Good Mourning (20 page)

There was a line out the door ten minutes into the service. It was open casket, and since Henry didn't die in, say, a terrible car wreck that damaged his face, like many of the other younger deaths I'd seen, he looked like he was just nursing a hangover from the night before. It was hard to be at Crawford and
not
be working. I tried my best not to mill about the room like one of those robotic vacuum cleaners, picking things up and cleaning things off. I even wore my black blazer, something I'd normally never wear to a funeral as a guest.

Henry's parents were the first to enter. They walked slowly up to the casket, which was normal. Seeing a loved one laid out was so final, most families approached it like tiptoeing up to the edge of a cliff, and then—with one look down—jumping. I stood in the hall where Tony was lingering and saw him tear up as Henry's mom took a look at her son and held on to the casket, crying, “No.” Her husband tried to fight back his own tears while simultaneously holding her up. It wasn't just sad, it was heart wrenching. And even though Tony had seen thousands
of services, I knew why he was crying. The fact was, it didn't need to be this way. Henry could still be here. I thought of my friends who still did drugs—sometimes bending down to “tie their
shoe,” only to open a small plastic vial and snort coke off their door key—and wished, for them, that they could witness this moment.
Who could do this to their parents, if they knew that this is what it would be like?
I thought.

Then it hit me: Was I really much different? I had been alienating my mom since Dad died. She had even offered to come tonight—a big gesture for a woman who almost collapsed in her Manolos when I told her I was working at a funeral home—and I had shut her down. I looked over again at Henry's mom, who kept smoothing out the lapel on her son's blazer. (It was already wrinkle-free; Bill had made sure of it.)
Have I been doing this to my mom?
I thought.
Does she feel this alone?
There was nothing Henry could do to take his mother's grief away, but I was very much alive. I reached for my phone to call my mom and tell her that I'd changed my mind, I did want her there—but she didn't pick up. My heart sank.

Once Henry's father gave the okay, Tony called down to Monica to open the door and begin ushering in visitors. There were whispers in the foyer: “Did you hear? I think it was an overdose,” or, “It wasn't an overdose, he just got a bad batch,” but
nobody
said a word about how Henry died once they were in the viewing room. The early arrivals were mostly friends of Henry's parents and neighbors, but after a half hour or so, my friends started coming. “It's so fucking weird to see you here,” said Oliver. “I can't believe you work in this place.” I just pointed to the stairs. “Up the steps to your right. I'll see you in there.”

Oliver started to walk and then turned to face me. “At least Henry would be happy to have a cute girl helping out with his funeral.”

Pretty soon, I started to notice a, uh,
theme
,
you might say. The line entering the foyer became less and less women in pearl earrings and men in custom-tailored suits, and more and more tall blondes in fitted black dresses, and young Asian women in heels a
little
too high for the occasion. At first there were ten or so, then twenty, then thirty. It was like every girl Henry had ever taken back to his posh bachelor pad was there to ask why he had never called her back. At least now he finally had a good excuse.

“This is pretty crazy,” I whispered to Oliver, who was standing in the back of the room against the wall. “You're going to die when you see all these girls working their way up the stairs.”

“Bottle whores?” he said, his voice quivering. He was trying to crack a smile, but I could tell that the wake was getting to him. Grief could be like that. Some people were able to hold off the pain of losing someone, like Oliver had done at dinner, but only for so long. Eventually it would catch up with them. “Shame this place doesn't allow drinks. I could really use one right now,” he said.

I handed Oliver a tissue from the pack I carried around and rubbed his back. “I know it's hard,” I said.

He wiped his eyes and then used the tissue to blow his nose, almost playing it off like he had a cold. “It's just
weird,” he said. “We knew the guy for twenty years. He had the perfect life, like, he had
everything
.”

I realized then that Oliver wasn't necessarily crying for Henry, but for himself. Oliver had certainly done his share of drugs, and anyone could accidentally OD. Seeing Henry there in the casket, it was our own mortality staring all of us in the face. With one stupid decision, this fairy tale of a life we'd been born into could be gone.

“I've got to get my shit together,” said Oliver, straightening his collar and stuffing the tissue into the inside pocket of his blazer. He looked around the room one more time, mostly focusing on the casket, which was surrounded by flowers and people walking with their heads down. “I know I already asked this, but seriously, how do you work here?”

Then he kissed me on the cheek, slipped down the stairs, and left.

I stayed until the end. As weird as Crawford may have felt to Oliver, it had become a second home to me. This wasn't a total coincidence—funeral homes were initially designed to look like just that,
homes
. And the fancy décor at Crawford felt familiar, not just to me, but I'm sure to many Manhattanites who'd grown up in prewar buildings with carved moldings and velvet couches. Maybe it was from all the long hours I'd spent there, or the fact that it was the place I'd said good-bye to my dad, but Crawford gave me a strange comfort. And even though I wasn't obligated to stay at Henry's service, I wanted to be there, in the back
ground, just in case Tony needed an extra hand refilling the water or getting the projector to work. The service ran smoothly, though, and after two hours, most guests had already made their way out the door and back to their wonderful lives at their wonderful apartments. I remembered that from Dad's funeral—how bizarre it was that we were all in this one space, grieving together, but how afterward, Mom, Max, and I would go home and things would never be the same. Every­one was secretly happy they weren't us, at least in that moment. And now I felt that way for Henry's parents, who were lingering near the casket, knowing it was time to go but not wanting to leave their son there, alone and dead.

Tony let them stay almost a full half hour past their scheduled service time, even though it would mean he would get home to his own family a bit later. I walked down to the foyer, picking up all the random things that fall out of people's pockets and purses—change, mass cards, the clear wrappers from the mints I'd put in bowls around the building. I thought of Henry's parents, still upstairs, and realized that I didn't just miss my dad . . . I missed my mom, too. I pulled out my phone again and called her, but still no answer.
You always pick up
, I thought, getting a little nervous.
Maybe she's out to dinner?

“I'm heading out,” I said to Monica, who looked half-asleep leaning up against the reception desk.
Yeah, because you did so much tonight
, I thought, rolling my eyes. Without
looking at me, she raised one hand and motioned like she was shooing me out the door. I looked at my phone once more to see if my mom had called back, but she hadn't. Disappointed, I grabbed my purse and walked out into the night air.

When I stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked up, there was Mom, wearing one of Dad's oversized sweaters and a pair of stretch pants. She was standing outside Crawford with Maggie, clutching her leash. It was as if she knew I finally needed her . . . that all the walls I had put up after Dad died were crumbling down, and I didn't want to be left standing in the ruins, alone.

“You came,” I said, a ball of happiness and relief lodged in my throat.

“You're my daughter,” said Mom, holding out her arm to hug me. “And I know when my daughter needs me.” Maggie panted at our feet, as if to remind us that she, too, was partaking in the moment.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, falling into her arms. Instead of wiping my tears, I pushed my face into Dad's sweater.

Mom pulled me in close and squeezed me. “I'm sorry, too. How about some Entenmann's crumb cake?” she said. “I have one at home.”

I laughed. My mom's mom had been a big fan of the ­grocery-store crumb cakes ever since she was a little girl. They would eat them on the weekends for breakfast, or when company stopped by for coffee. After Gram, my ma
ternal grandma, died, my mom would buy an Entenmann's on days when she missed her and needed a little piece of comfort. We never actually ate the cake part (that went to Maggie); we just picked off the buttery crumbs dusted in powdered sugar and nibbled on them in between sips of tea. I hadn't eaten one in years, but in that moment, there was nothing I wanted to do more.

“Yes, please,” I said, taking Maggie's red leather leash from my mom's grip. It was just then that I looked down at Mom's feet. “Um, are those . . . Aerosoles?”

She looked down, too, and kicked up her left foot, like she was posing in a fashion ad. “They are!” she said, smiling. “You were right—they're the most comfortable things ever.”

I laughed even harder. And with that, we both took a step forward, together, toward home.

TWELVE

A Scandal

S
hit really started to hit the fan at Crawford after the Goldstein funeral. Monica and her posse of RWHMs (receptionists who hated me) and a few funeral directors had been clawing their way under my skin for months. It was like they couldn't wait to dig their square acrylic nails into every­thing I did and said. The only thing keeping me sane was knowing that I was good at my job and that Tony relied on me. We had gotten to a point where he could just nod at me from across a room, and I would instinctively know what the issue was and how to fix it. A crying mistress, a drunk brother, an uninvited sibling—I could handle it all quickly and professionally. Which is the precise reason why Mrs. Goldstein requested that I be on the floor for her husband's funeral.

One of the newer staffers, a former part-time guy named
Derek, was supposed to handle the funeral. But Mrs. Goldstein didn't like that he smelled like smoke from his hourly cigarette breaks out back, and she was outright offended by the way he hung around the front desk, talking to Monica and the other receptionists. (Derek was an easy recruit to Monica's little Crawford clique.) “I don't see anyone working,” Mrs. Goldstein said under her breath as I happened to walk by her on my way to my office.

I turned around and put my hand gently on her arm. “Can I help you with something, Mrs. Goldstein?” I asked. I knew her name because there were only a few services that week, and I had already read through all the folders. Also, the Goldsteins were a prominent Manhattan family. I had seen the late Mr. Goldstein and his children (both in their fifties), and
their
children, at charity galas over the years. Mrs. Goldstein didn't know me, but I knew her, and that was all that mattered now.

She immediately looked relieved. “I'm not impressed by the man handling my husband's funeral,” she said. “I expected better treatment than this.”

I introduced myself, invited Mrs. Goldstein into my office, and handed her a cup of ice water. She was an important client, and I knew that Tony would be upset if she was displeased with her experience with us. Derek
had
taken care of most of the details—the casket had been delivered, Bill had already prepped the body, and there was a full guest list. But Mrs. Goldstein was what she was: a wealthy, slightly snotty
woman who wanted her guests to be greeted in the manner to which they were accustomed. A guy in a threadbare suit who smelled like a pack of Marlboros, and a gum-snapping receptionist who led visitors to the viewing room by pointing to the elevator? Not exactly what she had in mind.

I knew I would have to run it by Tony, so I asked Mrs. Goldstein to wait a moment while I spoke with him. It took just two minutes of explaining the situation for Tony to say I should stay with Mrs. Goldstein. We had
another
high-­profile service that night, and he would be busy with that. Splitting us up to handle both clients made perfect sense, and I was the only one who would recognize the non-­celebrity VIPs as they came in anyway. “I'll tell Derek,” he said to me. “I don't want anybody on that floor but you.”

It took less than half an hour for word to spread through Crawford. Derek was pissed. Monica was chirping away so fast, her head was in danger of exploding. I was accustomed to the side eye and snide comments, but the harassment was now way past subtle. “Only Tony's princess is allowed on the floor,” Monica said, in English this time, as I walked toward the bathroom. “Tony wants her
all
to himself, I guess,” said Derek, fully sucked into the drama.

I felt shaky rage boiling up in me. “The only reason that I'm working this funeral is because the client specifically requested
not
to work with you,” I said, glaring at Derek.

Monica mumbled something else, and the receptionist next to her laughed.

“What?” I said. “What is it? If you're going to talk about me, at least do it in English so I can understand you.”

“Fine,” said Monica, a smug look on her face, like she was enjoying this. “I was saying that maybe if he was having an affair with the boss too, that might also help him ‘do his job' or whatever you want to call it.”

“That's it,” I said. “I've had it. I'm going to complain to management and the union about you. You can't just go around spreading insane rumors about people.”

“Don't you know the rule?” said Monica, still smiling. “There's a five-thousand-dollar fine for complaining about union members. We don't tell on each other.”

I'd happily spend that just to piss you off
, I thought to ­myself.

What Monica and company didn't understand was that the better you are at your job, the more the boss trusts you. Tony knew I would impress his top clients, just like he knew that he could ask me to call the Carlyle, an expensive hotel Crawford partnered with, and I'd work with the hostess of the restaurant to set up a repast—no problem. It was seamless, not because I was sleeping with the guy, but because I treated every client like they were a family friend or a neighbor. And in a lot of cases, they were.

Just before the Goldstein service, Tony called me into his office to tell me that he would be tied up all night with funeral
numero dos
and that I shouldn't bother him under any circumstances. “Whatever it is, just handle it,” he told
me. I had already spent the past two hours refilling tissue boxes, memorizing the guest list, picking rose petals off the carpet, and arranging a car to pick Mrs. Goldstein up so that she had one less thing to think about.

The service itself went as planned. I ushered guests from the hallway to the viewing room but never lingered. I knew the golden rule of any private affair: you never want to see the person running things behind the scenes. She should be invisible, and all the client should see is a perfectly run event. When older guests got off the elevator, I escorted them into the viewing room and then immediately rushed back to help the next group.

“Elizabeth, is that
you
?” one woman whispered to me after stepping off the lift into the hallway. I recognized her from Elaine's.

“Nice to see you, Mrs. Watters,” I said.

“I heard you had been working here but I thought it couldn't possibly be true,” she said.

I forced a smile. “Wonders never cease,” I said, and pointed her toward the room where Mr. Goldstein was laid out (in a tuxedo, of course).

It wasn't until most guests were gone that I found Mrs. Goldstein sitting by herself in the back of the viewing room. She looked confused, and so even though I had been keeping to myself most of the night, I went over to her and crouched down by her side. “Is there anything you need, Mrs. Goldstein?” I said.

She looked to her left and right, then leaned toward my ear. “What's a
shomer
?” she whispered.

The Goldsteins were benefactors to one of the most popular synagogues in the city, but they weren't, it turned out, particularly religious. Apparently, several of the guests had asked her when the
shomer
was coming, and to her horror, Mrs. Goldstein had no idea what they were talking about. I explained gently that a
shomer
was someone who, in Jewish tradition, watched the body overnight before the burial.

“Is it expensive?” Mrs. Goldstein asked.

“Not really, less than twenty dollars an hour,” I said, looking at my watch. It was nine o'clock at night, and the staff would be back in ten hours. “It'll cost about two hundred bucks,” I said.

“Oh, well then of course, get me a
shomer
,” she said.

Tony was still held up with the other funeral, and I would need a union funeral director to actually hire one. (It was a weird loophole, but since my title wasn't recognized by the union, I had to have union staffers do certain tasks.) Since Derek had been scheduled to work that night anyway, he was the only one around. Well, he and Monica, who was twirling her hair around her fingernail and trying to sneak texts under the desk. Pretty much the last thing a client wanted to see was a staffer LOL-ing with a friend while he or she waited for service.

“Derek, I need you to please call up a
shomer
,” I said.
The company we used—yes, a
shomer
company (I know, so crazy)—closed at ten p.m., so we didn't have much time.

“No can do,” said Derek. “You need Tony to do that. But that should be no problem for you.”

“Tony put me in charge of this funeral, and he's busy with another client tonight,” I said. “He would want this to happen. Please make the order.”

“Don't do it,” said Monica, looking at Derek. “It wasn't in the contract. Who's going to pay for that shit if this woman bails on the bill?”

“That's easy,” I said, about to burst. “I'll pay for it. It's two hundred dollars, for Christ's sake! Now please make the call.”

Derek moved both his hands behind his back, as if he were in handcuffs. “My hands are tied,” he said, stifling laughter.

There was only one thing left to do: I had to get Tony. I was mad at myself for not being able to handle the whole night on my own, as I knew Tony expected. But I was furious with Derek and Monica. The whole “Tony's princess” routine was getting old—
real
old—and now their antics were keeping me from doing my job. I walked upstairs and saw Tony standing outside his office, looking at the client's bill, most likely making sure that they had provided everything the client paid for; the company was in no position to lose money due to a silly oversight.

“Hey, uh, Tony?” I said, walking up awkwardly behind him. “I have to ask you for something.”

He whirled around, took one look at me, and crinkled up his forehead. It was his
I'm pissed
look, and I hated that it was directed at me. “I thought I told you not to interrupt me tonight,” he said.

I told him what happened. I knew I sounded like a snitch, but I didn't care. It was now half past nine, and I needed someone to make the call for a
shomer
. Tony brushed past me and barreled down the stairs, straight toward the reception desk. Derek and Monica didn't even have time to put their cell phones away before Tony pulled both of them into the back room and went off. I mean, the man flew off the handle. “Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit?” he said, turning bright red. “A phone call? You fucking people can't make a phone call for a client who's shelling out eighty grand for a ­funeral here?”

Derek looked down during the whole tirade, but Monica's eyes were focused on me. I could have felt vindicated—Tony clearly had my back, and there was nothing they could do or say to change that. But mostly, I felt defeated. This type of drama wasn't what I had signed up for. We worked in the death business, for God's sake. Every single day, we saw people on one of the worst days of their lives. We saw people grieving their kids, their parents, their friends. What was so bad about our lives that we couldn't even act civilly toward each other?

Typically, if Tony got mad, he was over it before the next
shift. But this time, things were different. Two days after the
shomer
incident (yes, we hired one, just in the nick of time), Tony called me into his office. I figured he was going to reprimand me for not handling the situation myself, but instead he sat calmly at his desk, rubbing his forehead. He looked physically ill.

“Someone called my wife,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows. Tony's wife called Crawford all the time; I wasn't sure why anyone would call her, but there could be a gazillion reasons. “Okay,” I said, looking for more information.

“Someone called my wife and told her that you and I are having an affair.”

If my jaw weren't hinged, it would have dropped right to the floor. There was no way Monica was
that
evil. I mean maybe,
maybe
there was a chance. I thought of Tony's outburst in the back room and the way she had stared at me, and chills ran up my back.

“That's . . . that's just ridiculous,” I said, still in disbelief. “She doesn't believe them, does she? She has to know that these people are out of their minds.”

“I told her that, and she says, ‘Okay, if you say so,' ” said Tony. “But she's barely speaking to me. I don't blame her, either. It's a violation. These fucking people, they have no boundaries.”

I offered to take a vacation. Max and his friends were planning a trip to Laos and Thailand; I could tag along with
them for a few weeks. A little space might do the situation good—you know, let it breathe a little. Air out the drama. I hadn't taken a real vacation in what felt like forever. Just as my mind landed somewhere on top of an elephant, sauntering along a river, Tony pulled me out of it.

“No,” he said. “You aren't the problem here. We need to report this.”

We scheduled a meeting with the president of Crawford, who was normally not someone we dealt with on a day-to-day basis. He had, however, approved my title change, my schedule, and my office—he even helped us get around the union rules to make it all happen. Tony and I assumed that he'd be on our side, but rumor about the affair had traveled so far through the company, it had found its way to the president's desk. “You two
do
spend a lot of time together,” he said. When Tony protested—I was too shocked to say anything—we were told that it was an HR issue, and so . . . off we went to HR.

Crawford had been a family business for generations, but it was now owned by a parent company that dealt with a whole bunch of funeral homes in the area. Of course, nobody at Crawford wanted the clients to know that; they came to us because Crawford felt exclusive. Nobody wanted to have their wake at the Olive Garden of funeral homes, especially Manhattan's social elite. Crawford was still run like a family business, at least on the inside—but any major HR issues were dealt with on a higher level. And so Tony and I
went to corporate headquarters in Bayonne, New Jersey, to meet with the HR manager, a friendly woman named Pattie, who just about spat out her coffee when we explained what we were being accused of by Monica and some of the other staffers.