Valley Girls

by Sarah Nicole Lemon

  Rilla clenched her jaw. “I just thought. I thought this would be different.”

  “People are shitty. Friends can be shitty. I don’t think it means they aren’t your friends. That’s certainly a better option than running home to West Virginia, don’t you think?”

  Rilla was about to say something snotty in reply when the sound of a rock tumbling caught her attention.

  They both froze and looked at each other.

  What was that? Rilla furrowed her brow.

  Jonah grimaced, looking worried.

  It wasn’t that people didn’t know about the couch—most everyone in HUFF used it. It was that people announced themselves. One rock tumbling could be a squirrel. A coyote. A deer? A bear . . .

  She crept over to the edge and peeked over the rock to look down the trail.

  A tan Stetson stood at the bottom, waiting.

  Or a Ranger Miller.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. If he caught her up here smoking weed, he’d definitely be able to drag her back to Thea’s like AHA.

  “COPS,” she mouthed to Jonah.

  He looked confused and didn’t move.

  She grabbed the stuff and chucked it as far into the trees as she could.

  “Hey—” Jonah started to protest but she slapped a hand over his mouth and shushed him. Was that it? She patted his pockets just to be sure, pulling out an empty bag. Quickly, she put a rock inside and threw that too.

  He made a squeak as it sailed to the ground.

  “So, yeah,” she said, letting go and trying to sound casual as she sat back down beside him. Her hands trembled. “People are the worst,” she said.

  He glared at her. “Yeah. They really are.”

  “Good afternoon,” Ranger Miller interrupted, suddenly appearing over the top of the trail.

  Thank god he’d bumbled the sneak up. Rilla tried not to look guilty as she turned over her shoulder and looked up at him. “Afternoon.”

  “I smell some paraphernalia. Have you been smoking weed?”

  “Nope.”

  “It rises out of the Valley,” Jonah said.

  She wanted to elbow him, but it’d be too obvious.

  “Rilla, I think you should come with me anyway. I don’t feel comfortable leaving you up here alone with an older boy. Your sister would be upset.”

  “What?” Rilla asked. “You can’t do that.”

  “I’m doing it. Let’s go.”

  Normally, she would have fought him. Dug her heels in. What did she care about getting in trouble? But with Thea’s future on the line, she didn’t want to risk it. “Fine,” she snapped.

  “Rilla!” Jonah said.

  “Be quiet now, son,” Ranger Dick Face said, like he was a parody of himself and learned his policing from watching The Dukes of Hazzard.

  Jonah stood and crossed his arms, glaring at Dick Face.

  “I’m going. It’s fine. I don’t want to get Thea in trouble,” Rilla said.

  He nodded, still glaring.

  “Let’s go, Di—” She swallowed. “Ranger Miller.”

  “I’m keeping an eye on you. Don’t even think about running.”

  “Oh my god, you can’t be serious,” Rilla said, starting down the steep, rocky path. Could this get any more ridiculous? Sighing, she followed Ranger Miller back to Half Dome Village, to his truck, where he told her to wait and called Thea.

  She rolled her eyes and leaned against the truck. Now Thea would certainly be mad. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

  “I wasn’t smoking,” she shouted so Thea could hear her.

  Ranger Dick Face glared at her and turned his back.

  She should bolt. Old Rilla would have bolted. But she folded her arms tight over herself and stayed put. Some things were more important. Thea was more important. She tightened her grip on her ribs and closed her eyes, repeating it over and over.

  “All right, she’s coming by for you.”

  “You’re just trying to make something out of nothing.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think it was nothing. I think you were up there smoking weed with your friend.”

  He was right. But it was unfair. She ducked her head and glared at the ground. “You’re a . . .”

  “What?” he snapped. “Go ahead. Give me a reason.”

  She practically bit her tongue off trying to keep it still in her head.

  Thea showed up ten minutes later, ignoring her while assuring Miller she appreciated it.

  “He’s an asshole. I wasn’t doing anything,” Rilla said, after he’d pulled off.

  Thea shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Rilla bit her lips tight.

  “I have a final interview for the position next week. He’s just trying to get anything he can.”

  “He must be feeling desperate,” Rilla said hopefully.

  “Or just petty,” Thea said. “Just try to avoid him. Please.” Thea sighed. “I needed to tell you anyway, your meeting with the principal is Tuesday at nine A.M.,” Thea said.

  “Wait. What?” Rilla froze. A red wash of panic came over her. “Why?”

  “To see if you can be reinstated or if you have to repeat eleventh grade. Whatever you haven’t done, do it now.”

  She had done nothing. Basically nothing. “I thought you were considering the GED?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I talked to you . . . like, a few weeks ago. About taking the GED—instead of school. I want to go to France. I want to get a real job and go to France to climb. Celine invited us.”

  Thea didn’t speak. She just stared.

  “I talked to—”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Thea roared, full accent in her voice like Rilla hadn’t heard all summer.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not,” Rilla snapped. “But you seem not to have one this whole summer—at least when it comes to my existence.”

  “France? Celine?” Thea yelled.

  Rilla rolled her eyes. “Oh, great.” Thea was going to do the inexperienced climber thing again.

  “What planet are you living on?” Thea said. “You aren’t going to France. You don’t even have a passport. And you weren’t supposed to be climbing—and what . . .” She sputtered and stopped. “What’s this about Celine. Celine Moreau?”

  Rilla crossed her arms. “I climbed with her. She invited me to France along with Caroline. I’m a climber. A good one.”

  Thea rubbed her face and groaned. “What? You have got to be lying.”

  Why did everyone suddenly think she was lying? Rilla swallowed down a sick feeling. “I’m not. Ask Walker. Ask Caroline. Ask any—”

  “I don’t know how to do this,” Thea interrupted. “I don’t know how to be a parent.”

  “I don’t need a parent. I already have two.” There were no vacancies, despite the situation.

  “An actual parent is what you need. For once in your life.”

  The same horrible, shit-brown feeling crept over Rilla’s shoulders and tightened up her neck. Thea should be the one person, at least, who knew that her life wasn’t a ridiculous stereotype she needed to be saved from, even if it sounded that way. “You can sell that load of shit to everyone else about Mom, but you can’t sell it to me. I know the truth,” Rilla snapped.

  “The truth?” Thea swung around to face her, black hair nearly blue in the shade and uncharacteristically wild around her face. “Mom’s chaotic, in and out of jail, unstable, addicted to a variety of substances including men, and does not see a problem with her lifestyle.” Her tone was serious. Intense. “She refuses to even acknowledge her own history. Or how much danger you were in.”

  Rilla pulled back.

  “Your dad’s got the IQ and reasoning skills of a golden retriever and we both know he just does whatever Mom does,” Thea continued. “Mine is the non-functioning addict. And as much as I understand you wanting to defend them, trust me when I say there’s nothing to defend.”

  How could Thea say that
? Had she forgotten how Thea’s dad, Marco, read stories and her dad, Tom, taught them to ride dirt bikes. How Lee encouraged them to live wild and unfettered, and to not give any mind to what others might say. How all three showed them how to live and love even planted in a place that kept trying to pluck or poison you out like some rampant weed? “You don’t know shit,” she seethed, too furious to even argue. “You can’t even see you’re just like her.”

  Thea froze, her face white. “You know mom had a baby before us. I mean, she was pregnant—when Grandma kicked her out. Do you know what happened?”

  Rilla froze.

  “Her boyfriend beat the shit out of her and caused her to miscarry.”

  Rilla’s stomach plummeted.

  Thea leaned forward, wide-eyed. “Yep. And you know what? She went back to him.”

  She didn’t want to hear this. Rilla closed her eyes, hating the sudden eruption of heat in her chest. “But she sent me here,” she whispered.

  “I convinced her. Yes, she sent you. And it’s my job to do what she can’t do. You are not going to France. You will graduate high school, so help me god.”

  Rilla’s face twisted, fighting the coming tears. “She left. She did the right things, in the end. She did the best she could.”

  “In the end, sometimes it doesn’t matter,” Thea said. And she headed back to her post, leaving Rilla all alone again.

  She could go home now. Mom had said, in August. Mom had said she could take the GED. All it would take was one phone call. Rilla could use the last bit of her money for the ticket. By that night, she could be on her way. It would solve everyone’s problems—Thea’s, Petra’s, Walker’s, everyone’s. Even hers.

  Rilla lifted her chin to the view of El Capitan staring over the trees and her heart wrenched. She couldn’t leave. Not without trying The Nose. It was the thing she’d been working toward. The thing that mattered more to her than anything else. Somehow, she’d have to find a way to even the score and make them all wrong.

  It came to her while setting aside Petra’s gear to return it. It went, money—copper tub—everyone said it was dumb to steal a copper tub because—watch!

  Rilla would pawn that broken watch of Petra’s. Didn’t have the money. Couldn’t make it. Rilla pulled Petra’s gear into her bag, and slid down the ladder. She’d show her. Her heart raced and bolstered her courage.

  •

  Rilla waited with her bag between her knees on the boulder by Petra’s car until they arrived in the parking lot.

  “Hey. I looked for you this morning.”

  “I had some work,” Rilla answered, trying to seem at ease. As if nothing had changed. She picked up the bag. “Anyway, I wanted to get this to you, before I forgot.”

  Petra took the bag and looked inside. “Are you going to have enough gear for The Nose?”

  “Oh yeah. I’m good.” She’d been working nearly every day, and with some luck, duct tape, fishing line, and absolutely nothing going wrong, she thought she could manage.

  Petra frowned. “You sure? You can totally keep these longer. It’s no big deal. I know you’re working. It takes time to build up a rack.”

  “No.” Rilla swallowed. “I’m all good. I’ll be ready.”

  “Two more weeks,” Adeena crowed. “I’m nervous already.”

  “Two more weeks.” Rilla nodded. A pit in her stomach started. “And after that, France.”

  Petra’s brow pinched, but she smiled and looked over. “Yeah. France.”

  Rilla watched her go, her hand in her sweatshirt pocket to grip the gold watch she’d taken from the Grove. A stab of guilt cut through her stomach, but she swallowed it away.

  Yeah, in France.

  Thirty Eight

  The Valley was silent and cool, and Rilla tiptoed her way out of the house, keys clutched tight in her fist. A quiver of unease drifted through her stomach, but she’d been over it all night. It would be simple and quick. It was Thea’s interview day—immediately following work—so she’d be gone longer than normal. Thea wouldn’t even notice her truck was missing. In the end, Rilla would have the money she needed for France. There was no reason to back out now. All she had to do was drive to the closest bigger town and pawn it.

  The drive to Merced went smoothly. The sun slipped up the canyon walls and she emptied out of the mountains in the desert just as the last bit of sunrise melted away into day. She was making great time, arm out the window, and all her unease melted away.

  By the time she slowed, looking at the GPS and shifting the truck along the roads, the heat of the day descended and the back of her shirt and her thighs were drenched in sweat. It was hotter out here in the open desert than the last few days in the Valley.

  Finally, she pulled up along the street, where the GPS announced her destination. It was a row of flat stucco houses with small aluminum windows on a wide, cracked concrete street. She was halfway done. With a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Rilla switched off the engine and slid out of the hot truck. The pawn shop was a gray stucco building with a chipped red door and bars on the windows. A full sycamore stood in the lot next door, dancing patterns on the sidewalk. Rilla took a few deep breaths and walked in.

  The man wore a ratty Harley T-shirt and cargo shorts and even though she knew she should be afraid, nervous, there was something so familiar in him that she almost cried and hugged him as if he was a long-lost cousin. All summer she’d been working so hard to be something better, bigger, bolder, and feeling so alone when no one around her looked recognizable. Knowing she was the bottom regardless of whether she examined it by class, economy, and culture. And in a pawn shop in Merced, California, she felt all that slip away and she only had to be Rilla Skidmore.

  It wasn’t a great feeling. But it was home.

  “I need to pawn this,” she said, dropping the watch she’d stolen from the Grove onto the glass.

  The guy rubbed his face and nodded.

  In less than five minutes, she was back in the truck, and heading out of Merced. The fields flashing past her window, endless, eternal, and washed out in the bright sun.

  About a half hour in, a faint, sweetly burning smell started, and she scanned the fields and horizon looking for the smoke.

  She noticed the engine light too late. And the speedometer falling, even though she was pressing the gas harder. Shit. She yanked the truck over to the side of the road, the dust kicking up and mixing with the smoke now pouring out of the seams of the truck hood.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. She jerked the handbrake up and jumped out of the truck. She had her phone, but who could she call? She wrapped her hand in her shirt and tried to open the hood, but it burned when she touched it. A vision of herself on a criminal clip flashed in her head. She looked around, shading her eyes against the heat and the sun. She’d figure something out. There were nothing but orchards as far as the eye could see. Dark mountains shimmered faintly on the horizon, partially hidden by haze. A dust devil whirled, soft and delicate and eerily silent in the dry dirt field, spotted with sparse almond saplings, across the road.

  A heaviness hit her chest. What had she done? She was out in this wasteland of farms, alone, panicking while the truck poured smoke, knowing she was a hairsbreadth away from the same thing she’d always been.

  She exhaled and put her hands on her hips. Okay, what next? Maybe she could walk somewhere. Pulling out her phone, she opened the maps and zoomed out. And out. And . . .

  Was this even working? No signal. She looked both ways on the empty road and the sweat rolled into her eyes. Shit. She had to do something.

  The hood had cooled enough to open carefully, her hand wrapped into her T-shirt. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for; but if the engine was smoking, she figured she should take a look.

  With the engine open, she could only peer blankly inside.

  And feel thirsty and hot. Sweaty. Shit.

  The road was still empty. How could it be empty?

  She glanced down the
long row of trees.

  Across the road, the dust devil kept spinning.

  A car approached, and she rushed out to the road, waving her hands. But the car zoomed right on by.

  This was fast becoming a problem. She was melting. A hot wind puffed in her face and she wished it were cooler. The haze on the horizon seemed darker. Brewing. She squinted.

  And suddenly, she heard the chug of a tractor.

  Rilla whipped her head around, scanning the clementine trees. A cloud of dust rose above the trees a few rows over. Turning, she ran down the road, looking down the rows until she spotted a tractor, pulling it’s trailer down a row of trees. Shouting, she ran down the row, sandals sinking in the surprisingly soft dirt.

  The tractor kept moving. Shooting heavy streams of water onto the bases of the trees, soaking the desert. She caught up with it and the worker pulled back in surprise, cutting the engine.

  He was dark skinned and dark haired, and he waited with a bandana covering his mouth, eyes crinkled in concern.

  She’d only taken two years of high school Spanish. All she could remember was hello.

  “Hola?” she asked.

  The man yanked down his bandana. “¿Hola?”

  “Uh. Soy llama . . . shit.”

  “I speak English. Are you okay?” he asked.

  Relief flooded over her. “I broke down. I think my truck overheated.”

  “You’re on the road?”

  She nodded. “Can I . . .” But she wasn’t even sure what to ask.

  The man came back and looked over the truck. He filled the radiator with water, and she was able to restart. By that time, the dust devil was long gone; but the horizon had thickened, and the haze had given way to a sharp anvil of clouds, soaring into the blue sky.

  Only an hour and a half to go, and she’d be back at Thea’s. Hopefully before Thea got home and realized the truck was gone. Only an hour and a half. She eased onto the road and gripped the steering wheel.

  The road led right into the clouds. She lifted her eyes to the edge as she passed under it—from intense blue to swirling dark. But she was in the mountains now, the hills rising steeply on both sides into the canyon as she dropped down to ride the road along the bubbling Merced.