Page 5 of Valley Girls
Rilla flicked her cigarette away and stepped back toward the crowd, clutching the paper in the wind to ask someone.
“Hey, you,” an authoritative voice yelled.
Rilla didn’t realize he was talking to her, until he grabbed her elbow. “Stop.”
She turned and blinked at the face of a park ranger.
“Did you just drop that cigarette?” he demanded.
“Uh. No.” The lie was out like breathing.Always deny, everything.It was one of her mom’s most repeated rules. She swallowed and tried not to look guilty. She was a Skidmore—they never did well in front of law enforcement.
His features hardened. “I watched you. Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Go back and pick it out of the grass, before you burn down the whole Valley from your carelessness.” He let go of her elbow, and she wobbled unsteadily for a second.
“Have you been drinking?” He looked past her, into the alley between the tents and the crowd beyond. “How old are you? What’s your name? Do you work here?”
“Twenty-one,” she said, struggling with the rapid-fire questions. “Priscilla Skidmore. I haven’t been drinking, though. I didn’t know about the cigarette. I don’t want to burn anything.”
But he was already moving on. “I’m going to do a series of tests. Touch your nose with your pointer finger.”
Rilla touched her nose. Heart pounding in her ears.
“Now with the other hand.”
She swung her other hand up and poked herself in the eye.Shit.
“How much have you had to drink tonight?”
Did it look like she just fell off the turnip truck? “Nothing. Ossifer.” She licked her lips and tried again. “Officer.” That time she nailed it. How much had she had to drink? Her nervousness lit a fire to the two beers she remembered.
“You’re slurring.”
She was not. She was nervous. “Stop making fun of myass-sent.”
A white light blinded her eyes. “Place your hands on top of your head.”
No. No. No. This couldn’t be happening. It felt like her wrists lifted of their own accord.
Don’t get into trouble.But she hadn’t meant to. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be alone.
He took one hand off her head and wrapped it behind her back with the cuffs.
Rilla was definitely in trouble.
Three
Even in Rainelle it felt like everybody reacted to a version of Rilla that she herself couldn’t see. In Yosemite, she thought she’d be set free from that—able to get out from the shadow of her own caricature and find the real Priscilla Skidmore. But if this night was any indication, her shadow had followed her here. It was the only thing that explained why she was in jail for drinking and a little bit of pot. InCalifornia.Of all states.
Rilla wrapped her fingers over the edge of the old pew bench, shivering uncontrollably under the gaze of the two park rangers who had busted the party and were now processing all the arrests. Shame watered in her mouth, stronger every time the rangers glanced in her direction. They had to call Thea. They knew who she was. They probably knew what had happened in West Virginia, and it’s why they looked at her with so much derision as compared to everyone else.
Rilla tried not to let them see she noticed.
Thea walked in a little after 5A.M. With her straight shoulders and a thrown-back head, she marched to the empty desk beside one of the rangers.
“Martinez?” he asked without looking up.
“Miller,” Thea said, opening a drawer and looking through it. “I’m going to take Rilla home.”
Rilla slumped. Just when her life couldn’t get more shameful.
