Tag Along (7 page)

Roemi lets out a long, low whistle. I shrug and try to look like I'm not bothered by her rudeness. It's not like I'm trying to offend her. I really don't understand why anyone would want to climb up a cliff to spray-paint something that's just going to annoy people. Plus it's illegal.

“Would it help if you had an extension ladder?” asks Paul. “There's one in the back of my dad's truck.”

“Are you kidding me?” asks Candace. “Can I use it?”

“No problem,” he says.

The thought of being an accessory to a crime isn't very appealing to me, especially since I'm already in big trouble with my mother.

“I think I'm going to get out of here,” I say.

“Oh, come on, Andrea,” says Roemi. “Live a little. What else are you going to do? Exams are over, remember? There's nothing left to study.”

“I don't know,” I say. “I don't really want to be involved in, you know…”

“Breaking the law?” asks Candace, half laughing, half sneering. “Let her go,” she says. “She's scared. Big deal.”

“Come on, Andrea,” says Paul. “It'll be fun. Something different.”

“I'm not scared,” I say.

Suddenly the last thing I want to do is give this strange girl the satisfaction of thinking I'm leaving because of her. I don't really understand what Paul thinks will be so fun, but I have as much right to be here as anyone. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be holding the spray can. To hell with her.

“I guess I've got nothing better to do,” I tell them. “I might as well stick around for a while.”

“Oh goody,” says Roemi. “We're all best friends again.”

“Whatever,” says Candace, without so much as glancing at me. She looks at Paul. “So let's go get this ladder.”

PAUL

Candace and I walk back out to where I've parked the truck. I pop the door to the cap and lower the tailgate.

“So do you usually do this with other people when you're in the city?” I ask as Candace and I haul the ladder out.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I used to, but now I keep it to myself. It's easier that way.”

“What about your friends?” I ask.

“What about them?”

It's obvious that she doesn't want to talk about it, so I drop the subject.

“I like being by myself,” she says eventually. “It's kind of hard to explain, but this is important to me. It's my art, and when people think it's stupid, I'm not going to go out of my way to change their minds.”

“I don't think it's stupid,” I say. I don't bother to tell her that I definitely would have said it was stupid before I met her.

“Yeah, well, most people do. Your friend back there does.”

“Who, Andrea?” I ask. “Nah, Andrea's cool. She's just a really responsible person. I don't think she meant anything by it.”

“I know when someone's judging me. I'm used to it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.”

We carry the ladder back to the edge of the woods and lay it down on the side of the path.

“I'm going to grab some rope,” I say. “Safety first.”

We go back to the truck, and I rummage around until I find a coil of rope. I'm crawling back out of the truck when a car pulls up and parks behind us.

“Shit,” Candace whispers. “Five-oh.”

It's the same cop from earlier. He gets out of his car and walks over to us.

“Well, will you look at this,” he says. “I thought I recognized this truck. You guys aren't up to any trouble here, are you?”

“No, sir,” says Candace in her fake baby-doll voice. “We just came to the park for a stroll. It's superduper romantic here!”

“Got to be careful,” he says. “You'll find yourself in all kinds of trouble if you start getting too romantic in a public space, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, for sure!” says Candace. “I'm saving myself for my wedding night.”

I choke back a laugh. She sounds totally sincere but completely naive, and none of it lines up with the way she looks.

“That hoodie looks familiar,” the cop says, pointing at Candace.

“You like it? My grandma bought it for me before she died. It really means a lot to me.” She makes a sad face.

“You guys mind if I take a look inside the vehicle?” He's already walking around it, looking through the windows.

“Be our guest,” says Candace. “We're not doing anything wrong.”

“Yeah, I think I'm going to have to take a little look-see inside the cab.” He looks at me. “This your truck?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Well, it's my dad's truck.”

He gets me to pull out my license, insurance and registration. He looks them over, then cheerfully opens the front door of the truck and starts to dig around.

We stand to the side, and Candace nestles up against me, shoving her face into my chest and biting on her knuckles. I put my arm around her and play along, trying not to imagine what Lannie would think if she saw this whole scene.

After several minutes, in which the cop turns the cab upside down, empties all of my dad's toolboxes and even gets on his back and shines a flashlight underneath the truck, he stands up and reluctantly hands the papers back to me.

“Nothing in there,” he says.

“That's what I said!” says Candace, her voice muffled by my shirt.

“Listen,” he says, “I think it's about time you guys hit the road. There's no good reason to be hanging out here.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. “We'll do that.”

I wait for him to get back in his car, but he doesn't move. He just stands there with his arms folded, staring at us. “Not sure if you guys understand what I'm saying here,” he says. “I think you should leave. Now.”

“Okay, wait a minute,” says Candace. “You can't just make us leave. We aren't doing anything wrong, and this is a public space!”

“You're right,” he says. “I can't legally force you to leave, and I can't charge you with anything if you decide you want to ignore my advice and stick around anyway. But you know, I don't have to go anywhere either.” He looks up at the sky and whistles. “It's an awfully nice evening to just sit here and listen to the radio.” He looks at his watch. “I'd say the prom isn't going to be over for at least, oh, I'm guessing another few hours or so. Until then, I won't have a whole lot to keep me busy.”

He takes a step toward us. “I'll tell you something else. I don't trust either of you as far as I can throw you. I knew there was something fishy going on back at the convenience store, but you convinced me that you weren't the girl I was looking for. Now I'm pretty sure I was right all along. Give me some credit, guys. You think I don't know about the Ledge? I know you kids don't go in there to play board games.”

I don't see any point in arguing with him, especially since he's right, but that doesn't stop Candace.

“And people wonder why teenagers hate cops,” she says.

“Nah,” he says. “Nobody wonders about that. Everyone knows teenagers hate cops because cops are always keeping teenagers from doing dumb shit. It's pretty straightforward. I've been around awhile. I might not be able to prove anything, but I promise you that if you give me any reason at all, I will have no problem making hay with it. I take vandalism very seriously.”

“Come on,” I say, putting my hand on Candace's shoulder. “Let's go.”

“You should probably listen to your boyfriend, sweetheart. You guys go home and make some popcorn and stay out of trouble. By the way, you must really think I'm stupid if you think I'm buying that fake voice you're using.”

Candace makes a face at him but follows me to the truck and jumps into the passenger seat. She rolls down the window and sticks her head out. “Oh hey,
officer
,” she says in her normal voice. “I've got some advice for you too. Don't call girls
sweetheart
. It's sexist, and it makes you sound like a pervert.”

I pull away from the curb.

“Asshole,” she mutters.

“What should we do?” I ask as I circle out of the cul-de-sac. “I can't leave my dad's ladder back there—he'll kick my ass.”

Candace turns around and looks out the back window. “What the fuck? He's still following us!”

I check the rearview. She's right; the cop is trailing close behind us. I turn onto one street, then another, and he follows me both times. He's definitely sticking to me on purpose.

“Okay,” says Candace. “This is starting to feel like creepy hillbilly shit. Doesn't he have anything better to do?”

“I doubt it,” I say. “There's not a hell of a lot going on around here tonight. At least, not until prom is over. He's just messing with us because he's bored.”

“Stupid cops.”

I pull onto the main drag, then into the parking lot at Bizzby's. Sure enough, the cop pulls in and parks a few spots away from us. We look over and he grins and waves at us.

“Oh my god, what a jerk!” says Candace.

“Okay, this is stupid,” I say. “We're not going to shake him. I'm going to take the truck home and get my mom's car. Then we'll go back and get Andrea and Roemi. I'll deal with the ladder later.”

I pull out of the parking lot and the cop follows, creeping on my bumper all the way to my street. When I get to my house and pull into the driveway, he slows down and watches as we get out of the truck.

Finally he drives away, with a brief honk and a wave.

Candace gives him the finger. “
Hasta la vista
, asshole!”

My mom's car isn't in the driveway, and the door to the porch is locked. “I don't know where they are,” I say as I unlock the door. I stand to the side and hold the door open for Candace. “Come on in.”

CANDACE

You can tell a lot about someone by seeing where they live. Until that point, the only information you have to go on is the way a person dresses and talks, maybe the music they listen to. But being inside someone's house, it's
intimate
or something, like all of a sudden you have a whole new set of clues.

I remember the first time I saw Rick's apartment. He lived with his dad, who worked night shifts, so we would go there a lot. The first time he took me there, I remember noticing how dingy everything was. Not much furniture, dirty dishes in the sink, an overflowing ashtray in the middle of the coffee table. When he opened the fridge to grab us some beers, I noticed that there was almost no food. But it was his room that really caught me by surprise. The walls were covered with a giant graffiti mural in progress—he'd actually spray-painted the walls of their rental apartment. I'd never even heard of a thing like that.

Obviously I knew that graffiti was his thing—that was how I had met him, standing around in the shadows, watching him and his buddies throw up a huge burner underneath an overpass. To see how seriously he took it though—living in the middle of it…It was inspiring to see that kind of dedication.

Paul's house, by contrast, is more of a standard suburban two-and-a-half-kids kind of place. In the porch, hooks are overflowing with coats for all seasons, and shoes and sports equipment jockey for space with full recycling bins. I stand in the doorway and look around as he walks into the kitchen and reads a note stuck to the fridge.

“They've all gone to a movie,” he says. “Shitty. Guess we won't be taking my mom's car after all.” He opens the fridge. “You want something to eat?”

“No, I'm good.”

He pulls a bowl of potato salad out of the fridge, grabs a fork and starts eating. “I'm starving. Just give me a minute.”

“Sure.”

“Hey, come on in, you don't have to hang out in the doorway like that,” he says, his mouth full of food. “Sure you don't want a Coke or something?”

“Yeah, why not?”

He points at the fridge. “Grab me one too, will ya?”

I get the drinks and then stand for a minute, looking at the pictures that are plastered all over the fridge door. A few random pictures of babies and some wedding photos. Paul with people who must be his parents. Paul with two younger boys who look almost exactly alike. They're posing on bikes, having a water fight, sitting for school photos.

“Twins?” I ask.

“Yeah, my brothers. They're thirteen.”

“Oh my god,” I say, pointing to a picture of a short scrawny teenager in a suit, standing next to an old man. They're both grinning broadly. “Is this you?”

He laughs. “Yeah, me and my granddad at my aunt's wedding. A couple of years ago.”

“Holy shit,” I say. “You must have gone through one hell of a growth spurt after that.” I stop at a more recent picture of Paul with a tall healthy-looking girl with a confident smile and long strawberry-blond hair. Paul is standing beside her, smiling awkwardly.

“This your girlfriend?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, reaching past me to open the door and put the potato salad back in the fridge. “That's Lannie.”

“She's hot,” I say.

“Yeah, well, that's Lannie. Listen, I'm gonna run to the bathroom. Make yourself at home.”

While I wait, I walk into the living room and look around. On one long wall, next to more family pictures, is a shelf full of trophies and ribbons, most of them with Paul's name on them. I was right: total jock.

Paul comes bounding back down the stairs, two at a time.

“So,” he says. “What do you think we should do?”

“I don't know,” I say. “Your friends must be wondering what happened to us.”

“Yeah, no doubt. They're probably long gone by now.”

“Yeah.”

Then there's silence. It fills the room, and we both just stand there, looking at each other with no idea what to say.

“Well,” I say, turning toward the kitchen and breaking the moment, “I should leave. I've got to go get my backpack.”