World Gone Missing

by Doyle, Laurie Ann;

  “Well, hi,” I say.

  “You look good, Lena,” he says, taking in my silky dress and high heels. “Wow.” He pauses and moves his eyes away. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s late, I know. I—it’s my mother, Lena. She’s not well. The doctor told me tonight that she may not have much longer. Mom’s always said she wants you to handle her funeral when the time comes. I thought you should know.”

  I met Denis’s mother at a viewing. I remember her as a small, lively woman with a gigantic smile. His mother was the one who introduced us.

  He could have called, of course. But that thought doesn’t stay in my head because the rain that’s turned to mist is glistening now along Denis’s broad shoulders. I reach out and touch his fingers on the door. He doesn’t pull away.

  Denis and I dated maybe five or six months. He was surprised by my profession but not in the least put off. Me, I wanted a fling. I talked him into heading across the bridge to Berkeley for a little Zydeco dancing, and he took me to that restaurant in Chinatown where the waiters are so rude all you can do is laugh. I liked to show up sometimes at his door wearing sequins, a white stole, and tiara. He didn’t dress up, but he sure liked how I looked. We took selfies: I’d glam it up and he’d keep his face drawn and serious, or he’d be the big black-suited man with me just in his shadow.

  One Friday night, Denis suggested we go for a drink at the Tonga Room in the Fairmount hotel.

  “You’ve put in a long week,” he said. “Let’s relax.” Except he was nervous, fussing with his collar stays and dropping nickels and dimes all over the floor. I leaned back and ordered a Mai Tai, trying not to notice. We watched the Tonga’s thunderstorm show, lightning flashing when you least expect it. Afterward, Denis cleared his throat.

  “Lena,” he began. “Why—What would you say to our moving in together? Plenty of room at my house. You’re always saying how much you love the view of the Golden Gate.”

  My head jerked back, I was that surprised. My divorce had hit hard. I had bought the funeral parlor with my ex and assumed it was for life. My mind went to other men—all the husbands, brothers, fathers—whose bodies I’d bent over, there one day and suddenly no more. My heart began to pound.

  “Denis,” I managed. “You know I can’t just move my business across town.”

  He nodded and took a sip of water. We talked of other things. But hell if I know what because all I can remember now is Denis’s hollow-eyed look of pain.

  We never saw each other again. No big blow up, no bitter words. Denis would phone from time to time, and I’d call back. Until about a year ago. I don’t know why. I kept meaning to.

  “Of course,” I say now. “I’d be honored to take care of the arrangements.” Ignoring how late it is, I add, “Why don’t you come in?”

  After things ended with Denis, I threw myself into work. I found comfort in its routine, the perfect positioning of flowers, the right combination of songs to honor a life. Putting on a funeral is a huge production, more complicated than a wedding. I’m creating final memories that people will never forget. And I have just one shot to get it right.

  Of course, I’ve had a few, what? one-night stands—the guy from the espresso place, the salesman who kept me in guest registries, a married neighbor. But none of these men made me feel the way Denis did—as if I were the only woman in the world.

  I usher him into the softly lit foyer. I’ve made the place look like a home, with thick oriental rugs and a long couch that a body—two bodies?—could sink into without a second thought. He glances around uncomfortably. I walk him to the office. It’s filled now with fresh flowers: pumpkin-colored mums, pale lilies, and immense ferns, moist and sweet-smelling.

  Denis takes the chair next to mine. He nervously taps his finger on the glass desktop.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Where are my manners? Beer? Wine? I have both.” I pull out two tall glasses from the stocked refrigerator behind the desk and set them in front of us.

  He quickly shakes his head. His mother, he says, wants a simple service, the music lively—you know how she loves a good party, Lena—and the food plentiful. Antipasti, ravioli, and cannoli—chocolate and vanilla—from Stella Pastry. He talks faster and faster, looking at me less and less. The desire I’d just felt—I’m sure he felt it, too—begins to evaporate.

  

  The grandmother I’d collected in North Beach comes back to me the next day. They’ve sutured her mouth shut from the inside and plumped her eyelids with caps so they’ll maintain a natural shape. Her skin is firm, and her body, if anything, heavier from the embalming fluids. Getting on the maroon pantsuit that the family wants to see her in should be about as easy as putting a party dress on a pine tree. I lift one thick leg, and tug the pants up, trying not to rip the fabric. The other leg goes even slower. Finally I ease the pants over her hips. Threading the fabric belt around her waist is easy.

  A deep quiet envelops us as I turn to her makeup. I color her lips rose and the eyelids sable brown. I use regular makeup, not the heavy mortuary kind, because it’s natural. I want her to look sleeping, not dead. I blue her hair—just a bit—to brighten its gray under the lights, and tilt her chin down for a peaceful look. The work absorbs me, makes me forget about Denis.

  

  A week later, I’m downstairs getting ready for the party. Fifteen years ago—right after I bought the business from my ex—I threw my first Halloween bash. Now, it’s an annual thing. Put a bunch of San Franciscans in costumes and something interesting always happens.

  Denis phoned yesterday to tell me his mother was doing better, still in the hospital but hanging on, at least for now. I invited him to the party.

  “Come. You can get out for a couple hours and have fun. Your mother would tell you the same thing.”

  Denis said he’d try to swing by. Last Halloween I surprised everyone by popping out of a coffin in a leopard miniskirt at midnight. This year I planned to top that.

  I lay a tuxedo-clad Dracula in a coffin and convert a child’s casket into the beer cooler. For a couch, I pull out the longest coffin I have, fit milk crates inside, and stack sofa pillows on top. Tiny ghoul lights with feathery eyes get sprinkled around. The band, Mechanical Heart, arrives and starts to set up.

  At nine, the party is coming alive. Marie, my neighbor and part-time bookkeeper, shows up as Marilyn, with more voluptuous cleavage than the star ever had in real life. Her caveman husband wears a cowhide slung over his shoulder and a bone stuck through his ponytail. This leads to predictable jokes about boners. It’s true, I tell them, the dead do get them. Everybody laughs and shots of tequila go around.

  The band is deep into their second set—Derek and the Dominos, The Dead, U2—playing so hard that people can’t help but dance. I replenish the cocktail hot dogs and refill the Skittles bowl, and finally get out there myself. I dance with a handsome skeleton, adding a little shimmy here and there, but my usual verve’s missing. Where is Denis?

  At eleven forty-five, I signal the band, and Marie and I sneak upstairs. It was her idea—the low-cut black leather vest and micro skirt, the studded boots—she discovered the whole outfit in Fantasy on Folsom. All I did was add the whip. I can’t wait to see Denis’s face.

  Marie laces me in and zips me up. We tiptoe down the backstairs and I tuck myself into the casket we’d propped up on wheels. She rolls me toward the band, who’ve begun a loud countdown. At exactly midnight, I jump out.

  “Can’t get no satisfaction—” I sing. The last syllable comes out like a low growl and everybody cheers. “’Cause I try and I try and I try—”

  Under the lights, I suddenly feel everyone’s eyes on me, and, as if someone threw a switch, my confidence disappears. Here I am surrounded by friends, but now I feel as if none of them knows me: the exhausted me, the lonely me. I scan the crowd for Denis. He’s not here. I go to sing the next word, but nothing comes out. Now peop
le are staring.

  A guy tosses a handful of candy corn up in the air. Someone else throws M&M’s. Everything starts zinging—bits of orange, blue, yellow flying past. A gangly orangutan catches Kit Kats in his hairy palms. A French maid holds out her gauze skirt for Starbursts. People laugh.

  They think it’s part of the act. The switch flips back on and I snap my whip high over everyone’s heads. They scream and applaud. I grab a fistful of candy from the stage and pitch it back out at the crowd.

  That’s when I see Denis, standing uncomfortably alone in the back. He’s wearing a retro bowling shirt with ANTONY stitched over the pocket, patched Madras shorts, and sloppy brown sandals, something that doesn’t look like a costume, but is. Denis is an impeccable dresser, tailored suits, polished wingtips, vests. I’ve always liked that about him. But you know, tonight the shorts look good on him. I flash a smile.

  Denis doesn’t smile back. He isn’t scooping up candy and tossing it. He just stands there awkwardly, his legs planted stiffly under him. I finish the song and make my way back.

  “Hi,” I say, still out of breath. “You made it. Great.”

  “Hello.” Denis’s eyes move to my leather vest.

  “How is your mother?”

  “Fine.” That word comes out like the first, clipped. His gaze lowers to my boots.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” he lies. Because when he looks up, I see the same expression of pain he had after asking me to move in. “Do you mind my asking, Lena? Is that supposed to be a costume?”

  “Sure,” I say, surprised. Could Denis have become straitlaced? Or be jealous? I’d only ever dressed up for him. I continue as if nothing’s wrong. “You know Fantasy over on Folsom? Well Marie—”

  Somebody shouts “Lena!” above the roar of the party. I spin around. The married guy down the street—whatever we had is long over—shoots me a big grin.

  Denis frowns. “I’ve got to go, Lena,” he says. “I’ve an early meeting tomorrow morning.

  “You were terrific!” my neighbor yells, lifting his beer. I wave and smile back. When I turn around, Denis isn’t there.

  

  After the nurse wheels the empty IV pole out of the room, I stare down at Denis’s mother’s body. She has this strange half-smile on her face, her mouth slightly open as if she wants me to lean closer, tell me a joke, or some secret about the afterlife. After all these years in this business, of course I have opinions. What waits for us is not heaven or hell, but infinite blank space, a stretching soft nothingness. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we all are.

  So why not? I put my ear near Denis’s mother’s mouth, wondering what I’ll hear. Nothing. Just an all-too-familiar silence.

  Then I do hear something, a sound I don’t recognize at first. It comes again. My own breath. I feel air sliding down my throat, filling my ribs. It feels good, all this air.

  Denis’s mother died a week and a half after the party, her eyes open until the last day and then seeming to rally at the very end. Denis called to tell me at four in morning.

  “It’s late,” he said. “I’m sorry. My timing’s always off.” His voice dropped.

  “Stop, will you. This is what I do.” Even in these circumstances, it was good to hear his voice. “How are you, Denis?”

  “About the arrangements,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Let’s go with what we discussed. A short service, upbeat music, lots of food. You know my mother.” Then he wanted off the phone.

  She’s so light, Denis’s mother, so easy to lift from the hospital bed, her legs and arms neatly folding in. I drive the hearse through the gray first light of morning to the embalmers. Forty-eight hours later, she returns to me, pinker and firm. The pleated, sparkling dress that Denis dropped off in my absence slips on without a struggle. I tuck the shimmering fabric around the edges of her thin body and gently spray her white, white hair. I lift the half-smile back on her face. She looks the way I want her to, a mysterious sad-happy.

  The wake isn’t crowded. At eighty-three, Denis’s mother has outlived most of her friends. A few cousins—I think they’re cousins—stroll in early and gather around the casket. I expected Denis to arrive early and want to go over everything, but he shows up right before the service. He nods briefly at me and stays near the door, shaking people’s hands. They trickle in, one or two at a time, but enough to keep him there.

  I busy myself making sure the candles stay lit and picking up a stray flower petal here and there. “The energy that woman had,” I hear someone say. “Every morning, a huge breakfast, fried eggs, pancakes. Maybe that was her secret.” What secret, he doesn’t say. Conversation continues to swirl around me. Finally the minister goes to the lectern and everyone sits. After an hour or so, things start winding down and Denis goes back to the door. I walk over.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Your mother was a fine woman.”

  “Thank you.” His eyes veer away. “She lived a long life. It was time.”

  The room fills with music from the speakers overhead, a jazzy version of “Anything Goes” that I’d picked out.

  “I want you to know,” I say, “I do something crazy every year. For Halloween.”

  “You want to talk about this now?” Denis whispers, looking over his shoulder.

  “Well—yes. For a moment. You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “All right,” he says, sucking in a breath. “I’ll tell you. Lena, I was embarrassed. For you more than me. I mean, the comments. This guy kept saying, Is that hot or what. Then somebody else started in with the hand motions. And that man yelling. I’m sorry, I just had to leave.”

  I can’t help but grin. So he was jealous. But if I couldn’t go a little wild in midlife, then when could I?

  “Oh those guys,” I say, touching his fingers. “They didn’t mean anything. I know them. They come every year.”

  “I’ll bet,” he says loudly.

  A woman reaches out a delicate hand with neat, unpolished nails. She leans close to Denis and their shoulders touch. “Hello,” she says, looking right at me.

  Her ash-colored hair—neither blonde nor brown—is perfectly coiffed. This woman in a black dress with a silver ballerina pinned to the collar has been standing next to Denis this entire time, except I never saw her. It never crossed my busy mind that Denis might come with another woman.

  Her cheekbones are high and faintly rouged. “You must be Lena Vincent,” she says. “I’ve heard so much about you. Everything looks lovely. Just the way Mrs. Clark would have wanted it.”

  

  “So what did you say back?” Marie asks me the next day. All morning I’d circled my apartment in sweats and bare feet, trying to stop thinking about that woman. Finally I combed my hair, put on a decent dress, and went downstairs. The next thing I knew I was fiddling with the foyer lights. I couldn’t stop moving, fixing, arranging. Finally I phoned Marie and asked if I could drop off some receipts for her to tally.

  “Of course,” she said. “Stay for coffee.” Now we’re sitting by her kitchen window overlooking Washington Square Park. Benjamin Franklin’s metallic head glitters in the sun.

  “Oh, I just mumbled something. And walked away.”

  “You mumbled? I’ve never heard you do anything close to mumble.”

  “That woman intimidated me. Her appropriately black dress. The way she’d removed polish from her nails. You could still see a little around the cuticles. I never take the polish off my nails. In fact, for a wake, I brighten it.” I spread my fingers on top of the table so Marie could see. Fiesta, a brilliant coral I’ve been wearing for years.

  Marie pours me another cup of coffee and pushes the creamer closer. “Lena, I can’t say as I blame the man. First you don’t want him. Then you do. Does he even know how you feel? Denis always struck me as a nice guy. What happened?”

  “What ha
ppened? We had fun. He was nice. Oh—I don’t know. His teeth, maybe. You could see spinach stuck in them sometimes.”

  “You’re kidding me. You ditched Denis because he had spinach in his teeth? You who likes to live life big?”

  That stops me. I didn’t think of myself as living big, but just flat-out living. Having the best time with what time I had. My eyes squeeze together.

  Something had scared me about Denis, something I sensed before but now hits me full on. Yes, there was the problem of how I’d handle my business if I moved in with Denis, but we could have worked that out. The thing was―sex. Okay, more than sex, but that’s what got it started.

  One night, we were sitting on Denis’s cut-velvet couch drinking a little Chivas, and we ended up in his big bedroom. It was May, warm, and all the windows open. Denis’s white cat lay on his Persian rug. We sprawled out naked on the bed. Denis slowly kissed my neck, the tip of my collarbone and shoulder, then my lips, big open-mouth kisses that sent sparks down my veins. I felt his body against mine, immense and silky. I didn’t want to stop. Not this, not him, not us. The cat jumped on the bed and batted at something on the window screen and still we didn’t stop.

  When the sun broke through the next morning, it woke me from a good, hard sleep. I heard Denis downstairs, the sound of coffee brewing and spoons clinking. Breakfast smells came. Before I knew it, I was huddled in Denis’s bathroom, setting off my own ringtone, and saying loudly, “Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.”

  It scared the hell out of me, wanting Denis like that. I must have walked myself around my car three times before I drove off to work. The next week, Denis asked me to move in.

  

  I hand the expenses from Denis’s mother’s funeral to Marie to process. When she gives me back the bill to sign, I wonder if I should add a note at the top. But what? Dear Denis, Hey D, Thinking of you..., something else entirely? Finally I settle on a neutral, Thanks. Call anytime with questions, and sign it with a flourishy L.