Tag Along

by Tom Ryan

  I glance back into the parking lot and catch a glimpse of the cruiser as it pulls in. Shit. I smooth my hair down, take a deep breath and walk over to the chip aisle.

  The last thing I need is for the cop to recognize me, so without really thinking it through, I reach over and grab the guy by the hand just as the door jingles and the cop walks in. The guy looks at me, startled. Obviously, right? I mean, a strange girl just grabbed his hand out of nowhere.

  I look up at him. “Please just help me out here,” I whisper.

  The police officer stands in the doorway, scanning the store. He stops and talks briefly to the clerk. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but the clerk just shakes her head and goes back to her magazine. Then he walks over to where we’re standing and stops. I try to act as if I don’t notice him and reach out to grab a bag of cheese popcorn. Not too surprisingly, the cop won’t mind his own business.

  “What are you kids up to tonight?”

  The dude I’ve grabbed glances at me, and I can see the wheels spinning in his head. Please don’t give me away, I think, hoping beyond hope that he plays along. Then I feel his hand give mine a little squeeze.

  “Not much,” he says to the cop. “Just buying some chips. We’re probably going to just lay low tonight and watch a movie.” He turns to me. “So what do you think?” he asks. “Doritos?”

  It goes against everything I believe in, but I can’t afford to get caught, so I force myself to speak in a sickening baby-doll voice. Anything to avoid sounding like a girl who paints graffiti. “My favorite!” I say. “You know that.” To top it off, I giggle and give him a little bump with my hip.

  We both try to ignore the cop, but he just stands there, looking at us. “So you guys aren’t heading to the prom?”

  “Nope,” I say, remembering to stick with the girly voice. “I’m in, like, a huge fight with my friend Tiffany, and I can’t be in the same room with her, so we, like, decided to skip it, but she’s totally going anyway, probably just to spite me. I mean, I don’t understand why some people have to be such bitches, right?”

  The cop’s eyes start to glaze over. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he says. “Listen, did you guys happen to see a girl running past the store a few minutes ago?”

  “What did she look like?” asks my fake boyfriend.

  “She had a dark hoodie on and some kind of knitted hat,” the cop says. He looks me up and down. “She was pretty much exactly your size.”

  “Wow,” I say. “A five-foot-five teenage girl. Can’t be too many of those around.” He gives me a dirty look, so I giggle again and roll my eyes for good measure.

  “Yeah, anyway, you kids stay out of trouble.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but instead he does a slow circuit around the store before finally leaving. As the door jingles behind him, I let out a deep breath.

  Fake boyfriend looks at me with a curious, slightly amused expression. I can tell from the way that he’s dressed—ballcap and a Nike T-shirt—that he’s a bit of a jock, which means that he and I probably have nothing in common. He’s cute, though, even if he’s not my type. He has short, dirty-blond hair and brown eyes. One of his front teeth twists slightly in front of the other one, which makes his otherwise conventionally handsome face kind of interesting.

  I smile at him. “Thanks a million.”

  “Hey, no problem. Ummm…” He glances down, and I realize I still have his hand in a death grip. I drop it and laugh.

  “Sorry. I guess I was a bit stressed-out.”

  “No worries. So should I call my lawyer? Am I an accessory to murder or anything like that?”

  “I promise you it isn’t that serious.” We both stand there for a moment, smiling. I feel incredibly stupid. “Well, thanks again for your help,” I tell him. “Enjoy your chips.”

  At the front of the store, I stop and look out the window. The cop is still sitting in his car, sipping on coffee. Shit. I turn around before he notices me and pretend to stare intently at a rack of magazines.

  After a minute, fake boyfriend walks to the counter and pays for his chips. He gets to the door and stops when he sees the cruiser.

  “Hey,” he says, loud enough for me to realize that he’s talking to me. “You coming?”

  I pause. The last thing I want is to be around people, but I know that if I walk out of the store by myself, the cop will definitely start hassling me, and I can’t afford another run-in. Not tonight.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He hands me the chips, and I follow him past the cop and through the parking lot to a big pickup truck with a cab on it.

  We get in and he starts the engine.

  “Where now?” he asks me.

  “I guess we could start by getting my clothes back,” I say.

  ROEMI

  For a month, all I’ve been able to think about is putting on my thoughtfully arranged ensemble and being the center of attention, but after I leave the house and walk several blocks in patent leather shoes, I wonder if I should have changed into jeans and Adidas. It’s difficult to be inconspicuous when you’re wearing a tuxedo with purple-satin accents. Even on prom night. After several cars honk, and someone throws a balled-up fast-food bag at me, I begin to wish I’d just stayed home.

  You might find this surprising, but downtown Granite Ridge isn’t the most inspiring place in the world. Even so, as I trudge along the sidewalk I do my best to feel like a heartbroken hero in a melodramatic Italian movie. Unfortunately, you can only hear the latest Bieber single blasting out of car windows so many times before the foreign-film fantasy bursts.

  I walk all the way to Bizzby’s, the 1950s-style diner that opened on the strip a year ago. Even though it’s part of a chain, Bizzby’s is definitely my favorite place in town. With its pastel colors and curvy windows, it’s the closest thing to a Hollywood movie set that you’re going to find around here. It has a big neon sign across the front, and they keep the place clean and shiny. They even make the servers wear diner uniforms and name tags with fake fifties names on them, like Peg and Chet.

  I grab a seat at the counter, on one of the cushion-topped chrome stools, and do a couple of obligatory spins. A scowling twentysomething hipster wearing an apron and a little paper hat walks over and holds out a menu. I wave it off and glance at his name tag.

  “No need, Biff. I already know what I want. Gimme an extra-large double-fudge Hurricane shake, and hey, what the hell, toss in a couple extra squirts of chocolate sauce.”

  It’s probably a bad idea. Milkshakes almost always make me want to puke, but I know I have to man up and throw caution to the wind. My dad wouldn’t hesitate to tuck into that milkshake. He’d probably down it in one go and then slam the glass down on the counter and tell Biff to pour him another one.

  While I wait for my drink, I put my head in my hands and try to figure out what exactly went wrong with John.

  I’ve been telling him for weeks how great the prom is going to be, and I thought he was as excited as me. None of this makes sense, and after the big deal I made about the whole thing, I feel like a total chump.

  Biff puts my milkshake down on the counter and I settle up, then head back out into the night.

  I don’t feel like going home yet. I find myself wandering down back streets, lost in my thoughts. Sure, lately John had started mentioning that he was kind of scared of going to the prom, but I thought I’d done an awesome job of selling it as a sort of baby step on the journey of coming out. He was clear from the start that nobody else knew he was gay, but everyone has to come out sometime, right?

  I turn a corner and I’m suddenly face to face with my old elementary school. It looks so tiny now, compared to when I was small. I walk onto the playground and sit in a swing to finish my milkshake. When we were kids, the world was well defined and easy to wrap your head around. The rules of the playground were straightforward. You knew who the bullies were, you knew where the teachers on duty stood, you knew which girls were willing to play American Idol ever
y day at recess. None of this confused love-connection crap.

  A shiver runs down my spine. At first I think it might be an ice-cream headache starting, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched. I turn around slowly and realize that there are two small faces peering at me from inside the small playhouse on the other side of the sandbox.

  “Who’s in there?” I yell, beginning to feel like I’m in a twisted horror movie.

  After a moment, two little kids crawl out of the playhouse and stand at a distance, looking at me suspiciously. There’s a girl of about ten and a little boy a couple of years younger than her.

  “Why are you dressed like that?” the girl asks—a bit rudely, if you ask me. I find kids creepy at the best of times, but I especially dislike the ones who aren’t polite to adults. I know I might only be seventeen and I’m easily the shortest guy in my class, but as far as I’m concerned, I should qualify as a grown-up to a ten-year-old.

  “Dressed like what?”

  “In a suit,” she says, pointing. “With all that purple stuff.”

  “I’m the tooth fairy,” I tell her. “This is my uniform. Are you kids allowed to be over here by yourselves?”

  The girl, who is obviously in charge, takes a step forward. “We live right over there.” She points toward some houses across the street. “We come here all the time.”

  “Well, why don’t you guys scram?” I’ve always wanted to tell someone to scram.

  She sizes me up for a second. I can’t believe I’m having a standoff with a fifth-grader. Finally she shrugs and turns to her brother. “Okay, Frankie, let’s go.” Then she says in a very loud, very distinct voice, “Don’t forget your backpack.” She turns and raises her eyebrows at him. He looks confused for a second, then ducks back into the playhouse. When he emerges, he’s dragging a bulky black backpack.

  As they march past me, the girl turns briefly and looks at my cup. “Milkshakes’ll rot your teeth, tooth fairy.” I sneer back at her and watch as they hustle through the playground and stop to look both ways before darting across the street to their house. Little Frankie hobbles along behind his bossy sister, bent under the weight of his oversized backpack.

  No sooner have the kids disappeared behind their house than a truck pulls up by the sidewalk. A girl jumps out and comes running onto the playground toward the play area. What’s next, a military marching band? So much for alone time.

  She looks like she’s in a big hurry, and she doesn’t notice me until she’s almost at the swing set. She stops in her tracks and quickly looks me up and down. I take a slurp of my milkshake.

  “Hey,” she says. She’s around my age, but she definitely doesn’t go to my school. She has a small silver nose stud, and her hair is very cool. Jet black, with a thick blue streak in her bangs.

  “Hey. You planning on mugging me or something?” I ask.

  “Um, no,” she mutters as she kneels down by the playhouse door. “Shit!” she yells.

  “Looking for a backpack by any chance?” I ask. She spins around to face me.

  “Do you have it?” she asks. “Hand it over—it’s mine!” She sounds frantic.

  “Take it easy,” I tell her. “I don’t have it, but I’ll tell you where it is if you calm down. If you’d been here thirty seconds earlier, you would have caught them yourself.”

  “Caught who?”

  I point across the street. “A couple of kids. They were hiding in there when I showed up, and then they scurried home, dragging your pack behind them. You just missed ’em. Come to think of it, it seemed strange for a little kid to have the anarchy symbol sewed onto his backpack.”

  “Shit!” she says again. “My wallet’s in that pack, and all my—other stuff.”

  I finish my milkshake with a noisy slurp and hop down from the swing. “You want some help getting it back?” I ask her, tossing my cup in the nearest trashcan.

  She doesn’t sound too enthusiastic. “I think I can manage,” she says.

  “Suit yourself, but I do know what the kids look like, and I’m bored out of my skull.”

  She pauses and looks at me as if considering my offer.

  “Okay, why not?” she says. “If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

  “Trust me,” I say. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me all night. I’m Roemi, by the way.”

  “Candace,” she says. “You coming?”

  I follow her as she runs back to the truck. My shoes make it a struggle to keep up.

  It’s safe to say that Paul York is the last person I’m expecting to see. From the look on his face, the feeling is mutual. I don’t exactly have a problem with Paul, but you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps, and Ryan Penner is some douchey company. I swear, someday I’m going to break out my slickest moves and kick that bastard’s ass.

  “My pack’s missing,” says Candace. “Roemi here said he can help me find it. You guys know each other?”

  “Yeah,” we say at the same time.

  “What’s up, Roemi?” he asks.

  “What’s up yourself? Shouldn’t you be at prom?” I ask him. “Where’s Lannie?”

  “Long story,” he says. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, so I bite my tongue. Always difficult.

  “I don’t want to break up your little reunion,” says Candace, “but can we get a hustle on? I don’t want to be here when the cops show up again.”

  “Excuse me?” I say. “Cops?”

  She doesn’t answer me, so I look at Paul. He shrugs. “She won’t tell me,” he says.

  “Okay, hang on,” I say. “I’m not helping you with anything unless you fill us in. What’s the big secret? Is there a head in that backpack?”

  “No,” she says, exasperated. “Nothing like that. It’s nothing, it’s just—it’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

  We both stare at her. She lets out a long groan. “Okay, fine,” she says. “You’ll think it’s stupid, but whatever. I need that pack because it has all my graffiti stuff in it.”

  “Graffiti?” I repeat. “Really?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I was bombing the back of that school and some cop showed up and almost caught me. I threw my pack into the playhouse and ran to the nearest store. That’s when I met Paul, and he told me he’d help out. I told you you’d think it’s stupid, but I don’t give a shit what you think.”

  “Relax, Rembrandt,” I tell her. “Nobody said anything was stupid. Do you think it’s stupid, Paul?”

  “No,” he says. “I’m actually kind of relieved. I thought you were dealing or something.”

  “As if,” says Candace.

  “Is it really such a big deal to the cops?” I ask. “Graffiti, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “You can get in real trouble. Vandalism charges. Trespassing. Break and enter, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I point across the street. “I’m pretty sure that’s the house the kids went behind.”

  We backtrack through a couple of yards and duck behind a hedge at the back of their lot. Sure enough, the kids are in the backyard, about twenty feet away from us. They’re playing some sort of game that seems to consist of the girl bossing Frankie around. The backpack is nowhere in sight. “That’s them,” I whisper.

  “Are you sure?” asks Candace.

  I nod just as the kids stop what they’re doing and turn abruptly toward the house. A screen door swings out, held open by the arm of an invisible adult. The girl seems to be having an argument with whoever is standing inside.

  “I’ll do it later!” she yells. She stops and listens to something, then throws her hands up in frustration and follows the arm inside. Frankie stays outside.

  “Okay,” says Candace. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She starts to move, but I grab her arm.

  “Listen,” I say. “Don’t be offended, but if you jump out of the bushes at this kid, he’s going to think that he’s being abducted by the angel of death. He’ll be in
therapy for years, if he doesn’t die of shock first. Let me do it.”

  I run into the yard and over to Frankie.

  His jaw drops when he sees me. “Tooth fairy?” he asks, his eyes wide.

  This is something I can work with. “Yes!” I say. “It’s me, the tooth fairy! Where’s your sister?”

  “Mom made her call Grandma for her birthday,” says Frankie. “I already talked to her today, so I’m allowed to stay outside.”

  “Well, boy oh boy, Frankie,” I say. “Have I got a surprise for you!”

  “A surprise? But I haven’t lost any teeth lately.”

  “Umm, that doesn’t matter! Because you—have won—the tooth fairy lottery!”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “All you have to do is answer one skill-testing question, and you get the grand prize! Just tell me where the backpack is and you’ll be the winner!”

  “You mean the backpack from the park? The one with all the hairspray in it?”

  “Yeah, that one!”

  “My sister hid it behind the toolshed.”

  “Excellent! Good job! You’re the winner!”

  “What do I win?”

  “Ummm…” I reach into my jacket and pull out my wallet. No cash, just cards. “Hang on a second.” I run back to the hedge. “Quick!” I say. “Do either of you have any cash?”

  “I told you, my wallet’s in the backpack,” says Candace.

  “What’s the deal?” asks Paul. “Is he holding it ransom?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Come on, I need some cash!”

  Paul digs into his pocket and shoves a five-dollar bill at me. I run back to Frankie.

  “Who were you talking to?” he asks.

  “My reindeer,” I say. “He carries my wallet.”

  “You have a reindeer? Lemme see!”

  “He’s invisible. Listen, kid, I’ve gotta get moving. These lottery prizes won’t deliver themselves.” I shove the fiver at him.

  “Wow!” says Frankie. “Five bucks! Thanks, tooth fairy!”

  “Yeah yeah, no problem.” I quickly glance at the house. “Where’s the backpack?”