Tag Along Read Free Page A

doorway.
    â€œWhere’re you going?” asks Dad, his eyes not even leaving the TV.
    â€œJust out. Might go see a movie or something.”
    â€œYou’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.
    â€œNo.” I’m not in the mood to get into this.
    â€œWell, 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.
    â€œCandace, why don’t you go get my purse?” she says.
    â€œGee-ma, I don’t need any money. Seriously.”
    â€œDon’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.
    â€œWhy don’t you take this to Bizzby’s and buy yourself a milkshake.”
    â€œThanks, 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.
    â€œYour 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.
    â€œI 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.
    â€œYou’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