Tag Along Page 8

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “Oh, come on,” she says. “You know what I mean. Sounds like your mom is part of the system, and you’re just lining up like a sheep to do as you’re told.”

  “What system?” I ask her.

  “You really don’t have any idea, do you?” she says. “Let me guess. Your mom also wants you to go to the university in the city, so you can live at home and save money and she can keep you in her sights. You’ll study really hard and get good marks and eventually you’ll end up in some boring job that you hate, but you’ll do it so you can make money to pay for a house just like the one you live in now. Then you’ll have some kids and eventually they’ll grow up and you’ll push them out into the world to do the same thing.”

  “Heavy,” says Roemi.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I say, although she’s kind of hit the nail right on the head.

  “I don’t need to know you,” she says. “Because I know plenty of people like you already. People who hear the word graffiti and immediately jump to conclusions, because they’ve been told what to think their whole lives.”

  Paul looks really uncomfortable, as if he wants to be somewhere—anywhere—else. Roemi, on the other hand, is leaning forward in his chair as if he’s front row center at the best show in town.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. “I didn’t mean anything about the graffiti thing. I was just asking you why you wanted to do it. I wasn’t trying to insult you.”

  “It’s not even that,” she says. “It’s all the preconceptions. I can see it in your eyes, in the way that you talk about it. It’s true, isn’t it? You prefer to not think for yourself, so when you meet someone who’s willing to break the rules, it makes you uncomfortable. It’s not your fault. You’ve been conditioned that way.”

  “I think for myself,” I say. “I broke out of my house, didn’t I?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” she says. “And you’ve only mentioned going home about ten times in the last hour. Face it. You’d rather take orders from people, like your mom, or the cop who’s been harassing me all night.”

  “You mean the cop who’s just doing his job?” I ask her.

  “His job?” she says, her jaw dropping. “So it’s his job to harass teenagers without good reason?”

  “You were breaking the law,” I say.

  “And why is it the law? What fucking difference does it make if I want to make public art? It’s like we’re living in a police state or something.”

  “Public art? Give me a break,” I say. “Since when is vandalism art?”

  “If you feel so strongly about it,” she says, “why don’t you just make a citizen’s arrest?”

  “Ladies,” says Roemi. “Puh-leaze. Enough with the catfight. We have an adventure to go on.” He stands up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  My head is spinning, and I’m not sure what I did to make Candace hate me so much, but I don’t want to stick around to find out.

  “Sorry, Roemi,” I say. “I think I should probably go home now.”

  Candace laughs. “Go ahead,” she says. “Prove my point for me. The minute someone shakes you out of your comfort zone, you’re racing home to Mommy and some well-deserved punishment.”

  “Don’t leave, Andrea,” says Paul. “I can give you a ride home later.”

  I don’t even bother responding. I just grab my backpack and walk out of the room, hurry down the stairs and push through the heavy wooden door and out of Roemi’s house.

  PAUL

  I don’t know what made Candace go off on Andrea. It’s true that Andrea plays by the rules, but it’s not like the rest of us are big lawbreakers or anything.

  “What was that about?” Roemi asks Candace after Andrea leaves.

  “I don’t want to fucking talk about it, okay?” she says. “I don’t even know where I am. Can you drive me to my grandmother’s house?” she asks me. “Please? One-five-five Highview Street.”

  “If it’s okay with Roemi,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “We should go back to the Ledge first though. We need to get the ladder back. Also your backpack.”

  “Shit!” says Candace. “I forgot all about my pack. It’s probably been stolen by now.”

  “Doubt it,” says Roemi. “Andrea took great and delicate care in hiding it for you.” He tilts his head and stares at her, his eyes wide and innocent.

  “What?” she snaps at him.

  “Nothing,” he says. “Just thought you might like to know.”

  “Can we just go?” she asks.

  “Sure!” he says. He turns to me. “Isn’t this fun?”

  Roemi’s parents’ garage is nicer than my parents’ living room. It has heated floors and shiny chrome overhead lights. It also has a gleaming new Land Cruiser and a goddamn Audi A4.

  I walk slowly around the Audi, standing a few feet back so I don’t drool all over it.

  “Roemi, this is an Audi A4.”

  “Oh yeah? Is that good?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I say. “This is a supernice car.”

  “Huh. Yeah, my dad loves that car. I don’t like the color.” He grabs a set of keys from a hook on the wall, double-clicks them to unlock the Land Cruiser and tosses them at me. “I’m obviously shotgun,” he says to Candace.

  Candace climbs into the backseat. “This is bigger than my bedroom,” she says. I stand at the SUV, my hand on the door handle, but I’m still staring back at the Audi. Roemi reaches over and opens the door from the inside.

  “Come on, Paul! Let’s go, dude!” he says.

  Reluctantly I get behind the wheel and slide the keys into the ignition. Roemi reaches over and presses the garage-door opener on my sun visor. The door slowly rolls up, and Roemi jacks the volume on the stereo. “Let’s roll, bitches,” he says.

  The Cruiser is totally pimped out. Leather seats, wood veneer, a kickass stereo. But as sweet as this ride is, as we pull out of the garage I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to drive anything half as nice as the Audi.

  It doesn’t take long for Roemi and me to get the ladder and strap it to the roof rack. Roemi tells Candace where to find her pack, and she runs to the quarry to get it. She comes back just as I’m hooking the last bungee cord.

  “I have an idea,” says Roemi. “We should cruise by the school and check out the last-minute rush into the dance. We’re pretty close. Let’s do a drive-by.”

  I’m not sure I want to risk being seen by Lannie, but I can’t very well say no, since it’s his car.

  Luckily, the crowd at the school is so involved with checking each other out that nobody takes a second glance at the Land Cruiser. I park across the street from the school and we watch through the tinted windows as girls run screaming to greet each other and smokers take their last drags before ditching their butts and walking onto the school property.

  “Hey, Paul,” says Roemi. “There’s the old ball and chain.”

  Sure enough, there’s Lannie, walking across the street in front of us, just a few car lengths away. I slouch down in my seat.

  “Relax,” says Roemi. “Nobody can see us unless they get up really close to the window. She looks fierce.”

  She really does look good, with her hair piled on top of her head and her dress hugging her body in all the right places. The funny thing is, I don’t have any interest in being out there, walking into the dance with her. I’m happier here, hidden behind the tinted windows.

  “Okay,” says Roemi, “I still don’t really get this. So you and Lannie didn’t break up, right?”

  “No,” I say.

  “But you aren’t at prom with her, and she doesn’t know that you’re spending the night hanging with the Scooby-Doo crew?”

  “No,” I say. “She thinks I’m sick.”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about it,” he says, “but I’m going to give this one more shot. Now that we’re all besties, can you please just give us
the Coles Notes version of The Case of Lannie Freston’s Missing Prom Date? The curiosity is killing me.”

  I glance in the rearview and see Candace raise an eyebrow at me. Suddenly it all just seems stupid and pointless.

  “Fuck it, whatever,” I say. “I had a panic attack, okay? I had a panic attack last week for the first time in years, and then this morning I had another one, and it was so bad that I couldn’t even think about going to the prom. So my mom called Lannie for me and told her I was sick, and that’s why I’m not at the prom tonight.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” says Roemi. “Why didn’t you tell Lannie? She’s your girlfriend, after all. Wouldn’t she understand?”

  How can I explain that because Lannie is so in control, I’m terrified of letting her know I am so out of control? That if she finds out what’s wrong with me, she’ll see it as another challenge? She’ll try to fix me, make me better.

  Maybe I should let her. She’s fixed everything else. My friends, my future, my grades, the way I look, the things I do in my spare time. Why shouldn’t I let her fix this?

  “Maybe he’s not at the prom because he didn’t want to go in the first place,” Candace says quietly. I look at her in the rearview mirror again, and she shrugs and looks me straight in the eye as if to say, Isn’t it true?

  “Whoa, check it out,” says Roemi, pointing past me. I turn to see Ryan Penner walking away from the crowd in the parking lot and up onto the street where we’re parked.

  At first I think he might have spotted us. Then he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out what looks like a baggie, and I realize he’s just sneaking away to smoke a joint before going inside.

  Sure enough, we watch as he lights up and strolls directly toward the Cruiser. He stops with his back to my window and then begins to pace back and forth, furiously working through the joint.

  “I don’t think he sees us,” I say quietly.

  “This is like a horror movie,” says Roemi. “Don’t breathe or the homophobe will get us!”

  “Who is that guy?” asks Candace.

  “That’s Paul’s best friend,” says Roemi. I shoot him a dirty look.

  Penner finishes the joint and crushes it out on the ground. Then he leans down to look in the window of the Cruiser, his face just inches from mine.

  “Oh my god,” whispers Roemi. “I’m going to shit my pants!”

  Penner brushes his fingers through his hair and straightens his tie. I slowly let out my breath. He’s just using the window as a mirror. But then he leans in really close, and I watch as recognition rolls across his face. He taps on the window.

  Reluctantly, I roll it down.

  “What the fuck, man?” he says. His eyes are bloodshot, and he’s obviously stoned and drunk. “Lannie told everyone your appendix burst and you’re in the hospital.”

  “False alarm,” I tell him.

  He pulls a flask from his jacket pocket and hands it through the window to me. He reeks of booze, and he’s swaying on his feet. “Want a drink?” he asks.

  “Nah, man, I’m cool.”

  “Suit yourself.” He takes a big swig and shoves it back into his jacket. “Who you rolling with anyway?” He bends down and sticks his face into the SUV.

  “Hi, Penner!” says Roemi. He grins widely and gives a little wave.

  “What the fuck?” says Penner, pulling his head back like he’s been burned. He looks at me with his mouth hanging open, and then he starts to laugh.

  “Are you seriously telling me that you ditched out on Lannie fucking Freston to hang out with this queer?”

  “No, man. It’s not like that,” I say, painfully aware of how weird the whole thing looks.

  “I’d rather be gay than stupid and ugly, Penner!” yells Roemi.

  The back door of the SUV swings open and Candace jumps out. She walks over and pokes Penner in the chest. “Who the hell are you?” she demands.

  He staggers back, bewildered. “What the fuck is going on, Paul?” he asks me.

  “Nothing man. We were just—”

  “I asked you a question!” says Candace, getting right up in Penner’s face.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he says, throwing up his hands and stepping back from her. “I’m not going to get into anything with some crazy emo bitch.”

  “Emo?! Oh my god, who the hell is this guy?” she asks, turning to look at me.

  “He’s just a friend.”

  “Some friend,” she says.

  “Penner, come on, man,” I say. “Why don’t you walk it off?”

  “Man, what the hell is going on with you anyway?” he asks me. “Why are you out here with these losers instead of inside with Lannie fucking Freston? Have you lost your mind?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say again. “I needed to borrow his truck to run an errand.”

  “An errand?” He shakes his head as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What-the-fuck-ever, York. This is some crazy shit, man.” He turns and staggers back toward the school. I figure it won’t be long before Lannie knows everything.

  I lean back in my seat and close my eyes.

  “Wow,” says Candace, still standing outside the vehicle. “Nice work standing up for Roemi, Paul.”

  “What was I supposed to say?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. How about ‘don’t talk shit about my friend Roemi’? Something like that?” she says.

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “I can’t just get into it with him. Ryan’s a good friend of mine.”

  “Oh, and I’m not?” says Roemi. “I see how it is. To hell with you.” He opens the door and swings his legs out of the Cruiser.

  “Jesus, Roemi,” I say. “He was drunk. I was trying to keep it from turning into something big.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I should just let it slide off my back, right? Fags like me should keep our mouths shut and be happy we’re not getting beaten up, right?” He jumps out of the car and starts speed-walking down the street.

  “Whoa, Roemi,” I yell after him. “What about the Land Cruiser?”

  He stops in the middle of the road and looks back at me. “Just bring it back to my parents’ house and put the keys in the mailbox,” he yells before starting to run. He takes the corner and is gone. Candace stands next to the window, shaking her head at me.

  “You know,” she says, “you almost had me fooled. I should have known you were just a poser.”

  She reaches into the back of the SUV and pulls out her backpack. She slams the door and throws the pack over her shoulder. Then, without glancing back, she takes off down the street after Roemi.

  CANDACE

  It was my tenth-grade art teacher, Ms. Jonas, who really helped me to see that art is everywhere, that it can be anything. She taught me that buildings, and photos of buildings, and paintings and sculptures that get hung in buildings, can all be seen as art. Even shitty art is art, and you can even take shitty art and look at it in a different way and all of a sudden it’s not shitty anymore.

  It’s all subjective, Ms. Jonas would say, which is a fancy expression that basically means “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

  I loved Ms. Jonas’s class. It made me look at things differently. I’d been sketching since I was a little girl, but before Ms. Jonas’s class, it was mostly just boring stuff. Drawings of my cat or the view of the street from my window.

  Then I opened my eyes and realized that the world was full of amazing art. It was everywhere—not just in art galleries but on the sides of buildings, underneath bridges, on the backs of billboards. Graffiti is the kind of thing you don’t really notice until you start looking for it; it just kind of blends into the background. But when you actually begin to seek it out, you realize it’s like a secret creative language that only the initiated can understand.

  It didn’t take long till I was starting to think about doing it myself. I began carrying around a ziplock bag full of Sharpies. At first I was too scared to consider tagging in a public space
, so I just practiced a lot by drawing designs on the backs of my notebooks and shit like that.

  One day after school it was raining, so I took the bus home. I was bored and staring out the window, and I just kind of found myself drawing some random design on the flat piece of aluminum under the window. It was small, and there was already lots of crap written all over the walls, so I figured it was no big deal.

  Then I looked over and saw an old lady across the aisle staring at me. She was shaking her head and giving me a really dirty look, as if I was the scum of the earth. I got embarrassed and stopped, but for the rest of the day, all I could think about was how that lady reacted.

  The world is full of people like that old woman. People who think life is about following rules. Like Andrea. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on her, but I just get so sick of people who have their entire lives all figured out, one prearranged step after another. If I ever get to that point, you have my permission to shoot me.

  It turned out Vanessa was like that too. You think someone’s your best friend, and the minute you pull away from the crowd and try to do something different, they throw you under the bus for it.

  I thought Paul was different, that he was capable of thinking for himself. The truth is, he was just putting up a front. He just needed a quick break from his perfect girlfriend and his asshole friends, so he spent a few hours pretending he was his own person. But when push came to shove, he showed that he’s ready to fall in line too, just like almost everyone else.

  At least Roemi has the balls to be the person he wants to be. I try to catch up with him, but when I turn the corner, he’s gone. I have no way of knowing which direction he’s gone in, so I pull out my phone and map out the best way to walk to Gee-ma’s house.

  I’m almost halfway there when I come upon some kind of municipal works building. I stop and look at it. It’s small and squat and ugly, just a cinderblock building with a pale-gray metal door. A bright streetlamp on a tall pole shines a dull green light on the building.

  The street I’m on is far from private. There are several houses nearby, and a couple of cars have driven past since I stopped in front of the bunker. I don’t care. I drop my pack by the door and pull out a paint stick. As quickly as I can, I throw up an outline of the rose, big enough that it fills in the door almost from edge to edge. Then I pull out my light-blue spray can and get to work.