Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Leif stepped back and straightened his clip-on tie, hoping that listening to Rex talk about Alicia wouldn’t cause him to explode into a full waterworks display before he was able to say anything.

“I’m Rex, and this is my best friend, Leif, and we’re best friends with Alicia.” Rex was suddenly struck by the feeling that he couldn’t trust anyone in the pews. They all looked perfectly normal and perfectly sad, but so did Wayne Whitewood. “Uh, were”—he corrected himself—“We were best friends with Alicia.” Rex looked to Leif, inviting him to speak. Apparently this would be somewhat of a tag-team speech.

Leif took a deep breath and forced himself to begin. “I know,” he said, “that some of you think Alicia was ‘troubled’ or ‘a bad influence’ or, you know, something like that, but I never saw it that way. Alicia is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known.”

“I agree,” Rex said, even as he felt a paranoia gripping his chest more tightly by the second. “Alicia was the greatest. So smart and funny. And weird! But not bad weird, like ‘doing magic tricks in your room by yourself’ weird, but good weird, like ‘doing a magic trick that’s not even a magic trick because that’s the joke’ kinda weird.” He scanned the audience, simultaneously questioning why he’d decided to use magic as a gauge for weirdness and thinking he’d somehow know the faces of Alicia’s murderers—assuming members of Whitewood’s cult were out there—when he saw them.

Meanwhile, Leif was interpreting everything Rex was saying as an attempt to one-up him, to try to out-honor Alicia. He knew this wasn’t a competition, and sure, they both missed her, but what he had felt for her was more profound than Rex’s admiration of her lips. “Even more than all that,” Leif said decisively, “Alicia had a huge heart. You could see that with every person she met.”

“That’s for sure,” Rex said. “She could make anyone—” His eyes landed on Mary Hattaway, the secretary over at Second Baptist Church, sitting there in the fourth-row aisle seat. More specifically, his eyes landed on her hand.

Her carefully bandaged hand.

He looked at her face, where her cold eyes burned into his, even as she made it seem like she was genuinely mourning Alicia. He quickly looked away. “Sorry,” he said into the mic, clearing his throat. “Sorry.”

Leif glanced at Rex, who seemed to have gotten so choked up about Alicia that he’d needed to stop talking. He related, but why did Rex get to be the one to have the public emotional breakdown about her? If that was going to happen to anyone, it should be him!

“You know,” Leif said, before he’d even made the decision to do so, “I’ve never told anyone this, but I…I really…Since this past summer, I’ve had…feelings for Alicia. Like, more-than-friend feelings.” Leif heard his mom gasp as he took in the expressions of everyone else in the audience: some surprised, some sweetly moved. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that.

“What?” Rex asked, off-mic.

“I never got a chance to tell her how I feel,” Leif continued, ignoring Rex, “but I wish I had. You can’t waste a moment, you know? Because, if you do, the person you care about might, you know…they might be gone.”

The crowd was silent, as if absorbing the profundity of what Leif had just said.

“Whoaaa,” Mark Hornhat said from the back of the room.

Rex was absorbing Leif’s words too. He’d recalled their conversation about Alicia back on the rocks. Why hadn’t Leif said anything then? Their friendship had always been built on honesty. That’s what made it work. He was stunned. He couldn’t really dwell on that at the moment, though, because seeing the Boykinses’ devastated faces reminded him there was something more important to address.

“He’s right,” Rex said into the mic. “We can’t waste a moment. Which is why we need to tell you what actually happened to Alicia.”

“What?” Leif said off-mic, now his turn to be surprised.

“Everybody praises Mr. Whitewood and his school for saving the town or whatever, but I don’t see what’s so praiseworthy about murdering kids.”

Leif’s mom gasped again, as did Rex’s and the majority of the other people sitting in the pews.

“I mean, how many ‘freak accidents’ can one school have?” Rex continued. “Four dead kids in, like, a decade? Doesn’t that strike you as at least slightly disturbing? Right, Leif?”

“Uh,” Leif said into the mic, not quite understanding how even a soul-baring moment like the one he’d just had could be wrested away by Rex. “I agree that it seems a little fishy.”

“It’s more than fishy!” Rex said. “This man is a killer!” He pointed at Whitewood, and the crowd again gasped. Rex hoped it was the sort of gasp you’d hear at the end of a murder mystery, but he had the feeling it was actually disgust at his insolence. He couldn’t stop, though. “And we’re just gonna let him play the organ at the funeral of the girl he killed? That’s not right! You’ll never believe what we saw at the spri—”

“Now, now, that’s just about enough,” Wayne Whitewood said, standing up from the organ. He’d shouted the words, but he didn’t look angry. In fact, he seemed to be radiating warmth and kindness.

“See?” Rex said into the mic, terrified but knowing he needed to press on. “He doesn’t want us telling you—”

Whitewood stepped between Rex and Leif and covered the microphone. He lifted his hand, adjusting the mic to his level before putting an arm around each of the boys. Rex and Leif stayed completely still (or as still as they could while trembling), convinced they were about to be murdered in public.

“I’m truly sorry to interrupt you fellas,” Whitewood said into the mic in a quiet, gentle voice, “but I don’t think your words are really appropriate for the occasion. Trust me, I get it. As most people here know, I understand grieving very well. I lost my wife and my daughter.” There were tears in Whitewood’s eyes. “And just like you, I wanted to blame someone. When grief takes ahold of you…well, it’s not pretty. But I promise you boys…it will get better. Time makes everything better.”

“Bless you, Mr. Whitewood,” said a man from the crowd.

Whitewood nodded and smiled. “Now, why don’t you fellas get back to your seats? You said some beautiful things about your friend, and I know her family appreciates it.”

For lack of any other options, Leif and Rex stepped back from the podium and walked wordlessly to their seats, careful not to make eye contact with anyone, especially their parents. They stared forward as their sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Crawford, began to talk about what a joy Alicia had been to have in class.

—

AS JANINE AND Donna walked side by side across the lobby of the Shackelford Funeral Home, weaving through clusters of people and looking for the teenage boys Janine had met that day in Li’l Dino’s—the ones who had just bravely called out Whitewood during their best friend’s funeral service—Janine couldn’t help but feel a tinge of satisfaction.

The Gnome Girls were back.

Well, not entirely—Donna still wasn’t saying a lot and seemed to sporadically regress back into the aloof version of herself at unpredictable moments—but it was certainly a start.

With Donna by her side, Janine almost didn’t mind the stares and frowns that had been aimed in their direction all afternoon. Their attire certainly wasn’t helping. Since she, understandably, hadn’t packed anything funereal, Janine was wearing one of GamGam’s dresses, a matronly black number that was so baggy she’d had to pull it back in various places with safety pins. Donna didn’t have that excuse, but she’d opted to wear a puffy-shouldered black dress over a pair of torn blue jeans and black Chuck Taylors. They looked like Addams Family rejects.