Tag Along (12 page)

“It doesn't matter,” I tell them. “I was just about to go home anyway. Can you drive me?”

“I've got a better idea,” he says. He grabs his phone from between the front seats and makes a call.

“Dad, it's me,” he says after a second. “Put Mom on the phone.”

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

He puts a finger to his lips. “Hey, Mom, how's it going?” he says. I can hear her raised voice on the other end of the line, but I can't make out what she's saying.

“Relax,” he tells her. “We found her. She's with us now.” Her voice drops off on the other end for a split second, then starts up again, even louder.

“No,” he says. “I'm not taking her home. She's going to hang out with me and Janelle for a little while. We need to stop at a strip club and pick up some drugs.”

Janelle snorts and slaps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing.

“No, you can't talk to her,” says Brad. “She's fine. She's just really drunk, and she's making out with some old guy in the backseat. I didn't quite catch his name—I think it's Larry. I'll ask him when they stop sucking face. He seems nice. Anyway, Mom, I should go. We'll take care of Andrea. You and Dad go to bed. We won't keep her out too late.”

He hangs up, and Janelle bursts out laughing. I'm more horrified than amused.

“I don't know how you can talk to her like that,” I tell him.

“He's pretty ballsy,” says Janelle, grabbing him by the hand. I love Janelle, but sometimes she and Brad take it a bit far with the PDA.

“Mom is just the kind of person who responds well to pushback,” says Brad.

“I'm not very good at pushback,” I say.

“Maybe not most of the time,” he says. “But you sure pushed back tonight. I love it.”

“She's going to keep me locked up forever,” I tell them.

“She was pretty furious,” says Janelle. “I've never seen her that mad.”

“That's because you weren't around when I was in high school,” says Brad. “You think she's mad tonight? This is nothing.”

He's probably right about that. Things were pretty chaotic in our house when Brad was still living at home. I remember lots of knock-down, drag-out fights. Brad coming home drunk and puking in the hallway. Brad being brought to the front door by the cops. Mom finding a giant bag of marijuana in his bedroom. I remember weeks when he wouldn't talk to our parents. He'd get in trouble and they'd lay down new ground rules and he'd just ignore them, coming and going as he pleased. I remember Mom crying a lot.

“It was pretty bad sometimes,” I agree.

“Yeah, it was,” he says. “I was an asshole.” He turns around to look at me. “It's probably my fault that she's so strict with you,” he says. “If I hadn't been such a dick, maybe she wouldn't be so scared that you'll turn out the same way.”

“You turned out fine!” I say.

“Yeah,” he says. “By the skin of my teeth. Thanks to this beautiful woman here.” He leans over and kisses Janelle. Good grief.

He looks at me again.

“So what now?” he asks.

“I don't know,” I tell him. “It's not like there's anything left to do. I have to go home eventually.”

“Yeah, but not yet,” he says. “Why don't we go grab something to eat at Bizzby's? You must be starving.”

“I am pretty hungry,” I agree.

Brad cuts through some back streets on our way toward the strip. We turn a corner and come upon a police cruiser with its lights on. The cop is standing beside the car, talking to someone. I glance out the window.

“Brad, slow down for a second,” I say.

It's Candace, and she's obviously in trouble.

“Oh no,” I say.

“What's the matter?” asks Brad. The cop turns to look at us, and Brad steps on the gas.

“Do you know that girl?” asks Janelle.

“Yeah,” I say. “She's a friend, kind of.”

“Doesn't look like someone you'd be friends with,” says Brad.

“Not friends, exactly,” I say. “We just hung out for a while.”

“Well, it looks like your not-exactly friend has got herself wrapped up with the cops,” he says.

“She does graffiti,” I tell them. “She almost got busted earlier. I think the cop has been watching for her.”

I don't know why I even care. Candace was a total bitch to me, but seeing her there, getting grilled, I know she's about to find herself in deep shit. I almost hate to admit it, but I can kind of see her point about being oppressed by society or whatever. I mean, all she did was paint a rose on a concrete building. Who cares? What's going to happen to her now?

“Well, we can't leave her hanging,” says Brad, turning a corner and pulling over.

“What should we do?” I ask.

He turns to Janelle. “You up for a bit of acting practice?”

The minute she's out of the car, Janelle runs to a tree, hides behind it and begins screaming. As we drive away, we can hear her clear as a bell from the open windows of the car. I hope this works, because it won't be long till neighbors start coming out of their houses to see what's wrong.

Brad takes a corner fast and then we see Candace, running along the sidewalk.

“There she is,” I shout, and Brad comes to a squealing halt.

I open the back door and stick my head out. “Get in!” I yell.

When she sees me, her mouth drops open, but she jumps into the car.

“What the hell is going on?” she demands.

“You're welcome,” says Brad.

“Better get down,” I tell her. She crouches as low as she can.

Brad drives back the way we came until we see Janelle walking down the sidewalk toward us. The police car is nowhere in sight. Brad pulls over, and Janelle pops back into the front seat.

“That was easy!” she says as we drive away.

“How did it go down?” asks Brad.

“I just screamed until I saw the cop car coming, and then I started strolling. I don't think he even glanced at me as he drove by.”

“That was you screaming?” asks Candace. “I don't understand.”

“Janelle's an actress,” I tell her.

“Just a bit of theater,” says Janelle.

“Wait a minute,” says Candace. “You guys planned this? To help me?”

She looks at me and I shrug. “We couldn't just leave you there.”

“It was fun,” says Janelle, turning around to smile at Candace.

Candace's mouth opens and closes several times. “Thank you,” she finally manages to get out.

“Don't mention it,” says Brad. “A not-exactly friend of Andrea's is a not-exactly friend of mine.”

“What happened to Paul and Roemi?” I ask.

“I don't even know, really,” she says. “It was kind of crazy. Roemi wanted to drive past the prom, and then we ran into some messed-up friend of Paul's and he talked a bunch of shit to Roemi.”

“Was his name Penner?” I ask.

“That's the guy,” she says. “Anyway, Roemi took off for home, and I left Paul behind at the dance.”

I groan. “Penner's such a jerk. Do you think we should go see if Roemi's okay?” I ask.

She considers. “You know what?” she says. “That's not such a bad idea.”

PAUL

It would be impossible to feel more like a piece of shit than I do. I consider getting out of the Cruiser and chasing after Candace, but something tells me she's not interested in talking to me. So I just sit there for a few minutes, watching, as Penner walks back to the school and joins the last of the stragglers. Mr. Parrins, one of the gym teachers, is holding the front door open, ushering them inside. He follows them in and pulls the heavy door closed behind him.

I know the first thing Penner is going to do is find Lannie and tell her what just happened. I imagine her inside the dance, her night already ruined, and now about to learn that I lied to her. That her big night is messed up because I choked. Because I'm weak and can't even control my own emotions.

Candace hit the nail on the head. I am a poser.

The only people who really knew me aren't around anymore, and that's my fault too. When I was friends with Jerry and Ahmed, maybe we were a bunch of losers, but even if we were, we either didn't know or didn't care. We spent every spare minute together, just hanging out. Shooting hoops in Ahmed's driveway. Talking about girls.

I remember one night at Jerry's house when I was about fourteen. I'd stayed over, and I was lying in bed thinking about my grandfather. He'd had a heart attack and died a few weeks earlier, totally unexpectedly. I started having a panic attack. Jerry woke up, and somehow he talked me down, and we stayed up all night. Playing video games. Talking about death and the universe and all that deep shit. He knew what was going on with me. He didn't laugh at me. Now I don't even have any time for the guy. We're still cool on the surface, but it's not the same.

When Lannie and I started to go out, Jerry and Ahmed were happier for me than anybody. Look how that turned out.

And then it occurs to me. Whoever I am, or whoever I was, nobody really knows that person. I don't even think I can describe him to myself. My breath becomes shallow. My head starts to tighten. I should have known better. I thought the anxiety was gone, but it was just hiding.

I sit like this for a while, feeling as if I'm circling a whirlpool, knowing that if I'm not careful, I'll get sucked right down into the negative space and then who knows what will happen. But it's knowing this, realizing that I'm circling, that I'm still up on the edge, that gives me the push to start breathing deeply. Deep, slow breaths. In and out. In and out. In and out.

After a while, it's okay. I'm not even sure exactly how much time has passed, but the music is still thudding inside the school gym. A little bit of every note and every beat escapes through the concrete wall, and soft rhythmic waves float through the air and dissolve around me as I sit in Roemi's parents' SUV.

I open the door and get out. I stretch and then stroll down the road a little bit. I'm relieved that I was able to push through the attack, but I need to start moving so it doesn't happen again. I turn back toward the Land Cruiser and look at the ladder carefully strapped to the ski rack. I might as well take care of business.

Mom's car is in the driveway when I get home. I try to make as little noise as possible as I take the ladder off the top of the SUV. I open the door to the front porch and grab Dad's keys, then somehow manage to get the ladder into the truck by myself. When I walk back around the side of the house, my mother is sitting on the front stoop, looking at me.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey yourself,” she says. “Nice ride.” She gestures at the Cruiser.

“Yeah, it's not bad,” I say.

“Anything I need to know or hear about?” she asks.

“Nah,” I say.

“Fair enough.”

“I've got to take this back,” I say. “It belongs to a friend. I didn't steal it, I promise.”

She smiles. “I didn't think you did. Are you having an okay night?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“I don't believe you. You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I feel fine.” I just stand there, looking at the ground.

She pats the step next to her. “Come on and sit down for a minute.”

I sit next to her, then lean forward and put my face in my hands. She reaches over and rubs my back.

“You're going to be okay,” she says. “You were okay before, and you'll be okay again.”

I nod. For a few minutes we just sit there, not saying anything.

“I did something stupid,” I say after a while. “I did something to one of my friends, and now I regret it.”

“Well,” she says. “Maybe you should fix it.”

I park in the circular turning spot at Roemi's house. I walk to the front door, and for a second I consider just dropping the keys in the mailbox and leaving. Instead, I force myself to reach out and ring the doorbell.

The door opens and Roemi's mother smiles at me.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi,” I say. “I'm, um, one of Roemi's friends.”

“Yes,” she says. “You're not Roemi's boyfriend.”

“That's right. Is he home? Roemi, I mean?”

I hear a door open at the top of the landing and look up to see Roemi poking his head out of his bedroom.

“Roemi,” his mother calls up to him. “Your friend is here.”

Roemi squints at me suspiciously, then sticks his head back into his room and says something to someone. The door opens wider, and Candace and Andrea come out of the room behind him. Andrea looks surprised to see me. Candace looks pissed. As usual.

Roemi doesn't move to come downstairs. He just stands at the top of the staircase and crosses his arms.

“Hey, guys,” I say. Andrea raises her hand to wave at me, but Candace and Roemi don't say anything.