Page 58 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director
‘All right, all right. Unlock the front door.’
Whisper Sweet Hereafters in My Ear
Lily
Never before had Lily so regretted her choice of bedtime attire. All right, so her usual sleepwear combination definitely erred on the side of comfortable, but this particular ensemble screamed Slumber Party, circa 1996. All she needed was a hair crimper and a three-pack of Lip Smackers, and she’d have reverted to her twelve-year-old self. Not even that – hermom’s twelve-year-old self.
(Speaking of Mom, Lily owed her some pics of Rosa the mechanical bull, and some upvotes on a contest Mom had entered to win a Winnebago.)
But maybe this was good, Lily told herself. There was absolutely nothing in her choice of outfit that could suggest to Mort that she had designs on his surprisingly fit body. Or those arresting dark eyes. He’d know she was being polite and neighbourly, and had no intention of muddying the waters between the two businesses whose waters were, let’s face it, muddied up as though they’d been infested with carp. The Eternal Elegance x Eternal Elegance mashup was already primed for epic drama – Lily had just fielded a call asking about a graveside wedding – and the businesses’ owners getting similarly mixed up hardly boded well. And Lily wasn’t renowned for herrelationships’ longevity. What if she started something and it petered out? Or worse, flamed out? Then what? They’d have to grit their teeth and smile at each other every day until Lily’s lease was up. Which was … months.
Mere months, she thought sadly. Then what?
The doorbell rang, intoning the Star Wars ‘Imperial March’. Was it too late to renege? Could she pretend she’d fallen asleep? Or that she had a sudden migraine?
More important, was it too late to change her outfit? But if she did that, then Mort would know that she was worried about his opinion of her. Which she absolutely wasn’t, of course. But he couldn’t argue against throwing on an elegant dressing gown – that was simply protecting herself against the elements.
Lily prevaricated, struggling with the endless ‘what ifs’ of this scenario. Why had she spoken to him in the first place? She could’ve just hung out on the balcony in silence like a creeper, but an imperceptible creeper. Butno, she had to let her impetuous streak prevail. (To be fair, her impetuous streak had always treated her well.)
‘I can see you in there,’ came Mort’s wry voice over her smart doorbell. ‘And I know that if I’m waving my hand it’s activating the motion sensor.’
Was he doing the hokey-pokey? She’d never taken Mort for the hokey-pokey type, but people could be complex. For example, Lily had once written a strongly worded review after her favourite chocolate shop back in La Jolla had run out of peppermint frogs during a particularly brutal bout of PMS. She hadn’t known she’d had it in her, and apparently neither had the business because they’d sent her a $25 gift card. (She’d retracted the review.)
Lily opened the front door, gesturing self-consciously at her outfit.
‘Welcome to the catwalk,’ she said doing a shimmy.
‘Fierce,’ said Mort. He pirouetted awkwardly on the spot.
‘Very Derelicte,’ said Lily.
Mort chuckled.
‘I’m surprised you got that reference,’ she said, raising an eyebrow.
‘I spent a lot of time as a kid watching movies.’ Mort tapped a finger against the latest wedding favours Lily had ordered: a set of slap bands. ‘It was how I dealt with the whole being surrounded by death thing. Although Ididgravitate towards horror movies. Not really sure what that says about me.’
‘Probably that you were surrounded by horror and grief and needed a safe way to process it.’
The slap band Mort had been toying with curled around his wrist like a sparkly shackle. ‘That’s quite the analysis,’ he said slowly.
Lily shoved her sleep mask higher up on her tangle of hair. ‘I’m not just a pretty face.’
‘You’re certainly not,’ agreed Mort, unrolling the slap band. Sexily, somehow. Lily had never considered that a slap band had the potential to allure, but stranger things had happened. (Mostly within the last couple of weeks, to be fair.)
Lily hesitated. What now? If some other equally good-looking guy with whom she had a complicated relationship had shown up on her doorstep late at night looking so gloriously dishevelled, Lily would’ve dragged him upstairs and stripped him on the spot. But this was Mort, who was anything but some other guy. Shoving him down on the bed – or couch, or hell, the dramatically decorated table right in front of them – seemed wrong, somehow. And not because Mort would somehow come out with an anecdote about someone who’d died being pounced upon by a lover. It was more that … Lilyhad feelings for Mort. She’d never really sat with the whole idea of feelings before, and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle them. Or act upon them.
In the past, perhaps scarred by the many disastrous relationships of her mom’s she’d had to endure, she’d simply had her fun and been on her way. Which was probably why she was so trepidatious; part of her worried that if she took the same approach here, the part of her that always cut and bailed would rise up like an overly yeasty loaf of bread.No, no, not yeast, Lily. Don’t liken yourself to yeast.
Lily didn’t want to bail on Mort, or Gramps, or Angela and Tink, or Mirage-by-the-Sea – at least not before her lease forced her to. For the first time in her life, she was starting to feelsettled, and the thought of pulling up the roots she was just starting to dig into the earth of this quaint town created a pang in her heart. But would that happen? If she started something with Mort, would the familiar lizard brain flight sense kick in? Or would this time be different?
Lily swallowed. She was worried about what it might mean to find out.
‘Mrow?’ asked Esmeralda, appearing from some secret shadowy pocket. She wound figure eights around both of their legs, pulling them together.
Lily grabbed at Mort’s threadbare shirt to keep from stumbling. His hands caught gently at her shoulders, his fingers curling lightly. They were warm through her pyjama top, and not for the first time she wished she’d worn something more normal to bed. Or maybelessnormal. And more scant.
‘Esmeralda, you sly thing.’ Avoiding eye contact with Mort, Lily grinned down at the fluffy cat, who was staring innocently up at them.
