Page 64 of The Glass Girl

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There are dogs in the front yard of the next house, straining at their chains.

“Holly Shields,” Tracy says to Phil. She doesn’t honk the horn this time. They both stare at the dogs.

Phil sighs. He and Tracy do rock paper scissors. Tracy loses, and groans as she gets out of the van. She makes a wide path around the dogs. They don’t bark, just hurl themselves in her direction. A thin girl dressed all in black emerges from the house, clutching a black backpack tightly to her chest. Her face is pale as she walks behind Tracy to the van.

I have to scoot closer to Billy so she can climb in.

“Wow, you look like crap,” she says to me. Her voice shakes.

“Yeah?” I retort. “Well, it’s crap you treat your dogs that way. How about that?”

“Why do you even have dogs if you’re going to do that to them?” Billy chimes in.

Her face crumples.

“They aren’t mine,” she whispers. “It’s not my fault.”

As we drive away, the dogs whimper and whine.

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We are in the foothills now, not far from where Amber and I dropped off Kristen and Cherie for the party. I wonder what they’re doing. Are they wondering whatI’mdoing? Do they even care? I take another slug of the orange Pedialyte.

This house is enormous. Huge windows, two floors, expertly landscaped front yard, tucked up a hill at the end of a long dirt drive. Teal-colored iron sculptures of saguaros bracketing the immense front doors.

“Brandy Sheff,” Phil says, looking at his clipboard.

Tracy honks the horn.

A girl so contoured and perfect she could be a Kardashian steps out, phone in her hand, awkwardly pulling a giant suitcase. A woman appears behind her. She sets down three other bags and then goes back into the house and closes the door.

“Princess,” Billy snickers.

Tracy gets out of the van and grabs two of the girl’s bags, throwing them in the back. She and the girl struggle with the giant suitcase. The van shakes as it plops in the back.

The girl, Brandy, climbs in and wedges herself into the seat behind us. A cloud of vanilla body spray fills the van. Next to me, Holly coughs quietly.

“Do you think this is going to be a vacation, sis?” Billy says. “Did you remember your bikini?”

Smoothly, as she snaps her seat belt, Brandy says, “You can fuck right off.”

In the front seat, Phil chuckles. “Ah, the dulcet sounds of discontent. My favorite part of the journey,” he says.

Tracy laughs. “About an hour to go, my friends. Try not to kill each other before we officially begin the rest of your lives.”

She turns on the radio. Classic rock, wailing and mournful.

On cue, the three other kids in the van shove in their earbuds and listen to their phones. I don’t have a phone, so I can’t block anything out.

Ihatethis­Ihatethis­Ihatethis­Ihatethis­Ihatethis.

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The drive down Gate’s Pass through the Tucson Mountains is slow, slow, slow, curves that make me feel sick as we descend into the valley and everything is disappearing, all the buildings and people going, going, gone.

The van is very quiet, until Brandy, the very beautiful one, says, “I’m Brandy, if anyone cares.”

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