Vanishing Girls(3)

“Shut up, dick!” Dara says. But she’s laughing. “She’s my sister.”

“That’s definitely my cue,” I say.

But Dara isn’t listening. Her face is flushed, her eyes bright with alcohol. “She’s my sister,” she announces again, to no one and also to everyone, since Dara is the kind of person other people watch, want, follow. “And my best friend.”

More hooting; a scattering of applause. Another guy yells, “Get it on!”

Dara throws an arm around my shoulder, leans up to whisper in my ear, her breath sweet-smelling, sharp with booze. “Best friends for life,” she says, and I’m no longer sure whether she’s hugging me or hanging on me. “Right, Nick? Nothing—nothing—can change that.”





AFTER


http://www.theShorelineBlotter.com/march28_accidentsandreports

At 11:55 p.m., Norwalk police responded to a crash on Route 101, just south of the Shady Palms Motel. The driver, Nicole Warren, 17, was taken to Eastern Memorial with minor injuries. The passenger, Dara Warren, 16, who was not wearing her seat belt, was rushed by ambulance to the ICU and is, at the time of this posting, still in critical condition. We’re all praying for you, Dara.

Sooo sad. Hope she pulls through!

posted by: mamabear27 at 6:04 a.m.

i live right down the road heard the crash from a half mile away!!!

posted by: qTpie27 at 8:04 a.m.

These kids think they’re indestructible. Who doesn’t wear a seat belt?? She has no one to blame but herself.

posted by: markhhammond at 8:05 a.m.

Have some compassion, dude! We all do stupid things.

posted by: trickmatrix at 8:07 a.m.





Some people stupider than others.


posted by: markhhammond at 8:08 a.m.





http://www.theShorelineBlotter.com/july15_arrests

It was a busy night for the Main Heights PD. Between midnight and 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday, three local teens perpetrated a rash of minor thefts in the area south of Route 23. Police first responded to a call from the 7-Eleven on Richmond Place, where Mark Haas, 17, Daniel Ripp, 16, and Jacob Ripp, 19, had threatened and harassed a local clerk before making off with two six-packs of beer, four cartons of eggs, three packages of Twinkies, and three Slim Jims. Police pursued the three teens to Sutter Street, where they had destroyed a half-dozen mailboxes and egged the home of Mr. Walter Middleton, a math teacher at the teens’ high school (who had, this reporter learned, earlier in the year threatened to fail Haas for suspected cheating). The police at last caught and arrested the teens in Carren Park, but not before the three boys had stolen a backpack, two pairs of jeans, and a pair of sneakers from next to the public pool. The clothes, police reported, belonged to two teenage skinny-dippers, both of whom were brought into the Main Heights police station . . . hopefully, after recovering their clothing.

Dannnnnnny . . . ur a legend.

posted by: grandtheftotto at 12:01 p.m.





Get a life.


posted by: momofthree at 12:35 p.m.

The irony is that these boys will probably be working in the 7-Eleven before too long. Somehow I don’t see these three boys as brain surgeons.

posted by: hal.m.woodward at 2:56 p.m.

Skinny-dipping? Weren’t they freezing?? :P

posted by: prettymaddie at 7:22 p.m.

How come the article doesn’t give us the names of the “two teenage skinny-dippers”? Trespassing is a criminal offense, isn’t it?

posted by: vigilantescience01 at 9:01 p.m.

Thanks for posting. It is, but neither teen was charged.

posted by: admin at 9:15 p.m.





Mr. Middleton sux.


posted by: hellicat15 at 11:01 p.m.





JULY 15


Nick


“Skinny-dipping, Nicole?”

There are many words in the English language that you never want to hear your father say. Enema. Orgasm. Disappointed.

Skinny-dipping ranks high on the list, especially when you’ve just been dragged out of the police station at three in the morning wearing police-issue pants and a sweatshirt that likely belonged to some homeless person or suspected serial killer, because your clothing, bag, ID, and cash were stolen from the side of a public pool.

“It was a joke,” I say, which is stupid; there’s nothing funny about getting arrested, almost ass-naked, in the middle of the night when you’re supposed to be asleep.

The headlights divide the highway into patches of light and dark. I’m glad, at least, that I can’t see my dad’s face.

“What were you thinking? I would never have expected this. Not from you. And that boy, Mike—”

“Mark.”

“Whatever his name was. How old is he?”

I stay quiet on that. Twenty is the answer, but I know better than to say it. Dad’s just looking for someone to blame. Let him think that I was forced into it, that some bad-influence guy made me hop the fence at Carren Park and strip down to my underwear, made me take a big belly flop into a deep end so cold it shocked the breath right out of my body so I came up laughing, gulping air, thinking of Dara, thinking she should have been with me, that she would understand.

I imagine a huge boulder rising up out of the dark, an accordion-wall of solid stone, and have to shut my eyes and reopen them. Nothing but highway, long and smooth, and the twin funnels of the headlights.