t night, kids out past curfew drive up the hill, park on the wide dirt lot used for dumping snow in wintertime, and sit, looking down on town lights.

Below them, new Barbie-like tract houses line the cul-de-sac where a lone hen house once sat, a rotten apple and stained mattress for the homeless the only things inside.

Tonight, five kids inside an SUV clear the middle console.

Shauna pulls a pill bottle from her pocket, taps five capsules into her hand and looks at Casey. “You’re going to try this, right?”

Casey shakes her head, feels the alcohol churn in her stomach, through the taco dinner she made for her and her younger brother because her mom went out -- again.

Shauna rolls her eyes. “Really, Casey, you can’t get busted for it,” she says. “It’s legal. More legal than that beer you just drank.”

Eyes lock on her best friend, but Casey remains silent, afraid that saying the word no would be just as embarrassing as snorting something she’d never done before. And she doesn’t want to be embarrassed, not tonight, not in front of J.D, who’s the reason she’s here at all, the reason any of them are here at all, she imagines.

“God, Casey, it’s just a prescription,” Shauna says, then mumbles, “courtesy of my father.”

No one else has heard, but Casey glances sidelong at her friend, sees the pinched look of her mouth and hardness in her green eyes. Shauna’s father lives back east, sends her checks every week and gifts on holidays. But she never sees him, isn’t allowed to, because he married some society woman half his age who thinks kids make her look old.

The butt of Shauna’s cigarette lighter crushes the first pill and she leans over, pushes the split ends of her hair away from her face, and lets the point of her nose guide her as she sniffs the powder. They take turns-- Dustin and Robbie and then J.D-- tipping their heads to the car’s center, plugging one nostril, inhaling with the other.

When they finish, they lean back, look out at the town spread below them, the streets empty, and only the sound of barking dogs is heard until Dustin says, “You should let me sell that stuff for you, Shauna. I can get big bucks from the middle school kids.”

“And you’ll take what? Fifty percent of the profit?” Shauna laughs. “Forget it. My father’s rich. I don’t have to sell drugs to have all the money I want.”

Dustin drops his head, and through the dark, Casey can picture his cheeks swimming in red. She doesn’t know how he got here tonight, how he came to be friends with J.D. at all. For as long as she could remember, Dustin had always been one of those kids who didn’t fit in anywhere. Too short and skinny to be a jock. Not smart enough to be a nerd. The hicks just beat on him, gave him wedgies and noogies and dropped their cowboy hats on his head, over his eyes, spinning him until he puked in the school hall.

“Whatever,” Dustin says. “Just thought I’d offer. People come to me, you know.”

Robbie laughs. “Forget it. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like what?” Dustin asks.

Robbie leans his head against window, looks out and asks, “Have you ever been in love?”

Dustin sniffs, says no.

Robbie pushes his shoulder length brown hair behind his ear, says, “I have. You know that girl in California?”

From across the backseat, Casey looks at him, remembers how Robbie spent last year attending school in California because he wasn’t getting enough help from the teachers here.

“I was in love with her,” Robbie continues. “Still am.” He shoves his feet under the seat in front of him and tilts his head back, resting his eyes on the fuzzy ceiling of J.D.’s car. “I should’ve never come back to this stupid town.”

In the driver’s seat, J.D. lights a cigarette. “So you were in love. Who cares?”

Casey watches him blow smoke rings in the rearview mirror. His blond hair hangs over one side of his face, covers his eye, and Casey can’t tell what he’s looking at but she hopes it's her, and she hopes it's not.

“So what about you?” Robbie pokes Shauna in the arm.

“What?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Not like you mean.”

Robbie points at the console. “With that stuff then?”

“And other things.” She shrugs.

J.D. half turns. “Come on, Shauna. You know you’re in love with me. You all are.”

“Shit,” Robbie says. “You wish.”

Casey sees him duck his head, a smile across his face, and knows that, in his own way, Robbie adores J.D. as much as anyone. And that if he didn’t, J.D. would make sure he did, or he wouldn’t be here now.

“Casey?” Robbie lifts his head, looks at her over the top of Shauna.

The car is silent. Everyone looks at her, even J.D.

“I don’t know,” she says, secretly knowing she has and gave it up, quit because she thought there was something better out there, something that made more sense than always worrying about what someone else was doing, who they were with, if they’d cheat on her, like her mom did on her dad.

She bites her lip and looks out the window, at the town she’s grown up in, the tree-lined sidewalks and Victorian houses in rows. The night is quiet. No one is out. No one knows they are out, having snuck out their windows or back doors, to sit on the top of this hill, visible to all below if they were only looking.

Casey grabs the door handle, yanks it open and leans over, emptying the six bottles of beer and three tacos grinding in her stomach onto the dusty gravel.

 

[END]

© 2004 Kelly Spitzer - Contributor's Bio