Joan was shy, but her friend had folded her knees into the space between the bucket seats and thanked the driver and his friend. “It was a heat wave out there,” her friend said fervently. She had large green eyes, expressive high-arched bony feet, and hair the color and texture of straw. The passenger-side guy was shirtless, his arm resting on the open window. Joan, directly behind him, was getting a faceful of BO. She gathered up her long tangled hair and pressed it against her nose.

They turned off the main highway and went down a labyrinth of country roads, winding slowly and talking between themselves as though the two girls weren’t present.

“Should we rape them?”

“I don’t know, what do you think?”

“It’s up to you.”

“How about if I rape one and you can rape the other one.”

“Okay.”

“Which one do you want?”

“Both.”

“Me too.”

Even though Joan thought there was a good chance they were kidding, she was overcome with regret, there in the back seat listening. At her own stupidity, at how she hadn’t understood what not supposed to hitchhike meant but now understood it completely. Her mother in a blue pantsuit with a pocketbook hanging from her arm, saying, “Boy, I better never hear of that.”

As her friend shrank backward, shy Joan moved forward, leaning between their seats and grinning.

“Let’s get some beer,” she said.

They didn’t even glance at her. The car slowed and turned onto a dirt lane that widened into a dirt road and then went over a stream.

“We need beer, you guys! Is there a place around here?”

Nothing. And then the driver glanced back at her. “It’ll be more fun,” she said, “and we’ve got money.”

The other guy turned around in his seat and pointedly looked them up and down. They were wearing nothing but bikinis the size of eye patches and damp T-shirts.

He snorted.

Just at that moment, her friend braced herself and started kicking the driver in the head over and over, using her leather-soled sandals like paddles against his ears and the back of his skull. When he hollered and swerved, she began on the other guy, her legs churning between the seats, attacking his shoulders and head. He swung at her; she placed her feet against the back of the driver’s seat and pushed with all her might, screaming and yanking at the guy’s hair until he ran the car into the gravel and opened his door. He was pinned against the steering wheel, struggling, as Joan’s friend clawed at his head.

“We were kidding,” the driver bawled. “Kidding!”

The other guy stumbled onto the ground and let Joan out. The friend pushed her way past the driver, grabbing his ear and screaming, “You fucker, I’ll kill you!” as she clambered out.