Dearly Departed

by Tristi Pinkston

  As she drove, she thought back to when she’d first met Ida Mae. Eden had lost her job and was casting about for something else to do when she got a phone call from her grandmother. Somehow, the members of the Relief Society presidency had gotten themselves involved in something illegal and needed her help. She’d jumped in with both feet and had the time of her life, mostly just going along with their off-the-wall plans and enjoying their exuberance. She’d become attached to Ida Mae and her counselor Tansy, and she’d grown even closer to Arlette, her grandmother.

  And then there was Ren Taylor. Eden smiled just thinking about him. He was Ida Mae’s nephew, and a free spirit. He was partly responsible for the trouble these elderly ladies had found themselves in, but they never held it against him. They’d done their community service together and enjoyed it almost as much as they had breaking the law. Now Ren was on a Church mission in Mexico, and he wouldn’t be home for another year. It would be a long twelve months.

  Eden pulled her car into Ida Mae’s driveway and walked up the steps quickly, hoping someone would be there to answer the door so Ida Mae wouldn’t try to do it herself. It would be just like her.

  Eden’s grandmother opened the door. “You came!” she said, pulling Eden into a hug and then stepping to the side. “Ida Mae will be so glad to see you.”

  “Who is it, Arlette?” the patient called from the couch.

  “It’s me, Ida Mae.” Eden walked into the living room, tossing her bag into the corner. “I had to come see how you are.”

  “Well, some days it’s chickens and some days it’s feathers,” Ida Mae replied, shifting a little. She sat sideways on the couch, her leg propped up on pillows. Her ankle was encased in a bright pink cast that already had six or seven signatures on it.

  “Give me a marker,” Eden said, and her grandmother tossed her one. She signed her name with a flourish and put a smiley face next to it. “Now I’m a member of the club.”

  “It’s not a very fun club,” Ida Mae told her. “All we do for excitement is stare at the silly old woman.”

  “You’re not silly or old,” Eden chided, sitting down on the chair nearest Ida Mae. “Who’s been telling you that?”

  “I’ve been telling myself that,” Ida Mae said. “I’m silly for tripping over my own feet, and I’m just old. That should be obvious to anyone.”

  Eden glanced over at her grandmother. She’d never heard such a bitter tone in Ida Mae’s voice before and wondered what had been the cause of it. Arlette shrugged.

  “Well, I’m here for the weekend, so let’s have some fun.” Eden smiled at Ida Mae. “I brought all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and we’re going to have a marathon.”

  “But you’ll have to explain it to me,” Ida Mae said. “Between the undead and the barnacles and the big octopus thingy, I can never tell what’s going on.”

  “I’ll explain everything as we go,” Eden promised. She stood up. “Now, what have you got to eat around here? We need some movie food.”

  “The Relief Society has been bringing stuff over all afternoon, but believe it or not, no chocolate.” Ida Mae sighed. “I thought I trained them better than that.”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Eden said. She went into the kitchen, and Arlette followed her, as she hoped she would. As soon as they were out of earshot, Eden asked, “Grandma, what’s going on? She sounds about ready to give up.”

  Arlette shook her head. “You know how Ida Mae is. She’d rather be doing for other people than having people do for her. When she got home from the hospital this afternoon, she had four sisters over here to make sure she was all right. One of them made her dinner, another one brought her books in next to her, and the other two thought they had to sit and visit—you know, cheer her up. That was on top of the snacks and casseroles the other ladies brought. It was a little too much charity all at once, I think, and she’d rather be on the giving end any day.”

  “But she needs help, Grandma. That ankle isn’t going to heal overnight.”

  “You and I both know that, but Ida Mae thinks it should be better in a week. And I’m afraid she’s going to try to walk on it too soon.”

  “Then it’s a good thing the Relief Society has come out in full force,” Eden said.

  “I agree.”

  Eden went looking for chocolate and was shocked to find a box of brownie mix in the back of a cupboard. She’d always thought Ida Mae’s brownies were from scratch, and here she had evidence otherwise. It was enough to make a person stop believing in Santa Claus.

  Eden stifled a yawn as she sat at her desk. She and Ida Mae had only made it through the first two Pirates movies on Friday and Saturday, and the third at midnight on Sunday, when it was technically Monday morning. Ida Mae said watching the film at that late hour made her even more confused about the plot, but Eden assured her it was hard to understand regardless. She didn’t end up leaving Omni until three that morning, and now, seven hours later at work, she wondered why she’d stayed up so late. But she’d do anything to make Ida Mae happy.

  The phone near Eden’s elbow rang, and she startled. She took a moment to compose herself before answering.

  “Are you the obituary editor?” A female voice filled the earpiece.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “What do I do?”

  Eden blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “How do I get an obituary put in the newspaper?”

  Ah. Eden stifled a yawn. “You send in whatever you’d like printed in the paper, and we print it.”

  “Oh.”

  Eden thought her explanation was easy enough to understand, but the woman on the other end didn’t seem to think so. “What should it say?”

  “Generally, an obituary has information about the life and hobbies of the deceased, along with a list of their family members and any organizations they belonged to,” Eden said. “You can make it as formal or as personal as you like.”

  “But I have to write it?” The woman sounded close to tears. “I thought you were the writer.”

  “I take the information I’m given and clean it up a little, and that’s what we print,” Eden said, feeling as though her lofty status of “editor” had just been diminished to the rank and stature of “trained monkey.” Then, sensing the caller’s dismay, she hastily added, “But if you give me the facts, I’ll put them together into a nice obituary for you.”

  “Oh, would you do that?” Despair was replaced by joy. “I’d be so grateful.”

  Eden gave the woman her email address and told her what facts she would need, then hung up, wondering how it would turn out. Of course, she’d send it back over for approval, but Eden wasn’t used to being given such free rein with an obituary. Most of the time, she’d take out a comma and put in a period on the copy she’d been given and call it good. Once in a while, she was asked to restate a sentence or tweak a paragraph or two. It was those tweaks that made her nervous, those tweaks that sent her out to crash funerals. She hated the thought that she might get something wrong—it was so much easier to write fiction than to conjecture about real life.

  She worked for another hour and then took her lunch break, heading over to the small café near the newspaper office. She generally brought something from home, but in her haste to be on time that morning, she hadn’t grabbed anything.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked after Eden perused the menu for a moment.

  “Let me get . . . oh, how about some vegetable soup and half a tuna melt,” Eden said, and the woman jotted down the order.

  While waiting for her food, Eden leaned her head back against the seat of the booth. She had been trying to figure out what direction to take for her next mystery novel, and every spare minute had been devoted to puzzling out the climax. With her eyes closed, she thought about the predicament her heroine currently faced. Tied up in a basement by persons unknown, seeing strange shadows move along the wall, wondering who had murdered the butler . . . suddenly, Eden’s eyes flew open.
She knew exactly what should happen next. It was complex. It was brilliant. It was genius! She grabbed her notebook, then rummaged through her bag, trying to find a pen.

  First pocket, nothing. Side pocket, nothing. She hunted everywhere, all the while feeling the finer points of her idea slipping away. She even patted the side of her head to see if an errant pen was still stuck behind her ear. Desperation building, she stood up and yelled, “My kingdom for a pen!”

  The other patrons eyed her in astonishment.

  “Um, does anyone have a pen?” she asked more quietly.

  The man in the booth next to hers held out a Bic, and Eden took it with gratitude.

  Her page quickly filled with notes as she scribbled out her idea. When she was finished, she glanced up to see Kevin leaning against the counter, looking at her with a smile on his face.

  “You’re cute when you’re writing,” he said. “Can I join you?”

  “Sure.” He thought she was cute? She handed the pen back to its owner and noticed that her food had been delivered while she wrote. It smelled delicious, but her focus had been completely on her story.

  “So, what are you working on?” Kevin asked, barely glancing at his menu.

  “Would you believe, a really engrossing obituary?”

  “No. I’ve never seen an obituary take someone’s attention like that.”

  She closed her notebook, wondering how much she should reveal. She didn’t want Kevin to laugh at her. She had to see him every day at work, and if he thought she was nuts, he’d be sure to remind her of it on a regular basis.

  “I’m working on a book,” she said at last, deciding to just tell him.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s it about?”

  His tone didn’t sound mocking. Maybe Eden could trust him a step further.

  “It’s a murder mystery, actually.”

  “It sounds interesting.”

  He paused to order a bacon cheeseburger from the waitress, and then continued as though they hadn’t been interrupted. “If you’d ever like to come with me on an assignment, you’re more than welcome.”

  “Really?” She hadn’t thought about that. But with Kevin’s job covering crime for the newspaper, he probably encountered all kinds of things that would enrich her stories.

  “No problem. In fact, I can see us making it into a date.”

  He said this so casually she almost didn’t think anything of it. But as his words sunk in, she almost choked on her spoonful of soup.

  “A date?”

  “Sure. I admit, it’s a little unconventional, but we could get dinner first.”

  She took a bite of sandwich, wondering how to reply. She and Ren hadn’t come to any conclusions about their relationship. Eden knew she liked him an awful lot and thought of him as her best friend, but romantically—well, they’d never explored it. She had to admit, though, the thought of dating someone else made her feel a little like she was cheating.

  “I’d like that, Kevin,” she said at last, swallowing what had to be the most-chewed bite of sandwich in the history of the universe. “But I should probably be upfront and tell you about my missionary.”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be waiting for a missionary?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. A very cute eyebrow. She wondered why she’d never noticed the particular cuteness of that eyebrow before.

  “He’s a little old to be a missionary. And I’m not really waiting for him.”

  Kevin tipped his head to one side. “Can you explain that?”

  “Well, he’s twenty-five. He didn’t go out on his mission until a year ago—he got sidetracked by a few things, including a girl named Ashley, but we won’t go into that. Anyway, the cutoff age for missionary service is twenty-five, and he was twenty-four when he went out, so he made it. And I’m not really waiting for him because we aren’t really dating, but I just thought I should let you know.” She took a deep breath, realizing she’d said that all without a break.

  Kevin smiled, a bemused expression on his face. “So, do you think he’d mind if I took you out? Fed you dinner? Introduced you to crime?”

  “I’ve already been introduced to crime, but it would be fun to see it from the other side.”

  “The other side?”

  “Yeah, as a spectator.”

  Kevin’s burger arrived but he didn’t touch it. “Eden, do you have a criminal record?”

  She took another bite while she figured out how to answer. Honesty was the best policy, right? “Sort of. It’s a long story.”

  “I imagine it is. Why don’t you tell me about it over dinner on Friday? That is, if I can wait that long to find out.”

  “Okay,” she said, grateful she’d have until Friday to come up with a way to explain it coherently. If there was a way, that is.

  When Eden got back to her desk, she checked her e-mail. Sure enough, the obituary information she’d requested from her mystery caller had arrived, but it was very short. In fact, it consisted of a list of dates, names, and not a whole lot else. The attached note read, “Please make this sound really nice.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Some days it didn’t pay to get out of bed.

  The deceased’s name was Beverly Partridge. There was some “scope for the imagination” in that, at least. She glanced over the rest of the information, sighed again, and got to work.

  Beverly Hilton Partridge, age 73, passed away in her sleep on Saturday morning from causes incident to heart failure. She was surrounded by the caring attendants at Shady Aspens Retirement Center, where she had lived for the last five years. She is survived by a daughter, Peggy, and a son, Bruce. A lifelong member of the Twinkling Tap Shoes performing troop, Beverly delighted all with her enthusiastic performances until her retirement in 2001. She was active in civic clubs, church organizations, and charity leagues. A devoted wife and mother, she was preceded in death by her husband, Hollingsworth Partridge III. Her beautiful gardens, her many charities, and the world will miss the kindness of this good woman who surely was taken before her time.

  Eden read over what she’d written. She didn’t know about that last sentence—dying at seventy-three wasn’t so unusual—but it did seem that most bereaved felt as though they’d had far too little time with their loved ones, regardless of their age at passing. Eden’s mind flitted to her grandmother, and to Ida Mae—how much time would she have with these two dear women? Tansy, her grandmother’s other good friend, was a bit younger, but who was to say what fate held for her?

  Chastising herself for mentally drifting, Eden read through her work once more, looking for those stray typos that invariably creep in regardless of whatever might be done to forestall them. She added the date, time, and location of the funeral, and then e-mailed a copy for approval to the sender of the e-mail, who hadn’t signed her name but Eden assumed was Peggy. She included a note for Peggy, asking her to let her know if any changes were needed, and then Eden moved on to her other assignments.

  She was only halfway through the first sentence on the next obituary when she received an e-mail back from Peggy.

  How did you know?

  Eden blinked. Know what? She quickly hit reply.

  Did you like the obituary, then?

  Within seconds, Peggy answered.

  It’s perfect.

  Eden sent the obituary to press and finished the one she’d just started. Before closing out her e-mails at the end of the workday, she reread Peggy’s cryptic compliment. Just what was it Eden had gotten right?

  “Kevin?” she said, sticking her head around the corner of the cubicle. “You still want to go to a funeral with me?”

  3

  “So, I take it our Friday date has been moved to Wednesday?” Kevin adjusted his tie as Eden pulled her Volkswagen Bug into the parking lot of the funeral home.

  “I guess, unless you still want to take me out on Friday, too.” As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Eden winced. She hadn’t meant to sound like she was fishing for a date.

  Kevin grinned. “
You promised me the story of how you got your criminal record, and somehow I don’t think this funeral will be the place to share it. We’d better plan on Friday, too.”

  She tried to look nonchalant as she replied, “Okay, then,” but her heart was thudding about a million miles an hour, and she’d never noticed that little dimple in his left cheek before.

  They stepped inside the foyer and looked around. Almost immediately, a little woman dressed in gray approached and took Eden by the arm.

  “You must be Eden West,” she said, earnestly looking into Eden’s eyes.

  “Yes, I am.” Eden wondered how on earth this woman knew who she was.

  “You must be wondering how on earth I knew who you were.”

  Eden nodded dumbly.

  “I looked you up on the newspaper’s Web site. You know, that page with the bios of all the editors and reporters on staff? You look just like your picture.”

  That was a low blow if Eden had ever heard one.

  “Anyway, I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you, and this gives me the perfect chance. I’m Peggy, by the way.”

  Eden nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but Peggy kept right on going.

  “Please meet me for lunch after the service,” she said. “I should be able to sneak away around two. Will you come to the Olive Garden and we can talk things over?”

  Eden couldn’t imagine why Peggy would want a clandestine meeting, but she nodded, glancing over at Kevin.

  “And of course, bring Kevin,” Peggy continued. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, young man. Your picture’s on that bio page, too.” She fluttered off in a cloud of gray.

  Eden felt as if she’d been run over. “Wow,” she said after a long minute.

  “Is that a normal part of crashing a funeral?” Kevin asked. “Adoration and invitations to lunch?”

  “Never,” Eden replied. “It must be your influence.”

  She missed much of the service, her brain somewhere else entirely as she tried to figure out a graceful way to skip lunch. She didn’t want to sit for hours and listen to Peggy reminisce about her mother, or give her advice about how to break into the newspaper business, or anything else she imagined Peggy might want. But Kevin’s stomach gurgled during a heartfelt rendition of “Ave Maria,” and Eden figured she owed him lunch, at least, for coming with her.