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Brad more morose than ever; he didn’t reply, and I was out of small talk, too. Luckily, Aunt Nettie’s blue Buick showed up then, and Lindy, Margaret, and I got into the car.
    I waited until we were out of the driveway before I began to giggle. The thought of inept Brad trying to warn me off his poised and worldly uncle was simply laughable.
    Of course, I had to explain my amusement to Lindy and Margaret.
    “Huh,” Lindy said. “Julie’s relatives might be rich, but they’re just as odd as mine.”
    “Mine are odd, too,” Margaret said. “I asked my mom once if our family was crazier than anybody else’s, and she said no. She said we just knew them better.”
    “Same here,” I said. “If we’re picking the oddest, I’d put my mom up against Uncle Martin and Cousin Brad combined. But one thing Martin Schrader said was really interesting. That part about talking to some of Julie’s friends, to ‘someone her own age.’ ”
    “Why do you say that?” Lindy said.
    “Think about that gathering we just left. Was there anybody there Julie’s age?”
    We all were silent for a few seconds. I was reviewing the crowd, and I guess Lindy and Margaret were, too, because they spoke at the same time.
    “Not really,” Lindy said.
    “Just a few,” Margaret said. “There was that group that clustered around the couches in the big room. They looked younger than most. But I eavesdropped on them, and I think they all worked for Schrader Labs. One of them was Martin Schrader’s secretary.”
    “Maybe Julie’s friends are having a separate service—more of a wake or a party,” Lindy said. “That’s what Warner Pier’s artsy crowd does sometimes.”
    “Maybe so,” I said. “If Julie went to high school in Holland, you’d think some of her friends would still be around.”
    “There aren’t too many of us,” Margaret said.
    I swiveled my head toward her. “Did you go to high school with Julie?”
    “Yes. Didn’t either of us ever mention it?”
    “No. I thought you met through some party or wedding.”
    “Julie and I graduated from Holland Christian the same year. But we didn’t run in the same crowd. I really got to be friends with her during the past year.”
    “Maybe her friends are not high-toned enough for the Schraders,” Lindy said. “Maybe they deliberately didn’t invite them to the funeral.”
    We all thought it over again, but it was Margaret who finally said what we were all thinking—right out loud. “Julie was so cute. You’d think she would have had a boyfriend.”
    But none of us could think of any boyfriend-type person at the service.
    “You know,” I said, “thinking back to the Food Group e-mails, Julie never mentioned a boyfriend, did she? In fact, we never learned much about her personal life.”
    “You’re right,” Lindy said. “She never had much to say about herself. When Diane and Ronnie became grandparents again, they put a message out right away. When Tony Junior made the honor roll for the first time, I told everybody I saw, and I put a message on the Food Group list. Even you, Lee. You’ve mentioned working on the new apartment several times.”
    “And I let everybody know when I was so worried because Jim’s hours got cut back,” Margaret said. “And Jason—he told about the horrible weekend he spent painting his living room, when it rained and the paint wouldn’t dry. But Julie—she never said a word about herself. Just weddings and parties she was planning and all that philosophical stuff.”
    “Strange,” I said.
    “Odd,” Lindy said.
    “Weird,” Margaret said. “But I can understand Julie not wanting to talk about her relatives. If the uncle is a lech, the cousin is a nerd, and the grandmother is bossy as all get out . . . well, if you can’t say anything good, shut up.”
    We shut up. Or at least we changed the subject. Lindy and Margaret traded stories about their kids, and I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on the road. That was because