey is coming to get me. Did you say Smith?”

“Mother, you know your grandson’s name.” Abigail rolls her eyes, becoming more recognizable. Her hair is wavy again. She wears both an engagement ring and a wedding band.

I cannot picture Abigail as a bride, face veiled, in a long white gown

“Smith,” I repeat. “My Maiden name?”

“Yes, Mother. Did you hit your head on the Downhill Race-A-Whirl?”

I feel my head for lumps, even though I know I did not go on any Downhill Race-A-Whirl. I assure her I’ll be fine, because that’s the maternal thing to do.

She leaves with baby Smith and the little girl whose name I do not know... my granddaughter. A few moments later, a car I don’t recognize pulls up to the curb and honks.

“Come on!” my sister’s agitated voice floats out of the open window.

I walk over and get inside.

Her long brown hair, halfway down her back yesterday, is now in a bob. “I can’t believe you cut your hair.” I can’t believe she didn’t tell me she was planning to. She always wore it in intricate braids. Fishtail braids, I believe they were called.

“Are you ever going to get over that?” she asks, as if this isn’t the first time we’ve had this discussion.

I study her. Her shorter hair is streaked throughout with gray. That’s new, too. As are the faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

“Traffic was terrible.” She shakes her head. “It feels like it took years for me to get here.”

She hits the gas, desperate for her caffeine fix, and I take a final glance at Dizzyland, surprised to see the paint peeling, the shimmer gone, the colors faded. The big ‘permanently closed’ and ‘keep out’ signs. From the looks of the place, it has been abandoned for quite some time.