Those Girls by Chevy Stevens
PART ONE
JESS
CHAPTER ONE
JULY 1997
We’d only been on the road for an hour but we were almost out of gas. The white line of the highway blurred in front of my eyes, my lids drooping. It was three in the morning and we’d barely slept for days. Dani was driving, her face pale, her long dirty-blond hair pulled under a baseball cap and out the back in a makeshift ponytail, her eyes staring straight ahead. Her name was Danielle, but we just called her Dani. The oldest at almost eighteen, she was the only one who had her license. She’d barely said a word since we left Littlefield.
On my right, Courtney was also staring out the window. When her favorite country song, “Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks, came on the radio, she turned it off, then stared back out into the dark night. She brushed at her cheeks and I could tell she was crying. I gave her hand a squeeze, and she gripped it back. Her hair was down, one side pushed forward, trying to hide the burn that had left an angry red mark along her jawline.
None of us had ever traveled this far from home before. We’d found a map at the hardware store—Dani had stolen it while Courtney and I kept watch—and carefully planned our route to Vancouver. We figured we could make the drive in about eight hours if the truck held up. But we had to stop in Cash Creek first and borrow some money from one of Courtney’s old boyfriends.
It was the middle of July and so hot you couldn’t walk outside without feeling your skin cook. We were golden brown, freckles covering our faces and upper arms—a family trait. Forest fire warnings had been out for a month, and a few towns had already been evacuated. Everything was dried out, the fields pale yellow, the weeds in the ditches covered in gray dust. We were in jeans shorts and T-shirts, our skin sweaty even this late at night, and the air smelled hot.
I touched the camera hanging around my neck. My mom had given it to me when I was ten, just before she died. Dani hated it when I took her photo, but Courtney loved it—used to love it. I didn’t know now. I glanced over at her again, then down at my chewed nails. Sometimes I imagined that I could still see the blood under them, as if it had soaked into my skin like it had our floors.
“We’re going to need gas soon,” Dani said suddenly, making me jump.
Courtney turned back from the window. “How much money do we have?”
“Not enough.” Before we left town we’d siphoned a little gas from a neighbor’s truck and gathered what food we could, picking fruits and vegetables from the farm’s fields, taking eggs from underneath the hens and storing them in our cooler. Our cupboards were empty by then—we’d been living on soup, Kraft dinners, rice, and the last few pounds of ground deer meat in the freezer from the buck Dad had shot that spring. We pooled our money—I had a few dollars from babysitting and Dani had a little money left from when she helped during hay season, but she’d used a lot of it already that year trying to keep us afloat.
“We could get some money for your camera,” she’d said.
“No way!”
“Courtney sold her guitar.”
“You know why she really sold it,” I’d said. Dani had gotten quiet then. I’d felt bad but I couldn’t do it, couldn’t let go of my one good thing.
“What are we going to do?” I said now.
“We’re going to steal some gas,” Dani said, angry.
Dani always sounded pissed off, but I didn’t pay any attention to it unless she was really mad. Then I got the hell out of her way.
She had a right to be angry. We all did.
*
We found a gas station in the next town, an old Chevron with two ancient pumps and a lone shadowy figure visible through the window. Was he the only one working? We pulled around back, gravel crunching under our tires. Dani switched off the engine and we sat there while it ticked. I held on to my camera tightly.
“Jess, go in and make sure no one else is there,” Dani said.
I darted a look at her but her profile was rigid. “Okay.” I tried to sound confident, but we’d never done anything like this before—only shoplifted food and makeup, small items. Of course it would be me. Courtney was too pretty—she had the same dirty-blond hair we all had, but she used peroxide and gave it highlights and had our father’s blue eyes that looked even brighter against her tanned skin. And now, with her burn, people would remember her. But I was small at fourteen, with plain toffee-colored hair and green eyes. People forgot me.
The door jingled when I opened it. The guy behind the counter glanced up. He was young, maybe in his early twenties, with long sideburns and acne. I looked around, didn’t see anyone else working. The store was empty, and there were no security cameras or monitors. I cleared my throat.