Girl Squad

by Kim Hoover

  “Lemme see ur student IDs, so’s I can verify ur illegibility.”

  We produced our IDs and she handed us a check-in form to fill out, which we did, before passing it back to her with the required six-dollar fee.

  “That gits ya a bed, linens, and breakfast in the mornin’. Ur welcome to use the kitchen tonight if ya got somethin’ to cook for dinner. But make sure you clean up like you was never there.”

  “Thanks,” we said in unison.

  “And girls,” she said as we gathered up our bags, “no visitors. Especially no boys.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Rachel saluted.

  We got settled in the dorm in the furthest corner from the restroom. There were a few others already there, mostly much older than us, and none very talkative at all.

  “I’m starved,” Rachel said. “I wonder if there’s a grocery store near here.”

  “I saw a Piggly Wiggly a few blocks back,” Jane said. “What if Cal stays here to watch our stuff and you and I go pick up a few things?”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Get some canned green beans and chicken. And some instant potatoes. And some ice cream and chocolate syrup.”

  “You’ll be okay by yourself?” Jane touched my arm lightly and something about the way she looked at me made my breath quicken.

  “Sure.”

  While they were gone, I poked around the dorm and checked out the showers. It was all clean enough but bare and out of date, especially the faucets. They looked like something out of the thirties, which I only knew about because of antique shows I’d been to with Grandma.

  “Hey, girl,” said a woman from one of the bunks. “Don’t go barefoot in those showers. You’ll catch athlete’s foot.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Thanks. I’ve had that before. It was awful.”

  Jane and Rachel weren’t gone that long, and when they got back, Jane went down to the kitchen to put the ice cream in the freezer and get started on dinner. Rachel pulled me down to her bunk and whispered, “Jane and I had a talk.”

  “A talk?”

  “Yeah. I asked her if she has a thing for you.”

  “What? Why would you do that? What does that even mean?”

  “It means that she likes you as more than a friend.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘What if I do?’ and I said it’s okay with me as long as she’s careful with you because you’re my best friend.”

  I couldn’t think what to say.

  “Do you like her that way?”

  “Did she ask you if I did?”

  “Well, not exactly, but I could tell she wants to know. So do you?”

  “I guess so. I mean, I know what I feel, but I thought that kind of thing was, I don’t know, deviant or something. People get arrested for it, right? Like it’s against the law. Girls are supposed to like boys.”

  “Maybe it’s time to stop listening to what everyone says you’re supposed to do, Cal. Maybe it’s time to do what you think is right for you.”

  I looked at her pixie face, so cute and so serious at the same time.

  “You are weirdly wise sometimes.”

  “You should always listen to me. And, by the way, I think Jane is A-Okay.”

  I pushed at Rachel playfully and laughed as we made our way to the kitchen. Then, glancing up to see Jane stirring pots of beans and potatoes, I suddenly felt shy, my face burning with embarrassment at what Rachel and I had been talking about.

  “This gourmet meal is just about ready to serve,” Jane said, smiling and winking at me.

  As we sat slurping ice cream after dinner, we couldn’t avoid the subject of our predicament any longer. I figured we were all thinking the same thing. Do we go to Tyler tomorrow, or do we go back home and forget this whole thing?

  “We’re tempting fate,” Jane said. “But if you all are game, so am I.”

  “I don’t know, y’all,” I said. “This is super dangerous. And it doesn’t have anything to do with either one of you. This is my problem.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Rachel said. “We’ve been in this together since day one. We have to go where this takes us. Why did we even start if we didn’t plan on finishing?”

  I looked from Rachel to Jane and back again. If I was going, they were going with me.

  “How far is it to Tyler?” I asked.

  They smiled and we all high-fived.

  Rachel drew KP duty and stayed downstairs to clean up. As Jane and I climbed the stairs, my brain flooded with crazy thoughts of getting close to her, of touching her, of kissing her.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Of course. Why not?”

  “Rachel said something to me in the grocery store today.”

  I stopped, waiting for her to go on.

  Jane hesitated. “She…I guess she thinks…that you and I—”

  She looked at me expectantly, as though she thought I might fill in the blanks.

  “You and I…?”

  “You’re going to make me say it.”

  “Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “She thinks you and I are more than just friends.”

  “Are we?”

  “You need to stop teasing me. It’s not fair.”

  That stung. I had to look away. I knew she was right. “I need time.”

  “Take all you need,” she said and sprinted the rest of the way up to the bunk room.

  Neither one of us said anything as we brushed our teeth and washed our faces. Rachel was too tired to notice.

  “Lights out!” one of the supervisors called once we were all ready for bed.

  In my bunk I was wide-awake. I looked over at Jane. She was asleep. I could hear her breathing, soft and steady. I slipped out of my bunk and climbed up to hers. I got under the sheet that lightly covered her, pushing her over as she woke up. She was wearing a short nightgown that felt silky. I had on a cotton T-shirt.

  “Hey, you,” she said.

  “Do you mind me busting in on you?”

  “I’m not gonna throw you out.”

  She was propped up on her elbow, looking at me in the dark. I pushed her onto her back. I wrapped myself around her and pressed my mouth to hers. She surprised me by opening it right away. Her tongue pressed through my lips and tickled the roof of my mouth. I laughed a little and she put her hands under my shirt. She moved slowly up my stomach to my chest, her fingers circling my nipples. Heat rushed from my head to between my legs. I couldn’t stop a tiny sound from slipping out as I tried to breathe through the sensation that took over my body and mind.

  I felt her hand between my legs, her fingers pressing against me. As she slipped inside me, the throbbing explosion blocked out everything else in the world. I reached for her and copied what she did, pressing my hand hard against her. When I hesitated to go further, she guided me, gasping into my ear as I made contact. We rocked against each other and shook the bunk so hard I thought the rest of the room would wake up. We held each other until we quieted. I fell asleep next to her.

  “Time to get up,” Jane whispered, gently shaking me early the next morning. Rachel was still asleep in her bunk. I felt terrified, thinking about what I’d done.

  “It’s okay,” Jane mouthed, reading the look on my face.

  Lucky for me, we had to get up and out right away. I did not want to think too much about how amazing last night had felt and how much I wanted to do it again.

  Chapter Twenty

  We were on track to leave Ft. Worth before eight a.m. According to our calculations, it would take us about two and a half hours to get to Tyler. As we sat in a long line at the pumps, we discussed our plan, such as it was.

  “Like I told y’all,” Rachel said, “my uncle Dan used to work at that refinery. And my cousin Steve has worked there the last two summers. He’s a senior now and he’s a cool guy. Maybe he could give us some inside scoop on the lay of the land.”

  “Are you sure you can trust him?” I as
ked.

  “Oh, yeah. Me and him are close. Whenever we have a family reunion, we’re the ones in charge of all the cousins. I’ve had his back a million times. Like when he snuck his girlfriend into his tent this one time.”

  “Sounds like our best bet,” Jane said. “How can you get in touch with him?”

  “I know where his high school is. We can try to catch him at lunch.”

  The drive to Tyler was easy, but just as we got to the edge of town, I noticed we had been passed by at least three cars that looked like unmarked Texas Ranger cruisers.

  “Am I imagining things, or does it seem like there’s a bunch of Rangers coming into town?”

  “I think you’re right,” Jane said. “Look, there’s a Ranger patrol car coming up on us now.”

  “So they took our lead,” I said, smirking.

  “Hey, I’m going to try breaking into their frequency with my radio. I’ve been studying up on that,” Rachel said.

  “Since when?” I said.

  “You don’t know everything about me.”

  Rachel dug a radio out of her pack. She fiddled with it until she picked up a piece of conversation that sounded like them.

  “Targets identified and moving toward rendezvous point,” a male voice crackled.

  “Team meeting at 1200 hours. Local PD HQ,” said another voice.

  I glanced at the other two, gulping. “They definitely think something is happening here.”

  The reality started to sink in. “I’m scared,” I said. “I’m worried my mom is right in the middle of all this. What’s going to happen to her?”

  Rachel reached from the backseat to hug me. Jane squeezed my hand.

  “We’ll be right there with you. Whatever happens,” Rachel said.

  I took a deep breath and did my best to steady my thoughts. “Let’s figure out where the police headquarters is. That’s where the Rangers are meeting up. Maybe we can listen in on their briefing. At least get some idea what time they think this is going down.”

  We found the address for the police headquarters, but first we had to go to Steve’s high school to see if we could catch him on lunch break.

  “There’s his car,” Rachel said as we pulled into the parking lot. “Let’s wait there. He probably goes off campus for lunch since he’s a senior.”

  Sure enough, it hadn’t been ten minutes before Rachel spotted him. She jumped out of the car and headed toward him, arms wide for a big hug. She jumped into his arms. Jane and I got out to introduce ourselves.

  “What in the world,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  When we told him all about it, he shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know, girls. This sounds kinda crazy. I guess I can help you, but are you sure you want to do this? All kinds of things could go wrong.”

  “That’s true. But we’ve come this far. Look, we just want to get a bird’s-eye view of what happens out there. I want to see for myself whether my mom is part of this or just being dragged along. Can you understand that?”

  He looked at me, shuffling his feet. “I get it.”

  “So you’ll help?” Rachel asked.

  He nodded. “I know the place inside and out. Once you find out the details, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Rachel gave him a hug and told him to be near the phone later.

  “He’s cool,” I said as we got back in the car and headed toward the police station.

  When we got there, sure enough, I counted eight Texas Ranger patrol cars outside the station, along with several unmarked cars that I had learned to recognize as law enforcement. We parked across the street at the opposite end of the block. There was no doubt in my mind they were here to bust the Brazos River Gang. Rachel switched on the radio to the channel she had found earlier. Nothing.

  “They aren’t broadcasting anything right now,” she said.

  “Yeah, ’cause they’re all inside the station,” I said. “We have to think of something else.”

  “Let’s walk around the building,” Jane said. “We might find a way to listen in.”

  The streets were quiet in this part of town, where there weren’t any shops or cafés, so it seemed like no one would notice us. We strolled confidently, not rushing, up the street.

  “Behind the building,” Jane said, motioning us to follow.

  “Look.” Rachel pointed to a row of windows on the first floor. “I see them. They’re all in that room.”

  We ducked down quickly, crawling along the ground under the windowsills. After eight or ten feet, we heard the sound of a man’s voice. One of the windows must have been open. We kept going as the sound grew louder and then it was obvious which spot was the best. I listened as hard as I could, trying to catch every word.

  Here’s what I heard:

  “Let’s talk about the location and what we expect,” said a booming authoritative voice. “Penco Oil Company is a local, family-owned business that has been here in Tyler since 1933. They have one location, on Palace Avenue. They started out as a Standard of Ohio oil and gas distributor and now they distribute for Shell Oil. A guy on the inside has admitted to us that he’s been paid to look the other way while somebody steals smaller amounts of gasoline.”

  Bev added, “We expect the gang to arrive at the refinery after dark, most likely between seven and nine p.m. They will have about twenty minutes to extract as much gas as they can. That’s how much time the inside guy will give them.”

  “Will we make the arrest tonight?” someone asked.

  “If all goes well,” Bev said.

  “What about Joyce Long? Should we treat her as a hostage? Or a perpetrator?”

  I caught my breath. Jane and Rachel grabbed for my hands.

  “For our purposes tonight, we have to assume she is acting on her own accord. Treat her like everyone else, until there’s a reason to believe differently.”

  I slumped to the ground, my heart beating against my chest so hard it hurt like someone was punching me.

  “Everybody get some rest for the next couple of hours. We regroup here at five p.m. sharp,” the booming male voice said.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jane said, pulling me up to all fours.

  We scrambled back along the wall under the windows, through the alley, and back to the street. We emerged calmly, looking around to find the way clear. Back in the car, Jane drove us a few blocks away to a residential area where we slipped into an alley.

  “How are you doing?” Rachel asked me.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this. They’re going to treat her like one of the gang, and, if things get violent…” I couldn’t finish my thought. My mother could get killed and I knew it.

  “I wonder if there’s any way we could get to Joyce,” Jane said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Watch for the gang to arrive. Somehow get to her. Signal her.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that makes sense. She’s either with them voluntarily, in which case a signal wouldn’t mean anything to her, or she’s a hostage and they would have her tied up or something, where we couldn’t get to her.”

  “I think we should try,” Rachel said.

  “Well, this all comes down to how Steve can help us. We need to figure out what he can do.”

  With that, we left the alley in search of a phone booth. Steve answered on the first ring. Rachel spoke to him for a couple of minutes before returning to the car to give us the scoop. He would meet us at Penco Oil in half an hour. He had an idea about where to set us up.

  We stopped at a McDonald’s drive-through for burgers and fries, but I didn’t have much of an appetite.

  “You need to eat,” said Rachel. “Keep up your strength.”

  I forced the food down, but didn’t feel well at all.

  “You don’t look so good,” Jane said. “Maybe this is not such a good idea. We don’t have to go through with it, you know.”

  I pulled myself together. “I�
��m fine. I just need to close my eyes for a few minutes. I’m not going to quit now. Let’s go.”

  I leaned my head back on the seat and Jane drove toward Penco. It was on the outskirts of town in a remote industrial area with a few warehouses scattered here and there. The bland-looking concrete building was surrounded by a big concrete pad and fenced with metal barbed wire. Steve was waiting there when we arrived.

  “Do y’all have canteens and binoculars?” he asked. We nodded and he said, “Bring ’em.”

  We packed them in a duffel bag that Rachel carried. Then Jane pulled the car around to an out-of-the-way spot and covered it with brush to hide the license plate. Steve took us into the office up front and introduced us to Janine, the woman at the desk, explaining that we were in town on a school band trip. He told her he wanted to show us around. It was easy.

  “We’ll leave by the back way,” Steve told her. “So, see you next time.”

  “Y’all have fun, honey,” Janine said.

  He waved and said hello to the guys we saw working in the building, saying, “just showing them around,” as we passed by. We stopped by a water fountain to fill our canteens.

  “You’ll need water while you wait for all of this to go down.”

  We understood when we saw where he was going to put us. He showed us rafters at the top of the warehouse, probably thirty feet up.

  “How do we get up there?”

  “I’m gonna show you,” he said, and walked us to what turned out to be a false wall. There were ladder steps inside the wall that went all the way to the roofline.

  “There’s a small platform up there. Just enough room for the three of you.”

  I felt a little queasy as I looked up to the top of the narrow ladder.

  “I’ll give the go-ahead when I’m sure no one will see you climbing,” he said. “Then you’re just gonna have to stay there and wait.”

  When we were safely up on the platform, we gave Steve the thumbs-up and off he went.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sun went down and the dim lights of the refinery shed a pale yellow glow over the tanks and equipment below. Rachel turned on her radio in case she was able to pick up anything from the Rangers. Jane stood and looked outside through a gap between the top of the wall and the slant of the roof.