I stopped myself mid-shudder and tried my best to blink away the moisture I felt building behind my eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s okay. Because if Carter is right on the reason Stu didn’t come tonight, and the reason he hasn’t been answering the door or the phone when you’re not home, we’re not the ones you need to say it to,” Mary Fran said. “Stu is.”
I spent the last ten minutes or so of the drive out to Deidre Ryan’s viewing in silence—my thoughts walking a well-traveled and much loved road of memories starring me and my grandpa Stu. Only instead of making me smile as they normally did, they only served to stoke a fresh round of self-loathing.
For the most part, Carter and Mary Fran left me alone, their trading of McPhearson Road gossip keeping them busy. But as I pulled off the highway and made my way north toward our destination, Mary Fran released the kind of sigh that simply couldn’t be ignored.
So, I took advantage of a red traffic light to take in my friend and the fact that she was fidgeting the side of her slacks. “Mary Fran? You okay?”
“I just keep thinking about Todd, you know? How one minute he’s cheering for his wife and her accomplishment and the next…well, you know. It’s just”—Mary Fran stopped fidgeting in favor of an agitated finger-pass through her silky smooth hair—“so wrong. I mean, it would be bad enough for that to happen, but to watch it happen? I can’t even. Can you?”
I followed the car in front of me as the light turned green. “Not really, no.”
“I’m not sure I even looked at her table when it happened,” Carter interjected from the spot behind Mary Fran’s seat where he’d finally settled. “I just remember hearing a woman’s screams from that direction.”
“That was her mother.”
Mary Fran sighed again. “If I’d watched that happen to Sam, I’d have died right there at my spot.”
I felt my stomach lurch at the image my friend’s words invoked and waved it away. “I can’t even think like that.”
Silence filled my car for a while, only to be broken by Mary Fran. “So you looked then?”
“Looked?”
“At Deidre’s table. When she fell.”
Either consciously or unconsciously, I’m not sure which, I tightened my hold on the steering wheel. “Not the second she fell, no. But it’s hard not to look toward the source of the loudest screams.”
“And?”
I peeked at what I could see of Carter before looking back at the road and the passing street numbers that indicated we were getting close to the funeral home. “They were coming from Deidre’s mom. And that’s when I noticed her dad was up and out of his chair and running for the stage with someone I’m guessing might have been her brother?”
“Don’t you think it was probably Todd?” Mary Fran asked.
“No. Todd was still at the table. I met him on the way in with Andy. The guy I’m talking about looked like a younger version of Deidre’s father.”
I heard Carter shift to the side and across my back seat. “The husband was still at the table?”
I slowed as the sign for Sommers Funeral Home appeared on our right and signaled my turn for the car behind me. “I only looked for a second, and really, that second was more than enough, but yeah, from what I remember, he didn’t move.”
“And you didn’t find that odd?”
“At the time, I’m not sure what I was thinking about anything.”
Mary Fran tugged her visor down and looked at herself in the mirror. “Everyone reacts to trauma differently, Carter. Some react with actions, some react with screams or cries, some are unable to process at all.”
I put the car in park, cut the engine, and conducted my own once-over in the rearview mirror while Carter leaned between our seats once again. “Did you study psychology or something in college, Mary Fran?”
“No. But last fall, when Baboo first came to me, I did a little research into stress.”
“Baboo is a bird.”
Mary Fran stopped primping and popped her visor back into place. “I’m aware of that, Carter. But they cope with stress in much the same way we do. When Preston Hohlbrook was murdered last fall, Baboo’s coping mechanism was to retreat into himself, remember?”
Carter and I nodded in unison.
“Well, I suspect Todd was doing the same thing, although, being honest, I wouldn’t have guessed that based on the guy he was back in high school.”
“You said he was a theater guy, right?” I asked, inserting myself back into the conversation. “And that he was really good at playing a bad guy?”
“Actually, I said he was good at playing diabolical—good, as in scary good.”
Carter smacked his hand to his chest. “I didn’t know you hung out with theater types in high school, Mary Fran.”
“I didn’t. Todd just stood out to me as being someone very different on stage. In day to day life he was the wimpy kid.”
“Wait. Didn’t you say he had crushes on all the popular girls at your school?”
Mary Fran nodded at me. “Funny thing is, he had a girlfriend at the time. A meek little thing named Becky. I always wondered if she noticed the way he’d drop her hand when I’d pass them in the hallway. Or the way he’d slide to the other end of the bleacher when my cheerleading squad took the field. Like he didn’t want anyone to know he was with her—especially the girls he saw as being better.”
“And you said he didn’t go to your reunion in January, right?”
“Right. Because he”—Mary Fran made air quotes—“had to go on a cruise with his wife. And I remember wondering at the time whether seeing my name and the names of some of my fellow cheerleaders on the reunion committee played a factor in his word choice.”
I paused my hand atop the door handle and made a face. “C’mon, he was married and had kids, Mary Fran. You can’t seriously think he was still hung up on girls that barely knew he was alive twenty-five years earlier, can you?”
“I didn’t want to think that. I still don’t. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t go through my head.”
“Well, for Deidre’s sake, I’m going to hope you were wrong.” I looked toward the funeral home and then dropped my hand back to my lap. “Can I bounce something off you two?”
Carter met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “More Stu stuff?”
“No. This is completely unrelated.”
“I’m listening.…”
“We’re listening,” Mary Fran corrected.
“Eight years ago, Deidre and Cassie worked at the Donovan Agency together. The agency closed its doors a few years ago, but, at the time, they were a decent enough agency. Anyway, Deidre was trying to woo a chain of car detailers that had locations popping up all over the metro area.”
“The Finish Boys?” Carter supplied.
I nodded and stayed the course. “Deidre had put together a pitch that the company was all set to go with until about a half second before the buzzer went off—”
“They use buzzers in pitch sessions?”
“No, Mary Fran. It’s just a figure of speech.” I lifted my finger to the steering wheel and traced it all the way around the edge. When I reached the top again, I continued my train of thought by backing up a few steps. “I guess because Deidre only re-entered the game in the fall, I’d never really given much thought to her career before kids. But I had JoAnna put together a list of her campaigns and it was way more extensive than I realized.
“Anyway, after I dropped off Rapple and Gertie at their place this afternoon, I finally had some time to finish going through the list. That list prompted me to do a little research of my own and that’s when I found out that Cassie, who’d only recently come on board with Donovan at the time, somehow managed to steal The Finish Boys campaign out from under Deidre.”
“How?” Mary Fran and Carter asked
in unison.
I thought back to Bitch Pitch’s first post and gave the answer I believed Deidre had given in her masked way. “Cassie used a very different kind of wooing.”
“A very different kind of wooing? What kind of—”
Mary Fran spun around in her seat to face Carter. “She used her boobs.” Then, to me, she added, “I hope Deidre got even.”
“She did. She landed the library campaign that earned her the nomination for this year’s Best Overall.”
“Alongside you, my dear,” Carter inserted.
“But instead of Cassie.”
Understanding dawned on Carter’s face, while Mary Fran’s leaned more toward resistance. “Oh, c’mon, Tobi. You can’t really think Cassie rigged that platform in the hope that Deidre would win.”
“Hope would imply she didn’t know whose name was in the envelope.”
“Okay… But I thought you said the winners weren’t known by anyone but the judges.”
“They’re not.”
Mary Fran stared at me for a full minute before glancing back at Carter. “Is she making sense to you? Because she’s not to me.”
I answered for Carter. “Cassie would have known whose name was in the envelope if she’s the one who put it there.”
~Chapter Nineteen~
While I’d only been in a handful of funeral homes in my almost thirty years, each and every one had left me with a few common impressions.
First, there’s the lobby and its deafening silence that makes it so the only sound you can hear is the beating of your own heart.
Next, there’s that collective hush that greets you as the armchair mourners scattered about try to figure out how you’re related to the deceased.
And finally, there’s that awful moment when you make eye contact with the grieving, and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nothing you say or do can even come close to easing their pain.
I knew all of this.
I expected all of this.
Yet I still felt like a rookie as I stepped into the line of people waiting to express their condolences to Deidre Ryan’s widower and parents. A quick visual sweep of the room yielded a frightened little boy and girl huddled together in cushioned folding chairs just out of the casket’s sightline. Beside them, and talking to them in a quiet, soothing tone was the man I suspected to be Deidre’s brother.
I watched them for longer than I should as I moved forward with the line. “They’re too young to be dealing with this kind of loss.”
I didn’t realize I’d voiced that thought aloud until Mary Fran pulled me in for a one arm hug and brought her lips to my ear. “I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing. I want to do something, but I don’t know what.”
“JoAnna looked into whether any scholarships have been set up for her kids, but as of yesterday, there wasn’t. So maybe that’s something we can do.”
“It can’t bring her back, but it’s something.” Mary Fran squeezed my shoulder and then released me. “You’re next.”
I pulled my attention off the kids and fixed it, instead, on the mourner in front of me who was just finishing up with Deidre’s father. When she stepped forward to offer her condolences to Deidre’s mother, I took the father’s hand and held it tightly. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” He took what I suspected was his umpteenth fortifying breath so far that day and forced his lips into some semblance of a smile. “How did you know my daughter?”
“I’m in advertising as well, and Deidre and I would cross paths on occasion at a workshop or conference. She was always very kind and encouraging.”
“And what is your name?”
“Tobi. Tobi Tobias. I own my own—”
His smile slipped from his face. “You were up for the same award as my Deidre, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
The woman to my right made her way on to Todd and, like a well-oiled machine part that knew what was expected, Deidre’s father gave my hand a quick squeeze and then released it so I could move on to his wife while he greeted Mary Fran.
When I stepped in front of Deidre’s mother, I reached out, encasing the woman’s hand inside my own. I expressed my condolences and then answered the same questions her husband had asked before it was time for me to move on again, this time to Deidre’s husband, Todd.
“Todd, I am so very sorry for your loss. Deidre was a very—oh. Sorry.” I pulled my right hand back, glanced down at the angry red lines traversing his palm, and, instead, extended my left hand to match his. “Deidre was a very sweet woman. And I know I’ll miss seeing her smile at the various workshops and industry conferences where our paths often crossed.”
His throat moved with a noticeable swallow just before his eyes fluttered closed for half a beat. “Thank you.”
I started to say something about possibly starting a scholarship for the kids but stopped when it became apparent his attention was no longer on me but, rather, Mary Fran. For a moment, recognition parted his curtain of grief and I took that as my cue to step over to the casket and pay my respects to Deidre, herself.
And I tried.
I tried to pray like I was supposed to, but at that moment, all I could see was Deidre’s eyes as they’d looked just seconds before the fall. And all I could hear was that God awful thud as her body hit the stage. I’d seen the pandemonium as reality dawned on the stunned faces in the crowd. I’d heard Todd’s tortured cry as the responding emergency personnel sat back on their heels and quietly shook their heads in defeat. Yet even with all of that, I so wanted to pretend away everything I knew to be true.
But I couldn’t.
Deidre was gone. Her kids would grow up without their mother. Her husband would raise their children alone. Her brother would mourn his first-ever friend. And her mom and dad would know the awful pain of outliving their own child.
I knew these things.
Everyone in the room knew these things.
But—
I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up.
“The line is starting to back up, Tobi,” Mary Fran whispered.
I nodded, turned my attention back to Deidre, and dropped my voice to a whisper even Mary Fran would be hard pressed to hear. “I will figure this out, Deidre. You can count on that.”
Then, after a silent prayer, I wandered over to the side wall and the first of at least a half dozen photo collages that were displayed on easels around the room. There were pictures of Deidre as a baby, an elementary school student, a scout, a prom date, a high school and college graduate, a new bride, and a mom. And with each new collage, it became more and more difficult to catch my breath until I simply couldn’t look at any more pictures. Instead, I continued my trek toward the back of the room, my gaze settling on a familiar face just barely visible behind a wad of tissues. I did a quick sweep of her immediate surroundings to see if her family was nearby, but when I didn’t see her stepson, her daughter-in-law, or any of her late husband’s loyal employees, I took a seat on a folding chair two over from hers and offered her a fresh tissue from a box perched on a small end table to my left.
“Oh, thank you. I-I just can’t stop crying…” Mavis Callahan wiped at a pair of matching tears making their way down her face and then followed it up with a dab of her nose. “I-I can’t stop looking at her children. They’re not all that much older than my-my”—her already broken voice grew even more hoarse—“Myriam.”
I didn’t know the Callahans super well, but I knew enough to know Myriam was Mavis’s granddaughter—the little girl I’d seen her talking to and coloring with at the Callahan table on Saturday night.
“I can’t imagine my precious babies having to face life without Susan. She’s such a good, devoted mother who has put aside her own hopes and dreams in favor of helping them discover theirs.” Mavis balled the latest tissue insi
de her fist as her focus left Deidre’s children and traveled to the receiving line, her jaw noticeably tightening as it did. But when I tried to see what had brought about the shift, I saw only Deidre’s family and a line of mourners that showed no sign of letting up.
“Did you know Deidre well?” Mavis asked, pointing toward the tissue box.
I started to hand her another tissue but when I looked at the growing wad in her hand and the tears still streaming down her face, I opted to give her the whole box, instead. “I knew her enough to say hi when we saw one another at a workshop or conference. And we exchanged congratulation e-mails when we were both nominated for Best Overall this year. As a colleague, I admired her campaigns and her work ethic. And it doesn’t take long looking at those”—I gestured toward the line of picture collages—“to know she was aces in her personal life as my Grandpa Stu is fond of saying.”
Her eyes widened behind her tissue as she really looked at me for the first time. “She really did seem to have it all, didn’t she? She was a wife and mother and still followed her own dreams.”
Something about the sudden wistful quality to Mavis’s voice made me wonder if perhaps, while contemplating Deidre’s life, Shamus Callahan’s widow was also pondering her own. The woman’s follow-up sigh pretty much validated my suspicion.
Before I could say anything though, a brunette in a simple black dress appeared in our row and knelt in front of Mavis, her cheeks tear-soaked, her hands trembling. “I can’t stop looking at her kids. They’re still so little and—”
Mavis’s eyes widened as she loosened her grip on her tissues and sniffed. “I didn’t see you up there just now with Kevin.”
“He fell behind. Talking to…” She pinched her eyes closed, firmed her lip, and then opened them to me as she stood. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Susan Callahan, Mavis’s daughter in law.”
“Good heavens, where are my manners?” Mavis swiped at her cheeks with her tissue and then nodded between the two of us. “Susan, this is Tobi Tobias of Tobias Ad Agency.”
I extended my hand and, after a slight hesitation that included a once-over from the top of my blond hair to the tips of my simple sling-back shoes, Susan took it. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around at the usual advertising related affairs.”
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