So she was off with another boy. I wondered who it was this time.
Dani and I had the house clean by the time Courtney got home. We were out in the backyard, setting up beer cans to do some target practicing. Dad left us his rifle when he was out of town—an old Cooley .22 semiautomatic he’d gotten from his father—and made sure we had enough bullets. He said he wanted us to be able to take care of ourselves. We didn’t have much time to just kick around, but we liked shooting stuff or going fishing. I squinted, took aim on the can, held my breath, and squeezed the trigger. The can flew into the air.
“Good shot!” Courtney’s husky voice said from behind me.
I lowered the gun and turned around. Courtney had a case of beer on one hip and a cigarette in her hand. Her long hair was damp and tangled, and her baseball cap was on backward. She was wearing dark sunglasses too big for her face, which looked cool, and a bikini top under a black tank top.
“She’s always a good shot,” Dani said. She didn’t give a lot of compliments, so it meant something when she did. I liked shooting, liked that moment when everything came into focus, came down to a split second. Same with my camera, seeing the frame, lining up the shot, taking a breath, then boom!
“Jesus, what’s with your shorts?” Dani said. Courtney’s jeans shorts were cut so high you could see the bottom of her front pockets.
Courtney laughed. “You like them? They make the boys go craaaazy.” She sang out the last words. Courtney was always laughing or singing. Mom used to say Courtney sang before she talked. She was a pretty good guitar player too, had bought a secondhand one and taught herself by listening to the radio.
“They just about show everything.” Dani wore cutoffs—we all did—but Courtney’s were always the shortest, the frayed bleached-out edges contrasting with her golden skin. I glanced at her legs, then down at mine, wondering if I could get away with taking my shorts up an inch.
“Here, take a beer and shut up already,” Courtney said.
Dani grinned and grabbed the beer, opening the can with a pop, and took a long swallow.
“God, that’s good.”
Courtney handed me one. I took a slug, savoring how cold it felt going down my dry throat on a hot day. I liked beer, the fuzzy feeling it gave everything, the malty taste, but the smell always reminded me of Dad.
“Where did you get the beer?” Dani asked.
“A friend.”
Dani just shook her head. There wasn’t much you could say to Courtney. She did what she wanted. Dani would get mad at her, but Courtney would grab her in a big hug or sing her a silly song or get her laughing somehow. She worked hard but she played hard too. If Dani got after her about how she needed to sleep, she’d say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Dani pointed to the cigarettes and Courtney threw her the pack. Cigarettes were another luxury. Sometimes we’d steal a couple from Dad’s pack when he was home or from one of the farmhands. Then we’d sit out on our porch, sharing drags. We sat now on the rock edge of what used to be a nice garden running around the house. It was just weeds these days. Dani kept trying to grow vegetables in the backyard, but Dad kept driving over her patch.
Courtney passed me a cigarette, lighting it with the end of hers. I set the gun against the warm rocks and took a drag, watching to see how Dani did it, her mouth parting slightly to let the smoke out in a long, lazy exhale. I leaned back so she couldn’t see, tried blowing it out the same way.
Only the middle of July and the grass was already dead, same with the flowers we’d planted. Most of our front yard was dirt. Dad was always dragging home stuff from the junkyard, and scrap metal and wood littered the property. The house was in bad shape—in the winter we had to board up the windows—but I liked the sprawling deck on the front. I was going to ask Dad if we could paint it.
I didn’t bring any friends home, and we kept to ourselves at school. Dani was usually with her boyfriend, Corey, who was kind of cute in a redneck farm-boy way with his tanned skin, white teeth, and dimples. Courtney was always skipping or hanging out with a boy; most of the other girls didn’t like her. I tagged along with my sisters or worked on my homework during breaks. Dani put my report card up on the fridge, like Mom used to. I helped with their homework sometimes. Courtney would just get me to do hers if she could, but Dani wouldn’t allow that.
Dani moved over to sit on the tailgate of her truck. It was an old Ford, and silver where it wasn’t rusted out. She’d bought it from her boyfriend’s dad for cheap, then worked it off. It was usually broken down. She kept it cleaned out, hung a coconut air freshener on the rearview mirror, but it didn’t hide the stink of manure from our boots. I always kicked my boots on the fender, trying to get the dirt off before I climbed in or she’d yell at me.
Courtney took a long drag. “I’m going out again later.”