Page 19 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
Fair. Mort watched Lily lead her new clients off to her dramatically redecorated shop, wondering how she was managing to stay so chipper when everything had turned upside down and inside out.
Mort went back inside the upsettingly refurbished funeral parlour, preparing to practise his scales on the pipe organ – something that always helped soothe his anxiety when it came bubbling up and over, which it was certainly doing right now. But the organ was no longer an organ – it had somehow melted into a marimba.
Wonderful. Mort grabbed the soft pink mallets sitting on the marimba’s wooden keys and banged out a mournful scale.
Now what?
You Goth This
Lily
‘Excuse the mess,’ said Lily. Although oddly, there wasn’t all that much to excuse. The pools and puddles had evaporated, leaving just the blotches of dark ink and funereal twists on Lily’s decor in their wake. Something occultish had occurred, and assuming everything didn’t go back to rights overnight as Mort had suggested, she’d get to the bottom of it.
But for now, she had some walk-in clients (her first!) relying on her to deliver the exceptional customer service her Yelp reviews promised. All right, the one Yelp review that actually related to her services. (The rest were for theotherEternal Elegance, who apparently had some problems with the attitude of the current funeral director. And also the direction of the wind when it came to the spreading of ashes, although Lily personally thought that was a user error issue.)
‘Deliciously odd vibes.’ Desdemona nodded at a wilting dahlia in a bud jar as she took a seat on one of the clear acrylic chairs. The dahlia had been delivered just this morning, alas. (Although Lily wasn’t about to complain about the ghost chairs – she’d always wanted a set, but they’d been out of her budget.) ‘I do love to see it. So, my dark love and I are embarking upon a till-death-do-us-part journey.’
‘A wedding,’ added Ambrose. ‘In case that was ambiguous.’
‘Well, I do get the odd cult leader in here,’ joked Lily, even though after the whole switcheroo business she wasn’t feeling particularly mirthful. Who was to say that the business wouldn’t continue down its funereal path in the coming hours? What if her oven turned into a crematorium or the local bat community decided that her chandelier was an appropriate napping place?
Hand shaking, she passed Desdemona a handle-less coffee cup that looked terribly like a miniature cremation urn. At least the coffee brewer had been working – although the milk in the fridge had curdled. (‘Fortunately I like my coffee black, like my soul,’ Desdemona had purred.)
‘Cult leaders? Do tell me more,’ said Desdemona, her long nails rattling against her coffee cup and sparking in Lily the opposite of an ASMR response.
Sunny, apparently also triggered by the nails, wolf-whistled, then squawkedI do, I do!, giving Lily a reprieve from having to make up a cult leader story on the spot.
Ambrose gave Sunny a proud pat. ‘We’ve been working on that. He’s going to do the rings.’
‘The vision is …’ Desdemona’s coffin-shaped nails flashed, which was still better than rattling ‘… something morbid. Something aligned with our way of life. Funereal, yet celebratory. Something that finds beauty in the darkness.’
‘But not spiders.’ Ambrose took a cautious seat on one of the clear chairs.
‘Uh-huh.’ Lily was uneasily taking notes with what had been until an hour or so ago her favourite pen. The yellow bobble on the top had turned grey. And how many people are we thinking?’
‘As few as possible,’ said Desdemona.
‘Our extended family,’ said Ambrose, simultaneously. ‘It’sonly three people,’ he clarified. ‘And the dogs. Two dogs. Both pugs. A fawn and a brindle, if that helps.’
‘It does, it does.’ Dogs. Dogs were normal.Focus on the dogs and not on the switcheroo, Lily.Lily drew an elaborate picture of a pug, then wrotex2next to it. ‘And will the dogs be … involved?’
Desdemona clutched the anatomical heart-shaped locket at her neck. ‘It wouldn’t be a wedding without honouring the canid souls who brought us together.’ She opened the locket, revealing the pictures of two well-dressed wrinkly doggies.
‘Maybe they could wear a little hat. Lazarus, anyway,’ mused Ambrose. ‘Edgar isn’t really the hat type. A tie. He could have a tie.’
‘A bow tie,’ added Desdemona thoughtfully. ‘Pinstriped.’
‘Pinstriped,’ repeated Lily, jotting that down. ‘And what time of day are we thinking?’
‘Midnight,’ they said simultaneously.
‘That’s a great time for a wedding. Just so long as we’re not feeding gremlins.’
‘We would never,’ said Desdemona haughtily.
‘Location?’
‘Cemetery,’ said Ambrose.
