At 6:03 p.m., that brief span when everything glows but nothing sweats, Mr. Navarro flicks on the Candy Shack’s bulbs and arranges his wares with surgical symmetry: caramel-apple sticks in a tin mug, popcorn pyramids stacked by kernel hue, sno-cones sorted from arctic blue to glacial blue. His niece, Luz, perches by the lemonade tap, rehearsing a curtsey she swears will double tips. The fairgrounds are still mostly empty; the Ferris wheel ticks like an anxious metronome in the distance.
They’ve wagered a private bet: the first customer who orders cotton candy pink enough to match the sky wins them a free ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl after close. So they wait, two diplomats of sugar in a pastel embassy, watching the flags flutter, watching the sun fade, and trusting that sooner or later a child with exacting taste will wander up and ask for the evening, spun and wrapped on a paper stick.
