Page 30 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director

Lily

Phone on speaker waiting for Venus to come off hold (the toothpaste heiress had been called into an urgent investor meeting about some sort of water laser dental floss), Lily sat at her desk, containers of allergen-friendly, low-mastication retirement home food in front of her.

Jefferson was a genius. There was simply the matter of branding to deal with, and that was where Lily came in.

After her nightly Google session to see if Veronica Teuer had surfaced, Lily had spent the rest of the night on Canva whipping up an edgy brand identity aligned with all the most on-trend content – Venus was going to love it (if she ever came off hold).

Even better, she’d be slightly baffled, but that bafflement would be what clinched the deal.

The fashionable always leapt on what they didn’t understand because they’d rather be clueless than late to the party.

Better to spend the money and then have your assistant do a deep dive than miss out on an opportunity to be the it girl.

As Lily bopped along to the folksy hold music, Mort’s low, calm voice wandered through the grille above Lily’s desk.

Lily wished she were on the other side of the wall, watching Mort try to pick the jelly beans out of his beloved black cat candy jar.

Or helping him show a newly widowed professor of medieval studies the newly arrived handcrafted replica of the Anglo-Saxon Loveden Hill Cremation Urn, a striking piece of ancient craftmanship that looked to Lily very much like a garden planter that had been sitting out in the rain for too long.

And yet, here she was talking about … what was she talking about again?

There was a rattle as the hold music ended and the clatter of helicopter blades came over the line. Lily had been on hold so long that Venus had managed to take flight.

‘Premetheus,’ said Lily triumphantly. That was it!

There was a pause over the line – or maybe just lag. ‘Like with the fire?’ crackled Venus’s voice.

‘ Predating the fire,’ said Lily. ‘This is a restaurant so essential, so back to basics, that it doesn’t even cook its food. Everything is raw, vegan, easily chewable.’

She frowned – there was a commotion outside. Had Veronica returned to the scene of the failed proposal to undo the switcheroo?

‘Amazing,’ breathed Venus over the line (and the chopper blades). ‘Chewing feels so primordial, don’t you think? And this also ties into our new dental sensitivity line. How are the plates coming along?’

‘You’ll have more range than Mariah Carey,’ promised Lily, leaning in her chair to get a better glimpse of what was going on outside.

‘Lily?’ boomed Mort’s voice. (He’d apparently moved on from murmuring soothingly to the newly bereaved.)

‘The line’s cutting out,’ lied Lily. ‘I’ll call you back when you land.’

Hanging up, she hurried outside to see exactly what the switcheroo’s latest shenanigans entailed.

Mort was already there, standing arms folded in front of his decorative poodles (which Lily had dressed up with glow-stick necklaces and thermochromic T-shirts that changed colours when the sun hit a certain way or someone patted them).

‘Please tell me this is a misdelivery,’ said Mort, extremely judgementally. ‘Because I know that I didn’t order this, and I’m fairly confident that you wouldn’t either. Would you?’

Alas, Lily was about to thoroughly disappoint Mort.

She clasped her hands in a please-forgive-me motion in front of the mechanical bull that poor Roddy had somehow carted in from the parking lot behind the shops using an elaborate combination of wheeled carts and leather pulls.

(Lily was beginning to see how the pyramids were built.)

‘It’s for my cowboy wedding. Although it wasn’t meant to come here – it was meant to go to the venue.’

Mort prodded the mechanical bull distastefully. ‘Which is where?’

‘A barn with million-dollar views of the beach.’ Lily had been jealous of pets before – lapdogs led a charmed life – but this venue was the first time she’d ever been jealous of a horse. ‘Oh, to be a rich person’s thoroughbred. Or even their mechanical bull. Are you going to hop on?’

Mort took a step back. ‘You’re pulling my leg. There’s not a chance that two people declared, oh, let’s tie ourselves together romantically and legally, and invite all of our friends and family to hoe down with us at a pretend ranch. With … this as the centrepiece to it all.’

‘ One of the centrepieces.’ Lily shooed away a pigeon that had decided to give the bucking bronco a go. ‘It’s just the unifying element. You should see the cowboy boot vases – oh, and the branding station.’

Mort looked deeply insulted by the prospect of all of this, which Lily found quite gratifying.

‘Live a little, Mort,’ she said, giving him a light jab in the ribs.

‘Die a little, more like, given the fatality rate of those things,’ he retorted. ‘What are you going to do with it, anyway? You can’t just leave it there.’

‘Why not? You’ve got the dogs; I can have a bull. Maybe it’ll bring in some extra business.’

‘I’m not sure the kinds of people who ride a mechanical bull on the street for the sheer joy of it are the marrying type.’

Lily couldn’t help herself – she burst out laughing. ‘Exactly who do you think is the marrying type? Elizabeth Bennet? Anne of Green Gables? The Madonna? You have a very, very strange concept of what this institution means to people, Mort.’

Mort was visibly preparing a comeback when two very buff, very Palm Springs–looking gents in boat shoes, denim cut-offs and astonishing tans stepped out from behind the laneway next to Eternal Elegance.

Lily brightened: Amos and Bernard, the couple behind the rodeo wedding!

Until now she’d only seen them over Zoom (well, and their many, many social media selfies), but they were as movie star-ish as she’d imagined.

‘Oh. My. God. Is that the bull?’ Bernard, who had combed-across hair and Paul Newman eyes, clapped his hands with the glee of a collector looking at an Eames chair priced at five dollars at an estate sale.

Amos, all stylish salt-and-pepper locks and a smile so white it was a portal to the land of cosmetic dentistry, clapped the bull on the butt. ‘That’s our Rosie girl!’

Lily rushed forward to give them each a hug. ‘You made it!’

‘We certainly did! The things we have seen. We followed Rosie all the way from Nashville,’ said Bernard. ‘It is quite the drive.’

‘Santa Fe has its charms, though,’ added Amos. ‘I got a great hat that I plan to wear on the big day.’

‘But not Amboy. Big murder vibes.’ Bernard shuddered. ‘Well, except for Roy’s. That’s a cutie-patootie of a place. I’m a sucker for a Googie sign.’

‘This is Bernard and Amos,’ said Lily, introducing them to Mort, who was shooing a small child with an ice-cream away from the mechanical bull (for their own safety, and sense of pride). ‘They’re getting married next weekend.’

‘But we’re staying in town until then,’ said Bernard. ‘It’s going to be a blast . We’ve rented out this charming farmhouse out by the Spanish mission …’

‘It’s not all black and falling apart is it?’ said Lily warily. ‘With the house numbers displayed on a tombstone? And owned by a small man with a half-halo of hair and a commitment to dapper dressing and 25,000-piece jigsaw puzzles?’

‘That is extremely specific, but no,’ said Amos. ‘It’s yellow and charming, with a red door, and a small population of alpacas. Although I suppose there could be jigsaw puzzles.’

‘Ah, Aunt Dot’s cottage,’ said Mort, sounding relieved.

‘Were you worried Gramps was going to crash at your apartment?’ teased Lily. ‘Lucky you have the coffin bunk beds, if you need them.’

‘The what now?’ asked Amos, from astride the mechanical bull (which thankfully wasn’t plugged in, for Lily’s liability insurance only went so far).

‘Mort’s the town funeral director,’ explained Lily.

Mort nodded. ‘We have a two-for-one deal on plots at the moment, if you’re interested.’

‘Ooh, making a liar of till death do us part , I see,’ said Amos, running a hand over the fake bull’s spotted hide. ‘It is kind of a romantic gift, though, isn’t it. What kind of caskets do you have? Or do you think cremation is the way to go? What about cryogenics?’

‘That’s entirely up to your preferences,’ said Mort, adding drily: ‘Although I’d have to direct you to a start-up in the Bay Area for the cryogenics option. I believe there’s an app subscription involved.’

Lily bit her lip, amused – Mort’s sharp sense of humour always seemed to come out of nowhere, but it got her every time.

‘Hmm, worm food or judgemental remains sitting outside the Conservative Ladies’ Township Society.’ Amos rested his elbows on the bull as he pretended to think it over. ‘Oh, they’d be so pissed off. Let’s do the one that pisses off Republicans. Help me down?’

‘A good call, as always.’ Lily offered Amos a hand as he scrambled off the bull, cackling. She knew the giddy feeling, although she hadn’t ridden one of these since orientation at college. Sadly, she couldn’t remember much of that night. ‘When I say this wedding is going to be amazing …’

‘Expect the cops to be called,’ said Bernard. ‘Multiple times. It’s not a party if there’s no public disturbance complaint!’

Mort nodded politely, but Lily could see the alarm in his expression.

Noise complaints and police escorts were not Mort’s preferred way of partying.

He was more the paperback book and a glass of wine kind of guy, which Lily was slowly starting to come around to, especially in the wake of her phone calls with Venus.

‘Do you want me to run you out to your accommodations?’ Lily asked. Although she’d have to borrow Mort’s hearse to make it happen – her Miata was only a two-seater, and she wasn’t sure that either of the two men would fit inside.

Bernard shook his head. ‘We’ve got our trusty Stormy Daniels with us.’

‘The … adult star?’ clarified poor Mort, who rather looked like he’d happily step into an open grave.

‘Now that would be a hoot. No, no, our car. It’s stormy blue.

Let us know if you need help getting poor Rosa down to the venue.

’ Bernard gave the mechanical bull a hearty pat, and with some cheek kisses and waggling of fingers, they set off back down the laneway, ready to check into their accommodations.

But because comings and goings always coincide in some sort of Newtonian twist of narrative, Gramps appeared from down the laneway, eating a croissant and pushing a rolly tweed suitcase along the cobblestones. It was not a subtle entrance; Lily had heard armoured vehicle parades that were quieter.

‘Mort, my boy! Your visitor, checking in! Nice bull, Lily. A good way to draw in happy couples to your business. And if someone dies, Mort can do the funeral.’

‘I pride myself on my holistic approach,’ said Lily.

Mort, in the meantime, had turned the colour of one of the ghosts that presumably haunted the funeral home. ‘Visitor? But I thought Amos and Bernard had rented Aunt Dot’s?’

Gramps shook croissant crumbs off his ruffled black shirt.

‘I don’t know who that is, but good for them.

No, the pipes in the bathroom backed up like something out of a horror movie.

You should’ve seen it: ooze and sludge all over the place.

Stribley’s out dealing with it, but he said it’ll be a few days.

It’ll be like old times – you and me and a jigsaw puzzle!

’ He pulled out the jam jar Lily had found at Then Again, giving it a hearty shake.

‘No picture, so we’ll just have to wing it.

I love what you’ve done with the greyhounds. Poodles – a nice touch.’

‘Me too,’ said Lily, pulling Mort and Gramps in for a selfie. ‘Say switcheroo!’