You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (9 page)

But Luke wasn't interested. By that time, he was comfortably set up in his town house, finishing up a new play, and had already met Andrea.

Still, Evelyn kept up the same routine of subtly flirting with him whenever he dropped off Damon from their alternate weekends together. He was also seeing Evelyn at the school—for impromptu conferences with Damon's principal over the bullying. After these meetings, she'd coyly ask how he was doing. And she'd ask about
Amber
or
Amanda
. She seemed to have a mental block on Andrea's name—like Endora never getting Darrin's name right on
Bewitched
.

Luke had come to see through Evelyn's melancholy vamp act. He also couldn't help wondering if she'd been the one behind Andrea's apartment being vandalized and broken into. Maybe Evelyn had hired someone to do it—or manipulated poor Damon into carrying out her dirty work for her. Luke had confronted her about it. Acting insulted, Evelyn had vehemently denied doing anything to harass
Angela
.

The last time he'd seen Evelyn was three weeks ago, after one of those meetings at the school. At the time, it seemed they'd managed to curtail the physical abuse heaped upon their son—the shoving and tripping. But that didn't stop Damon from being ostracized and teased.

“I really want Damon to get some therapy,” he told her as they walked toward the school parking lot. It was a beautiful, balmy September evening. “He needs to talk to a professional about what he's going through—what he's been through. I know you don't like therapists, but I really wish you'd reconsider it, Evelyn.”

“All right, I will.” Her eyes searched his, and she sighed. “You know, that whole thing with Troy was a huge mistake. You were right about him, of course. What a loser. I mean, the guy had a meth habit, for God's sake.” She blushed and gave a little shrug. “I've been seeing this younger guy, very energetic. It's been sort of off and on. It's off right now.” She laughed. “I don't think I like being a cougar . . .”

He tried to work up a smile. But all he could think was that Evelyn hadn't changed one bit. He'd been so worried about Damon. And Evelyn wanted to take this moment to flirt and talk about her love life.

“Well, I'm sure you'll find somebody who will suit you,” he said. “In the meantime, see if you can't get Damon on board with this idea of seeing a therapist. Okay?”

“Of course, sure,” she said. “G'night, Luke.”

She touched his arm, and then turned to head toward her BMW. He watched her. She was wearing black slacks and a pink sweater, which always made her look sensational. She knew it, too.

The next time he saw Evelyn, she was bound and gagged in the backseat of that same BMW—and she would be dead within minutes.

No one talked about that at the memorial service.

Yet it was certainly on everyone's mind. Segments of Damon's webcast had gone viral. For the second time in his life, Luke was featured in a
People
magazine article—this time about his son's suicide, the murders, and the hot topic of bullying in schools.

A single TV news van was parked in front of the Ballard Bay Club to cover the memorial, not much of a media presence compared to last week.

That was because KC Cunningham's funeral was being held across town at the same time. The pretty cheerleader's death—and the scandalous revelation that she'd been having sex with her English teacher—was a bigger, juicier news story. It was all over the Internet that McAfee had nude photos of KC on his home computer. The press was still digging for more lurid details.

The bullied high school boy who had killed his mother and himself was now yesterday's news. Reporters had stopped asking Luke for possible explanations about why his son had gone berserk. They were already on to the next story.

But Luke hadn't stopped asking himself why.

Cynthia Werth-Hyland finished her reminiscence to polite, dignified applause. “Next,” Cynthia said, “Damon's best friend at school, Tanya McCallum, will say a few words.”

Stepping down from the podium, Cynthia walked over to Luke. He got to his feet, and they hugged. “Thank you, Cyn,” he whispered.

He'd phoned her earlier in the week. In fact, he'd called several of Evelyn's friends. He'd asked Cynthia and all the rest of them the same thing: Had Evelyn recently mentioned anything that might explain why Damon had snapped the way he did?

“I'm sorry, Luke, but I haven't talked to Evelyn in weeks,” Cynthia had told him. “As for Damon's motives, I thought he was pretty clear about that in the video he made. It was all the bullying he had to put up with at school.”

He'd gotten pretty much the same response from the others. But Luke wasn't so sure it was that simple. If it was just about the bullying, why did Damon decide to kill his mother—along with himself? Luke couldn't help wondering if Evelyn had done something to trigger Damon's rage. Or had he found out something about her that had pushed him over the edge?

As Luke sat down again, a chilly breeze came up from the choppy gray water of Puget Sound. He felt it creep into his bones and shuddered.

He watched Damon's friend Tanya totter up the aisle in her thrift store funeral getup. He'd talked to her earlier this week, too. She didn't have anything to tell him—at least nothing new.

Yet Luke couldn't help thinking she knew more than she was letting on.

Maybe Damon's friend wasn't quite as silly as she looked.

CHAPTER NINE

S
pencer held his breath as Tanya stepped up to the podium.

She'd hardly been able to keep it together for the last twenty-five minutes. While the other guests shared their memories of Damon and his mother, she kept gasping and having these mini crying jags. How the hell did she think she was going to get through her speech?

She looked a bit crazy in the wide-brim black hat, the type a widow character might wear in the funeral scene from an old movie. Behind her, the setting sun colored the sky with streaks of orange and pink. Tanya's face was flushed and her eyes were bloodshot from crying. She visibly trembled as she gazed at the other mourners. She grimaced and let out a pained raspy sound—as if she'd just been hit in the stomach. Then she started crying—loud, heavy, inconsolable sobs.

Spencer felt awful for her. He kept waiting for Tanya to compose herself.

But she didn't even wipe her tears—or her runny nose. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but she merely let out another wail. She just stood there, having a breakdown in front of everyone. And it looked like she had no intention of stepping away from the podium.

Some people in the audience were squirming in their chairs or clearing their throats. Everyone seemed uncomfortable. She'd been up there blubbering for about three minutes now and hadn't yet said a damn thing.

Luke finally got to his feet—like he might come help her away from the podium. But Tanya shook her head at him, and he returned to his seat.

Then she just kept crying.

Spencer started to wonder if the tears were even real. At this point, it all seemed pretty self-indulgent and theatrical.

“Oh, for God's sake,” muttered a woman to her companion in the row behind Spencer. “Somebody give her the hook.”

Luke stood up once again and approached her.

Tanya wiped her eyes and shook her head at him again. But he ignored her this time. He started to lead her away from the podium, but she resisted. They had a whispered conference by the podium—in front of the restless guests.

Spencer started tapping his foot—as quietly as possible. He'd spent a lot of time in school this past week with Tanya. Some of that time was spent trying to avoid her. He felt sorry for her. But she could be exasperating, too. She'd sort of latched on to him. Spencer knew she desperately needed a friend, but he didn't want to be her substitute Damon.

One thing they had in common was that they were both appalled at how unremorseful Damon's chief tormentors seemed. Reed and Ron were pretty subdued on Monday, and sported the black ribbons most of the students and faculty wore at school that day. The focus of everyone's bereavement seemed to be the deaths of KC and Mr. McAfee—whose affair hadn't yet become public knowledge. No one talked about Damon as a “victim.” No one blamed the bullies for any of this. They blamed the mentally ill kid with all those quirky tics. If Dunmore had taken any kind of disciplinary action with Ron and Reed, no one knew about it.

By Wednesday, Damon's two main tormentors were as loud and as obnoxious as ever, cracking jokes and intimidating freshmen in the hallways. Spencer couldn't help scowling at them every time he saw them—along with certain members of their posse.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Ron bellowed at him. Reed was at his side—the baseball hat on backward, as usual. They were strutting toward him in the corridor, outside Spencer's fourth-period chemistry classroom.

Spencer realized they'd caught him glaring at them.

“What are you looking at?” Reed joined in.

A couple of worthless assholes
, Spencer wanted to answer. Instead, he shrugged. “Nothing,” he muttered, “absolutely nothing.”

He started to turn away, but Ron suddenly shoved him. Knocked off balance, Spencer slammed into a locker and dropped his books. It was more startling than painful.

“I've got my eye on you, faggot,” Ron growled.

His heart racing, Spencer watched the two of them swagger down the hallway.

“I think we've found our Freakazoid Two,” he heard Reed say to his pal, with a moronic little laugh. “I never liked that guy . . .”

Spencer remembered gathering his books from the floor. It had dawned on him at the time that Tanya wasn't the only one who had pegged him as a substitute Damon.

He watched her now, beside the podium, still sobbing. She shook her head at Luke, who tried to lead her back to her seat. She broke away and bolted back to the lectern. If there could have been a collective groan from the audience, it would have been now. But the people at this memorial were far too polite for that.

“I just need to say what no one else has been saying,” Tanya announced, finding the words at last. Still, her voice was shaky and shrill.

Standing a few feet away, Luke seemed painfully resigned to let Tanya have her moment.

“Damon Shuler did something horrible,” she went on. “Yes, that's true. But he was driven to it by a group of bullies at that school. Don't you people see? He didn't stand a chance. He was a nice guy. If people got to know him, they would have figured that out. He was my best friend. We understood each other. We were together on that—that ‘island of misfit toys' that Stephen Chbosky talks about in
Perks of Being a Wallflower
. . .”

Spencer sat up in his chair. After all that blubbering, Tanya was finally having her say—and she was saying it pretty well. She was right. All these polite people needed to hear this.

“Damon was always there for me,” she continued, her voice choked with emotion. “He was—well, he truly was the wind beneath my wings . . .”

She took a deep breath and unevenly warbled, “It must have been cold there in my shadow . . .”

His mouth open, Spencer warily watched her and thought,
Oh, no.

But, yes, Tanya was singing—croaking, really—“Wind Beneath My Wings.”

Off to the side, Luke seemed startled. For a moment, he stared at her with utter disbelief—as if she were crazy. Then he quickly put his fist in front of his mouth and looked down at the terrace floor.

Her singing improved by the second verse, and she had a nice voice. But belting the song out a cappella like that was just so awkward.

Tanya started to cry again during the third verse, and her voice kept cracking. But that didn't stop her from finishing the song. Since it was a service, no one applauded, which made things even more cringe-worthy. All Tanya got for her vocalizing were a few people clearing their throats again.

“My God,” the woman behind Spencer muttered. “After that, I could sure use a drink.”

She wasn't the only one.

Spencer watched the line of people at the wine bar once the speeches on the terrace were over. Luke hadn't given a tribute. He hadn't said anything—except at the end, when he'd thanked everyone for coming and invited them to stay for refreshments. Tanya had bolted to the restroom to check her face. Spencer was standing alone by a long table that had a dozen framed photos of Evelyn and Damon.

Andrea had helped Luke go through his collection of family snapshots. Then she'd scanned, printed, and set them inside various frames she and Luke already had on hand.

“I really hate how perfectly this picture fits in this frame,” Andrea had muttered to Spencer last night, sitting at Luke's dinner table—with Luke out of earshot. A beautiful portrait of Luke's estranged wife now occupied an elegant silver frame, covering up a shot of Spencer's dead grandmother—Andrea's mom. “Oh, well, it's only for one day—while we have these on display.”

Spencer got another chance to look at Andrea's handiwork while he waited for the line at the bar to dissipate. He really wanted a Coke.

One picture of a toddler-age Damon dressed up like a doctor—complete with a stethoscope around his neck and a white lab coat—was pretty cute, and heartbreaking. Spencer didn't recognize the frame. It must have been one of Luke's.

“We're in Ms. Donahue's chemistry class together,” said someone behind him.

Spencer turned around and gaped at Bonnie Middleton. Ron Jarvis's pretty girlfriend had her long chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail. Yet she looked very grown-up and sophisticated in a square-necked dark blue dress with short sleeves. “Your name's Spencer, isn't it?” she asked.

He nodded. “Spencer Murray. Hi.”

“We haven't officially met,” she said, clutching her small black handbag at her waist. “I'm Bonnie—”

“Yes, I know,” he said, nodding again. “You're Ron's girlfriend.”

She shrugged. “Well, you can put that in the past tense. We broke up this week.”

“Oh, um, sorry to hear that,” he murmured—for lack of anything else to say.

“Why would you be? I'm not.” She glanced around the ballroom and sighed. “No, what I'm sorry about is the way everyone treated poor Damon Shuler. I'm sorry that when he killed himself, he had me lumped in there with Ron, Reed, KC, and that whole group. I could have been nicer to him . . .”

Spencer remembered her in the cafeteria when everyone had been watching Damon's live webcast. She'd been the only one at the cool table who seemed upset.

He nervously adjusted his tie and then shoved his hands in his pockets. “I didn't see you out on the terrace. . .”

“I snuck in about twenty minutes ago,” she said. “I was at KC's service on Capitol Hill—along with most of the school. But I didn't go to the cemetery. I figured I'd come here instead. I owe Damon at least that much. On my way here, I made up my mind to introduce myself to Damon's father and apologize. I've never been tossed out of a memorial service before. I wonder what it's like.” She glanced around the room again. “So, are you here with Tanya?”

He quickly shook his head. “No, we just sort of ended up sitting together.”

“It's only that I've seen you and Tanya together a lot at school this past week. I thought maybe you two were dating or something.”

“Oh, God, no,” Spencer heard himself say.

“So why are you here? Were you and Damon friends?”

“Well, not exactly . . .” he trailed off.

“There's a story going around school that your aunt has been dating Damon's father. Is that true?”

Spencer hesitated. “Yeah, they've sort of been seeing each other.” Andrea wanted him to keep it on the down-low, especially at this event. But he didn't see any other way around it. “Um, she didn't come today, because she figured it would be kind of awkward.”

“So you live with your aunt?” Bonnie asked.

“Yeah, my parents died when I was eleven—car accident.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. How awful to lose them both at the same time like that . . .”

Spencer wanted to change the subject. He cleared his throat. “My aunt Andrea is a copyeditor. She helped edit
Ask a Tall, Dark Stranger
. It was a big bestseller.”

Bonnie nodded. “I've heard of that, but I haven't read it.” She seemed to work up a smile. “So, what did you think of Tanya's performance?”

“Um, very unusual,” he replied.

“I don't mean to be catty. But let's just say it's a good thing none of the kids from school were here to see it. Tanya would never live it down. By the way, she hates my guts. But then, you probably already knew that. I imagine she's trashed me to you—ad nauseam.”

Spencer shrugged. “Well, maybe she's not your biggest fan because you were going out with Ron. I mean, let's face it, the guy's been kind of a shit to Tanya and Damon—and me.”

She nodded glumly. “I'm sorry about that . . .”

“Do you think that's why Damon lumped you in with the others?” Spencer asked. “When he was naming all the people who bullied him, I wondered why he included you. Do you think it was, like, guilt by association—or was there something in particular you did to him?”

Bonnie grimaced a bit and said nothing.

Spencer immediately regretted asking her. But the question had been on his mind ever since he'd watched the cops lead her away from that crowded, muddy playfield last Thursday. Whatever she'd done, she was obviously sorry about it. She'd broken up with Ron, and she was here now, ready to make amends.

“Hey, listen, I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to put you on the spot. It's over and done with . . .”

“It's a perfectly legitimate question,” she murmured. “The police asked me the same thing . . .” She suddenly seemed distracted, and then nodded toward the buffet table. “Who's that? Do you know?”

Spencer followed her gaze—toward a thirty-something man with tousled black hair and one of those perfect five o'clock shadows. He wore a black suit with a black shirt and no tie. He was stuffing an appetizer in his mouth.

“You mean the guy dressed like he's in the mafia?” Spencer asked.

“You should have seen the way he was scowling at Damon's father a minute ago. If looks could kill . . .”

Spencer watched the man wolf down another hors d'oeuvre. He saw what Bonnie meant. The man looked dangerous—and he was glaring at Luke as if he wanted to murder him. Across the room, Luke quietly talked with one of the guests.

“I have no idea who that is,” Spencer murmured. “I wonder if he was even invited . . .”

“Well, one thing we do know,” said Tanya, coming up behind them. “
You
weren't invited, Bonnie.”

“No, I guess I wasn't,” she conceded. “Hi, Tanya. That's an interesting hat.”

“I got it at Goodwill, same with the dress,” Tanya replied. “You see, not everyone can afford to buy their bulimia-size designer clothes at Nordstrom.”