Death Before Facebook

Magazine, in the Irish Channel.
    She went back to the office and called Jimmy Dee, now at his office. “I think what it is, Dee-Dee, is Sheila’s never been around men that much. She doesn’t know what to make of having an uncle who’s a daddy and so, brace yourself, she says she’s afraid of you.”
    “What? Mild-mannered Uncle Jimmy Dee?”
    “Well, she says it’s because you’re gay, which apparently her mother told her, but frankly I think that was just a way of getting into it. It does develop, though, that she has a homophobic boyfriend.”
    “A what? She’s only a baby.”
    “1 think at her age talking to someone in class qualifies him as your boyfriend. We do need to do a little education around being gay, though. I could do that if you like.”
    “No, I think I should. Otherwise, it’s like it’s still in the closet or something.”
    “The hell of it is, I know this is hard to take, but so far as I can tell, basically she wants her mama.”
    “She’s got you,” he said hopefully.
    “Poor unlucky child, if that’s the best she can do. But unfortunately it is and that’s part of the problem. I think it’s the whole thing she’s contending with—strange city, strange adults, and a whole lot of grief for everything she’s lost. She’s going to get through it, though. I even see running away as a good sign. By doing that, she told us how bad things are for her.”
    “Well, what are we going to do about it?” He sounded hopeless.
    “Take her to McDonald’s, for one thing.”
    “Do what? And get the social services on our backs for child abuse? Why don’t we just beat her while we’re at it?”
    “A tiny trick I learned from Darryl. He’s got quite a little way with kids.”
    “I like that dude. I think he’s okay.”
    “High praise, indeed.”
    “And what does her tininess think about him?”
    “He’s got quite a little way with everybody.”
    There was certainly no accounting. Why on earth did Jimmy Dee find Darryl less threatening than Steve? When Steve was around, the two of them squared off like bull elephant seals in mating season.
    It’s something male
, she thought.
Something they can smell.
    They know something we don’t, but they don’t know what they know. Maybe he likes Darryl because he’s not threatening. He doesn’t really want me and Dee-Dee knows it.
    It was a good theory. She checked her watch and headed for her meeting with Kit.
    The hospital was old, dark, almost spooky. Decorative plaster cornices bespoke better days. The ceilings, especially in the corridors, seemed thirty feet high. It smelled of Pine-Sol. Skip found it thoroughly depressing.
    But to her surprise, she was ushered into a small corner office, light, cheerful, and furnished with plants and photos. “I’m a supervisor here,” Kit explained. “So I get one perk and this is it.”
    For the first time, Skip really looked at her. She was a handsome woman, the sort who might have been called “raw-boned” in another era. She was tall and strong, slender without, somehow, that being an issue. Her bones were big and her body narrow. She had brown hair, which she wore carelessly pinned up, Katharine Hepburn style, and hazel eyes that looked as if they could laugh. Her hands were certainly a nurse’s hands, capable hands, with the nails cut blunt and short. She wore only one silver ring, twisted into an ankh. She had a fast metabolism, Skip thought, and probably ran on nervous energy. She was over forty, though how much over it Skip couldn’t have said. She could have been from New England, or the Midwest perhaps; definitely not New Orleans—her bones were not delicate enough; she was too earthy. If she had tattoos or piercings, they didn’t show and wouldn’t have looked right.
    She looked at her watch, setting a certain tone. “You’re wondering how well I knew Geoff?”
    “Sure, among other things.”
    “He came to our TOWN dinners, but he didn’t talk much. I knew about him mostly, through Lenore, who’s become almost…” She hesitated, then shrugged. “I may as well say it—almost like a daughter to me.”
    Skip was pretty sure there was more to her relationship with Geoff, but now wasn’t the time to push it.
    “Ah. Then tell me about Lenore. How did you get to know her?”
    “Online, originally. Then we were in a group together and sort of discovered mutual interests.”
    “May I ask what sort of interests?”
    If Kit were the type who could blush, she might