Page 59 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
‘She looks like she’s hungry for sardines.’
‘I can’t help there, but I do have tuna. C’mon, Esme. And Mort, if you must.’
She reached for Esmeralda, who lolled in Lily’s arms as though someone had performed a disappearing spell on her bones. Her purr rattled through Lily, a low and happy rumble.
‘She has a soft spot for you, I see.’
‘Ah, she has a soft spot for everyone. The first day I met her I thought she was dying of starvation. Turns out she’s been visiting every business in town – and half the homes – for a snack every day. No wonder she’s a bit of a chungus.’
‘She’s not. She’s just … Rubenesque.’
‘She certainly knows how to get what she wants.’ Lily hesitated, a foot on the steps that led up to her apartment. Architecturally it wasn’t a threshold, but emotionally it was. Okay. They were doing this. Whatever this was. Nothing. Probably nothing.
‘The place looks … cute,’ said Mort, as Lily ran to grab a tin of fish for Esmeralda. From his tone, Lily suspected he’d never used the word before in his life. Not even for a puppy! The sacrifices he’d made for her.
Lily emptied out the tin onto a decorative lobster plate, scooting it towards Esmeralda, who daintily tucked in.
‘Nice dish.’
‘I found it when I was scouting for the vintage dishes. I couldn’t resist. It was from a Swedish Kräftskiva, according to Theo.’
‘A lobster party?’ asked Mort, the very picture of credulousness. He stood awkwardly in the centre of her rug, as though it were some sort of protective circle.
‘Do you want me to put some salt down?’ she asked, eyebrow raised. ‘To keep the switcheroo spirits out? Anyway, how on earth do you know what a Kräftskiva is?’
‘The things you learn in the funeral directing business. Truly – I overhear the most magnificent gossip.’
‘Ah, so our professions do have something in common. Cake?’
Lily pulled out a massive platter of cake from her pink vintage fridge – if there was one thing she was never short on, it was wedding cake. And prosecco. And sugared almonds, but that was mostly because no one ate those. They just kept multiplying in the cupboards like coat hangers, or the lids of takeaway containers.
Oh God, she’d just realised that the strip of photos from the photo booth had pride of place on the fridge – it was right there next to her scribbled grocery list and the Polaroids of Annika and Mom that she’d pinned up the day she’d arrived, and which had mercifully survived the switcheroo. Had he seen it?
But no, Mort was perched on her love seat, clutching a plate of cake and perusing the crumbled, tea-stained papers on Lily’s coffee table instead. Lily strategically shifted a novelty San Diego Trolley magnet around just in case, then climbed up beside him, pulling her feet beneath her.
‘What’re you working on here?’ Mort dug a fork into a multi-tiered slice of coffee-flavoured cake. ‘This looks like the work of a crazed serial killer. Not the cake, though. The cake is excellent.’
Lily took a forkful of cake and nodded in agreement. ‘It is delicious. I have a night owl wedding coming up and they’re insisting on coffee-infused everything. I’d share the tiramisu, but I ate the entire batch. Fell down the stairs after, too – whoever made it went heavy on the Marsala wine. How good are you at solving puzzles?’
Mort blocked her fork as she went in for a bite of his cake. ‘Sounds like you’ve been talking to Gramps, huh.’
‘All the time. We have a whole text thread going. When he’s not on the jigsaw puzzles he’s all about his Wordle streak.’
Mort raised an eyebrow. ‘You, Lily, astound me.’
Lily hid a smile behind her fork. Was that … two compliments in one night? HadMortbeen switcherooed?
‘Idoaim to astound,’ she said lightly. ‘But I have this seating arrangement thing I need to sort out, and it’s a doozy.’
‘Oh no. Not a doozy.’
‘It’s for this Christmas in July wedding I’m working on.’ Lily unrolled the rest of the seating arrangement – what Mort had seen was merely the tip of the musical chairs iceberg.
‘Wow, it just keeps going,’ he said, pulling out his reading glasses. ‘It’s like one of the scrolls for the pianola.’
‘It’s definitely the most complicated seating sudoku I’ve ever tried.’
Lily reached under the coffee table for one of the vintage board games she’d inherited with the shop. She upended the shabby box, spilling hundreds of colourful wooden pawns all over the scroll. These she arranged into sets of twelve, with each one representing a wedding guest.
