Good Mourning (15 page)

I plated the chicken and we moved over to the dining table. I was still in my black suit, although I had stripped off the panty hose, which were starting to make my legs itch.
“This is why I refuse to date anyone seriously,” I said. “New York City men? Bunch of dirtbags.”

“I take offense to that,” said Max, pouring himself another glass. “By the way, these string beans taste like they need you to plan their funeral.”

It wasn't that I never dated—I had been out with lots of guys and had been
mostly
lucky in love. Even my first relationship, which lasted through high school, was much deeper (and less dramatic) than you might expect. And since then, I'd had guys chase after me, all of them smart and sexy in their own ways. But the idea of settling into a relationship just to be comfortable, much less a risky relationship that might leave me deep into a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a
Sex and the City
marathon? No, thanks. I was perfectly happy to keep things casual, which just attracted the Upper East Side trust-fund babies even more. These were guys who were used to getting everything (and every woman) they wanted. The fact that I wasn't trying to pee in a circle around them to mark my territory seemed to make them even more interested. Also, I had close guy friends, like Ben, who were always there to be my plus-one at weddings and other events.

If I ever
was
going to spend my life with someone, I wanted the type of relationship my parents had. They were best friends. It's not the sweetest tale ever, but one story I always loved was the one my mom used to tell about her first married fight with my dad. She could never remember what the fight was about, but halfway through, she picked up a
glass paperweight and positioned her arm like she might throw it. Dad barely flinched. “It looks like you're thinking about throwing that,” he said calmly. “Before you do, you might want to consider that it's expensive, and breaking it might make you angrier. But it's up to you.” Mom looked at the paperweight and started cracking up—and Dad followed suit. “That was our marriage,” she said. Instead of cleaning out his whole closet when he died, she donated the suits but kept the sweaters for herself. She still wears them.

And I knew my dad would never have wanted me to settle. When I was a girl, I was obsessed with Gaby's mom's sapphire engagement ring. The thing could probably feed a small country, but it was stunning, not gaudy. “I want to get married so I can have a sapphire ring, too,” a nine-year-old me told my dad one day. He put down the newspaper and looked at me sternly. “You don't marry for a ring,” he said. “If you want a sapphire, I'll get you a sapphire. But you marry for love.” He had never given my mom an engagement ring; she didn't want one, she wanted a watch. (Mom was practical like that.) Then about a year before Dad died, Mom was getting her watch fixed at a jeweler and saw the most beautiful emerald ring on a thin platinum band. “Try it on,” I told her. “No, I can't,” she said. “That's silly.” A minute later, the ring was on her finger, and she had the biggest grin on her face. “No, no, no,” she said, giving it back to the jeweler. “But it's lovely.”

I told my dad that he had to go and buy Mom the ring;
she had been through so much taking care of him, and I also wanted her to have something special. She deserved it. But by the time Dad went to the jeweler, the ring had already sold. “Guess it wasn't meant to be,” he nonchalantly told me. Then, almost a year later—by this time, Dad was in a wheelchair—he called to tell me he'd just received a message from the jeweler. The person who had purchased the ring couldn't finish the payments on it. The ring had been ­returned, and the jeweler wanted to know if Dad was still ­interested. “That's amazing!” I said. “I'll go pick it up for you.”

“No,” said Dad. “I want to do it myself. Will you wheel me over there?”

Christmas was a month later, and Dad and I couldn't pass out the presents fast enough. We left one huge box for last. “That one's for you, love,” Dad said, pointing to it. (He couldn't walk across the room; he was too sick.) I'll never forget the look on my mom's face as she tore through the paper, opened the large cardboard box, and saw that little blue velvet ring box sitting on the bottom. She let out a gasp as she opened the lid to see the shiny emerald ring. “I love you,” said Dad, smiling. Mom was in tears putting it on her finger. Dad died that March.

My mom and I had always had a complicated relationship, but after he died, she remembered the conversation my father had had with me when I was nine. “I want you to have what I had,” she said. I didn't fully understand at the time—
Your husband is dead
, I thought.
Why would you want that for me?
As if she could read my mind, Mom said, “I was happily married for almost forty years. Every time your father walked through the door, I was excited to see him. Not everybody gets that.” She told me to get my coat and walked me to the jeweler, who had designed a ring just like hers, but with a sapphire stone. “From me and Dad,” she said.

Max poured another glass of wine while I looked down at the ring on my finger. Even though Monica had been eyeing it at work—and maybe making all sorts of judgments—I didn't care; I wore it every day. Staring at it just then, I missed my mom. Even though she was close by and we called or texted each other a few times a week, things had been off ever since Dad died. I didn't know if it would ever feel like we were on the same wavelength again. My mind drifted to both Mrs. Pressmans. How did they find it in themselves to connect, even after being so betrayed? Maybe it was the fact that they had both loved, and they had both lost. Were Mom and I so different?

Gaby interrupted my reverie. “To health and happiness,” she said, motioning for us to all clink glasses.

And love
, I thought, raising my glass.
In all its complicated forms
.

NINE

I'll Have What She's Having

E
laine came to town. It wasn't to see me—although I was, as usual, a casualty of her visit. Her friend Barbara, another woman who wintered in Palm Beach and only spent warmer months in Manhattan, was finally ready to bury her husband's ashes. This sounds sweet, right? Like it was too hard for her to put him in the ground? Oh, no. Babs had requested that Crawford “hold on to him for a while” until party season was over in Palm Beach. She had been married to the man for
fifty years
, and yet she didn't want to miss a week of bridge or mahjong games to lay him to rest. And so there he stayed, in the walk-in-sized closet where we kept all the unclaimed ashes, some waiting to be picked up, some that had been there for, like, ever. I felt sad every time I walked by it, thinking of the people who had been left behind. Whenever I punched the code on the metal door to
deliver an urn to a family member who'd finally showed up, I made it a point to say hello to all of the ashes and let them know they hadn't been forgotten.

After Elaine went to the service (which Tony handled; I wasn't involved, thank God), I met her at Aureole for lunch. The captain seated us on the top floor near the window, where Elaine was already slugging down a Smirnoff on the rocks with a twist of lime. When I was a girl, we used to meet for lunch at the Stanhope, which was a fancy hotel (and is now pricey apartments). It had a sidewalk café that was a hot spot for socialites—a place to “be seen,” if you were into that sort of thing. If I wasn't in my prep school uniform—a green pinstriped jumper that was part dress code, part status symbol—my mom forced me into a smock dress. (Meals with Elaine were
never
casual.) Then Elaine would parade me around the dining room before taking a seat at the best table in the place. It was like she wanted everyone to see her perfect grandchild in a perfect dress with perfect, nauseating matching ribbons in her hair, even though normally I could be found in blue Umbro soccer shorts and a T-shirt. (Elaine didn't understand people who wore jeans, and she practically died at the sight of women in ballet flats or . . . gasp! . . . sneakers. Even the woman's slippers had wedge heels.) “Lovey girl,” she would say, “do you know why this is called the
Stanhope
?” I would shake my head even though she had told me the story a million times. “Well, I'll tell you a funny story. When I was your age, I had a friend named Hope, and
she had a brother named Stan. If you put two and two together, well, do you understand? The couple who owned this hotel named it after their children! Stan. Hope.” She was so proud that she knew these people, even though she probably hadn't spoken to Stan
or
Hope in decades. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the Upper East Side.

“Your mother tells me you are still doing this . . . this . . . funeral thing,” she said without looking at me as we perused the menu.

“Yup,” I said, rubbing my finger over the monogrammed clasp on my pearl necklace. Even now I found myself playing dress-up to lunch with her.

“Well, I think it's been enough now,” she said. “You rebelled. You played dead. Wonderful. Now, don't you think it's time you stopped embarrassing your mother?”

“Stopped embarrassing Mom, or stopped embarrassing you?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

Elaine let out a sigh of annoyance. “Your father worked so
hard
. You went to the
best
schools.”

“Dad would be proud of me,” I said.

“Well, Brett certainly had a mind of his own,” she said, looking down.

For a second, I thought I saw a look of sadness on her face.
Could it be?
I thought.
Is she actually showing an ou
nce of grief for her dead son?

“It's so hard, you know . . .” she started to say.

I leaned forward, completely shocked that Elaine and I
were about to have a heart-to-heart about Dad. I had never forgiven her for not coming to say good-bye to him at the hospital. Maybe,
maybe
this was our moment to heal from that.

“Yes, Nanny?” I said.

“It's so hard to know
what
to order in this place,” she continued. “I really do miss the Stanhope.”

YOU'D THINK
that once people died, they'd quit the whole “Keeping up with the Joneses” routine and just rest in peace. And maybe they do . . . when they're actually dead. But one of the most lucrative parts of Crawford's business is the preplanning. People would come into Crawford, sometimes with an assistant or a notebook, and plan their own funerals. It sounds morbid, but this actually takes a lot of pressure off families to plan the perfect send-off for their parent or grandparent or whoever. And, perhaps for those who lunched at the Stanhope to “be seen,” it also ensured that their memorial service would be up to snuff. If it was
really
done right, the service might even elicit envy. Can you imagine? As if all the Upper East Side biddies would stand over the casket, champagne in hand, saying, “Oh, dahling, this party is to
die
for.”

The worst offense came in 2009. The economy was in the tank. Even New York City real estate prices had dipped, which is when you knew things were
really
bad.
There were Wall Street types walking around in a daze, BlackBerrys in hand, wondering what the hell to do after they'd just been laid off. For the first time in a
long
time, Crawford customers started asking about prices. “Can I get a discount on the casket?” “That is
way
too expensive for lilies. I know a guy who can get them for me for half of that.” (Yeah, okay, buddy, like the guy who sells bundles of blooms at the bodega down the street is going to do the ­floral arrangements for your mom's wake.) Anyway, people started bargaining, sometimes in between tears. How someone has the clarity of mind to try to negotiate 10 percent off on a cremation the afternoon after their significant other died, I have no idea. What I do know is that money was draining out of the city, and if there's one thing rich people don't like, it's the feeling that their fortune is vanishing into thin air.
Poof.

And yet, there were still women like Mrs. Divine, who came in to preplan their funerals, no expense spared. Lady Divine had been coming into Crawford ever since her husband died a couple of years before. The service, I heard, was a simple, elegant affair—no bells and whistles. So we were all a little curious when Mrs. Divine started asking about the priciest mausoleums, which can go for up to $300,000 at top cemeteries in the New York City area.

“She wants
what
?” I asked Tony. “Did you tell her the price?”

“Of course I did,” said Tony. Actually, ever since 1984,
the Federal Trade Commission has had pretty strict rules on pricing so clients don't get scammed or surprised by funeral costs. If a customer asked about the price of something, we had to be very transparent, and all client meetings began with us handing over a general price list. No hidden fees, ever.

“And?”

“And she said no.”

I was a little relieved to hear it. I had heard through the grapevine that Mrs. Divine was selling her apartment. Maybe the woman just wanted to downsize—totally possible. But there were plenty of people in Manhattan putting their pricey penthouses on the market, and I worried about an ­elderly widow willing to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars away on a glorified tombstone. “Well, that's good,” I said.

Tony shook his head. “There's a big difference between a ‘no' and a ‘hell no,' ” he said. “She was asking about the mausoleum that her friend—you know Mrs. Henderson, the lady who comes in here wanting to change her future funeral card all the time?”

I nodded.

“Well, she heard that Mrs. Henderson just secured herself a mausoleum in a beautiful plot by a tree, and she's not about to let her friend spend eternity in better real estate,” he said.

“You've got to be kidding me,” I said. Here I had been thinking Elaine was bad. This was off the charts.

The absurd cost of the mausoleum was the least of Mrs. Divine's problems in one-upping her friend in the afterlife. Mr. Divine had been buried in a plot next to where Mrs. Divine would be buried one day—and there simply wasn't enough room around them to fit a humongous shrine. So Mrs. Divine had come in to ask Tony if it would be possible to
un
bury (or “disinter,” as we called it in the biz) her husband, have him cremated, and then use both plots to make room for the grand stone house that would put her friend's mausoleum to shame. (At least in her mind.)

“I've heard of people doing this,” she told Tony, justifying her crazy. I don't know how he kept a straight face, but he did, and maybe the craziest part was that he was actually looking into the matter for her.

“You can't be serious,” I said. Tony was no Bill—we didn't talk sports or rock out to Motown together. But I had grown comfortable enough to tell him when I saw a massive red flag waving in his face.

“We need the business,” he said. He wasn't wrong: there had been increasing pressure from up high in the company to bring in more revenue. As far as I could tell, the Crawford staff had never had a problem selling overpriced funeral swag to clients—but I wondered if that was because the staff was oversimplifying the way they looked at money. To them, $90,000 for a casket was an
obscene
waste of money, but then again, so was $15,000, which is what the cheaper models at Crawford cost. The clients walking through the door, all
with their designer clothes and chauffeurs waiting outside, looked pretty one-dimensional. The assumption was that since some people in the wealthiest parts of Manhattan could afford it, everyone could. It was almost not their fault . . . but Tony should have known better. I had noticed that he really worked clients during prearrangements. Maybe it was the fact that they were there to arrange their own service, and therefore might be willing to splurge on themselves. I'll admit it's not the worst idea, from a business perspective. But it still felt unnatural to peddle extras, like a sleazy broker selling an overpriced condo.

Despite the high cost of prearranging a funeral at Crawford, there were plenty of people lined up to do so. One was Mrs. Simon, who came in regularly, always with the red bag that she had used to take home the urn with her husband's ashes. She was an elderly French woman with a marvelous accent, and even though it was totally unnecessary for her to keep coming in—her funeral had been planned, and she had paid up-front—she liked to visit and “check in on things.” One particular day, she was struggling to take her raincoat off, and she handed me the bag to hold for a moment. It was incredibly light, as though she were carting around nothing more than a bag of cotton balls. Which, as it turns out, wasn't far off.

I walked her into Tony's office, where she proceeded to pull a teddy bear from the bag and place it on his desk. Tony didn't flinch, but I was having trouble keeping a straight
face. Was she giving him a gift? Had he seen the bear ­before?

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Simon,” Tony said.

“It's nice to see you too,” she said, smiling. “I was wondering if I might be able to look at the different viewing room options again.”

Tony went over the rooms with her, describing each briefly and then reminding Mrs. Simon that she had seen all of the rooms many, many times and they had decided on the perfect space for her service . . . whenever that might be. Then she asked about the flowers, and then the funeral cards, as if planning the event of the year. She was polite and lovely throughout the whole conversation, except that in between every question, she would turn to the teddy bear and ask what
he
thought she should do.

“Is she crazy?” I asked Tony after Mrs. Simon had put her raincoat back on and slipped out the front door. It was always sad to see people who were starting to lose it in their old age—which we got a lot of. “Does she think her husband's spirit is in that bear?”

Tony shrugged. “She's prepaid, that's what I know. As long as she has the cash, she can come in as many times as she wants,” he said, walking back into his office and closing the door.

I'd learned a lot from Tony, but I couldn't understand his attitude. Prearrangements were important to business—I got that. But there had to be a better way of doing things,
where Crawford could still meet its bottom line and be fair to customers. I wasn't sure what it was, but I was itching to find out. Unfortunately, I was beginning to think that Tony wouldn't be the one to teach me.