Tag Along (11 page)

“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.

It feels good to be accomplishing something. The smell of aerosol and the way the paint particles rush like tiny blue planets through the thin green glow of the streetlight, the challenge of filling in a tight line with soft, smooth, even color—all of these things blend together in a way that makes me feel totally alive.

I add dark-blue highlights. Then I fill in the stem and the thorns with brown and carefully snap a couple of blasts of white into place to help define the petals of the rose. Finally, I gauge my distance and steady my arm and shoot a perfect curl of red into the outlined drop of blood. I snap the cover back onto the spray paint and zip up my pack.

I walk back and stand on the sidewalk, staring at the rose. I can tell right away that it's the best one I've done. The shape is perfect, and the coloring sits right up against the thick black edge. The building, so ugly on its own, has become a perfect neutral frame, and the rose seems almost to float above the flat, drab gray of the industrial door. It'll be painted over soon, I'm sure, but for the moment it's satisfying to know that I've put my mark on this boring, pointless street.

A car comes to a slow rolling stop behind me, and I know without turning around that it's the cop. There's nowhere to go, and honestly, I'm sick of running. I turn around and bend over to look into the passenger window. He stares past me at at the rose, then looks me in the eye and shakes his head slowly. We look at each other for a few long moments. He parks the car and gets out.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I tell him.

“You know exactly what I'm talking about,” he says. He takes a step closer, and I back up. A car comes down the street and slows as it passes us, no doubt taking in the show. He turns to look at the car, and for a split second I reconsider making a run for it, but he's taller than me and in decent shape. I know he can catch me. The car accelerates and drives away.

“You're aware that this is municipal property,” he says. It's a statement, not a question.

“You mean the sidewalk?” I ask.

“Don't play stupid,” he says. “I've had about enough of that from you. This building that you've defaced is a municipal maintenance shed.”

“I haven't defaced anything,” I say.

“Listen,” he says. “I know what you're up to. You can't hide it any longer, and you'll make things a lot easier on yourself if you don't push this any further.”

“I haven't done anything,” I say, reminding myself to stay as calm as possible. “I haven't done a thing, and you haven't seen me do anything, and you're starting to make me feel very uncomfortable.”

He laughs. “Uncomfortable? That's a new one. Hand over the backpack now, or you'll be charged with obstructing a police officer. Then we'll talk about uncomfortable.”

I know he's right. He holds his hand out, and I shrug the strap off my shoulder so that it slides down my arm. I catch it before it hits the ground, and for a minute I let it dangle like that, feeling the weight of the spray cans shift in the pack. I hesitate for a moment.

“Come on,” he says, gesturing impatiently with his hand. “Give it here.”

I'm about to hand him the pack when a bloodcurdling scream comes at us from somewhere nearby.

“Help!” a woman yells at the top of her lungs. She sounds terrified.

We both turn to look down the street as the woman screams out again, sounding even more anguished. “Help me, please! Help!”

The cop turns and looks at me, opens his mouth as if he's going to say something, then jumps into his car. He peels away from the curb, and I'm out of there, running in the opposite direction.

I've turned the corner and am running as fast as I can when a car squeals up alongside me and the back door opens.

“Get in!” someone calls out.

ANDREA

I don't know where to go or what to do. I'm so upset that I'm shaking. Candace's words spin around inside my head. Is she right? Is my whole life run by other people? If she
is
right, what are the alternatives? Am I supposed to deliberately look for some way to screw the system? Am I supposed to shave my head and get a face tattoo and start chaining myself to government buildings?

Obviously I'm not the kind of person Candace would want to be friends with, but that doesn't give her the right to start judging me. It's not like I have any big desire to hang out with her either. I don't even know where the hell she came from—she just kind of showed up.

I leave Roemi's driveway not knowing where to go or what to do. I begin to walk in the direction of my house, but halfway there I change my mind and start walking in the opposite direction.

I finally get tired of walking aimlessly and sit down on the steps of a church.

I check my watch and realize that the doors to the prom are going to be locked soon. I should be there. Instead, I'm wandering Granite Ridge by myself, delaying the inevitable major fight with my mother. I wonder suddenly why I haven't heard from Bethanne for the past few hours. Then I remember—I have my ringer turned off.

I pull out my phone and see right away that there are a bunch of texts from Bethanne, at least a dozen missed calls from my mom, and a message from my brother from about a half hour ago:
call me right now!!!!!!!

He answers before the first ring ends.

“Where the hell are you?” he asks. I can hear Janelle laughing in the background.

“I'm on South Street,” I say. “In front of the Catholic church.”

“Don't move,” he says. “We'll be there in five.”

While I'm waiting, I scroll through Bethanne's texts, which all basically say the same thing.
I wish you were here!!!! This is so fun!!!!

Brad and Janelle pull up in his ancient Tercel, and I climb into the backseat.

“Mom is losing her mind!” he says. “We had to convince her not to call the cops. That's why we're out here looking for you.”

“Oh god.” I put my face in my hands and groan.

“No way,” he says. “This is awesome. It's about time you stood up for yourself.”

“Well, I guess I'll find out if it was worth it when I get home.”

“What happened to you anyway?” he asks. “Where have you been?”