Tagged

by Mara Purnhagen

  I looked at my best friend. She was miserable. Maybe she was going to do something extreme, but if it made her feel better, I wasn’t going to let her do it alone.

  “If you need help, count me in,” I said.

  She smiled. “Thanks. I’m not going to do anything, though. You’re right, Kate. Tiffany will ruin this thing on her own.”

  I was relieved that she wasn’t going to try something that could get her into trouble, and even more relieved that I wouldn’t have to get in trouble with her. I had meant what I said—I would stand by her no matter what—but the fear of public humiliation was nearly enough to make me want to back out of that promise. The party was now only a week away, and I wanted more than anything for it to be over so we could move on as if it had never happened.

  14

  HE WAS BACK.

  I caught a glimpse of Eli shortly before first period on Friday. I stepped off the bus just as he was walking into the building, his backpack slung over his shoulder. I wanted to shout his name, but I didn’t think he would hear me, and besides, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say to him. The last time we’d spoken I’d hung up on him, which was probably not the best way to have left things.

  Once I was inside, I searched the hallways for Eli but didn’t see him. There was a surprise waiting for me in my locker, though. He had written a brief note to me on a scrap of paper and slipped it through the grate.

  “Hope we can talk later. I’ll stop by SB around four. See you then?”

  I smiled. Finally we would have the chance to talk. I nearly skipped to history class.

  The rest of my morning was great. Tiffany wasn’t in school, people were in Friday mode and my classes sailed by. I looked forward to lunch, when I could sit with Lan and glance over at Eli’s table and see him. I wondered if Reva would still sit there now that she and Eli had broken up. I hoped not, but if she did, maybe she would sit at the far end of the table instead of right next to him. There had been times when she sat so close to him that it appeared she was sitting in his lap.

  “Do you see him?” I asked Lan. She looked around, spotted Brady and gave a little wave.

  “He’s so sweet.” She sighed. “He burned a CD for me last night. I can’t wait to listen to it.”

  “Do you see Eli?” I was getting impatient. I wanted Lan to look for me. She had an excuse to stare at his table and I didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  “I see Trent. And that guy who’s always getting busted for skateboarding in the hallway. There’s that other guy they hang out with, the one with the nose ring. What does he do when he has a cold?”

  I let Lan ramble while I ate my lunch. “I know that guy’s name but I can’t remember it,” she was saying. “I think it starts with an A. Adam? Aaron? Oh.”

  Her oh was like a rock dropping. It seemed to land with a thud and she abruptly stopped talking.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said brightly. A little too brightly, I thought. She turned toward me and I knew she was trying to block my view of Eli’s table.

  “Seriously, what’s going on?”

  I peered over her shoulder. I didn’t see Eli right away, but I saw Reva standing at the very end of the table, partially blocked by some of the guys. She was dressed in skintight leather pants and a red shirt that sparkled when she moved. And she was definitely moving. As the nose-pierced guy got up to throw something away, I could see that Reva was standing behind Eli’s chair, slowly rubbing his shoulders. He barely seemed to notice. He was talking to Trent across the table like it was the most natural thing in the world to have a girl giving him a lunchtime massage. Before I could look away, Reva leaned down and licked his ear.

  “She said they broke up,” I whispered to Lan. I felt like I was going to start crying, and I did not want to expose my emotions in the cafeteria.

  “They did,” Lan whispered back.

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  My stomach hurt. It was like I had been punched, and I was suddenly sure that my lunch was not going to stay down. I pushed my chair back and hurried out of the noisy cafeteria to the bathroom. Once there, I found an empty stall and locked myself in until the bell rang. I leaned my head against the door and listened to the rumble of the crowd leaving the cafeteria. I wanted to cry, but I knew if I did I wouldn’t be able to stop, so I took a few deep breaths and waited until it was quiet and I was sure that most people were gone. Then I washed my hands, checked my hair in the mirror and left the bathroom.

  “Hey, Kate.”

  I spun around in the hallway, my heart beating fast. Eli was standing there, grinning. I couldn’t believe that he was smiling at me like nothing was wrong when I had just seen his supposed ex-girlfriend running her hands all over his body. This time, I couldn’t help it. I began to cry. Eli’s smile slipped from his face and he rushed over to me.

  “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” He guided me to the nearest stairwell, which was deserted.

  “I saw you.” I was trying hard to stop crying. I didn’t have a tissue in my pocket and my nose was running and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “You saw me where?” he asked. I couldn’t believe he was acting so naive.

  “I saw you at lunch. With her.”

  “Oh.”

  I was sniffling. “Well?”

  He ran a hand through his dark hair. “I didn’t think you could see us.”

  I must have looked like I wanted to push him down the stairs because he started talking really fast. “What I mean is, yes, Reva and I have broken up. Officially. We’re done. Really, we are. It’s just…”

  “Complicated?” I asked bitterly.

  He looked hurt. He reached for my hand but I pulled away.

  “Kate, I’m sorry. It really is nuts. She knows we’re finished, but she’s not letting go, exactly. And I can’t upset her right now.”

  “But you can upset me?”

  He reached for my hand again. This time, I let him take it.

  “It’s just going to take a little time, that’s all.” He was rubbing my arm and it felt nice. I closed my eyes. “This is going to be settled soon. Until then, I’m just trying to be nice.”

  I opened my eyes. “Does that mean you have to let her touch you?”

  “No. I’m sorry about that. That shouldn’t have happened.”

  I changed the subject. “How’s your brother?”

  Eli stopped stroking my arm. “Ben is fine.” His voice was clipped. I had obviously said the wrong thing. Eli was looking away from me, at the empty stairwell.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.” I tried to say this as gently as possible.

  Eli shrugged. “Tired, I guess.”

  I wanted to say something reassuring. I wanted him to open up. I wanted to spend the rest of the day in that stairwell with him. We heard someone coming and both of us looked toward the steps. A teacher was walking our way, a cup of coffee in one hand, a stack of papers in the other.

  “Where are you two supposed to be?” she demanded.

  “Sorry,” Eli mumbled.

  “Get to class, both of you. Now.”

  We didn’t argue. I turned and headed back to my locker. Eli went up the stairs. I didn’t see him at all the rest of the day. I hoped he would still stop by Something’s Brewing at four, but he didn’t. I waited inside with Bonnie and Lila, helping out for an hour before I gave up on him coming.

  I tried not to take it personally. We’d had a chance to talk, at least. He just hadn’t said anything I wanted to hear.

  THEY ARRIVED THE FOLLOWING Monday. When school ended, they were waiting for us in the parking lot: three red vans and a ton of wires spread across the pavement. I recognized one of the cameramen from Tiffany’s invitation ceremony.

  “Let the madness begin,” I said to Lan.

  Tiffany had been back at school that day, looking happy and refreshed. She was dressed casu
ally in jeans and a white T-shirt, but it was a carefully choreographed kind of casual. Her silver jewelry glittered, her high-heeled boots clicked against the floor. She was back, and she was in control.

  No one mentioned her history class breakdown. The official rumor was that she had gone to a spa for the weekend. Her skin did look good, I thought. She made a point to smile and say hi to Lan in front of Mr. Gildea, but her apology, if you could call it that, was flimsy.

  “Sorry I freaked out last week,” she said.

  Lan just looked at her.

  “I’ve been under a ton of stress,” Tiffany explained. When it became obvious that Lan was not going to reply, Tiffany gave up. “I like your pin,” she said, pointing to the pink orchid fastened to Lan’s jacket. Tiffany then went to her desk, satisfied that all was right in the world. I resisted the urge to stick out my foot and trip her.

  The student body had decided to forgive Tiffany for her transgressions. I think the sight of the camera crew helped. It was really happening, and people were getting excited. Even the cheerleaders were smiling. The camera crew set up their equipment and Principal Carter let them inside the school entrance on Tuesday to take a few shots and interview some of Tiffany’s friends.

  “She’s just so…classy,” I overheard one girl say. She looked into the camera with earnest eyes. “And we’re all so excited about this party. It’s going to be the biggest thing this town has ever seen.”

  I continued to see Eli in the hallways and at lunch. He always smiled or nodded to acknowledge me, and sometimes I found brief notes stuffed inside my locker but nothing too personal. Reva still sat beside him at lunch, but she kept her hands off him. I hated the distance between us, but I didn’t feel like there was a lot I could do about it. Eli had to make the first move. And when he did, well, I wasn’t going to embrace him with completely open arms. If he truly wanted to be with me, he had a lot of explaining to do. I didn’t want to play games with him, but I also felt like he had kept me in the dark for too long.

  Work was busy yet felt slow. Lila chatted nonstop and the customers kept coming back for banana lattes and things seemed normal in a way, but different in another way. It was like everything around me had stayed the same but I had undergone a silent, subtle change. I hadn’t realized how much Eli had affected my everyday life until he was no longer a significant part of it.

  The MTV vans could be seen all around town. Sometimes they drove next to whatever car Tiffany was riding in. They were mainly at her house, I heard, and she took Thursday off from school to fine-tune party details and only came to school Friday for the first three periods. She was in her element. I’d always suspected that Tiffany was one of those people who lived their lives as if a camera crew was always present, that she believed she had a secret hidden audience observing her every move. But now the audience was very real.

  Lan and I made plans to crash at my house on Saturday, the day of the party. I rented a stack of DVDs and stocked up on energy drinks so we could stay awake all night, but at lunch on Friday she told me there was a slight change of plans.

  “Nothing major,” she said. “I just won’t be over until a little later.”

  “How much later?” I asked. Reva had just laughed so loud that people were looking in her direction, and it was taking everything in me not to steal a peek at her table.

  “Probably around nine. Brady wants to go out for bite to eat. He’ll drop me off.”

  I wondered if Brady and Lan were going to try to sabotage Tiffany’s party. I knew Brady would help her. He had become completely devoted to Lan over the past couple of weeks. I also understood that if Lan didn’t want me to know about what was going on, there was probably a good reason. I was the daughter of the police chief and she was most likely protecting me from getting into trouble. I wanted to be a part of whatever it was she was planning, but I also did not want to go near Tiffany’s celebration. It’s one thing to be invited and then choose not to go. It’s something else entirely to be uninvited. I wanted to pretend none of it was even happening. In just a few days it would be nothing but a faint memory, I thought. Somebody else’s memory.

  Reva laughed loudly again, and I shot a quick glance across the room. Trent was standing on his chair, doing some kind of weird dance. The rumor was that he was going to the party with a couple of friends. They had bought matching pink tuxedos at a thrift shop, and they were going all out: top hats, canes and fake mustaches. Tiffany’s dramatic entrance was in danger of being overshadowed. She would need to have bald eagles carry her through a ring of fire to compete with Trent.

  I was relieved when the final bell rang and school ended. I was looking forward to a quiet weekend with my best friend and forgetting about all the party craziness. I found a note crammed in my locker grate as I left school.

  “Hey—Things are better. Let’s do something on Sunday.”

  I smiled and put the note in my pocket. Maybe things could be normal again, after all.

  MY DAD HAD BEEN WORKING with the Henryetta police in connection with their graffiti case, a fact he didn’t tell me about until I flat out asked him.

  “I knew that you worked with his brother,” Dad explained. “I thought it best to leave you out of it.”

  “I just want to know what’s going on,” I told him. We were in the den watching the local news and waiting for Mom to get home so we could go out to dinner. Neither one of us felt like cooking, although our idea of cooking was to take something out of the freezer and shove it in the oven for twenty minutes.

  “It’s complicated,” Dad said, putting the TV on mute. “Two of the businesses want to press charges, but one is in Tennessee and the other is in Oklahoma, so it’s a jurisdiction nightmare. Ben’s not looking at jail time in either case. Just some fines, probably community service.”

  “What about here? Is anyone in Cleary pressing charges?”

  “Not yet, not that I know of. If he’s charged with vandalism here, it will probably be the same result—community service and a fine.”

  It didn’t sound to me like it was that big of a deal. Why, then, had Eli’s entire family felt the need to travel all the way to Oklahoma? Eli had missed a week of school, and from what I knew of his parents, that was a big deal. There was something else to the story, I thought.

  When Mom came home from work she was too tired to go out, so we ordered Chinese. Dad let me drive through the neighborhood on our way to pick up the food, but once we got to the main street he made me get out so he could take over.

  “I don’t know why you don’t trust me,” I complained.

  “It’s not you I don’t trust,” Dad said mildly. “It’s everyone else on the road.”

  The Chinese restaurant was next door to the tuxedo shop. It was still adorned with a going-out-of-business banner, but I’d heard that sales had picked up after it had been tagged. I stared at the gorilla painted on the side wall while Dad ran in and picked up our order. I remembered the first time I’d seen the gorilla. Dad had been driving Eli home, and we’d sat in the back of the squad car and laughed at the quote painted above the gorilla’s head: “They call this a monkey suit.” Eli had pretended it was the first time he’d seen the mural, but he must have known that his brother had painted it.

  I could see the familiar words painted near the gorilla’s left foot: Art Lies. It didn’t make sense to me. Of all the statements one could make about art, declaring that it lied seemed like the last thing an artist would say. Wasn’t art supposed to reveal truth? I kept staring at those two little words as if they might reveal something more.

  Dad returned with a bag full of white paper cartons, which he handed to me. I sat with the warm food in my lap, breathing in the scent of egg foo yung and fried rice. I pointed out Art Lies to my dad, who just nodded.

  “It’s his signature,” he said. “All the murals have that tag.”

  “Even the ones in other states?”

  “Yep. We checked.”

  Ben was weird and his sign
ature was even weirder, I thought. Something bothered me about it, though, and it wasn’t until we were pulling into our driveway that I figured it out. The letters did make sense, in a way.

  Rearranged, they read: Eli’s art.

  15

  AFTER SENDING THREE separate e-mails to Eli and not getting a reply, I told myself to calm down and wait. I would see Eli on Sunday and figure the whole insane, chaotic, mysterious mess out once and for all—in person. Until then, I just had to make it through Saturday without obsessing about the party, which was going to be difficult to do. The local news was covering the event because Nothing Serious, the band Tiffany’s dad hired, was going to be there and they were the most famous people to ever come from—and return to—Cleary.

  Both my parents were gone when I woke up on Saturday. Dad was meeting with the Werners’ security team and Mom was busy at the bakery. She told her boss she was going to quit if he didn’t give her the following week off. He agreed, and it helped calm her down. She was focused.

  “I just need to get through Saturday,” she told me the night before. “Then I can breathe easy for a while.”

  It seemed like everybody was just “trying to get through Saturday.”

  I showered and put on my most comfortable gray sweatpants and a baggy blue T-shirt. My afternoon plans were simple: watch a ton of TV and maybe, if I felt like it, finish my history paper, which was due on Monday. I still didn’t know what I wanted to write, but if I couldn’t come up with anything, my plan was to turn in the original draft and hope Mr. Gildea would be feeling generous.

  I was sprawled out on the couch at four in the afternoon, flipping through one infomercial after another, when the phone rang. I didn’t answer. I was so comfortable and the phone was all the way across the room and I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Then I heard my mom’s voice on the answering machine.