Zachary stopped wandering when he reached the fringes. He felt more comfortable on the outside of any crowd. Leaning against the brick storefront of Dream’s Bridal, the outmoded boutique across from Greeley’s Foods, he checked his messages to see if his friends were coming to watch the circus.
Damn. Drew and his brother were headed to an out-of-town wrestling match, and Brittani’s mom had quarantined her until David was behind bars.
David Thurston Ware was born two days after Zachary. Zachary had been held back in eighth grade, so he was still only a junior, but they’d spent enough time together that he knew David wasn’t what he seemed. Osborne was raring to cast ominous insights onto his character today, but just last night they’d been confused. I can’t believe it, they’d said. He seemed like such a normal teenage boy.
Years ago, Zachary and David had lived next door to each other. Like most children who happen to be neighbors, that also made them friends. They watched cartoons, played Legos, went dirt biking. Zachary remembered David as a quiet kid prone to sudden outbursts. Unlike Zachary, who yelled at and threatened and terrorized the younger neighborhood boys, David held in his anger until he couldn’t anymore. Until he snapped.
Admittedly, Zachary was no role model. But he still didn’t think holding it in was healthy. He’d never forget the day when he’d borrowed David’s new bike without asking, something he’d done a dozen times before, and David flew into the street and shoved him to the ground. The fall broke Zachary’s arm, but that wasn’t what had scared him.
It was the unbridled rage on David’s face.
At the time, Zachary shook it off. Fair was fair. But deep down, it unsettled him that David had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere. He must have been hiding in the bushes. He’d been waiting.
But geography had been stronger than their friendship. When Zachary’s mom remarried, his family moved into the trailer park, and things with David came to their natural end. The last time Zachary remembered talking to him was nearly two years ago, when they’d run into each other in the candy aisle of the drugstore. They’d debated the merits of chocolates versus gummies like they were kids again.
A new text vibrated in Zachary’s hand: BUSTED. ERIKA SAW U AT THE MEMORIAL!! GET UR ASS HOME RIGHT NOW!!!!!
Not Drew, not Brittani.
Amber. Mom. Erika was Amber’s coworker at Curlz & Cutz. She was only a few years older than him, and she was hot. Dark hair, sexy tattoo. Why had she ratted him out? Fuck that. Fuck them both. No way was he going home for some quality time with Terry. Amber picked the worst times to give a shit about him.
On the stage, Principal Stanton exited to make way for Pastor Greeley from Grace Lutheran, who introduced his son, Caleb. The Greeley family ran Osborne. The pastor’s brother owned the grocery store and several of the buildings downtown. Their father founded the grocery store and had been mayor for a record-number of terms. They were the opposite of Zachary’s family, and Zachary resented them for it.
Caleb was a senior, like David. Like Zachary was supposed to be. Caleb was round-eyed, square-faced, and as earnest as his khakis, but as he spoke about their classmates, it sounded like he hadn’t really known them. He talked about Haley, Matt, and Rodrigo by using pull quotes that Zachary recognized from the news.
Zachary grew irritated. And then bored. His gaze roamed until it settled on a very pretty girl—a very pretty girl who was heading straight toward him.
Caleb Greeley hopped off the flatbed truck with as much dignity and respect for the dead as possible. He strolled to the edge of the crowd, and then, as his father raised his hands to address them, sprinted down the side alleys to the grocery store’s parking lot.
Caleb played first trumpet. He didn’t want to miss his second act.
After the sermon, his father would lead the crowd in a prayer, and then the band would march everybody up from Main Street to the memorial of flowers and cards in front of the high school. Everyone would be holding a candle. A cable-news program had donated them, though Caleb doubted the gesture was made out of goodwill. More likely, someone with a lot of money had recognized that it’d look better on television if the thousand crying marchers were also holding a thousand lit candles.
Caleb understood this, even if he didn’t respect it. He was an overachiever, too. He’d been the youth leader for Grace Lutheran Church since he was fifteen and the trumpet section leader for the O.H.S. marching band since sixteen. Excelling in all his classes, he’d successfully campaigned to remove the word evolution from their textbooks, and he already had post–high school plans to do missionary work in Papua New Guinea. He would be the first Greeley to leave Nebraska in several generations.
His belongings were on the loading dock behind the store, where he’d left them. He hurried into the bibbed trousers and jacket—freshly dry-cleaned, that pungent uniform smell impossible to erase—and slid into the padded shoes. Slipped on the white gloves. Reaching for his hat, he realized it was missing its gold plume. Caleb grabbed his instrument and ran toward his section. “Alex! Have you seen my plume?”
Alex Shimerda’s lip curled. “No one wants to see your plume, Caleb. Gross.”
His face grew red with embarrassment. He hated jokes like that. They made him uncomfortable. “Has anyone seen my plume?”
The trumpeters who bothered to pay attention shrugged.
“Thanks for the help,” Caleb muttered, jogging away.
“Ask the boosters,” Alex called out.
But they hadn’t seen it, either. A mother with a bobbed mom-hairdo scolded him. “It wasn’t in your hat box? You’ll have to pay to replace that, you know.”
“I had it earlier. I must have left it in the store.” Before the memorial, he’d been practicing his speech inside the employee break room.
“Better hurry,” she said.
As he fumbled with the key to the back entrance, Alex dashed over to him. “We’re lining up. It’s just a stupid plume. Don’t worry about it.”
“Have you seen how many television crews are out there?”
Alex looked startled. And then her disgust returned. “Right. You wouldn’t want to look bad on TV.” She shook her head as she stalked away.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” The key rattled inside the lock, but it wouldn’t twist. Dang it. Caleb didn’t care how he looked. He didn’t want the band to look bad as a whole. It would be awful if they appeared sloppy—like they didn’t care about the victims—because they all cared. They cared about their classmates a lot.
The key gave way, and Caleb burst through the door.