Page 26 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
Mort was quiet for a moment as he painted something that sort of resembled a fruit. ‘I know it’s weird. Being a doorstep baby. But Gramps has always been great. Was it a slightly off-kilter upbringing? Sure. But whose isn’t?’
Lily thought about that as she added petals to her flower. Her upbringing had been … well, she’d always considered it normal because there’d always been plenty of hugs and food on the table and new clothes to wear, but was it, really? Was it normal to move every year because your mom’s consulting work was always a short-term thing? Was it normal to flee every romantic relationship because if Mom wouldn’t settle for what she always belatedly called ‘just some guy’, then why should you? Was it normal that the shop and apartment that Lily was repainting right now represented the first time that she’d felt stable in her life?
Mort understood her silence. ‘Youhad a normal childhood, I see.’
Lily’s flower was wonky. ‘I suppose so. But we all come out the other end with our own quirks and foibles.’
‘Quirks and Foibles. Sounds like a good name for an esoteric shop.’
‘Noted, just in case this whole wedding planning thing doesn’t work out. At least we’ve figured out a way to disguise the blobs. Do you want me to help you do the same at the funeral parlour?’
Mort shook his head. ‘Not if these are the colours you have on offer. Anyway, the wallpaper texture makes it look … almost deliberate. Although I’m really going to need you to stop dressing up the poodles.’
‘If they return to greyhounds overnight, we have a deal. If not, well, you’ll have bigger things to worry about than some well-dressed poodle statues.’
Lily was trying to make light of the situation, but in reality her stomach was churning. The goths might be fine with a sprinkling of gloom when it came to their nuptials, but she had a feeling that Venus might not be entirely up for a ‘Surprise! Morbid!’ twist on her wedding. And a wedding like Venus’s was a make-or-break thing.
‘Hey, you said that you arrived on the funeral home doorstep as a baby,’ mused Lily.
‘Correct.’
‘So Gramps ran the place for, what, thirty years, at least.’
Mort nodded. ‘Fifty or so.’
‘Well, has this whole swapsies thing happened before?’
‘Not that I’ve heard of, but it’s worth asking. He never picks up his phone – he has bad hearing – but I’m visiting him tomorrow.’ Setting down his paintbrush, Mort regarded her with dark eyes. Then, after a beat, he added. ‘Would you like to join me?’
Lily’s heart thumped at the suggestion. If you were fairly proficient in Morse code, you might even be able to say that it thumped out something like,yes, yes, I thought you’d never ask, you hot, scruffy fool.
‘Sure,’ she said coolly, pretending that she hadn’t daubed her own nose with paint in her excitement. ‘I was planning to head that way to do some location scouting for the goth wedding anyway. Um, speaking of dark attire – should there be dozens of people in mourning outfits gathering around the shop?’
Mort glanced at his watch. ‘Shit. Mrs Fagan’s wake. Good luck with that journalist. Remember, if they ask about the decor, just say you’re storing it for me while I figure out my flood insurance.’
‘Babe, this isgorg.’ Coriana sashayed back and forth in front of the shop, her camera clicking as she snapped away at what people in the business loved to call ‘the details’. She’d brought with her … well, Lily supposed it was a dog, but on the rat-dog spectrum it was definitely closer to the non-canine side. Lily wished she’d put it in a carrier basket before it got scooped up by a seagull.
‘Although,wow, setting up next to a funeral parlour?Ba-rave. Do you guys have a kickback thing going on? If it’s not working out and they don’t want to go through a highly visible divorce, you can …’
Coriana clicked her tongue and made a throat-slashing gesture.
‘Or poison, if you must,’ added Lily, deciding to assume that Coriana was joking.
‘Poison’s a bit … expected, don’t you think?’
‘Sure. Although I specialise mostly in weddings—’ Lily tried to find common ground ‘—I do love a good true crime podcast.’
(This was a lie. Pop Culture Happy Hour was about as dark as Lily’s listening got.)
‘Between us girls …’ Coriana paused to take a shot of Mort’s poodle statues, which Lily had dressed up in plastic floral leis a mere ten minutes earlier. ‘I had my heart set on the crime beat.But y’know, gotta go where the work is. Even if that’s writing about weddings when your boyfriend of eighteen months just said he wasn’t the marrying type.’
‘Oh,’ said Lily. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that. Come in. I have CBD-infused soda.’
She led Coriana inside, hoping that the drink would take the edge off. Although Coriana seemed to be all edges. She was like a human dodecagon.
‘Lying ass,’ scowled Coriana as she popped open the can with a long, frosted nail. ‘He was the marrying type. Just not to me. He’s got two kids now. And a back tyre that keeps getting slashed.’
‘They don’t make tyres like they used to.’
