Death Before Facebook

button were perfectly candid on threesomes, dogs “trained to give pleasure,” nippling (an invention of the person who described it), and various degrees of bondage.
    Dazed, Skip hustled out and over to “Books” as an antidote. If she had expected high literary discourse, she didn’t find it in the first topic she tried, “What’s so great about
The Secret
History?”
    The posts went something like this:
    “Loved, loved, loved it. Do yourself a favor and race right out.”
    “Couldn’t stand the characters.”
    “Well, I’ve known assholes like that. But what an absurdly implausible plot!”
    She was tempted to post something like: “I think what the author was trying to do, Georgie and Rinty, was create an allegory in which neither the plot nor the characters really mattered. Rather, it was her view of the moral bankruptcy of the modem college student—”
    Something stupid and meaningless—well, laughable, actually—but at least it would show these creeps who were taking up her time with their unsolicited goddamn opinions. Who cared?
    Certainly not Skip. Not even a little bit. She was bored nearly to distraction by “liked it,” “didn’t,” “did for a different reason,” “didn’t either,” which truly seemed a big part of most conferences that weren’t specifically set up for something—like games, or working out computer problems, or trading information on where to buy things. Every time she nearly numbed out from the boredom she simply went to another topic, another conference. She was absolutely astonished when she checked her watch and noticed it was three-thirty A.M.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “MAMA, NO!”
    “No what, honey?” asked Lenore. Caitlin had been fussy lately.
    “Yuck!”
    “You don’t like the soup?”
    “Hate the soup.”
    So she had to dump it and make noodles. Caitlin had eaten noodles for the fifth straight day in a row. They said at day care that she ate other things at lunch, even now and then consumed a vegetable or two, but Lenore wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to get anemia and vitamin deficiency from steady starch.
    “An orange for dessert?”
    “No!”
    “Yes.”
    “Uh-uh.” And the kid banged her spoon on the table to make her point.
    “You’re so cute when you’re mad.”
    Caitlin just stared at her, unable to comprehend. Or else she did comprehend and thought the remark as stupid as Lenore did. But she had said it out of the sudden rush of love that came over her as Caitlin’s alien gold curls caught the light.
    Her father had been black—“had been” because Lenore only saw him once. Or at any rate he had been a Creole, someone with more white blood than black, probably, but “black” all the same. He was a beautiful tall tan man (as well as she could remember) with hair lighter than Lenore’s, but not nearly so light as Caitlin’s, which was curly as poodle fur and shot through with gold. Not blond, but pure gold. Her skin was dark walnut, the most beautiful color Lenore had ever seen on a human being, and she was chubby, with tiny little creases in her arms and legs.
    “Okay. Mom’s dumb, huh?’
    “Yes. Yes!” Now Caitlin was banging happily, delightedly.
    “Honey, don’t get so worked up so close to bedtime. Let’s go take a bath, okay?’
    “No!” But she smiled when she said it.
    Half an hour later, Caitlin was fresh in a white nightgown with Mickey Mouse faces all over it, and Lenore was suddenly overcome with the burdens of the day, with missing Geoff.
    “Bedtime, honey.”
    “Story!”
    “Not tonight. Mama’s too tired.”
    “G’night Moon.”
    “That’s right. Good night to you too, Moon.”
    “Book.”
    She spoke sharply. “I said no, Caitlin.”
    And suddenly, it was the great flood of Tupelo. Damn! The slightest little thing and the kid tuned up and cried.
    “Goddammit Caitlin, shut up!”
    That only made her cry more.
    Well, there was nothing to do but rock her, which Lenore did until they were both asleep. Lenore came to with a start, grateful she hadn’t dropped the baby in her sleep.
    She put Caitlin to bed, but she couldn’t go herself yet. There were things to do. Many, many things to do.
    She began to get things out—the black altar cloth, the black candles, the cauldron, the ritual black-handled knife. She was so tired….
    A bath first. It would wake her up and she needed to do it anyway, to purify herself, to get ready. She put out her black robe.
    She put herbs in the water—vervain,