Page 40 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
Tink drummed on the wonky table, which almost tipped over. ‘All right. Just pull up the recordings from the day of the proposal, then screenshot it. We’re going to Nextdoor this baby.’
‘We have a Nextdoor community like you wouldn’t believe,’ said Angela. ‘If anyone so much as sneezes weirdly, there’s a day’s worth of debate about it. It’s also great for buying furniture. I outfitted my whole house for, like, thirty bucks and some gossip about the provenance of Ophelia Heinz’s art collection.’
‘Aha!’ After some tapping and updating and two-factor authentication and a backup email code, Lily pulled up the feed from the doorbell. Hmm, was that Mort loitering around outside? Just what was he doing? And why was he holding such a massive pink bouquet? Hang on, was he sweeping up rose petals from outside the front of her business?
It took every bit of self-control to ignore the current goings-on outside the shop and scroll back in time to the disastrous proposal.
Angela and Tink looked on with interest as Lily found the right day, then placed her phone on the table. She thumbed backwards through her and Mort huddled beneath her awning, lookingveryclose, then the thunderstorm, Veronica’s heated response to the proposal, slimy Nate getting down on one knee …
‘There. Pause it there.’ Angela jabbed at the screen. ‘Screenshot that and forward it to Tink.’
‘And … got it,’ declared Tink, holding up her phone as though it were the holy grail. ‘Posting it now. Ha, looks like Sammy’s chihuahua escaped again. If you see a tiny barking menace in a pink collar, her name is Cassandra the Seer, and she lives in the pink house just off Celestial Lane, the one that opens out to that bit of the promenade with the big koi pond. Where Angela once caught a fishby hand.’
‘I put it back,’ said Angela. ‘After I gave it a kiss for good luck.’
‘Ooh, and the reports are already rolling in. She’s Edna Flaherty’s grand-niece. Her name’s Veronica Teuer, and she’s from Encinitas.’
Lily opened up her various social apps, looking up the name. ‘Oof, all of her social accounts are locked down. Even her website’s offline.’
‘Not the website!’ said Tink. ‘According to Edna she was anElementary Whiz Kidschamp and leveraged that success into the fame and fortune of a civil engineering career, with a focus on bridges.’
‘Ooh, bridges,’ said Lily.
‘She apparently did a daily engineering equation thing on her website,’ added Tink. ‘Although now we’ll never know.’
‘Pfft, an online presence. Who needs that when you’ve got theMLS?’ Angela was thumbing through property listings (at least half of which appeared to be related to the current conversation, and the other half to the other conversations happening in the room – realtors never stopped working). ‘Bought a cute apartment with bay views. Nice work, girl. Love the windows. That’ll appreciate at a solid ten per cent annually. And here … is her phone number.’
Angela triumphantly spun her phone around to Lily, who typed it into her phone.
Tink checked her watch. ‘A minute twenty-eight.’
The two women high-fived each other.
‘You do this a lot, don’t you,’ said Lily.
‘All the time. A realtor and a stationer?’ Angela bit into an éclair with relish. (As in verve, not the tomato-based sauce.) ‘We’re like the ultimate PI team. Plus we’re young, hot women, so no one ever suspects us.’
‘Oops, too much tea, gotta pee.’ Leaning in to grab a bite of the éclair as a parting remark, Tink hurried off to the bathroom. Angela looked around conspiratorially, then leaned in. ‘Okay, coast is clear. I know your thing is weddings, but Tink’s birthday is coming up, and I want to do somethingbig. Costumes, music, someone jumping out of a cake, the whole shebang. May I engage your services?’
‘You may. My rate is another one of those croissants.’ Lily pointed to the crumbs that remained on her decorative plate.
‘They’regood, aren’t they? I would sacrifice someone’s firstborn child for one of those. Not mine. I’m child-free.’
Lily scooped up the croissant dregs and popped them in her mouth – they were too good to waste. ‘Come by the shop when you have a few, and we’ll sort it out.’
‘Sort what out?’ Tink swanned back in, a doughnut and local paper in hand.
‘That was quick,’ noted Lily.
‘The jumpsuit has a little flap – no need for a full-nudity situation. One button, and you’re in and out like that.’ Tink snapped her fingers. ‘By the way, I got you aMirage Daily Mirror. It’s full of gossip. It’s basically if you printed off Nextdoor and added photos.’
‘Sold,’ said Lily, turning first to Pets in Show (the cutest section), and then to Births, Deaths and Marriages (the most important section).
Oh. Oh no.
The switcheroo was at it again.
Burying the Lede
