The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker (21 page)

He pushed his glasses up his nose with a knuckle and didn't beat around the bush. “I'm David Greene,” he said. “I'm the student council vice president. Well,” he said, quickly correcting himself, “I guess technically now I'm the student council
president.
It's my job to assume the role if the president resigns or is … unable to perform his duties.”

“I'm aware of how the system works,” I said, though David seemed oblivious to my sarcasm.

“I have the necessary experience to fill the role,” he continued. “In a situation like this, normally the treasurer would step up to fill the role of vice president, but what with homecoming just around the corner, the treasurer has a lot of responsibilities.”

“Okay,” I said, unsure why he was telling me any of this.

Maybe he mistakenly thinks I give a shit.

“The reason I'm telling you this,” he said, as if he could read my thoughts, “is that if the treasurer maintains her current position, we'll be without a vice president. I was thinking that your input might be valuable on the student council. You're an outsider,” he said with an apologetic shrug, “so to speak, so you would have a fresh perspective. I can appoint you as the temporary vice president. That is, assuming, of course, that Grant recovers and returns to his duties.”

“You want me to serve on the student council?” I asked, skeptically.

“Sure,” David said. “I was thinking you could take over Grant's role overseeing the preparations for the homecoming dance. There's a committee. You wouldn't have to do all of the work yourself. In fact, Penny has been really helpful with organizing everything. She was the one who suggested you might be a good fit for working with the homecoming committee.”

“Uh … okay,” I said, not really sure this was a job I wanted to take, but not knowing how to say no. I was already busy procrastinating about getting a suit and making dinner reservations, hoping that if I put it off long enough Penny would take the reins and manage the details.

“Great,” he said, and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I'll put your number in my phone and text you details about meetings and stuff later.”

As I walked to Penny's locker I thought about this new development. I was still mystified by how easily Grant had been cast aside, forgotten by his classmates now that there wasn't a daily physical reminder of him.

After school and practice that day everyone was headed to the lake to party on the secluded beach that was accessible only by foot. Chief Perry and his deputies were unlikely to navigate the rocky terrain, if they even knew kids went there to party.

I had time to kill while everyone was at practice and after-school activities, so I drove around in the Camaro for a while, enjoying the freedom of being out on my own. I cruised slowly down Main Street, appreciating, for once, the brightly painted shops and the leafy boughs of the old-growth trees that lined the street. The leaves had changed color, and the bright splashes of orange and red and yellow were really pretty impressive. I felt a pang of homesickness for DC. I knew Rock Creek Park, where I would sometimes ride my bike on weekends, would be a lush valley of autumn colors at this time.

I was homesick for more than just my hometown. I missed the anonymity of a city, a place where I could blend in and no one would know my name.

As I drove past the diner on Main Street, I saw Delilah strolling along, the hood on her sweatshirt covering her black hair. I looked back over my shoulder as I passed her, almost driving the Camaro into an elderly couple as they stepped off the curb at the intersection.

I slammed on the brakes, and the Camaro rocked on its suspension as the man looked up at me with a concerned frown. At the sight of me he lifted a hand in greeting but bent his head to murmur something in his wife's ear. She looked at me now, too, and from the look in their eyes I knew they recognized me, the boy who had almost killed Grant Parker.

Ignoring them, I looked back again in time to see Delilah ducking into the small, family-owned grocery store. There was no large chain grocery store in Ashland, just the small independent grocery that offered a bewildering selection of basic necessities—everything from milk to mousetraps to peanut butter—to tide people over between monthly trips to the Walmart Supercenter one town over.

I backed the Camaro into a space and walked casually down the street, stopping to look into the window of the grocery, as if I were just idly window shopping on a fall afternoon. I didn't see Delilah through the window, so I let myself into the store. A young woman, maybe barely out of high school and the only employee in sight, sat behind the register reading.

She looked up and smiled a greeting at me but went back to her book as I ducked into an aisle of the floor-to-ceiling shelves. The lower shelves held items of regular demand, like cat food and hot dog buns. The upper shelves housed a motley collection of seasonal supplies, like fishing nets and lawn chairs.

Delilah was contemplating the condiment section when I found her at the back of the store. She didn't see me right away, so I had a minute to study her without her knowing I was.

Or maybe not.

“Are you lost?” she asked without looking away from the shelf in front of her.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Don't you have an awesome party to go to? Down at the lake?”

“Later. After practice. How did you know about that?” I asked.

“Tony invited me,” she said.

“He did?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“Why shouldn't someone invite me somewhere?” she asked, suddenly angry. “What's wrong with me that someone shouldn't invite me somewhere?”

“That isn't what I meant,” I said. The conversation was quickly degenerating, so I hurried to mend things between us. “I just … I didn't think you liked him. As a person, I mean.”

She shrugged. “Tony isn't so bad … when Grant isn't around.”

A grim silence descended, as it always did when someone mentioned Grant's efficacious absence in my presence.

I was dimly aware of the girl at the register chatting with someone who had just come in off the street. I was so focused on my exchange with Delilah, wondering what she thought of me—if she bothered to think about me at all—that I wasn't thinking about anything else.

Delilah's eyes widened suddenly with surprise, and I turned hesitantly to track her gaze over my shoulder. I'm not sure what I was expecting to see, but certainly not what—or rather who—had managed to render Delilah speechless.

Leland Parker stood behind me, his expression a confusion of anger and something that resembled fear.

“You,” Leland Parker said. “You have some nerve showing your face around town, boy, after what you've done.” He hiked up his pants from the back, the same gesture I had seen him perform the day he came by Roger's garage to tell Roger to fire me. I recognized it as a nervous habit now, and it humanized him in a way that made me self-conscious for both of us.

My mouth went dry, and I gulped involuntarily as my heart started to beat crazily. A blush crept up my cheeks and I was rendered speechless.

“It's a free country,” Delilah said, matter-of-factly.

Now it was Leland Parker who turned red, but from restrained anger instead of the terror I felt.

“Your father and I,” Leland Parker said, ignoring me now and facing off with Delilah, “seem to be the only two people who realize that this boy is nothing but a … a … sociopath.”

“Luke never did anything but defend himself against Grant,” Delilah said, her voice and eyes both lowering with involuntary apology.

“That,” Leland Parker said, stabbing a finger in my direction, “is for a jury to decide.”

I could almost feel Delilah physically restraining herself from rolling her eyes as Leland Parker said this.

“Don't think that just because your daddy is the police chief you can speak to me any way you please,” Leland Parker started in. “I know that brother of yours was nothing but trouble.…”

“Hey,” I said, reacting without thought to his mention of Jeremy, whose memory, while not mine, was still a raw wound from the night Delilah had invited me to his posthumous birthday party. “Hey,” I said again. “Don't.”

Leland Parker and Delilah both looked at me with some surprise and, really, I was as shocked as anyone that I had reacted the way I did.

“It's … uh … this had nothing to do with Delilah,” I said, not wanting to backpedal, but unsure where to go from here. “She's not part of this.”

“Your daddy is an outsider in this town,” Leland Parker said, turning his ire on me, which, while not comfortable, at least redirected the threat from Delilah to me. “You aren't one of us.”

Thank God.

“I don't want to be one of you,” I said hotly. “Your son was … I mean, is … he
is
a bully. I don't want to be one of you.”

The pause that followed felt like an eternity but was probably only a few heartbeats. Delilah and I both held our breath as we watched him, like waiting for a kettle to blow steam. “Get out of here,” Leland Parker said shortly. Now, anger was the only emotion he was able to express, but I saw the tightness of grief in the way his jaw was set.

Without even exchanging a look, Delilah and I took the invitation to exit the encounter. Delilah dismissed the errand that had brought her to the grocery store, and I followed on her heels to the door.

We escaped the close quarters of the grocery store and arrived on the street into fresh air, which suddenly represented freedom. I turned to her, wanting to share in the emotion of what we had just endured, maybe with the exchange of a sympathetic smile or an eye roll. But when I looked at Delilah I was struck by her expression, usually so passive, impossible to read. But the lines of worry and sorrow were etched so clearly, and I felt only impotent, knowing any words I could offer had no power to fix anything.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “That was wrong of him to say anything about your brother.”

She didn't answer, just dug her fists into the pockets of her hoodie, and ignored me.

“I'm sorry,” I said again, though now I was apologizing for a lot more than what Leland Parker had said. “Can I give you a ride home?”

“No,” she said, refusing to give me her eyes.

“C'mon,” I said, nudging her elbow in the direction of the Camaro.

“No,” she said, this time with more force. “I don't want anything from you.”

With that, she turned on her heel and headed for the direction of our neighborhood. I thought about calling after her. I thought about what I could say to make things right between us. I thought about so many things that I couldn't think of a single thing to say before she made it two blocks, then turned down a side street and disappeared from my view.

 

34

The football game that Friday night was a somber event. Dad had not been invited to deliver the opening prayer this time, though the home fans were overwhelmingly of the Baptist persuasion. This was probably done as a show of respect for the feelings of Grant's family, who attended the game despite Grant's absence.

I didn't want to attend the game, but Penny and Tony had pressed me, making me promise to go. We would all go out to party after the game. A great time, they promised.

Sitting in the bleachers, the field was the only safe place to train my eyes. I sat in the front row so I couldn't see the way people in the crowd studied me, or look at Grant's mother, who kept a handkerchief pressed to her mouth as if to hold in her grief.

The Methodist preacher who led the opening prayer mentioned Grant and asked everyone to observe a moment of silence, but it felt more like a show than it did genuine regret about his absence. The home side seemed to be more upset about the implications for the team's season record than it did about grief over Grant's accident.

The flowers and mementos had been removed from the home goalpost, but Grant was there with us in spirit. His absence was a looming presence for me.

Delilah was doing a really good job of ignoring my existence. I saw her at the game when I was waiting to buy snacks from the Booster Club booth during halftime, but even with steely glances in her direction I could not get her to acknowledge me in any way. It was as if she could render me invisible. Like it was her superpower. I wasn't sure what I would say to her even if I could get her attention, but I didn't think about it too much. I was quickly caught up in the excitement everyone had for homecoming plans.

No one talked much about the game itself other than to lament the fact that the team would be in sore shape without its captain. The role of captain had fallen to Tony, who played a receiving position. With his reserved, quiet nature, he was better suited as a second-in-command. But with his commanding officer dead, or in a coma at least, Tony had stepped into the role with stoic dread.

I was just at the game to kill time before the after-party, unsure where to put myself so that I was inconspicuous. It was almost impossible not to draw attention, since everyone was still talking about Grant and his accident. People maintained a veneer of politeness by not staring at me constantly, but I could sense them nod their heads in my direction, whispering to the person they were with. “There he is. That's the boy who tried to kill Grant Parker.” I could almost hear them saying it, until the din of the crowd just became a repeat of their murmured convictions and sentencings of my character.

It was an isolating feeling. I hadn't spoken to Don or Aaron since I started hanging out with Penny and her crowd, and I didn't feel comfortable seeking out the dork squad to sit with. Besides, Penny would kill me if Don and Aaron got the idea they could go to the party with us after the game.