Girl Parts by John M. Cusick

he’s the best dancer in the school, and I remember you auditioned for the part of Anthony last year, and you had a very passable singing voice, so what do you say, huh? You’ll do it?” She batted her false eyelashes.
    “I’d like to, Mrs. Hynes, but I’ve got a lot of schoolwork.”
    She looked at him sideways and smiled. “I think you’re running off to see a girl.”
    “I’m just really busy.”
    “I know what you’re up to. Oh, to be young again. Of course, it wasn’t
so
long ago that I was your age. . . .” She put a hand on his shoulder, and something in David’s stomach lurched.
    “Well, I’ve got to go.”
    “You’ll come to the play, won’t you?” Her hand slid down to clutch his fingers.
    “Sure thing,” he said, breaking away. He made for his bike at a dead run.
    Rose was on the den computer.
    “Hey, what are you up to?”
    She turned at the sound of his voice and grinned. “Hello.” She stood and wrapped her arms around his midsection.
    “We’ve graduated to hugs, huh?”
    “Friendly hugs, yes,” she said, pressing against him.
    Friendly for you,
David thought.
    “Look what I learned how to do today.” She’d folded a piece of his father’s stationery into the shape of a bird. “If you fold one part close to another part in just the right way, it makes a shape of something else. Isn’t that interesting?”
    “You learned origami?”
    “I can only do the bird so far,” she said. “Do you want me to show you how?”
    “Later,” David said. “Come on. Let’s watch some TV.”
    That evening, David rapped on the French doors and waved to his parents, who were eating dinner. Mr. Sun pointed at his watch, meaning, “Back by curfew,” and Mrs. Sun smiled with sad eyes, meaning, “If you smoke tonight, my heart will break.”
    “Let’s take a ride,” David said.
    The garage lights were bright as a near-death experience. The ’Vette and the Maserati slumbered side by side. David’s motorbike was next, sharing a stall with Rose’s egg. At the end was his Cadillac Nightbird.
    David loved to drive. It tantalized him. The pressurepushing him into his seat was like a barrier he dared himself to break through. He drove faster, pushed harder, wanting to find out what was on the other side.
    Soon they were out on the dark road. David took the first bend at sixty.
    “Isn’t this fun?” David said, pushing the pedal toward the floor.
    “Yes,” Rose said tentatively.
    The dark trees flicked by, becoming indistinguishable from one another. David knew these roads by muscle memory and made the slightest adjustments, coaxing the car, soothing it, giving it what it wanted. He wondered if this was what sex was like.
    David felt something brush his knee. Taking his eyes off the road at this speed was insane, but he glanced down long enough to see Rose’s hand clasp his knee. Hot panic coursed through his body. Shock him now and they’d be wrapped around a tree before he could say “ouch.” But there was no shock, just the pressure of her hand and the whisper of her breath.
    Finally, David slowed and pulled onto a rocky side road. David grinned. “Was it good for you, too?”
    Rose was flush, her breathing labored in an excellent simulation of human terror. Her hand remained clamped to David’s knee.
    “We could have crashed.”
    “Not likely,” David said. “I’m pretty in control of this thing.”
    “We
could
have crashed,” Rose said, lingering on the new word.
Could.
“We could have stopped functioning.” Die, her mind embellished. Deactivate. Decommission.
    “Yeah. I guess. That’s part of the excitement, though.”
    David brought the car to a stop and killed the engine. “Come on. We walk from here.” They climbed out of the car. “You’re shaking,” he said.
    “It’s just excess adrenaline. It will dilute momentarily.”
    “Well, come on.” He took off into the woods. Rose followed. The lake’s black smear was visible through the trees. Her brain