The church was a long gray building striped with stained glass and flanked by a bed of pansies. The neatly mulched flowers seemed too flimsy, out of place, penned in by a monkey grass border. Everything was too loud, too hot and bright—the traffic whizzing by and the damp steaming gutters. What did any of this have to do with Danielle? I wished I could disappear. I already regretted the stupid dress.

Arctic air-conditioning flooded the hall. The floors and walls, even the air, seemed polished to a sheen. Three sets of windowed double doors led into the chapel or the sanctuary, whatever you called it. I took a seat near the exit. People packed the place. They had decent clothes, refined bearing—Sally’s friends. They weren’t anybody Danielle would hang around with.

The minister lady read prayers and went on for a while about Jesus. Her voice sounded flushed, excited. The whole place felt wound up. Men tapped their knuckles, fidgeting. Women adjusted their clothes, patted their hair. It was because of the murder, and Danielle’s youth, her beauty. They were delighted to be there, to be sad and outraged, a little afraid. To wonder who did it. To be part of it.

I couldn’t shake the sense that this funeral, the murder, the cops, it was all some practical joke, that Danielle would walk in at any moment, laughing at us for being so serious.

For some reason I kept thinking of the difficult times with her. Once I’d slept at her house on a school night and we were smoking a joint by the pool. She was in a bad mood, mad at Sally, probably, and taking it out on me. I’d been reading García Márquez, and I read a line aloud to Danielle. Halfway through I could tell she thought it was lame. I finished the sentence anyway, and she said, “Yeah, that’s really interesting.” Sarcastic. She stubbed out the joint and dropped it in her pocket. “There’s a Marilyn Monroe movie on cable.”

She always decided what was cool and what was not. To me it seemed arbitrary. I tried to keep up, but I was always missing some important, supposedly obvious detail. Why did we like Marilyn Monroe movies and not One Hundred Years of Solitude? I had no idea. What could I do except follow her. She grinned at me and poured us drinks from Sally’s liquor cabinet. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, stretched under a blanket in the air-conditioning, and she took my foot in her lap, absently, staring at the screen. I nearly cried in gratitude for the smile, the touch. I watched the movie and pretended I was fine. I laughed when she did. She had so much power over me. I used to get scared by how much I loved her and needed her.

The congregation stood for a hymn and I snuck out the door. I was freezing. I stepped into the hot afternoon. Reporters and camera people lined the steps. They glanced at me and away. I stood on the sidewalk and smoked.