Harry’s car dipped and jumped over the road’s potholes. He drove so slowly that there wouldn’t have been a breeze with the windows down, but plenty of mosquitoes. Viv periodically slapped her neck until, with an elongated sigh, she shook her hair out of its braid and hid under it.
“If one more bloodsucker bites me, I’m going to start biting back,” she said. She didn’t stutter on S words anymore, just overenunciated them in a way that made me think she was remembering having been teased.
“I’d like to see that,” Graham said.
Viv twisted, snapped her jaw, and smiled. “I bet you would.”
She flipped the front vents closed. “I think they’re crawling through the air conditioner.”
Harry made a noise like a snort and flicked it off.
We were ten miles outside of town, navigating a one-lane road through a ravine, headed to its only destination, the slaughterhouse. It was easy to forget this place existed. Who’d want to remember? A hundred or so seniors every September, that’s who. And the four of us, along with our peers, as the timeworn tradition of Senior Class Slumber Fest dictated, were about to spend the night there. Basically we were planning to slumber it in hell.
Graham lifted his flask. His mother had arrived home the day before after a summer-long absence. His head touched the car ceiling each time we hit a bump and his strawberryblond hair stood with static electricity. “This one’s for Izzie. The only girl who’s seen me naked and managed to resist jumping me.”
I tucked my legs beneath me and took a nip of the spicy liquor. “I don’t think you being six, scarfing too many cookies, puking on your pants, and needing to take a bath at my house counts as me seeing you naked.” Viv laughed so suddenly she snorted. She covered her face. Her eyes smiled out between her fingers; there were tiny glow-in-the-dark skulls painted on her nails.
“How were you not scarred for life?” Harry asked.
Viv giggled. “Who says she’s not?”
Harry mimed tipping a hat to her.
I threw my arm to my forehead. “It’s only because I’ve seen hundreds of guys naked that I’m able to block out the trauma of Graham.”
Graham pinched just above my kneecap, a spot that made me laugh abruptly and shove him away. “More like my naked glory ruined you for all others.” He took the flask as he slouched back.
Viv winked at me and said, “I think Graham’s teensy-tiny little baby weenie is why Izzie won’t go farther than kissing.”
“She’s right,” I whispered, hands over my heart, “I imagine it in place of the boy’s face. It’s why I can’t stomach baby carrots.”
Harry groaned. “Now I need a lobotomy.”
Viv flipped the mirror down. “Baby carrots are an abomination of nature,” she stated without a trace of humor curling her mouth’s reflection.
Graham tapped his window. “Why are there no other cars on the road?”
“I told you, you made us late,” Viv huffed. “Every senior is going to beat us and they’ll take all the good spots.” Our headlights illuminated long-abandoned farming equipment scattered in the barren landscape.
Harry drummed his palms on the steering wheel. “How do you know a good sleeping spot from a bad one in a slaughterhouse? Don’t they all inherently suck?” He raked his hand through his brown hair, leaving the sides vertical banks. Viv laced her fingers watching him, trying to resist licking her palm and styling his hair. “And there will be at least three missing seniors other than us. The Animal Rights Club isn’t coming,” Harry directed to Viv, “out of protest.”
“Fascist bullies.” Her chin jutted out. Viv was club treasurer sophomore year. She’d had three rescue bunnies, her parents had trained assistance dogs, and she’d teared up during those animal rescue commercials with puppies behind bars. One unlucky day she was spotted in leather riding boots; Viv was shunned.
Graham perked up. “Did I tell you about that lecture in my Ethics and Activism course on how the slaughterhouse caught fire?” Graham loved to audit classes in his mom’s department at the University of Santa Barbara.
“Some disgusting smoker dropped their cigarette and burned the place down,” Viv replied absently, riffling through her purse. She craned around and held a chandelier earring to her earlobe, sending a whiff of honeysuckle perfume into the rear seat.
“Space empress chic,” I declared. The pressure I felt when Viv asked for my opinion on accessories and clothes led to theatrical embellishments. Better to overdo it than disappoint.
Graham pitched forward for our attention, one finger raised. “But it wasn’t an accident.”
The car shuddered over a metal grate. “What happened?” Harry asked.
Graham settled forward, elbows on his knees, hands tented under his chin. “Sixty years ago”—he got his eager-to-teach expression—“there weren’t laws about the treatment of animals. None of this free-range, veggie-fed yoga meat. They would just pack the cows onto the killing floor, gas them, and butcher them.”
Viv crawled up on her knees, propped her chin on the seatback, and glared. “If this is just meant to frighten me, I’m going to tell Jess Clarkson about your baby carrot.”
I shook my head. “I don’t get why guys—why you”—I nudged Graham’s shoulder—“are interested in Jess. Her brain function is nil.”
Graham cupped his hands at his pecs and raised a sly eyebrow. “Really? You can’t think of two gigantic reasons why I’d be interested?”
I stuck two fingers in my throat and gagged.
Viv’s eyes flicked down to her front before she crossed her arms there. “God, when did you become such a skeeze? You used to be my squishy Teddy Graham.”
Harry tipped his head back, laughing. “He’s always been a perv, Viv. Even when he was a chubby little dude who let you call him Teddy Graham and Graham Cracker, he used to talk about jerking it and—” His voice broke away as Graham lunged for him and the car swerved left. Graham tried to cover Harry’s mouth. “And he used to brush up against—” Graham caught Harry’s collar. Harry made a gurgling, hacking noise but righted the car.
Viv’s earrings danced on their silver hooks as she half shrieked, half laughed. “Sit down, Teddy Graham.”
I yanked his elbow and he slid back, all shamefaced grin. “Okay, okay.” His hands went up in surrender. “I used to brush up against girls in line during the seventh grade. I wasn’t a sexual predator. I was twelve. And I wouldn’t do it now.”
“No, now you just study on the bleachers by the pool whenever the girls’ swim team is doing laps,” I said. “Now you drool over Jess.”
“You’ll see, Pendleton.” He leveled a finger at me. “That girl wants me. We’re in the middle of a passionate courtship.”
“Does she have a thing for seventeen-year-old boys who use words like courtship?” I asked.
“This is why girls think we’re weird,” Viv said. “We spend all our time with them.” She motioned to the boys.
“I don’t understand why you think our sophisticated loner status is such a plight, Vivian,” Graham said.