Emily V.

We were stranded in the desert, the trailer broke down. The tires and the engine, both. Emily V. is sitting in a plastic chair with her feet propped up on the fold-out table. She has on a pair of sunglasses that (she’s confided in me) are really solar panels, with DG in big golden letters on the sides. She’s wearing a bikini top, one of the straps intentionally sagging off one of her shoulders.
Emily V. says, “C’mon boys. Don’t be so down. It could be worse.”
“Shut up, Emily V.” the boys shout back.
“Whatever.

The sun is setting. The trailer has sunk into the sand. Emily V. stares prophetically into the distance. She wiggles her toes. Suddenly she leans forward, curiously intrigued by her toe-nails, which are bright red. Someone swears beneath the hood of the trailer.
Emily V. scoffs. “It must have been love at first sight.”

The disfigured and hostile desert mutants surround the trailer in the middle of the night. They prowl in the dark. Emily V. stares at them from inside the back of the trailer. She forgets to mention them at dinner. The boys and Emily V. sit around the fold-out table that they’ve dragged in from outside, along with most of the sand. They squeeze in next to each other. Some of them can’t fit around the table and sit on the floor.
Someone makes an optimistic comment. Emily V. sniggers, biting into her chicken leg with sarcastic power.

I am hiding in the bathroom, behind the squeaking door. I have a stolen a chicken leg. I am camping out in the bathroom, or camping in, should I say. Emily V. swings open the door and crosses her arms and jiggles her foot. “Tsk tsk,” she says, shaking her head. “So you’ve seen them too.”
I shrug. She shrugs. From the doorway I watch her flightily wander off, searching for the only Bob Marley record she has the patience to listen to.

“Come sing with me, Alex!” She yells. She slams her fists onto her mattress. “Come sing with me!”
“Alright, I’ll sing with you.”
“Thank you, Alex,” she says, no longer paying attention.
I sing with her.
“Do you think we should tell the others about the monsters?”
“If you want to,” I say.
“Maybe they are nice monsters.”
“Maybe.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“No. Are you?”
“Yes.” She nods her head vigorously, widening her eyes.

Trying to fall asleep, I can hear the mutants breathing harshly outside. I can hear their long sharp claws piano-keying against the trailer.
“Psssst,” Emily V. whispers.
I pretend that I am asleep.
“Psssst, hey, Alex.”
I roll over. “What is it.”
“The monsters are here.” She pronounces monsters, mawnsters, parodying a deep Count Dracula voice and clutching the sides of her jaw with her hands, pretending to gasp, fingers recoiling like spider legs.
“No shit.”
She plops out of bed, still dressed. Her jeans are so tight they don’t reach the bottom of her ankles. I think they’re black but I can’t completely make out the color. When I look up she has a serious look on her face. She is sad, so sad that it makes me feel like I’m weighing her down. I roll back over, facing the wall. She knows the price of drugs. She knows things because you’d never expect her to know them. The only thing wrong with her is that she thinks that something is.
The mutants limp off, leaving their feast for another night.

Tomorrow, the boys get the trailer up and running again. They dig the wheels out of the sand. I walk over the Emily V., her entire lower-body submerged in the ground.
“So what’s new today, Emily V.?”
“There’s a rabbit on my head.”
“I don’t see it.”
“That’s what’s so funny.” She laughs but her eyes don’t, her shoulders bouncing listlessly. “You know what, Alex.
“You know what.”
“What?”
“You’re something else.” And then she pulls out her three-hundred and sixty-five foot long three hundred and sixty-five foot wide pair of sunglasses and puts them on and we are, to each other’s relief, once again strangers.