Page 32 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director

Lily

(Speaking of Mom, Lily owed her some pics of Rosa the mechanical bull, and some upvotes on a contest Mom had entered to win a Winnebago.)

But maybe this was good, Lily told herself.

There was absolutely nothing in her choice of outfit that could suggest to Mort that she had designs on his surprisingly fit body.

Or those arresting dark eyes. He’d know she was being polite and neighbourly, and had no intention of muddying the waters between the two businesses whose waters were, let’s face it, muddied up as though they’d been infested with carp.

The Eternal Elegance x Eternal Elegance mashup was already primed for epic drama – Lily had just fielded a call asking about a graveside wedding – and the businesses’ owners getting similarly mixed up hardly boded well.

And Lily wasn’t renowned for her relationships’ longevity.

What if she started something and it petered out?

Or worse, flamed out? Then what? They’d have to grit their teeth and smile at each other every day until Lily’s lease was up. Which was … months.

Mere months, she thought sadly. Then what?

The doorbell rang, intoning the Star Wars ‘Imperial March’. Was it too late to renege? Could she pretend she’d fallen asleep? Or that she had a sudden migraine?

More important, was it too late to change her outfit?

But if she did that, then Mort would know that she was worried about his opinion of her.

Which she absolutely wasn’t, of course. But he couldn’t argue against throwing on an elegant dressing gown – that was simply protecting herself against the elements.

Lily prevaricated, struggling with the endless ‘what ifs’ of this scenario.

Why had she spoken to him in the first place?

She could’ve just hung out on the balcony in silence like a creeper, but an imperceptible creeper.

But no , she had to let her impetuous streak prevail.

(To be fair, her impetuous streak had always treated her well.)

‘I can see you in there,’ came Mort’s wry voice over her smart doorbell. ‘And I know that if I’m waving my hand it’s activating the motion sensor.’

Was he doing the hokey-pokey? She’d never taken Mort for the hokey-pokey type, but people could be complex.

For example, Lily had once written a strongly worded review after her favourite chocolate shop back in La Jolla had run out of peppermint frogs during a particularly brutal bout of PMS. She hadn’t known she’d had it in her, and apparently neither had the business because they’d sent her a $25 gift card. (She’d retracted the review.)

Lily opened the front door, gesturing self-consciously at her outfit.

‘Welcome to the catwalk,’ she said doing a shimmy.

‘Fierce,’ said Mort. He pirouetted awkwardly on the spot.

‘Very Derelicte,’ said Lily.

Mort chuckled.

‘I’m surprised you got that reference,’ she said, raising an eyebrow.

‘I spent a lot of time as a kid watching movies.’ Mort tapped a finger against the latest wedding favours Lily had ordered: a set of slap bands.

‘It was how I dealt with the whole being surrounded by death thing. Although I did gravitate towards horror movies. Not really sure what that says about me.’

‘Probably that you were surrounded by horror and grief and needed a safe way to process it.’

The slap band Mort had been toying with curled around his wrist like a sparkly shackle. ‘That’s quite the analysis,’ he said slowly.

Lily shoved her sleep mask higher up on her tangle of hair. ‘I’m not just a pretty face.’

‘You’re certainly not,’ agreed Mort, unrolling the slap band. Sexily, somehow. Lily had never considered that a slap band had the potential to allure, but stranger things had happened. (Mostly within the last couple of weeks, to be fair.)

Lily hesitated. What now? If some other equally good-looking guy with whom she had a complicated relationship had shown up on her doorstep late at night looking so gloriously dishevelled, Lily would’ve dragged him upstairs and stripped him on the spot.

But this was Mort, who was anything but some other guy.

Shoving him down on the bed – or couch, or hell, the dramatically decorated table right in front of them – seemed wrong, somehow.

And not because Mort would somehow come out with an anecdote about someone who’d died being pounced upon by a lover.

It was more that … Lily had feelings for Mort.

She’d never really sat with the whole idea of feelings before, and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle them. Or act upon them.

In the past, perhaps scarred by the many disastrous relationships of her mom’s she’d had to endure, she’d simply had her fun and been on her way.

Which was probably why she was so trepidatious; part of her worried that if she took the same approach here, the part of her that always cut and bailed would rise up like an overly yeasty loaf of bread.

No, no, not yeast, Lily. Don’t liken yourself to yeast.

Lily didn’t want to bail on Mort, or Gramps, or Angela and Tink, or Mirage-by-the-Sea – at least not before her lease forced her to.

For the first time in her life, she was starting to feel settled , and the thought of pulling up the roots she was just starting to dig into the earth of this quaint town created a pang in her heart.

But would that happen? If she started something with Mort, would the familiar lizard brain flight sense kick in? Or would this time be different?

Lily swallowed. She was worried about what it might mean to find out.

‘Mrow?’ asked Esmeralda, appearing from some secret shadowy pocket. She wound figure eights around both of their legs, pulling them together.

Lily grabbed at Mort’s threadbare shirt to keep from stumbling. His hands caught gently at her shoulders, his fingers curling lightly. They were warm through her pyjama top, and not for the first time she wished she’d worn something more normal to bed. Or maybe less normal. And more scant.

‘Esmeralda, you sly thing.’ Avoiding eye contact with Mort, Lily grinned down at the fluffy cat, who was staring innocently up at them.

‘She looks like she’s hungry for sardines.’

‘I can’t help there, but I do have tuna. C’mon, Esme. And Mort, if you must.’

She reached for Esmeralda, who lolled in Lily’s arms as though someone had performed a disappearing spell on her bones. Her purr rattled through Lily, a low and happy rumble.

‘She has a soft spot for you, I see.’

‘Ah, she has a soft spot for everyone. The first day I met her I thought she was dying of starvation. Turns out she’s been visiting every business in town – and half the homes – for a snack every day. No wonder she’s a bit of a chungus.’

‘She’s not. She’s just … Rubenesque.’

‘She certainly knows how to get what she wants.’ Lily hesitated, a foot on the steps that led up to her apartment. Architecturally it wasn’t a threshold, but emotionally it was. Okay. They were doing this. Whatever this was. Nothing. Probably nothing.

‘The place looks … cute,’ said Mort, as Lily ran to grab a tin of fish for Esmeralda. From his tone, Lily suspected he’d never used the word before in his life. Not even for a puppy! The sacrifices he’d made for her.

Lily emptied out the tin onto a decorative lobster plate, scooting it towards Esmeralda, who daintily tucked in.

‘Nice dish.’

‘I found it when I was scouting for the vintage dishes. I couldn’t resist. It was from a Swedish Kr?ftskiva, according to Theo.’

‘A lobster party?’ asked Mort, the very picture of credulousness. He stood awkwardly in the centre of her rug, as though it were some sort of protective circle.

‘Do you want me to put some salt down?’ she asked, eyebrow raised. ‘To keep the switcheroo spirits out? Anyway, how on earth do you know what a Kr?ftskiva is?’

‘The things you learn in the funeral directing business. Truly – I overhear the most magnificent gossip.’

‘Ah, so our professions do have something in common. Cake?’

Lily pulled out a massive platter of cake from her pink vintage fridge – if there was one thing she was never short on, it was wedding cake.

And prosecco. And sugared almonds, but that was mostly because no one ate those.

They just kept multiplying in the cupboards like coat hangers, or the lids of takeaway containers.

Oh God, she’d just realised that the strip of photos from the photo booth had pride of place on the fridge – it was right there next to her scribbled grocery list and the Polaroids of Annika and Mom that she’d pinned up the day she’d arrived, and which had mercifully survived the switcheroo. Had he seen it?

But no, Mort was perched on her love seat, clutching a plate of cake and perusing the crumbled, tea-stained papers on Lily’s coffee table instead. Lily strategically shifted a novelty San Diego Trolley magnet around just in case, then climbed up beside him, pulling her feet beneath her.

‘What’re you working on here?’ Mort dug a fork into a multi-tiered slice of coffee-flavoured cake. ‘This looks like the work of a crazed serial killer. Not the cake, though. The cake is excellent.’

Lily took a forkful of cake and nodded in agreement.

‘It is delicious. I have a night owl wedding coming up and they’re insisting on coffee-infused everything.

I’d share the tiramisu, but I ate the entire batch.

Fell down the stairs after, too – whoever made it went heavy on the Marsala wine. How good are you at solving puzzles?’

Mort blocked her fork as she went in for a bite of his cake. ‘Sounds like you’ve been talking to Gramps, huh.’

‘All the time. We have a whole text thread going. When he’s not on the jigsaw puzzles he’s all about his Wordle streak.’

Mort raised an eyebrow. ‘You, Lily, astound me.’

Lily hid a smile behind her fork. Was that … two compliments in one night? Had Mort been switcherooed?