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Nikki’s fault. They both get in the pickup and peel off.
    She looks across the yard. Levi’s just sitting there on his bike.
    “What?” Nikki says.
    She slams the door behind her.

     
    ALL NIGHT SHE SITS ON THE COUCH in the dark with her mind racing.
    He does need her. He couldn’t have gotten into that apartment without her, for one thing.
    She pictures the black girls, with their mouths wide open, but she doesn’t hear them scream.
    Back then Coy Hawkins was the biggest coke dealer in the county and now he’s not even a gorilla pimp. Cletus , she thinks.
    She smokes a bunch of Kool Kings in a row and doesn’t get sick. She listens to everything.
    When the front door squeals open light shoots in. Angel starts to sit on the couch. But she goes around to the other side of the coffee table instead. Angel drops down on the floor. Coy Hawkins sits in his chair.
    Nikki looks at him.
    “You should have more girls,” Nikki says.
    Coy Hawkins snaps his fingers at her.
    “Put that knife back in the kitchen.”

     
    “RENEE,” Nikki says.
    Nikki slouches in the seat. Renee is sitting on the clinic sidewalk waiting for the group-home van. Renee has physical therapy every Tuesday and Thursday and the van is always late.
    “Renee.”
    Finally Nikki honks. Renee flicks her head and Nikki raises hers above the windowsill. Renee squints. She stands up. She wanders across the parking lot. Already she is taking forever. Nikki rolls her eyes.
    When Renee puts her hands on the windowsill she grins.
    “Whose car is this?”
    “Mine,” Nikki says.
    Nikki shrugs. Renee smirks.
    “Nikki,” she says.
    “What?”
    “You ain’t old enough to drive.”
    Nikki looks at her.
    “You wanna go for a ride or what?”
    Renee glances at the road.
    “All right,” she says.
    Nikki slumps all through town but they never pass the van.
    On the north highway Renee lets her right hand dip through the air. Her right wrist is bulky in a brace. Out of the corner of her eye Nikki watches her. She thinks Renee is prettier than Angel but not as pretty as her. Renee’s hair is blue, but only the underneath part.
    She’s annoyed that Renee hasn’t asked where they’re going.
    “We’re going to my daddy’s.”
    “All right,” Renee says.
    Nikki turns up the stereo until the whole car is rattling.
    Up the hill Levi’s in the way again. He’s wearing a T-shirt over where she threw the brick at him. She lays on the horn and he jerks his bike to the side.
    “Who was that?”
    Renee peers out the back window.
    “Nobody,” Nikki says.
    Nikki almost loses control around the last bend. She parks next to the pickup in the yard.
    “Damn, your daddy stay out in the boonies.”
    Nikki looks out at the vacant houses and the tall grass.
    “He’s got ecstasy.”
    Renee looks at Nikki.
    “Molly?” Renee says.
    Nikki reaches into the cup holder. She pulls out the eyeliner.
    “Want me to do you?” Nikki says.
    Under Renee’s eyes there are the thinnest bones. Nikki’s hand shakes. She stares at Renee’s closed lids even after she’s done with her scalp prickling.
    The cat’s eyes come out crooked.
    “You look pretty,” Nikki says.
    Renee grins. She touches one of Nikki’s leopard spots.
    “Where’d you get that dress?” she says.
    “They’re still looking for me, ain’t they?”
    “Who?” Renee says.
    “DSS,” Nikki says.
    Renee shrugs.
    “I guess.”
    Nikki makes a face. She takes the lipstick from the cup holder. She twists it out.
    “You know my daddy’s Coy Hawkins.”
    “Who?” Renee says.
    Renee doesn’t know anything. Nikki hands the lipstick to her.
    “Pull your finger through your teeth.”
    Coy Hawkins and Angel are both in the living room. They turn from the TV at the same time.
    “Angel?” Renee says.
    “What’s she doing up here?” Angel says.
    Nikki leads her to Coy Hawkins’s chair.
    “This is Renee,” she says.
    Coy Hawkins just looks at them.
    “She’s a virgin,” Nikki says.

     
    THIS TIME