don’t score 1600 on the PSATs. Typical teenage boys aren’t beaten by their fathers when they score A-’s instead of A’s. But that’s getting off track, because I’d reached what I felt was a logical conclusion and that left me sort of…satisfied. So I went to school the next day determined to speak to Lynette and share with her my realization.”
“Oh, Rafe, tell me you didn’t.”
“Oh, I did. I thought I owed it to her. I wanted her to understand that it wasn’t her fault. I wanted her to understand that I was, in fact, superficial, and it was my problem and there was nothing she could do about it. Esme, I thought I was carrying out an errand of mercy. I wanted to stop leading her on.”
“That poor girl.”
Again, Rafe chuckled. “You obviously didn’t know her very well. Because I told her this, between home-room and first period, and she didn’t slap me or cry or yell or do any of the things that in retrospect she had every right to do. She just smiled at me with those blue eyes and thanked me and that was that. And nothing changed.”
“I’ll bet she came home that night and cried herself to sleep.” Esme looked around the room. This was her home. This was her bed. This was where Lynette had retreated that night.
“The next day, tickets for the senior prom went on sale. I had no one to ask. There were a few girls I had crushes on—don’t give me that look—but they were either unavailable or very much out of my league. But as silly as it sounds, I really wanted to go to the prom. It was a rite of passage. I was a sociologist even then. The senior prom was something I needed to experience. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to go stag.”
“So you asked Lynette.”
“Yes. I made it clear to her that we were just going as friends—which must have been just another stab in the gut—but she acted cool about it and asked me the color of my cummerbund so she could get a matching dress and I didn’t even know what a cummerbund was, but I learned. And on the night of the prom, I wore a black tuxedo with a teal cummerbund and I showed up at that front door and there she was, beautiful, wearing these earrings. They matched her dress so perfectly. And we left.
“We went to the prom. We had a good time. We ate, we danced. We laughed. We always got along okay. And it was obvious she was still into me. And you’d think that maybe, just maybe, with the dress and these earrings and the magical occasion, that I’d fall for her, and I knew that’s what Lynette hoped. I could see it in her blue eyes. But I felt…nothing. And as the night wore on, I knew that this was not going to be a happy ending, but there was nothing I could do short of faking an illness, and that’s more my cousin Randy’s thing, anyway.
“So I ate and danced and laughed and then it was time to go home. And I drove her home. I walked her to the front door. This was the moment. It would have been so easy to just lean in and kiss her good-night. Even if it were just on the cheek, it would have been the right thing to do. But I knew how she felt and I didn’t want to lead her on. We stood on her front stoop and she looked up at me with those blue eyes and I…shook her hand. And then I left.”
“Oh, Rafe…”
He wiped his eyes. “We saw each other in class the next day, and the day after that, and we said hi to each other in the hallway, but that spark I used to see in her was gone. I’d extinguished it. I’d killed it. And now another monster has come along and I need you to find him and I need you to put him down because, you see, maybe if I do this for her, maybe…I don’t know…she’ll forgive me. And if she can forgive me…maybe someday you can, too.”
4
After the reception, Lynette’s boyfriend, Charlie Weyngold, was brought to the county sheriff’s office for questioning. He came willingly. Rafe and Esme, with the sheriff’s reluctant permission, accompanied them on the trek through the snow, almost three inches now and rising by the hour. On their