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When Tanner pulls into the parking lot of Spruce High, I have to admit this wasn’t the “errand” I was expecting—as obvious as it seems now, in retrospect. “Some kinda mid-summer coach errand thing?” I throw at him with half a pout.
“Just ‘cause it’s summer doesn’t mean the school’s all closed down. They hold classes still for summer school in the freshman wing, plus the theatre department is puttin’ on some production of Shakespeare, and—” He turns and looks at me. “The hell do you care anyway? I got you out of the house, didn’t I? Thank me later when you realize you didn’t waste your day doing the orange justice in the mirror.” He turns off the engine, then swings out of the car.
“That wasn’t no damned Fortnite dance I was practicing!” I shout back at him, but it’s no use; he’s already halfway down the path to the school.
I follow him begrudgingly, kicking the dirt with my sneakers as I go. I’m surprised to find the school looking exactly the way it did when I left the proud, squatty building just a couple years ago. Its front wears the school colors in stripes of complementary paint that outline the foundation, windows, and awnings.
But it isn’t the front through which we enter. Coach Tanner has keys that get us in through the back where the locker rooms and gym storage areas reside. “Not sure if Coach Larry is here or not,” my brother grunts as he takes me down a few dark hallways, only a strip of the piercing sunlight outside coming in through some office windows. “He’s such a lazy bum sometimes. Don’t tell Bobby I said that. I know Coach Larry loves Bobby, being his star soccer player and all, but phew, Coach Larry gets on my nerves.”
He can’t go five seconds without mentioning Bobby around me. Hell, even when I’m not obsessing over why Bobby’s icing me out, the world finds a way to shove him back in my face.
I check my phone again.
Nothing.
The scent of sweat, bleach, and generic laundry detergent assaults my nose long before we even make it to the gymnasium, flooding me with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. That sense is made all the worse when we enter the actual gymnasium itself, and I find that just like the outside of the school, the inside is exactly the same, too, right down to the chips of paint and small cracks that trace the gym walls near the floor from all the wear and tear of basketballs and bodies slamming against them.
“Hard to believe it’s only been a couple years,” I murmur.
“Yeah? Feelin’ your memory strings gettin’ tugged?” Tanner smiles knowingly. “Bro, and this isn’t even the dance gym.”
Our footsteps echo and fill the space. Ghostly sunlight pours in from the windows up above the bleachers, obscured slightly by the unclean glass. “What are we doing, exactly?”
“Errands. Coach stuff. Boring summer stuff.”
We exit the gymnasium through its front, emptying into the long main hall that runs down the heart of the school. “So what do you need me to do?” I ask him distractedly, still looking all around me at the lockers lining the halls, the posters hanging from the ceiling, and the small display cases with trophies that punctuate the hall every one or two classrooms. Everything looks different with the lights off—almost creepy, even during the day.
“Oh, I didn’t bring you to put you to work, dude. I brought you just to get your sad ass out of the house, like I said.”
“My ass isn’t sad,” I retort—still distracted, staring all around me. “Shoot, that’s where I had English. Is that one still Ms. Bean’s room? Oh, fuck, no way, Mr. Robin used to be in this one!” I peer through the tall skinny window in one of the classroom doors, my eyes searching through the glass. “What happened to Mr. Robin?”
Tanner squints at the room, then nods. “Yeah, he moved out to Brookfield, last I heard. Still teaches French, now at some fancy uppity private school where the bathrooms have gold toilets.”
I peel my face from the window. “Gold toilets?”
Tanner shakes his head and snorts. “You’re so damn gullible sometimes, Jimmy. Really, where’d your sense of humor go? Did California steal it from you?”
I frown at him. “My school isn’t in Cali-fuckin’-fornia, I’ve said a hundred times.”
“You’re usually quicker than this, man. Phew, I’m gonna have fun with you this summer.” He laughs again, beside himself, then continues on down the hall.
I roll my eyes and follow him.
I don’t follow him for long. We stop in front of a set of office doors, the windows of which reveal that it’s the only room with its lights actually on. “Alright, this is where I do a bunch of boring shit in an office and make a few calls. So you’re officially free to roam the halls, break shit, draw graffiti on your old locker, whatever your heart desires. I shouldn’t be more than an hour, tops.”
