Page 52 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
‘I’m getting distinct end-of-life-care vibes here, Mort,’ she added, running a hand along the railing that travelled the entire length of the pathway from the street to the front door. The paramedic sitting on the front step sipping a cup of coffee probably didn’t help much with that impression, either.
‘No, it’s not like that,’ he said, perhaps a touch defensively. ‘It’s just … a retirement community. Angela and I have been talking about a place here.’
Lily balked. ‘A place here? For whom? Not for Gramps, surely.’
Mort swallowed. ‘He can’t manage that huge house all by himself. EvenIcan barely manage it. And it’s at the point where everything needs to be redone or it’ll just crumble into the ground.’
‘House to house, dust to dust.’ Lily nudged a toe at one of the plaques in the ground. Of course it happened to commemorate someone dead. No matter what he did, Mort wasn’t going to come out of this discussion looking like the good guy.
‘It’s not a done deal. It’s just an option. Something needs to change about Gramps’s living situation, is all.’
Lily nodded in that thoughtful way that Mort suspected meant she was internally screaming at him in outrage.
‘Well, are we going in? Because I suspect that this place knows all about bland, inedible food with limited ingredients.’
‘I hope you’re not speaking disparagingly of Jell-O,’ said Mort.
‘Oh no,’ said Lily, ‘we stan a Jell-O.’
The plastic alarm duck by the front entrance quacked as Mort pushed open the front door, gesturing for Lily to go ahead.
Inside, the home was as cosy as Angela’s brochures had claimed: all streamlined wood panelling, sturdily upholstered furniture and ornate fixtures brimming with the softest oflight. Golden oldies crooned on an antique gramophone, and everything smelt ambitiously of lavender, as though the residents had been making potpourri for arts and crafts for a solid six months. A few residents sat about, reading the paper or musing over chessboards.
An old guy with a knitted blankie over his legs and a skein of yarn in his lap carefully stood, giving Mort a wave. ‘Mort! It’s Mort!’
Mort smiled, although his heart wrenched slightly – the last time he’d seen Edward was at Edward’s sister’s funeral about six months ago. A few years ago, though, Edward had been one of Rerunning Up That Hill’s most devoted patrons, showing up just about every day for the matinee session, and occasionally even banging out a few crowd favourites on the piano. But time, and death, marched on. Now there was just Edward.
‘Good to see you, Edward,’ said Mort. ‘How’s life treating you?’
Edward chuckled. ‘Well, it’s a treat to still be here. Who’s your girl?’
Mort coughed. ‘She’s not … I don’t …’
‘I’m Lily.’ Lily waved sunnily, bestowing one of her trademark giant grins upon Edward, who drank it up like a desert plant a longed for rainfall. ‘Did you make that blanket, Edward? Think you could do me a frog when you get a chance?’
‘Could I do you a frog? Of course I could do you a frog!’ Edward beamed. ‘She’s a keeper, Mort. You’d better hang on to her. Or I’ll give you what for.’
He made a fist.
‘He means it, too,’ said another old-timer Mort recognised as Lorraine, a hand tentatively on a chessboard rook. (Lorraine’s husband of fifty years, whom everyone had nicknamed Rick the Prick, had died three years ago. Bill the coroner had had somesuspicions, but figured that Lorraine deserved a few years of peace.) ‘You know Edward was a boxer back in the day. He had his share of knockouts.’
‘Knocked out a few of my teeth, too.’ Edward loosened his dentures in demonstration.
‘Edward, when did you last clean those?’ snapped Lorraine, horrified. She pulled out her own falsies, showing off their bright, white enamel. ‘That’s what they should look like. I’ve had dogs with cleaner teeth than that.’
Edward waved his yellowed dentures about. Both Mort and Lily ducked for cover. ‘They didn’t have the off-brand solution at the bodega. So I’ve been using coffee. It’s hot – kills the germs.’
Standing out of the line of spittle fire, Lily reached into her handbag and dashed forward, dropping a handful of dental hygiene supplies in Edward’s lap. Then she retreated. ‘Something in there should do the trick.’
‘That’s right – this wedding of yours is for a toothpaste magnate, isn’t it.’ Mort checked his shirt for wayward saliva.
Lily cocked her head, giving Mort the look of someone who’d caught a co-worker leaving the bathrooms without washing their hands. ‘Hang on. Have you been listening through the grille? Is that how you knew about the plates? Because it’s how I knew about the photo booth. And how I know that you have an ungodly amount of hummus delivered each week.’
Mort found himself wishing that Mirage-by-the-Sea were in a liquefaction zone, because he could really do with the earth swallowing him up right now.
‘Who doesn’t like hummus?’ he protested weakly.
‘Anyway, the whole toothpaste thing seems to be less of a wedding, more of a merger,’ said Lily. ‘They’re talking about combining their surnames and adding “Corp” as a middle name.’
