The Beauty Queen

The alumni magazine from my high school arrived today. One of my classmates was listed in the “In Memoriam” section. It did not surprise me, based on our last meeting at the reunion, which occurred nearly five years ago. I remember she arrived with another classmate in a taxi. They were both very drunk. She was wearing a badly wrinkled blouse, which was buttoned off kilter and missing a button. She looked gaunt and worn, with only traces of the beauty queen she had been in our teen years remaining. A couple of my men friends reported afterward that she had made sexual advances toward them, but had found no takers.