Jenny was a popular and immensely talented girl: a cheerleader, a soccer star, and a straight-A student. She had won the lead in the High School play her first two years there. She was Maria in “West Side Story,” two years ago, and it was the first time a freshman had ever had the lead in a McFarland High production. The following year, she was a very sultry Sandra in “Grease,” so sultry, that after the first performance, the principal had instructed the drama teacher to have that girl, “sex it down a bit.” As if her talents were not enough of a gift, God had also decided that this girl should be hauntingly beautiful. Her long jet-black hair had soft sweeping waves, that curled back from her face and framed her perfect features. The darkness contrasted hypnotically with her pale skin and her amethyst eyes were gabled by striking black eyebrows. She was the type of girl people loved to hate, but no one hated Jenny, she was everyone’s favorite.
She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and its ghoulish green glow projected 7:12 as the time. It was a Monday morning, the Monday morning, and Jenny threw back the covers and walked to the window. Her tee-shirt came down to about mid-thigh and was the only thing she wore besides neon striped cotton socks. Her legs were long, lean, and muscular. Looking down from her second-floor bedroom to the driveway below, both cars were gone. It was time. She would shower, blow dry her hair, get dressed and grab a bite to eat, all within the hour and be out of the house by nine.
As she walked towards the meeting place, the weight of her blue JanSport backpack did nothing to slow her gait. She could have strapped on two more and still not slowed, despite the early morning warmth of a bright sun in a cloudless sky. Her pack was mostly full of necessities, she had packed smart, but had allowed herself a few luxuries: some make-up, three photographs, her journal, a small stuffed kitten that looked like Samantha, and an assortment of small mementos from the most important people in her life. Tucked in various pockets and crannies was $187.
Jenny had prearranged her story should anyone stop her and offer a ride, or question where she was going: Her and Amy were going hiking at Capitol Springs, no matter that she was walking in the opposite direction. No one would doubt her, no one ever did, even when she lied. Her only priority today, was to get to the interstate, once there she knew she was gone. When she was still two blocks away, she saw Amy leaning against a black lamp post with her backpack on the ground between her legs. Jenny had dressed for travel in an oversized heather gray sweatshirt over black Capri-length leggings with white slouch socks and black Keds. Amy had not: She was wearing a purple floral babydoll dress with spaghetti straps and white sandals, each with a pink flower where the straps came together at the toe.
* * * * *
Amy Reed idolized Jenny. Just shy of her sixteenth birthday, Amy was a pretty girl with long blond hair and warm, brown, almond-shaped eyes. She was small at 5’3 and most people described her as chubby, big-boned her mom always said. Still, her legs showed the muscles of her sports addictions and her large breasts filled out the top of the babydoll in a manner that her dad would not have approved of, most of the boys in town, however, would have given her a second look standing there on the corner. She was shy and introverted with two exceptions: when she was alone with Jenny she came to life exhibiting a warmth, sincerity, intelligence, and sense of humor that most people would not have guessed she possessed. The other exception was in athletics, in every sport she played, Amy took control of the team on the field.
Amy had never had a boyfriend, not that the boys hadn’t begun to show interest. At fourteen she had become more physically developed than most girls her age and when she walked, there was a certain sexuality that radiated out. No, it’s wasn’t that the boys weren’t interested in her, she wasn’t interested in them. When Amy dreamed of kissing, she dreamed of kissing Jenny. But Jenny loved the boys and oh how the boys loved Jenny.
She had dated a half-dozen of them just in the three years Amy had known her and she reveled in telling Amy all about her exploits. Jenny had allowed the boys to get to third base, no further, but she had also, satisfied the frustration of at least two of them, more than once. Jenny was exploring her libido with relish and loving the exploration. Amy was along for the ride. One time, when she had demonstrated to Amy all the moves that Tommy Mason had put on her, Jenny had massaged Amy’s breasts and kissed her, with tongue. Amy had experienced a mild orgasm. Jenny mistook it for embarrassment and apologized profusely. Much to Amy’s disappointment, it had never happened again, but she always wondered if Jenny had known exactly what she was doing.
Amy watched her friend approach and wondered if perhaps she had dressed wrong for the occasion. First chance she got she would at least slip a pair of tights on under the dress and change into her sneakers. She hiked her pink Nike bag up on her back and waited. When Jenny reached her, there was a look of seriousness on her face, unlike any Amy had seen her wear before.
“Hey,” she greeted.
“Hey to you,” Jenny said. “Listen, I just want to make sure that I’m not pushing you into this. I need to know that this is something you want as badly as I want it. I mean, I don’t want you coming if this is just my dream and you’re coming along for the ride. So…”
Amy smiled and opened her arms to offer a hug to her friend. When she stepped into it, Amy said, “I want this as much as you do Jenny, maybe more.”
A broad smile instantly spread across her friend’s face. “I love you, Amy.”
“I love you too, you crazy kid, now cut it with the serious shit and let’s go have some fun.”
They headed north on Exchange until it became Main Street and ten minutes later, turned right onto Broadhead Street. The smell of freshly mowed lawn mixed with the smell of diesel from an unseen tractor that was rumbling nearby. The girls walked at a steady if not quick pace, and most of the way they were silent. As they passed the Lower McFarland Cemetery, Amy said, “Goodbye Grammy, goodbye Pop Pop,” and blew two kisses towards the graves. Unlike Jenny, whose family had just moved here ten years ago, the Reeds had been there for nearly two hundred years. They waited until they were past the Church of Christ before Amy turned to face the oncoming traffic and stuck her thumb out. Almost immediately a car slowed as it passed them, but it did not stop. Amy thought she recognized the woman driving and a wave of panic washed over her. “Maybe, we shouldn’t hitch here, I mean, we know like everyone. I think we should wait till we’re on the interstate. It’s less than three miles, I think, let’s just walk it.” Jenny agreed and they both quickened their pace a little.
They continued to walk until Broadhead became County Highway MN and the houses became farther and farther apart. Soon, the houses became farms and McFarland faded away. Neither girl would ever have guessed that they would never step foot in that town, ever again. By half-past nine they were walking through Stoughton, the backpacks seemed heavier now and despite their athletic conditioning they were both becoming weary from the walk. As they came around a curve at milepost 59.1, the overpass of the interstate came into view. This was the encouragement they needed and suddenly they were walking with much greater purpose, the load was lighter and the destination was close at hand.
Jenny paused beneath the underpass and turned to look at Amy. “Hear that?” she asked, pointing up at the cars whizzing by over their heads.
“Mm Hmm,” Amy answered. “Sounds like freedom.”
Jenny dropped the backpack from her shoulders and put it on the ground. They were standing on the side of the road, beneath the clearing that separated the eastbound lanes from the westbound lanes. She kneeled and opened the zipper of a front pocket on her pack, from which she pulled out a Morgan silver dollar, a gift from her grandfather and one of the mementos she had brought. “Call it,” she said as she flipped the heavy coin high into the air, it pinged as her thumbnail made contact with the silver.
It’s perfectly spinning rotation distracted Amy for a moment as she watched until it began its descent and she cried out “Heads!”
Jenny caught the coin and flipped it onto her forearm, covering it with her hand. “You want California, right? So, heads will be west. Okay?”
Amy nodded and closed her eyes. “Okay, tell me,” she said, with a look of anguished anticipation on her face.
Jenny removed her hand and smiled. She pushed her arm close to Amy until her friend could clearly see the face of liberty. Although she thought Jenny would have preferred New York, Amy smiled as well, happy to see the face of liberty, New York scared her.
They sat on the hilly slope that led up to the interstate for another hour, neither ready to make the final ascension to their destiny. They talked about their hopes and dreams and what California might bring to them. When the tongues had stilled, and their throats were dry from the heat and overuse, a quiet came over them and they knew it was time. Without a word, the girls stood up and climbed the hill to the highway. Once there, they walked until they were off the overpass and settled in on a grassy knoll on the right side of the westbound lanes. Before long Amy stood up and walked over to the shoulder, extending the thumb of her right hand up, while Jenny sat on the green slope.
Chapter XX
"Man, I'd give anything to be a rock star," Jimmy said, listening to Axl Rose wail out the words of, “Welcome to the Jungle,” on the car’s radio.
“Guns and Roses are the best, right man?” answered Chris. “Yeah, can’t picture me in that band but you’d fit in perfectly.”
“Hell yeah,” Jimmy laughed and reached forward to crank up the radio a little more, even though it was already what he knew Chris considered ear-splitting. “I would seriously trade my soul to be Axl, man.”
“Careful what you wish for bro,” Chris warned, jokingly as GNR gave way to Fine Young Cannibals. He turned the volume from ridiculously loud back to just crazy loud.
“Scenery’s kind of boring here, man, thought you said Wisconsin was like beautiful or whatever,” Jimmy said as he touched down the accelerator pushing the needle just over the 70.
“Holy fuck!!! How’s that for scenery,” Chris said as they came around a sweeping curve. About a mile or so ahead, on the side of the road, on the other side of an overpass, a girl in a short dress with long blond hair was hitchhiking.
“Damn, there’s two of them,” Jimmy answered, as he noticed the second girl sitting on the grass beside the road.
“Stop!!!” Chris screamed, with a grin on his face that stretched from cheek to cheek.
The Firebird was flying and as they approached the hitchhikers, Jimmy pushed both of his feet down hard on the brake pedal and gripped the steering wheel tight as the rear tires screeched their dissent and fishtailed left in protest. Jimmy steered into the swerve recovering his car and then edged it off the highway, kicking up gravel as it crossed the shoulder before it finally came to rest on the grass. He looked over at Chris and his friend just sat there shaking his head from side to side as he exhaled the breath he had been holding, “You are fucking crazy man, thought we were crossing the divider for a minute there.”
“Had it all the way bro,” Jimmy said, glancing up at the rearview mirror to check out the girls. They were both on their feet and pulling on backpacks as he put the car into reverse and gently depressed the accelerator. He watched the two girls exaggeratedly step further off the road as he approached. The face of the girl with the black hair was hauntingly familiar. She was stunningly beautiful and while he had obviously never seen her before, his brain was registering familiarity. Never would have forgotten a girl who looked like that, he thought, and yet…
“You got the blond,” he said.
“Not sure it works like that,” Chris replied, watching over his right shoulder as they closed the distance.
Chris was out of the car before it even stopped. He stumbled, skidding across the loose pebbles, but recovered nicely and as the car slowed to a stop he pulled open the rear passenger door. “Your carriage awaits m’ladies,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his right arm directing them in.
The two girls looked at each other and simultaneously broke into a laughter that separated their moment of nervous anticipation from their mutual and immediate acceptance of Chris. They slid into the back seat together, first the blond and then the black-haired girl. Chris jumped back in with a smile on his face that silently said, “Trip’s getting interesting now!”
As Jimmy watched the girl with the black hair get in the back, his thought was Damn if I didn’t know our destiny was in this direction.
Chris shifted in the front seat to face the girls. “So, where you girls heading?”
“L.A. What about you guys?” the girl with the black hair answered. Jimmy watched them through a combination of sidelong glances and mirror checks. The blond was animatedly busy, digging into her backpack for something. She pulled out a crumpled ball of navy blue cotton/lycra which she unrolled into a pair of tights. She kicked off her white sandals, put the tights on her feet and began rolling them up her leg before she noticed Chris watching her every move. She glanced at her friend who gave a look as if to say, let him watch, but she caught Chris’s eye with a raised eyebrow and he looked away. “Um, just west for now,” he said, and the words caught a little in his throat.
“L.A. sounds pretty damn good, though,” Jimmy chimed. I’m Jimmy Vale and this is Chris Carter,” he said, indicating his friend with a nod of his head. “From New York.”
“Jenny and Amy,” the black-haired one said. “I’m Jenny. I like your hat,” she added, catching Jimmy’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
He held her gaze longer than he should have, the two deep amethysts looking back at him were hypnotizing. When he dropped his eyes back to the road, he had to jerk the steering wheel hard left to avoid the shoulder. He pulled off his hat and sailed it in the back like a Frisbee, “Here, it’ll look a lot better on you,” he said.
Jenny flashed a warm welcoming that said, damn, he’s fine, before picking up the hat and placing it on her head. She glanced in the rearview mirror just long enough to adjust the angle of its tilt. Jimmy watched without her noticing, a grin on his face the whole time.
Ninety minutes later, the gray Firebird left the interstate at exit 85 and turned south on highway 12 where, a half-mile later a big wooden gate with a sign saying, Welcome to Rocky Arbor State Park, greeted them. The back seat was loaded with all their possessions: tent, cooler, backpacks, Jimmy’s guitar, and some cardboard boxes filled with supplies. A stray pair of white sandals with purple flowers lay partially concealed under the front passenger seat. The boys went into the park office together and, after showing the appropriate documentation, arranged to stay the night at tent site # 63.
The drive there, took them through several loops of thick pine trees towering over craggy sandstone bluffs. Invariably, at the base of each bluff was a tent or group of tents, or the occasional mobile camper decked out for a high class, less laborious experience. At one site they passed, a group of three young children sat huddled around a TV watching cartoons. The sites were spaced far enough apart, and there was sufficiently thick forest separating them, to allow for some measure of privacy, excepting the cars that would periodically pass on the road.
As they pulled into #63, Jimmy took note that the site on either side of theirs was vacant; just an empty picnic table and rusted black grill at each one. He had requested a secluded site, “sometimes I play my guitar a little too loud and I don’t want to disturb anyone else,” he had told the Ranger. Apparently, the Ranger gave them one. When he killed the engine, a whisper of voices emanated from the rear of the car. The grins on their faces were evidence of their optimism that the stealthy ruse had worked. They raced each other out of the car, once Chris had reached into the glove compartment and pulled the hydraulic lever that popped the trunk, neither of them closing their door. Amy and Jenny emerged from the trunk cautiously, climbing out and surveying their new surroundings.
“I love the smell of the woods, the raw earthen mix of decay and life,” Jenny said spinning
around with her hands raised in homage to the canopy above. “And that campfire smell… Oh my god, this is perfect,” Jenny said and walked up to Jimmy, throwing her arms around him, and kissing his mouth.
There was a momentary pause of reaction on Jimmy’s part, as his brain processed this new set of stimuli before he finally reacted in kind and pulled her body in for a tighter hug. “Holy shit, how fucking cool is this,” was all he managed to come up with.
Amy and Chris stood by in awkward silence, eyeing the embrace. Chris looked at Amy and she turned to start walking towards the road. She was barefoot and when she reached there, seemed to be looking for something. “Hey, Amy,” Chris called, “What do you think?”
Without turning to face him she replied, “I think I need a bathroom. Did we pass any along the way?”
Dead Girls Page 10