Rabbits(6)

I ducked out of the house and into the backyard just in time to miss being spotted by the two girls.

Emily told her parents that she and Annie were going to the store, and asked, half-heartedly, “Does anybody need anything?”

A few voices yelled out requests—cigarettes, ginger ale, chips and dip. Annie wrote everything down as Emily grabbed the keys to her mother’s truck.

Mrs. Connors’s voice rose above the others. “Take K with you.”

“Mom, there’s no room,” Emily complained.

“It’s a big truck, Em. Don’t be difficult.”

Emily exhaled and walked past me without making eye contact. “Come on, kid.”

“What makes you think I wanna go?” I said.

Annie grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the house.

I definitely wanted to go—not only because Annie was the first girl I’d ever kissed, but also because of what Emily had been talking about in the kitchen. The idea of a mysterious secret game called Rabbits.

This felt different. This was something big, something grown-up.

Holding Annie’s hand as she pulled me out to the old blue-and-white Chevy truck with the giant knobby tires took me right back to the moment she had kissed me.

Annie Connors was unconventionally pretty. Her eyes were just a bit too far apart, and her hair was extremely wavy and chaotic, but I found her beautiful, with a brash, powerful confidence that was both exciting and incredibly frightening.

A few weeks after my thirteenth birthday, our families were together celebrating Thanksgiving. Annie and I had been sent downstairs to dig up a game called Trivial Pursuit. On our way to the storage room where we kept our old games, Annie suddenly yanked me over to the furnace next to my makeshift bedroom in our otherwise entirely unfinished basement, matter-of-factly pressed her body against mine, took my face in her hands, and kissed me.

She tasted like grape gummy worms. It was incredible.

“Well?” she’d asked, after the kiss.

I couldn’t speak, but I’m pretty sure my eyes answered with a resounding “holy shit, wow.”



* * *



—

“Get in.” Emily was already inside the truck picking out a cassette for the drive.

I crawled up into the cab, making sure I didn’t sit too close to Emily. Annie Connors was beautiful and mysterious enough; Emily was a whole other world.

“Hurry up, it’s almost time.” Emily had the big truck moving before Annie had shut the door.

I didn’t know much about cars, but the truck was at least a decade old. The ashtray beneath the stereo was overflowing with a blend of white-and-orange cigarette butts. On the floor, an old salt-and-vinegar-chip bag sat next to an empty bottle of Sprite, a few salty shards of greenish-white chips visible against the foil inside.

“The store’s open twenty-four hours,” I said, realizing as I was saying it that Emily knew that.

Everybody knew that.

Emily didn’t answer. She just popped a cassette into the stereo with a mechanical whir and click, and a series of tiny blue and pink lights from the stereo lit up the cab of the truck. Then Tori Amos began singing “Crucify,” and Emily guided the huge truck down the long, winding driveway and out onto the street.



* * *



—

We passed the store without stopping. Emily didn’t even slow down.

I remained silent. I didn’t want to open my mouth and risk saying something that might affect what was happening. This was an adventure—my first “wild hare up your ass” adventure—and there was no way I was going to risk saying anything to fuck it up.

Emily pulled a pack of cigarettes from beneath the visor and took her hands off the wheel to light one up. Without a word from her sister, Annie reached across my lap and grabbed the steering wheel.

Emily and Annie were in perfect sync.

Annie steered for her sister, staring ahead at the road, keeping the truck between the lines with the focus of a brain surgeon or air traffic controller, as if driving between those lines was the only thing keeping the world spinning.

We drove for another seven minutes or so before Emily took the wheel and turned onto an old logging road. A minute later, she pulled over onto the unpaved shoulder.

“There’s nothing up here but the Peterman house,” I said, “but there might be some kids at the gravel pits.”

If I showed up at the gravel pits with Emily and Annie Connors, I’d be a hero tomorrow at school.

Emily shushed me as she turned on the cabin light and pulled a small journal from her purse.

“You sure this is the road?” Annie asked. “K’s right; it’s just the Petermans’ up there.”

Emily stared down at the journal in her lap.

The pages were completely covered in tiny words, numbers, and sketches. It looked familiar to me—not the content, but the style. It was similar to the things my friends and I would scribble onto graph paper while playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Emily circled some numbers she’d written above what appeared to be a collection of names and symbols. She thought about something for a moment, then she added the numbers together, leaned back, and exhaled.

“A hundred and seven point three,” she announced. I was silent. Watching Emily Connors do math was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen in my life.