Tag Along (2 page)

A lot of things changed when we started going out. For one thing, I didn't see nearly as much of Jerry and Ahmed anymore, except at school. I just didn't have much free time anymore. Whenever there were other people around, it was usually Lannie's best friend, Darrah, and her boyfriend, Ryan Penner. I'd never really known Penner all that well, but now I was hanging out with him all the time. Penner's pretty cool, I guess. Besides, it was easiest to just go with the flow.

So anyway, Lannie had been talking about prom for months. She wanted to go all out. She bought an expensive dress and took me into the city to order a tux, even though we're juniors and only seniors wear tuxes. She said she wanted us to make a splash. In those last couple of weeks before the big night, it seemed like every conversation we had was about prom. What kind of corsage I should buy her, where we'd get our pictures taken, what restaurant I should take her to beforehand.

I went along with everything—rented the tux, got a haircut, made dinner reservations at the fancy restaurant she suggested. I went along with all of it, because it was no secret how important all this stuff was to her. But yesterday, after we picked up my tux, something shifted. I got home and hung it on the closet door and then sat on my bed and stared at it.

That's when I felt it, for the first time in years.

At first it came on pretty soft, as if someone was carefully wrapping his fingers around my brain and gently squeezing. It was definitely there though—I could tell the minute it started. I lay down on the bed for a few minutes, taking slow deep breaths, and by the time Mom called me for supper, I felt okay.

I had hoped that was the end of it. But today I woke up super early to the sound of my phone vibrating on my bedside table. I reached over and groped for it. It was a typically early text from Lannie.

Rise and Shine! Big Day!

I groaned and checked the time. Seven thirty AM.

This time it came on instantly, and instead of fingers lightly pressing on my brain, it felt like a belt was cinched so tight inside my head that my thoughts were going to suffocate. My heart started to race and my skin got cold. I snapped off the ringer, tossed the phone onto the floor and pulled the covers over my head. I tried to remember my breathing exercises from a few years ago, and eventually I managed to calm myself down a little bit. It still wasn't good though. My head was spinning and buzzing, and every slight movement made me want to puke. I couldn't imagine getting out of bed.

I don't know how long I stayed like that, but at some point Mom knocked on my door.

“Lannie's on the phone!” she called from the hallway.

She knocked again, and when I didn't answer, she stuck her head into my room.

“Paul, Lannie's on the phone. She says she's been trying to reach you all morning.” I didn't say anything. I couldn't. “Paul?”

I pulled the covers off my head, and when she saw my face, she raised an eyebrow at me.

“Is it back?”

I could only nod.

“Is it bad?”

I nodded again.

“Does Lannie know about this?”

I shook my head.

“Don't worry, sweetie,” she said. “I'll take care of it.”

She went downstairs, and after a minute I could hear her talking on the phone. I managed to sit up and swing my legs sideways, and somehow I made it down the stairs. I stopped, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, and watched as she finished her conversation.

“Okay, dear,” she was saying. “I should probably get off the phone and see if Paul needs anything. Okay, I will. Yes, definitely.”

She hung up and looked at me with a concerned expression I hadn't seen since I was maybe thirteen.

“Is she pissed?” I asked.

“She isn't a happy camper,” Mom said. “She'll live though. You okay?”

“I guess so,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, walking over to reach up and hug me. Not an easy task considering that I'm six foot three and she's tiny. “I'm so sorry that your prom is ruined this way.”

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I told her you're sick, and that you've been in the bathroom with diarrhea all morning.”

“Mom!”

“Trust me,” she said. “She didn't ask any more questions after that.”

I went back upstairs to my room and picked up my phone from where I'd tossed it. There were already three new texts from Lannie. I didn't bother reading them. I already knew the gist. I dropped onto the bed, lay flat on my back, closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. The thing about a panic attack is that once you get your breathing under control, you're halfway home. I started to feel a lot better, but I knew it could come back without much warning.

I couldn't even think about the prom right then. I just lay there, breathing deeply. In and out. In and out. I felt my mind steadily relaxing, tension rising from my body like steam.

When I wake up, my alarm clock tells me I've been sleeping for hours. I feel better, a lot better, although a bit groggy. It's six o'clock, which means we've missed our dinner reservation and Lannie is probably on her way to Terry Polish's house for the pre-party.

I glance across the room at the tuxedo and an uncomfortable shiver goes down my spine. I haul my ass out of bed and shove the tux into my closet so I don't have to look at it.

A movement across the street catches my eye, and I look out the window in time to see Andrea Feingold climbing out of her bedroom window and onto the roof of her garage. Weird.

I watch as she scrambles over the edge and hangs there before dropping to the ground. She lies there for a minute, staring at the sky, then gets up and turns back to glance at her house before running away down the sidewalk. I've known Andrea for a long time, and I've never seen her act like this. I wonder where the hell she's going.

I go downstairs and out the sliding glass doors to the back deck.

Dad is home from work, and he and Mom are relaxing at the patio table. My brothers are wrestling in the backyard. “We've already eaten,” she says. “We didn't want to disturb you.” She slides a plate with a couple of burgers and some potato salad across the table at me.

“So, you're missing prom, eh?” Dad asks as I tuck into my food.

I nod, my mouth full.

“Can't say I blame you,” he says. “I always hated that kind of thing when I was in school.”

“Do you think I can borrow your truck?” I ask him once I've finished eating.

“You sure that's a good idea?” Mom asks.

“I'm fine,” I say. “I just need to get out of the house for a little while. Get my mind off things.”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but she keeps it to herself.

I expect my dad to tell me to take Mom's Corolla, like he usually does. Instead, he reaches into his pocket and tosses me his keys.

“Sweet, thanks!” I say.

“Be careful where you show your face,” says Mom. “I've convinced Lannie that you're on death's door. She probably wouldn't enjoy seeing you bumming around town.”

Yeah, no shit, I think. Funny thing is, now that I know I'm not going to prom after all, I feel like a million bucks.

CANDACE

I wasn't even planning on going out, but my father has been watching TV and drinking beer since noon, and my grandmother is busy in the kitchen. I figure if I stick around it will just turn into another episode of
My
Depressed Dad!
and the last thing I want to do on Friday night is sit around Gee-ma's sad little bungalow helping my forty-five-year-old father regain his self-esteem. Then what would we do on Saturday, right?

I decide to hit the road. I grab my backpack from my room and I'm trying to sneak down the stairs and out through the front porch when Dad yells for me. I consider ignoring him and bolting, but instead I roll my eyes and go into the living room.

My grandmother's house is like a time capsule—wood paneling, tacky green furniture from the seventies, thick orange carpet, a gigantic TV in a wooden cabinet. There's even a heavy glass ashtray on the coffee table, even though nobody around here has smoked since before I was born. It's like time has stood still since Jimmy Carter was president.

The most depressing thing is that it's always perfectly neat and tidy. Gee-ma vacuums every day, and the place smells like lemon furniture polish. I imagine her getting up every morning and going through the exact same routine. The only thing that's changed is that now it's my dad flopped on the couch instead of my grandpa.

It's only six o'clock, but the drapes, heavy and brown with a swirly beige pattern, are drawn tight against the sun. The TV is blaring, and all the lamps are turned off. It might as well be midnight.

“Hey,” I say, standing in the doorway.

“Where're you going?” asks Dad, his eyes not even leaving the TV.

“Just out. Might go see a movie or something.”

“You're not going to get into any trouble, are you?” asks Dad, somehow managing to pull his eyes away from the TV and look at me.

“No.” I'm not in the mood to get into this.

“Well, don't forget to say goodnight to your grandmother,” he says. “And don't stay out too late.” As if he cares. As if he isn't going to lumber into his room at nine and hibernate until almost noon tomorrow.

I walk into the kitchen, where Gee-ma is putting together a pie. She makes the best pie.

“Candace, why don't you go get my purse?” she says.

“Gee-ma, I don't need any money. Seriously.”

“Don't be silly, just get me my purse.”

I walk into the dining room and pick her purse up off the sideboard, trying to ignore the family photos hanging on the wall. My parents' wedding picture, which Gee-ma refuses to take down although I'm sure it makes my dad want to puke. Pictures of Aunt Joanne and Uncle Gary and their perfect lives: on a ski vacation, at the beach, in a Venetian gondola. School pictures of their three kids, my cousins Frank, Allie and Corey. A timeline of well-adjusted young people, smiling smugly down at me from the wall as if to say,
Look at us!
Perfectly normal!

Then there are the pictures of me. A fat, jolly baby, giggling on a pillow at a Sears photo studio. A happy little girl in kindergarten. A cheerful eleven-year-old in a miniature cap and gown, standing onstage at my middleschool graduation. A snapshot of me and Vanessa in party dresses, on our way to our first dance. The pictures stop after my ninth-grade portrait. That one's the worst—no wonder Mom never forced me to have another one taken. I look severely pissed off, and I'm glaring sideways into the distance. I'd given myself a haircut, a poorly done chelsea, and straggly lime-green curls hang down on either side of my face. Even
I
was happy when that cut grew out. God knows why Gee-ma keeps that photo on the wall. Someday it will probably show up on one of those online slideshows of horrible family portraits and I'll go viral for, like, ten seconds.

Poor Gee-ma. I'm sure she looks at those pictures of that cute little kid and compares them to the person I am now. The thought depresses me.

I take her purse back to the kitchen and wait while she rummages around, eventually coming up with a crumpled five-dollar bill.

“Why don't you take this to Bizzby's and buy yourself a milkshake.”

“Thanks, Gee-ma,” I say, leaning down to kiss her and thinking but not saying that Bizzby's, the tacky fake-fifties diner, is just about the last place on earth I'm likely to end up. I'll save the cash for my next trip to the hardware store.

She grabs my arm as I pull away, and I look down into her face; her usually cheerful smile is gone, replaced with something sad.

“Your father is very depressed these days, Candace,” she whispers, although I know he can't hear us over the canned laughter on the TV. “I don't know what to say to him.”

I might be kind of a bitch, but come on—as if my heart doesn't melt for my poor grandmother, stuck in a house with my dad.

“I know, Gee-ma,” I tell her. “He'll be all right—he's just going through a rough patch.” This is the same thing my mother used to tell me when he was going through one of his periods of watching TV for hours in the basement at night. I can't think of what else to say though.

Gee-ma relaxes, and the smile comes back to her face.

“You're such a sweet girl to come here for the weekend and spend time with us. It's good for your father.”

I smile, trying not to think about the blaring television and the man in the next room who hasn't said more than ten words to me since I showed up.

“You know,” she says, “you're always welcome to visit, anytime you want. You should bring your friend next time. What's her name, Vanessa?”

I nod. “Yeah. Vanessa.”

“You two used to come stay with me all the time when you were little girls.”