Mortuary Confidential

in and we’ll go right to my apartment. There are no dead people up there. It’s safe.” I saw my chances of romance slipping away before my eyes and there was not a damn thing I could do about it.

Paula stood there swaying in the front yard of the funeral home, under the big elm tree, her eyes half-lidded and clouded over with hatred. “I’ll walk then. I’m not stepping foot in that morgue.”

She set off unsteadily down the road. “Wait,” I called after her. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

She threw up her middle finger over her shoulder as she marched down the road. I stood at the back door, slightly bewildered, and watched her go.

CHAPTER 44 Gobble Gobble Contributed by a vintage LP collector

I made settlement on my dream house on the Monday before turkey day. It’s a Cape- style house with all the amenities: random plank hardwood floors, stainless appliances and frameless cabinets in the kitchen, and copious amounts of marble in the bathrooms. My new digs are certainly a step up from my starter house on the West End and certainly a far cry from the fleabag apartment I used to rent in downtown Richmond when I first got my license. It’s in the kind of neighborhood where you’d expect June and Ward Cleaver to exit the house next door at any minute and welcome you to the neighborhood with a fruit basket and bottle of bubbly. I had been saving for this house since… forever.

Naturally, eager to showcase my new bastion, I insisted to my family that I would host Thanksgiving dinner that year. Many of them had already made plans, but I begged, pleaded, cajoled, and threatened, and eventually got my way. It was settled. Word circulated throughout the family; Thanksgiving was going to be at Amy’s new house. I was thrilled.

I pushed all the boxes into the basement, tidied up as best as possible, bought a Martha Stewart cookbook (my first cookbook ever), and set out to work in the kitchen. It was only a minor disaster, seeing as how my sister, who was little Miss Easy-Bake Oven when we were kids, came over and saved my ass—and my turkey’s. The dinner was a smashing success second only to the glory of my new house. The booze flowed—though not for my boyfriend and me who were working—and I gave tours of the house while my pup, Izzy, raced around her new yard. Right before dessert, I received a knock at the door.

I opened the door and greeted a woman who held an extremely large covered roasting pan. Her dazzling smile suggested thousands of dollars of orthodontic work and many whitening treatments.

“Hi. My name is”—I’m not kidding you—“June. I’m your new next door neighbor.” She nodded her head perkily as in affirmation of her own name. Not a single stand of hair in her perfect hairstyle moved.

Did you bring Wally and the Beav? I thought derisively, but instead held out my hand and said, “Hi! Nice to meet you,” Then, realizing June’s hands were full, I withdrew it quickly, feeling foolish. “I’m Amy. Would you care to come in?” I stepped aside and motioned her in.

“Oh no, dear, I’m just so sorry to meet you under these circumstances, but I thought this would help… on behalf of the entire neighborhood.”

I was puzzled. Help? But I took the pan from her hands. It was so heavy that I had to set it down on a side table to peek under the foil. It was a giant roasted turkey. Seeing the look on my face, June chimed in, “Twenty-five pounds, dear.”

I hated it when people called me “dear.” I straightened up, cocked my head, and said, “Well, thank you, June. You didn’t have to do that. It’s awfully extravagant, a whole big turkey.”

“I know, but I had an extra one in the freezer and I thought you wouldn’t feel like cooking one. So I’m just glad I can give you some semblance of a Thanksgiving Day.”

“How do you mean?” I asked, now clearly lost.

“It’s always tough when a family member dies. I know. I lost my father two years ago.” She reached out, took my hand, and made a hand sandwich.

“Nobody died,” I said slowly as understanding began to dawn on me.

“The hearse—”

I cut in, beginning to laugh. “I’m a funeral director.”

“But the cop car, the medical examiner’s truck,” she stalled, and her perky manner fizzled into bewilderment.

“My boyfriend is a county cop. We’re both working today, so I have the hearse in case I get called out and my boyfriend is ‘code seven,’ or on a meal break, right now. My good friend works for the Central District Division of Forensic Science, and like me, is on call today, which is why the Department of Forensic Science truck is here.”

June looked absolutely deflated. The battle story she had been planning to tell the garden club had been ruined! I put an arm around her. “Come on in for a drink. You look like you could use one,” I teased.

She shook her head. “No. I have to get back to my family,” she said. “But I guess it’s good nobody died.” The white smile was back, this time fake.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Means I can have a peaceful meal with my family.”

June’s smile tightened in her face of foundation and lipstick.

“You’ll get used to seeing the hearse. I bring it home every night I’m taking death call and unfortunately, it won’t fit in the garage.”

“Oh,” June said in a tone that made it clear she abhorred the idea of a death mobile parked next to her house.

“Want your turkey back?”

“No. Consider it a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift, and Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Gobble gobble to you too!” I called after her.

Chuckling, I walked into the dining room holding the covered pan and announced, “Guess what’s for dessert?”

CHAPTER 45 The Tapestry of Life Contributed by a homemaker

My husband is a funeral director in a small town. We’re pretty much the only game in town. Everybody knows us and we know everybody. When I first moved to here it was suffocating. I grew up in the city—where I met Anthony while he was attending mortuary school—and thrived in the cosmopolitan atmosphere. Here, the only thing open after six o’clock is the billiards hall if you’re game for a pitcher of cheap beer. But I’ve grown to love the small-town atmosphere. This is my home now.

I often help out at the funeral home. I usually go over for a couple of hours a day and do the bookkeeping and help clean the place up. Since I don’t work, other than volunteering at the elementary school library, I don’t mind lending a hand. Sometimes I’ll even greet people at the door; it’s the type of town where I can almost greet everyone who walks through the door by name.

My husband and I have two children, a boy and a girl, who are exactly a year apart. Kelli is a senior and Trevor is a junior in high school. Four years ago, when the kids were in middle school, I had my first dose of providing service to a loved one when we got that middle-of-the-night call from an Indiana State Patrolman. I guess I always viewed Anthony’s profession as serving the families of little old ladies and stately old gentlemen of the community. Clean death. Timely death. Theoretical death. Anthony is a little more steeled in dealing with death, but for me, the experience was all at once confusing and devastating. But even in the shadow of death, I ended up learning a lot about life.

It all began with the dreadful call.