An answer came to me as I was getting in the car to go to my first job. I cared about Del’s death for two more reasons. Firstly, Bobo Winthrop was implicated, partly because of something I’d told Claude. Secondly, I was upset because Del had been killed in the gym, one of the few places I felt at home. So I cared about Del’s death, and I cared about payment for it.
Chapter Two
As the plain days passed, I missed Claude more and more.
He’d taken care of me a few months before when I’d been hurt. He’d helped me take a sink bath, he’d helped me dress, he’d helped me get back in bed. It had seemed quite natural to put on my makeup in front of him, an act he’d construed as indicating a lack of interest in him as a man.
I’d figured he’d seen the worst. The makeup had not been for him, but for the rest of the world.
The only true thing I found hiding in my psyche was that I missed Claude, missed his dropping over to share my lunch, missed his occasional appearance at my doorstep with Chinese takeout or a video he’d rented.
And another true thing was that I didn’t miss a dating relationship with Marshall. In fact, it felt good to slip back into comradeship and the teacher/student relationship we’d shared before. I found that disturbing.
I’d seen Del Packard’s sweetheart, Lindy Roland, on the street today. Lindy was a strapping girl, with big brown hair and a ready smile. But when I’d seen her, Lindy’s eyes had been red and her whole body seemed to sag. At Del’s funeral, according to the grapevine at Body Time, Lindy had gone to pieces. Now, there was Del, under the ground at Sweet Rest Cemetery, and here was Lindy, alone and lonely.