The Chapel Wars (3 page)

“Your grandfather asked that all flowers be ordered through your subcontractor, what’s her name?” Mom asked.

“Flowers by Michelle. Or Bunny’s Boutique when Michelle’s schedule is packed.” I kept my eyes glued out the window, no matter how much I wanted to squint.

“Right. Michelle. Well, she was so touched that she’s offering us a discount now for a year. The wedding community is great that way. Jim knew how to reach out.”

Prattle. Prattle. Prattle. The responsibility of the chapel was almost as crushing as the funeral, so why did we have to talk about either?

“Mom,” Lenore interrupted. “It’s clear to all parties that you’re trying to diffuse the situation by filling the void with mundane details.”

“Lenore,” Dad called from the front. That’s all he ever said, “Lenore,” like stating her name would magically change who she inherently was.

“I just think we’re entitled to our grief,” Lenore mumbled. James nibbled on a hangnail, his cuticles a short, bloody mess.

I picked off the sixteen pieces of lint on my skirt, wondering if it really was grief that Lenore was feeling and if that grief was
anything like my own sharp hollowness. Whatever emotion was puncturing my insides, it was something I should be allowed to feel
inside
, not something to display at a funeral. We shouldn’t have to be in this hearse right now, we shouldn’t have to be around anyone; we should have quiet or solitude or music or patches of grass. Whatever we needed. Individually.

Instead, we had a whole day of dreary events, beginning with the family reception. “It’ll be an intimate gathering area,” Mom said, quoting verbatim the package pitch for the large meeting room behind the chapel. Over the past week, she’d carried around the mortuary’s brochure in her purse until the creases ripped.

The wallpapered room was divided into work people, poker pals, U2 cover band members, and family, which was further divided by the invisible line between my parents that they swore did not exist.

Then there was a boy by the entrance who didn’t seem to fit into any group. He was ungroupable. Unclassified. Aloof, alone … unworldly.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, shirtsleeves rolled. His hair was cut so short it was almost buzzed, and although he was average height at best, he was possibly an inch or two taller than me. Built, though. I could see that even in his dress shirt.

He didn’t look like he knew anyone in the room or anyone knew him. Also, and I’m probably shallow for noticing this at a funeral, but he was not the ugliest guy I had ever seen. If looks were America and ugly was Los Angeles, this boy was comfortably Kentucky. West Virginia when he smiled.

He glanced up and caught me staring, and although I should have looked back at a picture of Grandpa’s high school graduation, instead my instinct was to do this really lame … wave. And it was totally one of those moments where he looked behind him, because
I did not know him
, so why would I wave at him, right? But grief makes you do odd things at awkward times because you’ve forgotten how to act like a functioning human being. This boy happened to be within my age range and, again, not ugly, and I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to talk to someone about something besides that time when I was five and Grandpa Jim made me sing at his wedding to his second wife, a story I’d already heard three times today.

I took a quick swallow of my cranberry cocktail and was working out this whole explanation, that my grandpa had this secret handshake that started with a wave and ended with air pumps, and I’d be happy to teach it to him. We’d laugh, but softly, because we were still aware of our surroundings. Then the funeral director would come to escort the family and I would say, “That’s me.” He’d give me a go-get-’em-tiger look, and I would never see him again, but that would be okay, because at least I was more in his memory than just a wave.

The boy (who wasn’t really a boy, maybe a man … an inbetween boy/man) looked back at me and instead of waving did a salute. It was the only possible thing worse than my wave, which made it the perfect gesture. I was about to head over and teach him my new secret handshake when he slipped into the hallway. I actually started to follow him before Sam and Camille blocked my exit.

“Holly!” Camille waved. Full force.

I blinked at my friends. It took a second for me to process that they were there, that people were really communicating with me, that I was standing where I was. “Hey, guys.”

Sam crossed the room in three monstrous steps and gave me a bear hug. I stood there stiffly as he gathered me up. I breathed in that mix of piney soap and fruit Mentos that was Sam. “There’s a country song, Garth Brooks, ‘The Dance,’ that says—”

“That song’s depressing,” Camille said. “Don’t be depressing.”

“I’m just saying, if Holly wants to cry or talk, do it now, before the big sob fest starts.”

They both stared at me expectantly, like I really was going to break down. And I wavered for a second, almost told them about the money problems that I didn’t even understand. But for what? What would it do? Make me think about it more? That wasn’t even possible. It’s like a neon sign was lit in my brain flashing
CHAPEL! CHAPEL! CHAPEL!
every six or seven seconds. “I’m … I’m whatever. It’s a funeral.”

“And it sucks.” Sam reached down and tugged my hair like he used to during middle school math competitions. “Don’t forget that part, Holls.”

Camille sat on the edge of a wingback chair because that’s all the space she took up. She was the girl who ate a half piece of gum and couldn’t finish a whole soda to save her life. It wasn’t a diet thing, she was just a Victorian lady like that. “I was going to get you something,” she said out of nowhere. “Like, for
support? But I didn’t know what to get. I’ve never had someone in my life die. So how has it been so far? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst.”

“Seventy-four. Seventy-five if you count the fact that Victor Cranston still needs to show up.”

“I don’t know who that is,” Camille said. “Do we hate him?”

I loved how she did that. Declared someone her enemy if I told her to, as some strange display of loyalty. She did that with Sam too, asked which bands
they
liked, what
they
thought on different political issues.

Sam shifted. “Cranston’s the guy who owns the Cupid’s Dream Chapel.”

“Oh, we
do
hate him then, right?” She twisted a strand of strawberry blond hair.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Well, sort of, since I’ve never actually talked to him. If hate were a person, we’d be second cousins.”

“First cousins for me. Maybe even an uncle,” I said.

“Did your grandpa mention Cranston in the Instructions?” Sam asked.

“What instructions?” Camille asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Cranston is supposed to show up drunk and make some shameful public display. I’m surprised Grandpa didn’t print it in the program.”

Sam guffawed. A man cleared his throat behind us. Sam wasn’t trying to be irreverent, he just didn’t know how to laugh softly. “Remember that time Jim sent him cheap wine for Christmas with that note? ‘Cheap wine for a whiney cheap.’ ”

I cracked a smile. “Cranston came over waving that bottle. Thought he would smash it on Grandpa’s head.”

“When was this?” Camille asked.

“I don’t know, Clarice was still working here.”

“Remember Clarice?” I asked.

“I think Donna fired her because she didn’t know what an alpaca is.”

“She called it a llama.” I laughed. “That’s when Donna started hanging up all those alpaca calendars around the office, like she was going to educate Clarice.”

Camille stuck out her bottom lip in a mock pout. “You guys have so many memories together.”

“Camille, we have memories too.” Sam rubbed her shoulder. “Different memories.”

Hooking-up memories. Our friends called Sam and Camille “Peter and Cottontail” because those two were always going at it. Camille was homeschooled, with crazy-strict parents, so she wasn’t actually even supposed to date Sam. They’d had this secret, forbidden relationship since the beginning of last year. It was all very romantic/dramatic/stupid, but I loved Sam, so as a favor, I begged Grandpa to give Camille a job working clerical. The number-one problem was Camille sucked at the job. She was great with people, but she misfiled things all the time and was terrible with the computer program. Grandpa kept threatening to fire her, but he didn’t have it in him.

Now I guess Camille had more job security since I was the boss.

Ugh.
I was the boss
.

The funeral director cleared his throat. “Friends and family, as per Jim Nolan’s Instructions, we’ll now make our way into the chapel for the memorial service. His body will be available for viewing afterward. Graveside service is for immediate family only. Oh, and the bar will remain open until four this afternoon.”

An open bar at a funeral.

I hoped this was the end of his crazy Instructions. The end after I delivered that letter to Dax Cranston, of course.

I wish I could say the program was meaningful and special, but an hour of watery remembrances paled in comparison to the man my grandpa was. Plus, the open bar made everyone sloppy, and it was hard to tell if some of the memories were real or fictionalized.

Afterward, my bleary-eyed dad ushered the guests to the reflection room to ruminate over Grandpa Jim’s legacy/get more drunk. Still no sign of the mortal enemy, which meant someone else was needed to do something dramatically stupid to appease my grandpa’s ghost. With this crowd, I wasn’t too worried.

Mom pulled me away and nodded to the door. “The viewing room is empty. Why don’t you say your good-byes?”

“I did. Before he passed.” I looked away. “He’s gone, Mom.”

“He’s not gone for good. Just gone from here. Go on in. It’ll help.”

I sat in a foldout chair across from the casket, trying to muster the courage for a chat. The room was chilly, filled with dying flowers to cover up the scent of a dead person. The program may have been upbeat, but that didn’t change the fact that everyone else got to walk out of that room and Grandpa would be in his faux gold box forever.

I chipped the black polish on three fingernails before I finally approached the casket. Grandpa Jim looked like a shriveled Bono from U2—red hair dyed black and cut short, with the signature tinted sunglasses, skin waxy and cold. I’d fought Mom and Dad on the open-casket thing and obviously lost. They said it brought emotional closure. Whatever—if they wanted healing, then the casket should be the thing closing, forget emotions.

Still, this would be the last time I would see him, or a version of him, and it was kind of nice to have this final moment. I reached down and readjusted his sunglasses.

“He’s getting buried with his glasses?” Victor Cranston drooped against the doorway. “Wanna know why? His eyelids. Baggiest I ever saw. And he knew it. Bono, who likes Bono? Thought those shades gave him an air of mystery.” He hiccuped. “Mystery, my foot, Jim Nolan.”

“Grandpa Jim will be so glad you came,” I said. “Drunk, just like he’d hoped.”

Victor bought the chapel next door in the late nineties, a
decade after Grandpa Jim started his business. Cupid’s Dream’s previous owners were elderly lesbians who still sent us Christmas cards. But then came Victor, adding five themed chapels and a drive-up window and a stretch Hummer with cheesy cupids painted all over it and drunk patrons and everything that gave Vegas weddings a bad name.

He swayed into the room, lips curled around a full-dentured smile. “Did I interrupt something? You saying good-bye to this piece of garbage?”

I didn’t realize how much I hated him until we finally met. Formally. There were all the times in the parking lot he’d flipped me off.

I blocked the casket. The man was still six feet away, but I could smell the alcohol. Alcohol and burned beef. “Grandpa Jim wanted more people around when you had your drunken fit.”

“I’m hurt, darling. I’m here to pay my respects, just like anyone else.” He charged over to the casket, literally pushing me away.

I counted to twelve. Twelve is usually my calming number. “You never showed him respect when he was alive. Why start now?”

“Poppy?” I was just snorting to myself about how stupid calling anyone “Poppy” was when the man/boy from the wake hurried into the room. His voice was higher than I’d imagined it would be, but it’s hard to sound deep and throaty when uttering a word like that. When he saw me, he did the same kind of wave I’d done earlier. It made my heart soften. Skip. There was an unexpected skip. “Oh. Hi.”

“I, uh … I wasn’t trying to wave at you. Earlier.” Quite
possibly the only thing worse than waving was mentioning the wave and cementing myself as Wave Girl forever. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Yeah, that salute wasn’t for you either.” He spoke with a southern accent, warm and mushy like a bowl of sugary oatmeal. “There was a veteran standing behind you.”

“There was?”

He cracked a smile. It took me one unfortunate syllable before I got the joke. “A veteran. Salute. Cute.” I tried to think of a funny line to follow it up, but it—him, here, this—was all too much.

Cranston cleared his throat. “Dax, you done flirting? Can I finish up my business here?”

Dax. This was Dax. Grandson Dax. Here was this short moment, a small breath that didn’t burn, and I shared it with Dax Cranston. Great, Grandpa Jim. Who doesn’t leave a sealed envelope for their enemy’s lovely grandson?

Victor stuck his sausagey hand into the casket and snatched Grandpa Jim’s sunglasses. “That’s better. Now you can meet your maker in all your saggy glory.”

The adrenaline kicked in. If Grandpa Jim wanted a scene, I would deliver. I would gouge Victor’s ferrety eyes, yank his oily hair, rip his cheap suit. I would do it, and I would enjoy it. “Put those back.”

“Come on, this is stupid,” Dax said. “Shake everyone’s hands and let’s go. You’re better than this.”

Clearly arguable.

Victor twirled the glasses around his fingers, sizing me up. I did not squirm, although one look from this man made me want
to jump into a tub of hand sanitizer. “So … what I really want to know is, what happens to the chapel?”