“How are we going to get back into town? It’s miles. We don’t even have enough money for three tickets. We’ve got to work for at least a couple of days.”
“You just don’t want to leave the truck—you’re being stubborn.” I felt trapped, panicked.
“Screw you, Jess. You’re just a kid, you don’t know—”
“But, Dani, this doesn’t feel right.”
“Like you have ESP.”
“No,” I said, frustrated. “It just doesn’t.”
“I feel the same way,” Courtney said.
Dani looked furious. She hated it when we banded against her. She dug up a few more shovelfuls of dirt for a posthole, her biceps bunching and flexing as she pushed the shovel into the hard ground, using her foot to force it deeper. We also went back to work, but we were waiting for her to say something.
“We’ll stay until we have a little more money,” she finally said. “We also need it for ID. It might be even harder to get jobs in Vancouver. We have to earn what we can now. If the truck isn’t fixed by Friday, we’ll try to sell it to the guys.”
I didn’t like it but there was nothing else I could say. Dani had made up her mind.
*
After we were done in the fields, we walked the country road back to our campsite, tried to clean our tired aching bodies in the creek. Most of the food in the cooler had already spoiled, so we ate the last of the jerky, some apples, and a sandwich Courtney had found in a lunch box in the barn. We’d filled up our water bottles at the farm but only had enough for the night. An hour later the boys came back to our campsite with some peanut butter sandwiches, granola bars, and fruit.
“Raided our parents’ cupboards,” Gavin said with a laugh.
“We’ll pay you back,” I said. I didn’t want to owe them anything, but we were starving.
“Nah, they’ll never notice anything’s gone.” He patted his stomach. “We eat like horses.”
While we ate, the boys talked. Gavin was nineteen, his brother two years older. They were both still living at home, to help their parents out.
“Not for too much longer, though,” Brian said. “How old are you girls anyway?”
Dani said, “I’m eighteen,” adding a few months. She pointed to us. “They’re seventeen and fifteen.” Courtney wouldn’t be seventeen until February. My birthday was the next day, I remembered with a jolt.
“Brave hitting the road all by yourself,” Gavin said.
“People know where we’re at,” I said. “We’ve got family.”
His eyes flicked to me and he seemed amused, like he knew I was lying, but he just said, “Want to go for a swim?”
They took us to a river a couple of miles down the road where they said all the local kids swam. There was a small sandy beach where teens sunbathed on towels, clustered in little bunches. A few were taking turns on a rope swing, leaping into the water with a splash and a yell. Down the way, on the other side of the river, you could see another beach where some families had towels and umbrellas spread out, toddlers splashing in the shallows, dogs chasing sticks.
We sat a little apart from the other kids, up on a hill. A few of the boys shouted out greetings to the guys as we walked past, but the girls ignored them, whispering to each other, and a couple of them giggled. I glanced at Brian’s face. He looked angry, then smug when some of the girls gave us curious looks.
Brian had brought extra towels and some beer and pot. I took a beer but refused the pot, not liking how it made my head spin.
Courtney took a long toke, her eyes closing as she held the smoke in her lungs, her shoulders finally dropping, relaxed. Dani took the next drag, sucking at it in a quick angry inhale before she passed it to Gavin. He grinned at her.
We spent the afternoon swimming, sloughing the sweat from our skin, rinsing our hair in the water. Across the river some men sat on the hoods of their trucks, staring at Courtney stretched out in her black bikini. I didn’t like the nod Brian gave them—confident, like we were theirs.
The boys kept handing us beers. It felt good, not being so hungry, the water cool and cleansing, the beer making everything fuzzy. Even Dani was relaxing, her voice excited as she talked to Gavin about ranching. She smiled and pushed her long hair off her shoulders, then giggled at something he said. I wanted her to put a T-shirt over her bikini like I had—but then I thought about Corey, how she’d never been with anyone else. Maybe it was good she was showing interest in a new boy.
Even if I didn’t like him or his toothy smile.
It was getting dark and most people had left. A few voices carried across the river, someone taking a swim on the other side, then a truck started up and drove away. Everyone had gone home now. We sat around a small campfire, the smell of river still fresh on our skin, our feet sandy, beer bottles piled behind us. Gavin was trying to get Dani to walk farther down the river.
“Come on, I’ll show you the bridge,” he said. But he was smiling at her in a way that said he wanted something else, and Dani knew it.