Death Before Facebook

or let it go.
    “Listen, Tyrone sent me. He wants to get out of here and go somewhere quiet. Y’all up for it?”
    “Where’s Tyrone?’ asked Melody. “Couldn’t I just say hi to him?” Ostensibly, she spoke to the genie, but she looked at Skip beseechingly. The look said, “I’m going to die right now if you embarrass me in front of this cool dude.”
    Skip nodded. What was another minute going to hurt? But she also said, “Don’t forget to give Cindy Lou her beer.”
    Despite all her efforts to be cool, the genie said, “That somebody else’s beer? I was just gonna read you the riot act, child. Tyrone’s packing up in the back. Say your name, they’ll let you in.”
    Melody went off to find her friends.
    “I used to do that,” said Skip.
    “What?”
    “All that teenager stuff. Drink; stay out too late; lie to my parents.”
    “Whoa. Didn’t we all.”
    “You must be a Boucree.”
    “Oh, didn’t I say? I’m Darryl. You didn’t see me on rhythm guitar?”
    “Mmmm. Guess I did.”
    “You didn’t really notice. That’s because I’m ugly, have no sex appeal, and women hate me. Agggg. Thanks so much.”
    “Sorry. It’s just that there are so many of you.”
    “And we keep switching around. I bet there are fifteen different Boucrees play different gigs, different times.” He flashed Skip a smile that could have lit the path if they’d been lost in the woods.
    She found herself smiling back. Smiling and not being able to think of a thing to say, which meant her mind had been more on form than content. His form.
    A bad sign, a very bad sign.
Cindy Lou, where are you?
    “Maybe I should find my friend.”
    “Oh, yeah. The bourbon and Diet Coke. There she is. That her?”
    Skip scanned the crowd. “Where?”
    “Over there. The one that looks real nice. Nothing like a bitch at all.” He gave her another of his dental extravaganzas.
    “Ah. The one that’s waving.” Skip beckoned her over. “Cindy Lou Wootten, Darryl Boucree.”
    They said they were glad to meet each other, and Skip outlined the plan—to join the band someplace quiet.
    Cindy Lou waved a manicured hand. “Sure, sure. I’m up for anything. Let’s go wait out front.”
    “I’ll meet you in a minute.” The cop in her had to make sure Melody went home.
    They ended up at the bar at Snug Harbor—not the world’s quietest spot, but it beat The Blue Guitar. And, face it, Skip thought, there probably weren’t that many places where a crowd of five or six black guys and two women, one of them white, would be all that comfortable.
    She had a lot to catch up on with Tyrone—mostly Melody’s career. Tyrone, as the father of her pal Joel, and also just a good, strong, earthy guy, was Melody’s idea of the ideal dad. She idolized him, and also fought with him, more or less as if he were her own dad, because she knew him about that well—he was her boss. Melody was the underage lead singer Tyrone had mentioned.
    There were problems, with Melody being white and everyone else black, but both sides wanted to work them out.
    “Best singer I ever saw,” Tyrone said. “Ever. Well, except maybe Etta James. You like Etta?”
    “Mm-hmm.”
    “But you know what about Melody? She’s got to quit coming to see us in bars. One of these days she’s gonna get in trouble.”
    “I almost gave her some trouble tonight.”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    “But neither of us did, did we?”
    “I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of her friends.”
    “Me neither. Kids are hard, you know that?” She wanted to tell him about Sheila, but the story was so complicated—and at the moment so depressing—she didn’t feel like going into it.
    Darryl came up behind Tyrone and leaned on his shoulder. “Don’t Bogart that lady, Tyrone. When do I get to talk to her?”
    “Here, you want my stool? I got to go work out something with Louis. Why don’t you just talk to Ms. Skip a while? You might have met your match, Mr. Darryl. Go to it, now.” He walked off chuckling to himself.
    Darryl looked disconcerted. “What’d he mean by that? You don’t look a whole lot like the Bride of Frankenstein.”
    “Did anyone mention I’m a cop?”
    “Holy shit, you’re kidding! A cop?”
    “Homicide.” She tried to make her smile as dazzling as his.
    “Whoa, boy.”
    “What’s wrong? You a murderer?”
    “No, man, I love cops. That’s what I always wanted to be… just one thing and another, it didn’t work out.”
    “Oh, come