Girls Just Want To Have Fun | Robin Buckley

cruel summer

June 28, 1985

"Jill! You have five minutes and I'm leaving you!" Ryan yelled.

Jillian groaned as she sat up in her warm bed. She rolled out of bed, grabbing the first clean pieces of clothing that she saw from the floor that she quickly put on before rushing to the bathroom. She had grabbed her new white and navy striped tank top and a pair of jeans that she had cut a few inches above the knee so she could wear them as shorts. She looked in the mirror and then down at her clothing before glimpsing back in the mirror at her outfit. After several seconds she decided that the clothes matched well enough and continued her morning routine.

Jill hurriedly brushed her teeth and quickly ran a brush through her tangled blonde hair multiple times before the knots in her hair finally loosened. As soon as her hair was detangled she grabbed a bottle of hairspray and began to spray it in her hair, hurriedly trying to add whatever volume she could to her flat hair. When her hair was to a height that satisfied her Jill sprinted to her room for her wallet and then down to the kitchen to grab a house key off the kitchen table before sprinting through the garage door, slamming it behind her. She locked it and walked through the empty garage to her brother's car in the driveway. He unlocked the door when she was close and she hopped in.

This was the first time in months the two siblings had truly hung out together. Since summer break started they had both seen each other far more than they liked but had never made the choice to truly hang out with each another. Usually they were both out doing their own things with their own friends. During the school year Ryan usually had soccer and studying to do and Jill had her job at the video shop, where she worked basically every day. Ryan had finally made the choice to get a late summer job, but since he wasn't starting until the following Monday, he had plenty of free time to enjoy before he went off to college in the fall.

Jill had worked almost everyday until summer started, when the video store began to cut back her eyes with the lack of business from the mall opening. Jill had been working there since she turned fourteen, so she had decided to take the cut of hours with a sigh instead of quitting all together. 

"Could you have been any slower?" He asked.

"I know you wouldn't have left without me. It would have been too lonely for you to walk around the mall all day with your imaginary friends," she smiled.

"I have friends," he defended himself as he backed out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the mall. "They're all just working. It's summer break, there's not much else to do in this shit hole of a town."

She nodded slowly as she tried to keep the disbelieving look of her face. He glimpsed sideways at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

Jill looked out the window at the many houses that seemed identical to one another the farther into town you got. They lived on the outskirts of Hawkins, barely inside the city limits. Her father liked where they lived; he said it was more peaceful and didn't have as much crime as the rest of the city. There wasn't much crime in general in Hawkins, at least not compared to what Cleveland had. That's where her family had lived before Hawkins for basically her whole childhood. Her dad had quit his last job after their mom had died and moved them to the only other place he had ever lived (besides Cleveland) which happened to be a rather depressing Indiana town. Sure, there were some things that weren't so bad about it, but those things didn't exactly pop into your head right away when you think about Hawkins. Both of them had grown used to it though, after being in the town for almost six years.

Jill grabbed onto the edge of her seat as Ryan took a sharp right turn into a parking spot. He generally was exceptionally good at driving but whenever Jill was in the car he was reckless about everything, especially his parking. She was convinced that he only did it to brag about him having a driver's license and her not, or maybe to kill her and blame it on an accident. He was a year older than her in school and eighteen. She was seventeen, but failed her drivers test the first time and never bothered to take it again. She didn't find much reason to when she could walk just about everywhere and where she couldn't she could just pay Ryan to drive her.