Page 54 of Four Weddings and a Funeral Director

Lily

Lily was so wrapped up in putting together a Typeface-Spotting bingo card for Tink’s birthday party (which was somehow tonight) that she didn’t register that the doorbell was blasting ‘Highway to Hell’ until she’d worked her way all the way down to Wingdings.

‘So, where does a girl go to satisfy her appetite for sugared almonds around here?’ came a warm, drawling voice, one seasoned with the spray of the ocean and the long days out in the sun.

A familiar cheerful face popped up over Lily’s desk: one with the same bright blue eyes and high cheekbones as Lily, but framed by darker curls and made all the more striking by a bold Roman nose that Tessa always proudly said entered the room before she did in order to sniff out any nonsense.

‘Tessa!’ Lily’s swivel chair made three solid rotations as she leapt up to embrace the cousin she hadn’t seen since their mutual best friend’s wedding, the one that had inspired this whole start-a-wedding-planning-business dream in the first place. ‘What are you doing here?’

Tessa obligingly let her cousin tilt her from side to side for a solid thirty seconds before she prised Lily’s arms away. She was wearing gloves – a bit odd, given the warm weather, but Tessa had always been a fashionista.

‘Second time’s the charm. I went in next door first. Did you know there’s a funeral parlour right there?

The poodles had me absolutely confused. Who puts daisy-chain garlands on a mortuary poodle?

And then there was this guy . Hot, but weird, a bit like …

did you ever watch Black Books ? He was like Bernard, but if Bernard had grown up in the Addams family. ’

‘Ah. Mort,’ explained Lily, mentally adding Black Books to her to-watch list.

Tessa was scandalised. ‘ Mort ? Like in the Sims ? Cruel world. The courts should’ve stepped in.’

Lily smiled as she thought back over her conversation with Mort about nominative determinism, and how she should technically be a florist – although wedding planner was at least florist adjacent.

At least I wasn’t an executioner’s assistant , Mort had said. Or Death himself .

‘Lily?’

‘Mm?’

While Lily had been daydreaming, Tessa had been strolling the length of the shop, nudging bud jars and stopping to look at the collection of framed chalkboards on the fireplace mantel.

Her gaze lingered on the photo booth printing of Lily and Mort pinned to a photo board filled with snaps from the weddings Lily had recently worked on.

Or maybe she was looking at the photo of Lily and Mort laughing as the crows flew overhead that Gracie had captured at Venus’s wedding.

All right, so perhaps there were more photos of Lily and Mort than of her actual clients, but she hadn’t worked on that many weddings, had she?

She had to fill the space with something.

‘I have to be back home in a few hours, but I have time for a coffee. Is there a good place?’ asked Tessa.

Lily yawned, the late nights of table arrangement organisation and thank-you-card writing making themselves known. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

She led her cousin out onto the picture-perfect promenade, with its vibrant bushes and shimmering glass ornaments. The sun splashed over the koi-filled stream, and a gentle breeze nudged the wind chimes into a tinkling musical cadence.

‘This place is dreamy,’ said Tessa, as they passed The Naked Bookshop and a pop-up doughnut cart called Forget-me-Nuts. ‘I can’t believe it’s only an hour and a half from the city. It feels like another planet. No smog. No people. No traffic.’

‘The no cars takes some getting used to, but I like it.’ Lily led Tessa around the central roundabout – what Mort called the swirl – and off to the left branch of the path, where The Hot Pot hugged a curved corner, all thatched roof and ivy-smothered walls.

Out the front, couples filled their cups from tall metal teapots, and parents furtively dabbed at the messes their small children had made.

A familiar terrier with a brown eye patch wagged his stubby tail as they approached, then rolled over, showing his spotty belly.

‘Hey, Jenkins,’ Lily greeted him, giving him a belly rub. The dog flipped back over and gave a solid shake, as though drying off after an imaginary shower.

‘The Hot Pot does incredible drinks – and pastries,’ she explained, as Jenkins trotted off towards a group of students, demanding more belly scratches. (They happily obliged.) ‘If you can imagine it, they can make it. I swear there’s a witch back there mixing everything up in a cauldron.’

‘Do they do Turkish delight?’ asked Tessa with a grin.

As kids they’d dived into every wardrobe they could find, looking for the fantastical worlds that surely existed behind all the winter coats and mothbally Gore-Tex.

They’d even tried making their own Turkish delight, but they’d ended up with rose-smelling toffee.

It had been a costly exercise for the Tooth Fairy.

‘Can’t hurt to ask,’ said Lily, pushing open the door to the coffee shop.

‘Heya, Lils!’ called Dierdre, who today was clad in a rockabilly dress with skulls and roses on it. ‘We missed you at romance book club. And we had a spicy one, let me tell you.’

Dierdre shoved a ratty paperback across the counter for Lily.

‘Your homework. I highly recommend reading it in public if you want to scandalise the HOA. New friend?’

‘My cousin Tessa, visiting from La Jolla,’ explained Lily.

‘Ooh, I love that flamingo-themed pastry shop on that corner right before you get into the downtown area. Magical. What’s your potion, Tessa?’

Tessa ordered an extravagant drink with more ingredients than the local bodega held on its shelves.

Lily went for the Flower Garden tea blend, mostly because she loved seeing what kind of oddly shaped teapot would appear on her table, complete with ornate tea strainer.

According to Mort, Dierdre had inherited the collection from a late aunt, who’d made the mistake early on in her life of telling people she liked teapots.

She’d subsequently received a teapot for every birthday, anniversary and life milestone until her death.

Her ashes currently lived in a custom teapot with a stopper in the spout.

The ancient wooden floors creaked and complained as Lily led Tessa through the cosy rooms of the shop and into her favourite spot: a pink room with stained glass windows and plants filling every inch of the railing that encircled the room.

Coffee table books about food and spices were stacked on each tiled tabletop; candles glowed in vintage teacups.

‘Ooh, it’s like if a fairy built a greenhouse!’ said Tessa. ‘I can see why you love it here.’

Lily held her hand over the tea candle flame, enjoying its warmth.

‘I really do,’ she admitted. ‘Although I do miss giant grocery stores and same-day delivery. And there are some … quirks I’m still wrapping my head around.’

‘Like your hot next door neighbour?’

Lily flushed.

‘Ah, I knew it. I saw the look on your face when I mentioned him before. And the photos. So many photos. Spill.’

‘There’s not much to spill.’ Actually, there was an astonishing amount to spill, but most of it would make Lily sound, as Ambrose’s budgie would say, ‘off her cracker’.

Tessa’s days of magic and mystery were long behind her – once she’d turned thirteen, she’d been all about that Susan Pevensie life, reading magazines and decrying her former crush on Mr Tumnus.

Lily wasn’t sure she’d want to hear about the way her business had become magically entwined with the one next door, giving every wedding a lovely dousing of death, and vice versa.

Lily was becoming used to the quirks of the spell by now, and was getting good at anticipating when a cake smash might involve a jar of ashes or when the Eighties cover band might decide that ‘Ave Maria’ was a better pick than Blondie’s ‘Maria’.

It was a fun puzzle sometimes, but also, a sword of Damocles at others.

‘We’ve kissed,’ she blurted instead. Kissing the messy-haired hot undertaker next door was information that seemed safe enough to volunteer.

Dierdre popped up at that moment, setting down Tessa’s enormous drink – it was served in a sundae glass – and Lily’s pot of tea (shaped like a mushroom with a chipmunk peering out of one side).

Lily wasn’t sure if Dierdre had overheard her remark, although the faint smile on her red-painted lips suggested she had.

‘Look at you,’ said Tessa approvingly, sipping at her triple-vanilla iced latte cinnamon swirl something-or-other. ‘Maybe you can buy his and hers funeral plots. Together forever.’

Lily toyed with the mushroom cap lid of the teapot. ‘Maybe. I’m not sure Mort’s that kind of guy. The whole being surrounded by death thing shapes your attitude towards relationships in weird and woe-derful ways.’

‘I see what you did there. Well speaking of love …’

Tessa removed her gloves, then fluffed her hair – she had the kind of curls that Lily’s own hair aspired to, but lacked the follow-through to achieve – and retouched her lipstick. As she did, an enormous diamond flashed on her finger, almost blinding Lily.

‘Ow! You just performed Lasik on me with that thing!’ Dropping the teapot lid with a clatter, Lily grabbed her cousin’s hand, gazing with wide (if half blinded) eyes at the beautifully cut stone.

‘I thought you’d never notice,’ said Tessa. ‘I put it up on Facebook – I thought for sure my mom would’ve told you all about it. And I did drop a few hints through text.’

Lily butted her palm to her forehead, finally understanding Mom’s persistent questioning about checking her Facebook and Tessa’s cryptic emoji string from the other night. So her cousin hadn’t just had a case of the butt dials.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Lily, feeling terrible for not responding. ‘I’ve been absolutely overrun managing the business. You wouldn’t believe how wild this industry is. I need danger pay.’