Tag Along (14 page)

We go to the meal hall, a one-story building attached to one of the dormitories. Paul pulls the Audi onto a gravel maintenance road behind it and parks in the shadow between some outbuildings.

“Over here,” I tell them. I lead the way, climbing up onto a Dumpster, hopping across to the top of a small porch and then hoisting myself over the edge and onto the roof of the building. The roof is covered with gravel, and there's a three-foot-wide ledge running along three sides. On the fourth side, the dorm building rises up three stories higher, and a brick wall studded with windows and a fire-escape ladder looks down on where I'm standing.

“This is crazy,” says Paul once we're all on the roof. “How did you know about this place?”

“I went to a science camp here a couple of years ago,” I tell them. “You think
I'm
a nerd? You should have seen some of those girls. Anyway, one night some of us snuck out of our dorm and managed to climb up here.”

“Andrea Feingold, the original badass,” says Roemi.

“Not exactly,” I say. “We were looking for somewhere to do an experiment. See, we'd been trying to prove whether—”

“Please stop,” says Roemi. “Don't destroy the moment.”

We walk to the front of the building and look out past the university campus. This view is what I remember most clearly about that night. The university is built at the top of a parklike slope. The downtown stretches to our right, and ahead of us, in the distance, we can see the lights of Granite Ridge, sitting like an island in the darkness beyond the city.

“It looks so small from here,” says Paul.

“It is small,” says Roemi. “Too small for us. I can't wait to get out.”

“Man,” says Paul. “I wouldn't want to get out if I lived in a house like yours.”

“Yeah, but it's not like I'm going to live with my parents forever,” says Roemi. “I'm getting the hell away from Granite Ridge as soon as humanly possible. I want to make it big, in a
real
city. Where I can actually date guys and live without worrying about people calling me names or wanting to beat me up.”

“I'm not going to hang out with Penner anymore,” Paul announces. “Seriously, I mean it,” he says when we all turn to look at him.

“Won't Lannie have something to say about that?” asks Roemi.

“Lannie doesn't choose my friends for me,” says Paul. “I mean, it's not like she said ‘stop hanging out with your friends and only hang out with me and my friends.'”

“That's kind of what happened though, isn't it?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says. “But it just kind of worked out that way. Lannie and Darrah have been best friends forever, so Penner is always around.”

“What about Jerry and Ahmed though?” I ask. “You guys have been friends forever too, but it seems like you never hang out with them anymore.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I know. That's totally my fault. But I'm serious. I'm going to stop hanging out with him. I never liked the guy anyway. Tomorrow I'm going to tell Lannie how I feel.”

Candace walks away from us and stares up at the side of the dormitory.

“This is really great,” she says, pointing at a large blank space in the middle of the wall, cornered by four windows. “I can totally do something up there.”

She throws her pack over her shoulder and starts climbing the fire-escape ladder. When she's about eight rungs up, she stops. The rest of us watch as she pulls a black paint stick from the front pocket of her pack. With one hand on the ladder, she swings out from the wall and sizes it up. Then she pulls herself back in, hooks an arm around one of the rungs and stretches sideways, reaching as far as she can with the paint stick. She's just about to start drawing when Paul says,“Shit! Candace, get down!”

She turns, confused, as a window to her right slides open. A red-faced woman sticks her head out and cranes her neck, staring at Candace.

“What are you doing?” the woman yells. She looks down, and her mouth drops open when she sees the rest of us. Her face disappears inside the building.

“Security!” yells Paul. “Hurry up!”

Candace scurries down the ladder, jumping from the fourth rung and landing in a crouch. We rush to the edge of the building and climb over the edge, one at a time. I hit the ground first.

“Andrea!” Paul yells. I look up at him, and he tosses me the keys to the car. “Get her started!”

I jump into the car, turn it on and pull it over by the Dumpster. Roemi jumps into the front passenger seat as Candace and then Paul hop to the ground and dive into the backseat. The security guard comes running around the side of the building and stops about twenty feet in front of us, right in the middle of the maintenance road. Our exit is totally blocked. She throws her hand up toward us, as if she's trying to cast a spell.

“Stop!” she yells.

“Flash the brights on and off, really quick!” says Roemi.

I do what he says, and the guard stumbles back and throws her arm over her eyes to block the light.

“Go!” yells Paul.

“I can't! She's blocking us!” I say, still flicking the lights as the guard gets her bearings and comes lumbering toward us.

“Back it up!” Paul hollers.

I throw the car into reverse and glance quickly over my shoulder. On a hill covered with large oak trees is a narrow walking path that looks just wide enough for the car. I aim for it and step on the gas. The Audi guns up the hill in reverse. At the top, I quickly snap it into Drive and we spin around the side of the building, over a lawn and onto a paved road.

“That way,” says Candace, pointing at a side road. “It leads off campus!”

In the rearview mirror, I see the security guard running along the lawn behind us, but I take the turn and we lose her. I race toward the university exit, drive through the open gate and turn onto a quiet residential street. Candace points the way and I follow her directions, my heart pounding as we move deeper into the city. Finally, after we've turned onto a busy street, Candace points at a parking space in front of a condo building.

“Pull in here,” she says.

I roll up next to the curb, turn off the ignition and carefully remove my shaking hands from the steering wheel.

“I think I just pooped a little,” says Roemi.

“Andrea, that was some rock-star driving back there,” says Paul.

“Well, I don't feel like a rock star. I feel like a criminal or something.”

“Relax,” says Candace, “everything's cool. No cops around. I doubt that woman got the license plate. Pretty smooth move, flashing the lights at her.”

“I saw that on
CSI
,” says Roemi.

“Okay,” says Candace. “Let's go.” She opens her door and gets out of the car. When none of us move, she bends over and looks in at us.

“What are you waiting for?”

CANDACE

When my dad moved out, my mother went kind of crazy and threw out everything that reminded her of their lives together. She told me it was a way of bringing fresh energy into our house. When that didn't work, she sold the house and we moved into a condo downtown. The condo is okay, but I'm not in love with it or anything. It's too new to consider home.

Mom's out of town with her boyfriend Walter for the weekend, which works out well.

“Come on in,” I say, snapping on the lights. “Grab a seat. I need to find something.”

I go into my mother's bedroom, trying to ignore Walter's boxers lying on the floor. I rummage around in her closet for a few minutes until I find something I think might work and bring it back to the kitchen.

“Here,” I say, thrusting it at Andrea.

“What is this?” she asks.

“It's a dress,” I tell her. “It's my mom's. You're about her size.”

“I don't understand,” she says.

“Isn't it obvious?” asks Roemi. “She hates your clothes.”

“No,” I say. “I think you should go to prom. You too,” I say to Roemi.

“Oh my god, Andrea,” says Roemi. “It's, like, destiny! We have to crash the prom. We can be each other's date!”

“Roemi,” she says, “the prom will be over soon. It's not gonna happen.”

“Well, we'd better get a move on,” he says. “Come on, girl. Just try the dress on.”

She thinks about it for a minute, then stands up. “Where's the bathroom?”

“Come with me,” I tell her.

She follows me into my room, and I point her to the bathroom in the corner.

“What do you think?” she asks when she comes out a few minutes later.

“It looks great,” I tell her. It does look great. She's wearing what my mother refers to as her
little black cocktail
dress
. Nothing fancy, just a black slip with spaghetti straps.

“We need to do something about your hair though,” I say.

I reach up and push my hands into her hair, then start tousling it.

“This doesn't feel like an improvement,” she says.

“Just give me a minute,” I tell her. There's a black button-up shirt hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I grab it and get some scissors from my desk and begin to cut an inch-wide strip from the lower hem of the shirt.

“Oh my god,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“Don't worry about it,” I say. “Sometimes you gotta break some eggs if you want to make an omelette.”

I twist the fabric in and around her hair. Soon her hair is up off her neck, and it actually looks really good. I loosen a few strands so they fall off to the side of her face.

“We're not quite done,” I say. “Grab a seat.”

I dig around for a few minutes in the messy depths of my closet. “Here we go,” I say, pulling a small knapsack out from behind a cardboard box full of old shoes. I dump the bag, which is full of makeup, out on the desk. Then I grab some eyeliner and pull the chair from my desk over to sit in front of her.

“Close your eyes and lean back your head,” I say.

“Where did you learn to do this?” she asks as I outline her eyes.

“A good friend of mine used to be really into makeup,” I say. “I guess she still is. I haven't really talked to her in over a year. She left this stuff here the last time she came over, and she hasn't been back for it. Anyway, she's really good. Taught me a few things.”

I pull out a tube of lipstick and open it. Dark red. Perfect. I hand it to Andrea; she puts it on and then smacks her lips together.

“I'm not used to wearing makeup,” she says, staring at herself in the mirror. She turns around to look at me. “Thanks,” she says. “Seriously.”

“Listen,” I say. “About all that shit I said before…”

“Forget it,” she says.

“No, seriously,” I say. “I don't know what made me act like such a bitch. And it was really cool of you and your brother to help me out like that.”

“Don't worry about it,” she says. “Besides, I had the wrong impression about what it is that you do.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I guess I just never thought of graffiti as being…I don't know, artistic. That rose you painted though. It was really beautiful.”

“Are you serious?” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “I'll be pissed when they paint it over.”

“That might be the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long time,” I tell her. “Okay, turn around. One last thing.”

I pull my bag of markers out of my backpack and get her to hold the loose tendrils of her hair up off her neck. I quickly sketch out a rose, but I do it upside down so that the stem and thorns twist up her neck and the flower sits dead center at the top of her back. Instead of filling it in with blue, I use a dark red that matches her lipstick.

When I'm done, I hold a mirror at the back of her neck so she can see. “Perfect,” we say at the same time.

When we go back out to the kitchen, Roemi puts two fingers in his mouth and gives her a loud jock whistle.

“Wow,” says Paul.

“Wow what?” asks Andrea. “Does it look okay?”

“You look awesome,” says Roemi. “Justin won't know what hit him.”

“Justin Sanchez?” asks Paul.

“Oops,” says Roemi.

“Thanks a lot, Roemi,” says Andrea, laughing.

“You guys would be a cool couple,” says Paul. “He's a good guy.”

“You think so?” asks Andrea.

“He'll have to get past me,” says Roemi. “She's my date tonight.”

“Not so fast,” I tell him.

My school is right downtown and has seen better days. It's big and brick and rough around the edges. It has a lot of things going for it, but architectural integrity isn't one of them.

The sidewalk out front is jammed with people. Smoke from cigarettes and weed sits in the air, and lots of people are openly drinking.

“Prom night at Sodom and Gomorrah High School,” says Roemi. “I should have transferred here years ago.”