The Dearly Departed (31 page)

“Shocking,” said Sunny.

“Which means if I worked in Nashua, let's say, or Concord—and, I think, Manchester, Merrimack, and Portsmouth might be in that category—I'd need a second car.”

“Although tonight would probably qualify as duty, don't you think?” Sunny asked. “A follow-up home visit to the daughter of the deceased, collecting evidence, checking the furnace and the air quality?”

“I think I know what you're asking,” he said.

Sunny added, “You'd probably earn overtime now that you have to stick around until your alcohol metabolizes.”

Joey rubbed his face and smiled. “Are you asking if this is a date?”

She put her glass down, crossed her legs, uncrossed them, stared at the expanse of limb, slipped off her navy-blue flats, bent over to touch her toenails, and came up frowning. “I don't think the polish was totally dry when I put my shoes on,” she explained.

Joey wanted to laugh. He also wanted to run his palm down one smooth leg and up the other.

“I don't suppose you want a refill,” she said, “which would make you a virtual prisoner of your blood-alcohol content.”

“Is it all mixed?”

Sunny said, “I doubled the recipe.”

“No hurry. When I finish this one. Which is to say, I'm in no hurry. I'm here as a matter of personal preference and free will.”

“I caught that,” said Sunny.

“Nobody has to put a label on it, though, right? We're listening to music in your melon-colored living room and talking.”

“It's caviar,” said Sunny.

Joey pointed to her feet. “I must say, though, I took it as an excellent sign that you painted your toenails caviar for the occasion.”

Sunny reached down and put her flats back on.

“On the other hand, I know the timing is lousy,” Joey offered. “You're probably still in shock—all this talk of dates and such coming from the guy who delivered the worst news you ever heard.”

Sunny said quietly, “I'd feel better if I
were
in shock.”

“Better about what?”

“Me. My character. My reaction.”

“To your mother's death? You're saying that you want to feel worse than you do?”

Sunny closed her eyes. “Would a truly grief-stricken daughter go directly from the cemetery to the golf course? Or, between the wake and the funeral, give herself a pedicure? Or put an egg-white mask on her face this afternoon? From her late mother's eggs?”

Joey said, “Come here.”

Sunny slid to his side. He put his arm around her shoulders. “I deliver a lot of bad news—too much. And everyone's different. The ones who scream and beat their breasts aren't necessarily the most loyal spouses or the most devoted kids. Believe me, I see all kinds of stuff. I think people need to do normal things, like hit a bucket of balls or mow the lawn, after they get terrible news. It gives them a routine, and reminds them of how life might be again someday.”

“Or maybe I'm an incredibly shallow person who, in the face of tragedy, thinks only about herself.”

“Keep going,” said Joey. “Hit me with your best argument. Because so far I'm winning this debate.”

“I meant this,” said Sunny, moving her index finger back and forth between them. “Tonight. Is this the dictionary definition of mourning? Did I invite my mother's friends back after the funeral for cheese or crackers or a candlelight vigil? Or did I invite one very attractive man over for cocktails?”

“Me?”

“Of course you!”

Joey sat up straighter. “How does that make you shallow? I started it. I don't offer my services to every person who comes to town for her mother's funeral. I thought it was obvious—the police escort every time you left the house, the station flag at half-mast. And who asked who out for tonight?”

“First of all, Fletcher arranged it by saying, ‘Have pizza with me tonight and Joey tomorrow.' I couldn't read anything personal into
that
invitation, could I? Second of all, this isn't an ordinary death. Of course you'd have to get involved and investigate and put up police tape and squire around the loved ones.”

Joey smiled. “How old are we?”

“Thirty-one?”

“So let's be direct. Is there a boyfriend back at home?”

Sunny said, “Hundreds.”

“That was a joke, right? The coast is clear?”

“Embarrassingly clear.”

“I figured that much. I figured that a boyfriend would have jumped on the first plane and would be here for the wake and the funeral, and would be keeping you company during your travails. And would be here now. Where a boyfriend would be: here.” He pointed to his own lap.

“And have we established whether or not
your
coast is clear?”

“We never discussed this? How my wild oats were behind me since I became a pillar of the community and chief law enforcement officer, especially since there's only one, closely watched motel in town?”

“Which doesn't mean you haven't settled down with a female pillar of the community.”

“I haven't.”

“Hard to believe,” she murmured.

“And why is that?”

Sunny tilted her head, narrowed her eyes. “A nice-looking, hazel-eyed boy like you? With flattering shirts, civic pride, a company car—”

“Who lives with his mother and works seven days a week; who doesn't even come across a single woman in the course of the day unless she's driving drunk?”

“Please. Those days are behind you—the woman shortage. You're a celebrity now. Superman. You can bet I wasn't the only one who noticed you naked from the waist up on television.”

Joey threw his head back and laughed. “I've been busy. I haven't had time to read my fan mail, let alone answer it.”

When Sunny didn't smile, he said, “I was kidding! I didn't get any fan mail. Everyone but you shut off the TV when Channel 9 showed me naked.”

“Hardly what I'd call naked,” she murmured.

“I meant, you know—my hematomas.”

Sunny asked, “How
is
that badly bruised famous torso of yours?”

Do I show her? he wondered. Do I undo a button? Two? He sneaked a glance. She looked concerned. Better than concerned. Interested. Inclined.

These are my options, he thought: Kiss her; or don't. Wait. How long has it been since her mother died? Five days? Don't blow it. Assume nothing. Assume no interest except that of a grateful taxpayer for her chief of police. Expect the next sentence out of her mouth to be: I'm flattered but not interested. I'm seeing someone. I'm getting married next month. I'm gay. I'm moving to Seattle. I'm suffering from a terminal illness that I forgot to mention in all the commotion.

“What are you thinking about?” Sunny asked.

Joey removed his arm from her shoulders. “Truthfully? I'm trying to figure out what to do next. I don't want to get us into an awkward situation where you have to explain how I misread the cues, and you're vulnerable, and even though you like me very much as a friend, it's getting late.”

Sunny began shaking her head halfway through his speech. “This is
exactly
what I was saying: People don't know how to treat me, because of the mixed messages I send. One minute I'm weeping and the next minute I'm shaking martinis. Do I stay home? Go out? What do other people do? What would a grief counselor tell me to do?”

Joey said, “You know what I think a grief counselor would say? That if something makes you happy, you should do it, regardless of the timing, because nothing is going to bring your mother back.”

“That's the modern argument. But in some cultures, there's a week of mourning and prayer, or maybe it's a month. I forget. And some people don't date for a whole year.”

“I think that's for widows,” said Joey. “I think daughters can date as soon as a nice bachelor comes along.”

Sunny smiled. “I think I read that in the Old Testament.”

“And this might be self-serving,” he continued, “but your mother liked me. I think she would have approved. We know she had a pretty healthy social life of her own—ahem—and she would
not
want you to follow any religion that prohibited making out on her couch just because she died there.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, then leaned back against his arm.

Still, he waited. He remembered this was the Sunny from study hall, straight of spine and A in conduct. He leaned in with every intention of dispensing the respectful, consoling kiss that her orphan state required. But that was seconds before their lips actually touched; before she kissed him back; before they shut the door and closed the blinds; before Rex Harrison finished singing or dinner was forgotten or La Quiche was closed. Hours before Mrs. Loach, across town, checked her bedside clock and fell reluctantly to sleep.

 

E
mily Ann had hoped for press coverage, but her dropping out of the race was greeted with more equanimity and fewer column inches than she would have dreamed possible. When Representative d'Apuzzo issued a statement praising her quixotic public spirit and her plucky idealism, one lone reporter bothered to track her down in King George, and then only for comment on her opponent's choice of adjectives.

Had anyone bothered to ask, she would have labeled her stay a retreat, which she hoped would be understood in the meditative rather than the military sense. No one, she reasoned, would believe that Emily Ann Grandjean, Nantucket summerer and St. Bart's winterer, would choose King George, New Hampshire—no spa, no beach, no craft galleries, no darling cafés offering gourmet take-out, no concierge—as a vacation destination.

Fletcher, on the other hand, seemed to her annoyingly content. If anyone asked what drew him to this speck on the map, he could answer without spinning: a father to mourn, a history to reconstruct, a grave to visit, a house to inherit, a car to wax, a sister to adopt, a book to write.

After several breakfasts alone—Fletcher slept till all hours—Emily Ann met a potential friend at The Dot, an older woman, who noticed her tennis racket and her
Wall Street Journal.
Fran Pope, dressed in tennis whites, made the overture, asking Emily Ann to join her in her booth and finding a way to slip her Republican State Committee credentials into the conversation. Even before Winnie had warmed up their coffee, Mrs. Pope asked, “Are you by any chance interested in theater?”

“Of course,” said Emily Ann.

“Have you ever acted?”

“Not on a stage,” said Emily Ann.

“And aren't you, coincidentally, a lawyer?”

“Why ‘coincidentally'?”

“Our local group is doing
Inherit the Wind,
” said Mrs. Pope, “and we need women. The courtroom is jammed with spectators.”

“I'm no actress,” said Emily Ann. “I learned that on the campaign trail. Besides, I don't know how long I'll be in town.”

Mrs. Pope appeared stumped, but only momentarily. After a sip of black coffee, her recruiter's smile returned. “You know what would be an enormous contribution yet wouldn't take any time at all?”

“What?”

“A consultant.” She patted Emily Ann's hand. “Of course you know it's the Monkey Trial, with Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, and with men wearing straw boaters? Well, just the way soap operas have a doctor on the set to make sure no X ray is read upside down, we'd be looking for the judicial equivalent.”

“You're not rewriting any dialogue, are you?”

“No! Heavens no. I was thinking of gestures, objections, when to sit, when to jump to one's feet. Body English. Those little moments that make an attorney come to life on the stage.”

“No thank you,” said Emily Ann.

Mrs. Pope tried again a few days later, on their first official outing. The two women were waiting on a bench on a knoll above the one municipal tennis court that had a net. “Have you given any more thought to joining our group?” she ventured.

“No,” said Emily Ann.

“I talked to some Players—we're the King George Community Players—and they agreed it would make such a difference if we had something like a verisimilitude coach.”

Emily Ann asked, “Isn't your son an attorney?”

“My son,” said Mrs. Pope proudly, “is a combination workaholic, public servant, and golf addict. Which doesn't leave any time for the performing arts. Or for his mother.”

“Is he married?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Pope.

“Do you like her?”

“She's a sweet girl.” She paused. “Italian. Former schoolteacher.”

“Are they happy?”

“They seem to be. Randy's doing very well. He has a partner, a receptionist, and a secretary who's studying to be a paralegal.”

“Can't one of them help you with
Twelve Angry Men
?”

“Twelve angry men?” Mrs. Pope repeated.

“Isn't that what you told me? Your play?”

“No, but how funny that you would mention that. We considered staging it, but we don't have twelve men—angry or otherwise. In any event, my point is we'd very much like you to join us. We think you'd fit in very nicely, and we're prepared to offer you the title assistant director.”

Emily Ann nodded toward the teenagers on the tennis court. “Do they know we're waiting? They could be fooling around here for another hour.”

“I know the girl. She'll lose interest in five minutes.” Mrs. Pope reached into her canvas bag for a bottle of water, the slightly obscure brand that Emily Ann favored.

“You can get that here?” Emily Ann asked.

“Easily. At Foodland, our supermarket.” She handed the bottle to Emily Ann. “Please. I have a spare.”

After a passionate swig, Emily Ann asked, “So what would legal consulting involve? Watching one rehearsal?”