Page 10 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
‘Paging Dr Rubenstein,’ came Dot’s voice over the PA system. ‘Dr Rubenstein, your expertise is needed in the main theatre.’
‘Oh damn it, really? It’s my night off,’ muttered a woman in a dramatic silk gown clutching a beer in each hand. Then, composing herself: ‘I’m here, I’m here. Sorry, had to pee, and you know what the queues at the ladies’ are like. What’s going on?’
Mort gestured to Fran, whose pallid expression and immobile state said it all.
Trying to be charitable even in the face of the obvious, Dr Rubenstein gently took Fran’s wrist, listening for a pulse. Momentarily, she grimaced up at Mort. At least it wasn’t a scowl and an admonition for him to stop overreacting and go take a stroll around the block instead.
Although Fran probably didn’t feel that way.
Although honestly, Fran probably didn’t feel any particular way right now.
‘Mort,’ Doctor Rubenstein said, ‘I’m afraid we’ve crossed into your area of expertise.’
Mort sighed. Goddamn it, he thought, trying to ignore Lily’s stricken face as she presumably visualised what life living next to a funeral parlour might entail. Was thereanythingthat didn’t kill you?
‘She’s dead!’ screamed Derrick, then, clutching his heart, promptly keeled over himself.
Double damn it.
Love at First Plight
Lily
Sure, the linetill death do us partis a core component of any wedding vow, but Lily hadn’t expected the death part to arrive before she’d even presided over an actual wedding. She couldn’t shake the faces of Fran and Derrick – nor the fact that her favourite handbag had become the resting place for a corpse’s head. (She hoped this wouldn’t preclude her from listing it on Poshmark, but she’d have to check the terms and conditions. And maybe lie a little.)
As she always did when she was dealing with stress – for example trying to talk her serial monogamist mother through yet another one of her disastrous relationship breakdowns or accepting that the perfect shoes she’d bought off Etsy were too narrow or having two people abruptly die in front of her at the cinema – Lily threw herself into her work. This was probably a good thing, as her phone had been ringing off the hook with people enquiring about her services (and on a couple of occasions, about the funeral parlour’s services, but she was getting good at forwarding those).
Speaking of the phone, it was ringing again.
‘Hi, this is Venus,’ came a smooth woman’s voice over the phone. It was the voice of someone who spent a good deal oftheir life livestreaming their every thought to a captive audience. Which of course Venus, as the sole heiress to one of the nation’s largest toothpaste empires, absolutely did.
Lily tried to modulate her voice so that she sounded cool, calm and professional, and not like she’d secretly been following Venus’s relationship exploits across every fashion blog, podcast and dental office magazine for as long as she could remember. There was the Greek mouthwash heir, then the co-founder of the mail-order orthodontics start-up that had mysteriously shuttered in the night, and most recently the DIY fluoridation entrepreneur. (Venus tended to stick within a particular niche when it came to her dating life.)
‘Venus!’ Lily exclaimed, her voice breaking and coming out in a squeak.
Oh well, she’d tried.
‘Lily, I’m so glad we connected. I knew that Honour Nivola would come through with the backup wedding planner goods after I showed up on her doorstep that night – she just has good karmic juju like that, wouldn’t you say?’
Lily didn’t know the specifics of how this had happened, but Honour Nivola was somehow tangentially connected to Annika, who had a job in PR and therefore was about two degrees of Kevin Bacon away from most people in the world. Lily had had no personal contact with Honour, although shedidlove Effanie, the villain she played in the daytime soapTime After Time, which was second only toPassionsin its narrative brilliance. Who could have guessed that Brooks Masters had a secret twin called Masters Brooks? Or that Ainsley Harlow would somehow return from her coma after three years to drive her pink Cadillac into the living room of her cheating husband’s mansion?
‘Absolutely, she’s fab.’ Lily couldn’t wait to share the details of this call with Annika.
‘I’m sure you’ve been given the basic rundown, but the energy is flowing today, and I thought I’d give you a call to send it out your way. Put it out there, you know?’
‘Can’t argue with the energy,’ said Lily.
‘So as you’ve probably gleaned from the fact that we’ve rented a fifty-acre space on a microgreens farm – friends of the family, they’re such darlings,sodown to earth – we’re looking for something earthy, green, a boho vibe. Very low-key, rustic. Please, spend whatever you need to make it look rustic.’
‘I … can absolutely manage that,’ said Lily, who in fact was a bit alarmed by the statement. She’d never had a blank cheque to work with before, and the responsibility was worrying. But surely Venus hadn’t meantwhateverwhatever. Everyone had a budget, didn’t they?
They were interrupted by a hammering at the door. Or rather, given the hulking, black-clad figure she’d caught a glimpse of through the front windows, less a hammering and more of a Poe-esque rapping, rapping at her chamber door. Mort. Lily wondered how he was doing after last night, although maybe he wasn’t fazed at all. Perhaps it was completely normal for him to scoop up a couple of corpses as part of a night out.
‘Let’s get a meeting on the books, Venus,’ she said, getting out her planner and a glittery highlighter. (Lily had a weak spot for stationery, but who didn’t.) ‘How’s Friday, 10 a.m.?’
‘Oh. Well, I don’t actually believe in linear time, you know? I find it awfully restrictive. How about I have my assistant handle that for you. She’s wonderful at her work. Much better than the last three. Anyway. Toodles.’
Venus rang off to wash her hair in a sensory-deprivation chamber, or whatever it was that toothpaste heiresses who don’t believe in time did in their spare moments, and Lily hurried – nowait, walked leisurely – no wait, walked at a normal pace – no wait, oh, whatever, she was doing her best – to the front door.
