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“addict.” i was sitting in the front seat of lisa’s car, i can’t remember if it was a rental or her dad’s car. my face and chest were sunburnt, i could feel the top layer of my skin burning. i was wearing a peach shirt with a mini-skirt; i remember that i always had to dress up when i was with her, men always thought she was prettier. i was sitting in the front seat, it was night, lisa was driving, she just finished putting on her burgundy lipstick with her rear-view mirror and she lit a virginia slims menthol with the car lighter. my father always hated her. we parked in front of some strip store, probably off davis boulevard, and david was getting out the back so he could buy a pack of cigarettes, too. marlboro lights. they were the closest thing to those french canadian things he smoked. the ones where the box held two rows of ten instead of two of seven and one of six. the ones that were shorter than marlboros. when he got out of the car, i asked lisa what was wrong with david. he usually loved any opportunity to get out of the mobile home park. but the whole car ride he barely spoke. so lisa said that david was going through withdrawal, that he had no cocaine this vacation and he’s got the shakes or something. i don’t know if it was the shakes; whatever you get when you stop taking coke, that was happening to him. and i was mad because he never told me, and i was mad because he was fucked up from the stuff in the first place. and i had to act like i knew nothing when he got back in the car. Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.