Death Before Facebook

department’s interest in it.
    “Emmeline Norwood called her to say she was sorry about Geoff and Marguerite told her about you.”
    “Which Emmeline couldn’t wait to report to you.”
    “Not exactly. She told Reenie Vauxhall, who’s my day-care lady. Marguerite’s a lot older than we are, of course, but I took music lessons from her mama; half the kids in town did. Christina Julian—remember her?”
    “I took ballet—to make me graceful.”
    “Skippy, cut that out.” One of the things that endeared her to Skip was the fact that, though she participated in Southern self-deprecation to a tedious degree, she never let Skip do it. “Old Mrs. Julian was married to Wyndham Julian, known as Windy to friend and foe alike, and generally agreed to be the world’s most boring man. He taught history at Newcomb.”
    “Wait a minute—I think I’ve heard stories about him. Is that possible? How long ago was he there?”
    “Oh, about twenty years before you were, I guess. But Windy was famous. Died one day, right in class. Witnesses at the scene said they didn’t even notice. Well, Christina truly had a beautiful voice—I mean, really spectacular. She used to sing in the choir at Trinity—remember?”
    “I guess not.” Skip felt silly. She’d been made to go to church at Trinity nearly every Sunday of her grade school life, but under torture from Torquemada couldn’t have said what had gone on there. Her mind had been elsewhere—on the compelling subject, for instance, of ingenious ways to dispatch a pesky sibling; or on modes of transportation that led far, far away from the city of her birth.
    “Everybody thought she could have been an opera singer, but it didn’t turn out to be true—she went to New York before she was twenty-five, but nothing worked out. When she came back, she was a broken woman. Of course, everyone suspected a failed romance contributed to her low spirits, especially when she up and married the egregious Windy. She knew enough about the piano to teach, and also she gave voice lessons, but I guess there wasn’t nearly as much demand for that. Had this big old house over on Octavia Street—”
    “Marguerite still lives there.”
    “Well, that’s part of the story. My mother used to go there for her lessons. But by the time I came along, Mrs. J lived in an apartment. God, it was a drag!”
    “What was a drag?”
    “Just going over there. She was so sad—her whole approach to music was sighs and languor. Or maybe that was her approach to life. She didn’t get what she wanted and spent the rest of her life in mourning for it. She was a nice woman, though. Aside from being a terrible snob.”
    “She was a snob?”
    “I can’t think why. She was from Mississippi or someplace. Anyway, she was nice to her students, I think—most of the girls liked her a lot, but God knows what she was like with her own daughter. I mean, Marguerite did everything she could think of that her mother would really hate—there must have been a reason for it, don’t you think?”
    “All this must have happened years before your time.”
    “Well, it did, of course. Marguerite was always held up to me as an example of how a daughter can disappoint—not to mention how she’ll come to a bad end.”
    “What did she do that was so bad?”
    “The worst thing a kid could do in 1967. Grew her hair long and became a folksinger.”
    “She was a hippie?”
    “My mother said she was, but I’m not sure a woman married to a cop really qualifies. That was the other bad thing she did—married a cop. You know how I found out all this stuff? I asked my mother how come Mrs. Julian lived in a tiny little apartment instead of a house. God, can you imagine what a little snob
I
was?”
    “Imagine! I can
remember
.”
    “Now, now. We’re all products of our environment.”
    “Marguerite just brought Leighton to the old family mansion?”
    “Why Christina let her I’ll never know. Probably didn’t want to rattle around in that big house by herself. But then she moved out almost right away.”
    “The whole thing has a Stanley Kowalski feel to it.”
    “Frankly, I think Leighton was that kind of guy. To hear my mother tell it, Christina just had a broken heart. Couldn’t stand to see her daughter with him, so she left. Now I admit it would have made more sense to chuck Marguerite out, but this was so much more martyred. Now that I think of it, that might have been the key to Mrs. J. Nothing ever seemed to