Truth & Dare Read Free Page B

seriously trashy cash.”
    Reaching for what I can only assume is fifteen hundred, she tosses it through the narrow slit of the cashier’s window. “That’s for him,” she tells them. “What’s your name?”
    “J-Jupiter Glazer,” I say, still not totally convinced that she is speaking to me.
    “Address?”
    I tell her.
    “Account number? Can I tell you, I hate it when they interrogate you like this? Name, rank, serial number. It makes you feel like a prisoner. God, I’ve always wanted to say that right to their dumb-ass, glass-protected faces.” Behind the window, the cashier, though thoroughly startled, is writing down my information. When she says that bit about prisoners, the cashier winces. You know she’s thought it, too.
    “You got that down? All right, then,” she says, turning the doorknob. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you folks. I hated every second of this, but we all gotta eat.”
    Another flash of the smile, cheeky and egotistical and so incredibly hot, and she’s gone.
    Not two minutes later, the police are crashing through the door, guns drawn, demanding to know What’s Going On? and Is There A Hostage Situation? and the like. Nobody tells themanything. According to witnesses, the perpetrator is either one man, three men, or an entire soccer team of middle-aged women, white, black, or something in the middle, extremely tall or extremely short, but not average height. “This happens to us all the time,” one of the cops confesses to me. “People are stunned. They don’t expect to be attacked where they feel most secure.”
    The cops leave, and the line recommences, shakily, where we left off. Two people have moved in front of me, an old man and a young mother, but I’m not bothered. When I do step up to the booth, ready to hand over my family’s hard-earned cash, the cashier looks me in the eye and says, with a soft feeling of  kindness, “You’re already paid for.”
    I have a vision of returning home, thick envelope in hand, of going straight to the kitchen where my father is still asleep. He’ll shoot right up in his chair the moment I walk in, a big goofy smile on his face, his drunkenness fading like a bad dream. “What’d I miss?” he’ll ask, forever wacky, a true American sitcom father.
    And I will toss the money on the table, and tell him and my mother about my unexpected day. And we will all laugh together, knowing the story has a happy ending because all stories do. My dad will say, “Why didn’t you just leave it there? We could’ve been early for next month’s rent!” and my mom will say, “Thank God you’re safe, that’s the important part,” and we’ll all sigh warmly, because we’ll remember what really is important.

The Young Stalker’s Handbook
    BY S ARAH R EES B RENNAN
    â€œJ UST BECAUSE HE’S wearing skin-tight gold trousers doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a homosexual.”
    I was in a music store with my friend Rachel when I said these words. In a way, I feel like that sentence summed up my personality completely. Anyone who overheard us would have known immediately that I was optimistic, a dreamer, and utterly clueless about men.
    â€œNo,” said Rachel doubtfully. “But it does make you wonder.”
    She bent and picked up the CD we were both transfixed by. A strand of her hair came loose over her blue jacket, a circle of pale gold in the store’s fluorescent lights.
    Rachel was my best friend. She was also ice blonde, beautiful, funny and clever—you know, the friend who always makes you look a bit of a mess when she stands next to you, but is so generally awesome that most of the time you don’t care.
    She was also very sensible, which right now was making me sad.
    â€œDon’t put him in a box,” I said sternly. “We all have the right to wear what we want without anyone drawing unwarranted conclusions about our sexuality. This is a free country and a new millennium. I hope we’re