Truth & Dare Read Free

to be turned off. I stand there, growing fascinated by the way her hair meets the back of her neck. Her hair is a soft, girlish blonde, cut like a bell curve, and beneath it the soft, girlish fur of her skin. This is brokenup by the triple layer of the collar of her jacket, her hood, and the band of her headphones. It was iconic, her own private insignia. I drew a letterbox around it in my mind.
    The line seems to go on forever, but now I don’t mind. She spots me when we reach the first turn in the line, and she shoots me a look. In that look, she clearly recognizes me from the subway car. There is a certain amount of guardedness in her look, as if she isn’t quite sure that I’m not stalking her, but, after all, why would anyone come to this place if they didn’t have to? Suddenly, as if she’s just thought of this, the corners of her lips turn upward, the hint of a grin. This, of course, would be the appropriate time to drop a casual friendly remark about how cold the weather’s been, or what kind of a shoddy power structure exists in this country to keep this kind of place in business. I, of course, don’t.
    Finally, we are two people away (well, she’s two away, I’m three) and each person is taking for ever, and she turns around and remarks, as nonchalantly as if we’d been talking this whole time: “Waiting sucks, doesn’t it?”
    I swallow. The person at the window leaves, and the man in front of her steps up to the glass. I have no illusions—I’m not going to wow her into being my best friend for ever, much less a game of, what did Vadim call it, tonsil hockey?—but I might at least be able to get her to walk back to the subway with me.
    “It does,” I say to her, praying to God that my throat doesn’t spontaneously dry out or close up. “Worst part is, there is no reward at the end—you don’t, like, buy a CD or ride a roller coaster. All there is is more waiting.”
    She smiles—a real one this time, and it lasts. “You do this often?”
    I shake my head, and hope it doesn’t look too fake. Too many times, or too few. “Usually, my father. But he could not, today.”
    Her eyelids flicker. “So you’re the man of the house, then?”
    I shrug, not sure if she is teasing me. “If  I was rich and owned a place like this, I would just let everyone keep their houses, none of this.”
    “You wouldn’t be rich for long.”
    This should be the part where I make my move. Let loose some line: That’s just the kind of guy I am or For you, it would be worth it . I have this one friend, he would know exactly what to say and be up against the wall with this girl by the end of the line, limbs writhing on top of each other, going crazy. Another friend, he would fantasize about this moment constantly and never get far enough to actually open his mouth and say something to her. I am neither of those, too embarrassed to either manipulate the situation to my advantage or let my real feelings be known. I guess that’s the kind of guy I am. But I wish I could be one of the others.
    The whir of the money-counting machine dies down. The man at the window, dismissed, moves quickly to the door.
    “Here goes, I guess,” she says, offering me the most generous and pretty of her smiles yet.
    “Hey, do you want me to take …” I start, but she is already at the window, perching her purse on the ledge, rifling through it. She pulls out a gun.
    The cashier screams.
    It takes everyone a moment to realize what’s going on, but once they do, they react. I am slow. It’s still early for me. A gnarled, heavy hand wraps itself around my arm, yanks it down hard, and I find myself being lowered to the ground by a grandmother half my size.
    The cashier, whose face I can see over the shoulder of Jesus Girl, is only a few years older than us, maybe eighteen or twenty, a bored and lost-looking girl with her hair in long spirally braids. She seems remarkably composed, althougheveryone in the room is pulsing with fear.