The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker

 

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For Greg Andree's butt, second only to his beautiful, dangerous mind

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once again, just when I thought a book idea could never possibly work, my amazing editor, Sara Goodman, made it a reality. I love this book, Sara. Thanks to my agent, Barbara Poelle, for consistently loving the wacky stories I pitch to her. It takes a certain level of crazy to appreciate some of my ideas.

Endless thanks (truly, impossible to thank enough) to Greg Andree for his encouragement, edits, suggestions, and enthusiasm for this book. I could not have finished a first draft without his help. When you find a friend who can appreciate a good Eva Braun joke, you keep them forever. I'm so glad to have found the entire Andree family because I think, though he can be hilarious, Greg's wife, Jess, is actually more entertaining than he is.

A shout-out to the strong, brilliant, and courageous women in my life who never stop believing that I'm amazing even though on most days, I'm not. Deepest love for Jill Deiss, Amy Ferguson, Cristina Finan, Lydia Gershman, Annette Kielkopf, Erica Orloff, and Christina Sobran.

Thanks to the service industry heroes who give me what I want and then leave me alone to write books. I'm always happy to see the faces of Frank and Oyuka at The Tabard Inn, and Dana, Nathan, and Steve at Northside Grille.

And for Jack, Josie, and Ingrid, who continue to amaze me every day with their wit, charm, and senses of humor and keep our house full of love and laughter. Biology notwithstanding, they are the best people I've ever known.

 

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

—FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

 

1

When I imagined my first day of school in Ashland, Tennessee, it was me rolling up to the parking lot in a classic muscle car, the radio blaring with some hard-rocking song to match my awesome ride, sunlight glinting off of polished chrome, and heads turning to catch a glimpse of me, the mysterious new kid, at the wheel with sunglasses on.

The fact that I was an outsider would make me an enigma, a mystery to these sheltered, small-town, hopelessly backward hicks.

The reality was nothing like my fantasy.

*   *   *

It was the Tuesday after Labor Day, the weather still hot and dusty despite our proximity to the mountains and the calendar's promise of autumn. I had planned to ride my bike to school, but Dad insisted on driving me for my first day. He pulled straight up to the front of the building, flagrantly violating the buses-only restriction, in his mint-green RAV4 with a
JESUS IS MY COPILOT
bumper sticker.

I had been living with Dad for only two weeks, and things were still strained between us. It was hard for me to imagine that I would ever feel really comfortable with my dad. After all, because of my taste in music and the fact that I didn't accept Jesus as my savior, according to his belief system I was destined to burn in a fiery hell for all eternity. I had a feeling that was going to make Christmas dinner uncomfortable for at least one of us.

“Dad, you aren't supposed to drive up here,” I said, my patience shortened by crippling embarrassment.

“Darn,” Dad said, the closest he ever came to swearing, “I thought this was the entrance to the parking lot.” He jerked to a stop and then, to make matters a hundred times worse, put the car into reverse and started to back out of the bus lane.

The bus pulling in behind us honked with alarm as Dad almost backed straight into the bumper of the giant yellow grille that loomed in the rearview mirror. Dad raised his hand in a friendly wave, as if genuinely grateful for the update that he was, in fact, the worst driver on the planet.

He inched forward but was now stuck waiting for the throng of students who poured in from the parking lot toward the main entrance. Every single person who passed turned to study us curiously, and I wanted to sink below the dash and disappear.

“I'll pull around and park,” Dad said. “I want to walk you in. Make sure you find the office.”

“You really don't have to,” I said. “Mom hasn't gone with me for my first day of school since second grade.”

“I think the school would expect me to be with you,” he said.

“Dad. I'm seventeen. Not a child.”

“You know,” he said, ignoring my protest and circling back to our earlier conversation, “I specifically asked your mother to take you out shopping for some suitable school clothes before you moved. There isn't as broad a selection available here as there is in the city.”

His tone when he said “city” conveyed disdain, as if Washington, DC, where I had lived for the past thirteen years, were the biblical Sodom or Gomorrah.

“She
did
take me shopping for school clothes,” I said.

“Then why,” he asked, “are you wearing that T-shirt for the first day of school?”

“She bought me this shirt,” I said. A blatant lie. My mother had given me her credit card and told me to go out and buy clothes similar to the uniform I wore to the private school I had attended in DC. I had ignored her instructions, of course, and returned with only jeans and T-shirts and hoodies. I was sick of wearing a tie and collared shirts and blazers and considered the lack of a uniform the only advantage to attending my new public school.

Dad sighed wearily and waited for the students crossing the bus lane in a reluctant herd to clear.

“I'll be fine,” I said, opening the door and evacuating before he could move the car.

*   *   *

A new student might have gone unnoticed for days or weeks (maybe months if he played his cards right) at my old school. Washington, DC, was such a transient city that people were always coming and going. But in Ashland, I might as well have been wearing a bell announcing myself as a leper. People stared and spoke in low voices to each other as I passed in the hallway.

If I heard laughter, I assumed it was directed toward me, as if everything about me was under scrutiny—my clothes, my hair, the way I walked, the Mount Vesuvius–like stress pimple that had erupted on my chin that morning.

The only thing I had going for me, maybe, was that my appearance was almost depressingly average. I might as well have been wallpaper. And that was exactly the way I wanted it—to blend into the background and go unnoticed.

I managed to find the office without asking anyone for directions, and the receptionist greeted me in a southern drawl so outrageous it seemed like it had to be a put-on.

“I'm Luke Grayson,” I said. “I'm new here.” Captain Obvious. As a stranger in Ashland, I stuck out like a boner in sweatpants.

“Well,” she said, the word gusting out as she folded her hands on the desk and pressed them into her bosom, “I go to your daddy's church, and I never knew anything about Pastor Grayson having a son until we got word you were coming. Of course, he's such a busy man, what with all the goings-on we've had since Easter. Three funerals in as many months. Never a good sign if a church has more funerals than baptisms, wouldn't you say?”

I wouldn't,
but I kept my mouth shut and tried to convey concern in my expression, though it was a lie. The tardy bell rang as she droned on about the business of my dad's church, and I feigned interest, while in my mind all I could really focus on was the fact that I would now have to enter class late and be even more of a spectacle than I already was.

“Principal Sherman wants to have a quick visit with you before you start the day,” the receptionist said, once it was obvious I was going to fail miserably at making small talk, and then she picked up the receiver of the ancient desk phone.

As I was shown into the principal's office he came around from behind his desk to shake my hand and gestured for me to take one of the hard-backed chairs, though a leather couch along one wall offered a more comfortable option. He was middle-aged, with the paunch of a former football player, and his doughy hands clashed with the tailored suit he wore. His desk was an ocean of polished oak, and my chair was at least a few inches lower to the ground than his so that I felt small and insignificant sitting across from him. I disliked him immediately, feeling that he would have been more at home on a used-car lot than in a high school administration office. And once he started talking, I knew the disproportionate height of the chairs and the size of the desk were both power plays, his intention to make whoever sat across from him feel powerless.

“So, Mr. Grayson,” he said as he crossed one leg over the other, shot his cuffs, and twitched his hand to settle a heavy gold watch against a meaty wrist. “How are you settling in?”

“Uh. Fine, I guess.” My response came out as a wavering question since I wasn't sure how well I should have settled in during the five minutes I had been at Wakefield High School.

He just nodded at my answer, as if it was the response he had been expecting but wasn't really interested in whether it was true.

The ocean of wood between us housed only a phone and a pen holder with a faux-bronze nameplate on the front of it. The name
LESLIE G. SHERMAN
was inscribed on the plaque. I wondered what the “G” stood for and how he felt about having a girl's name. I could only assume the “G” stood for something worse than Leslie. I was distracted with trying to think of a name worse than Leslie that started with a “G”—
Garfield? Grover?
—when he startled me with his attack run.

“Since it's your first day here I'm not going to make a federal case out of it, but we do have a student dress code.” He was looking so pointedly at my chest that I couldn't help but steal a self-conscious glance at my Death Cab for Cutie T-shirt. My stepmom, Doris, had already made a federal case out of my shirt that morning at breakfast.

“Oh. Really?” I asked innocently.

“Yes. Really,” he said with such condescension that I wondered if he had kids of his own who hated him. “T-shirts with printed designs have been strictly forbidden since the Columbine tragedy.” His expression conveyed the very real concern that my T-shirt would inspire a Columbine-like incident.