Page 39 of Mourner for Hire

THIRTY-TWO

VADA

“My vagina hurts,” I admit, shifting in the driver’s seat as Morgan and I drive to the Edwin Monroe Cemetery just outside of Portland.

“What do you mean?” she asks, adjusting her mourning veil in the visor mirror.

“My vagina. I feel like someone took a bat to it repeatedly. Horseback riding is not sexy,” I answer, still shifting in my leather seat.

“Wasn’t that days ago?”

“The trauma lingers.” I wince. “Also, you didn’t need to wear a veil. A simple black dress would have been just fine.”

“Oh, no, honey. I only get to do this with you every so often, so I’ve been planning this outfit since you told me it could be possible for me to attend.” She laughs out.

“Well, thank you for pulling it together with such short notice.”

I knew I would be able to drag Morgan to this hire easily, but she doesn’t do well with the spontaneity of my job, so I didn’t tell her details; I simply asked for her to have her funeral outfit ready.

She was so excited. It’s awful, I know, but my job is bountiful in stories she can tell at all her law office holiday parties.

She’s a paralegal for the most expensive—I mean successful—attorney in the Portland area.

She doesn’t really believe in marriage anymore, prefers her men meek and gentle, and enjoys watching videos of people falling down on the internet. She gets off a bit on pain and is the biggest fan of my very unconventional and taboo job.

“Of course I wouldn’t miss this!” Again, very excited to attend a funeral—I realize the darkness that sits in her soul, and I love her for it. “Also, that’s your groin, Vada. You need to use anatomically correct terms?—”

“—Oh my God. Would you stop? You knew exactly what I meant. My groin hurts. My labia feels bruised. I’m walking more bow-legged than my ex from college. And I didn’t even have good sex to endure such a dramatic injury.”

She hocks out a laugh and flips the visor back up. “Still…”

“My vagina hurts residually. How about that? The pain is reverberating up my vagina wall, slamming through my cervix, and shaking up my ovaries. All of it. All of my lady bits hurt. The entire region.”

Now she’s laughing. “Did you brace for impact?”

“I tried. But I rode on the back, so I didn’t have stirrups, and let’s be honest, the Thigh Master is not even enough to get these suckers in shape for a one-and-a-half-ton piece of muscle trotting in the sand.” I slap my thighs to emphasize the words, making myself shift in my seat again.

“One, your thighs are great. And two, he didn’t give you your own horse?”

“No. I think he was trying to be romantic, so I let him.”

“Why?”

A quick sigh of exhaustion blows past my lips. “Because I want to feel wanted a little bit. I like feeling pursued. And he’s nice and cute and… soft.”

Her face twists.

“Like in a good way,” I explain. “Like sensitive. Gentle. Soft. ”

She pauses, contemplating her words. “That is so not your type.”

I roll my eyes.

“That’s my type.”

A snort escapes me. “Whatever. It passes the time.”

“What’s happening with Dominic?”

I move past the question as we pull into the parking lot. “Anyway, thanks for coming to this one with me.”

If it bothers Morgan that I ignored her question, she doesn’t let on.

“Ah, yes, tell me again what I’m supposed to do.”

“Long-lost sisters,” I answer plainly.

“No way!” She bares her teeth, grins, and drums her fingers together. She’s an evil villain at heart—the blondest black cat I’ve ever known.

“Apparently, Mrs. Harmon’s two sons are entitled little dicks after years of being fed Goldschl?ger with a silver spoon, and she is ready to rip them a new one.”

“This is horrible. I love it.”

“Me, too,” I answer, sliding my hatchback into a parking space in the back nearest the exit of the cemetery parking lot—just in case we need a quick escape.

“But…” She’s clearly thinking out loud. “We look nothing alike.”

I’ve already considered my green eyes and brown hair to her blue eyes and golden locks.

“Not to worry.” I pull out a tube of ruby lipstick and black liquid eyeliner.

“We’ll draw the cat eyes, put on the lipstick, and Barron and Timothy won’t be able to tell us apart.

Most men are gullible, but Mrs. Harmon told me enough to guarantee that these pretentious fellas’ heads are filled with hot air. ”

“Nice.” She puckers her lips. “Make me pretty, sis.”

We paint our lips red and perfect our eyeliner in time to arrive hand in hand with somber faces and a broken backstory .

Knowing the exact kind of crowd that will be in attendance for Marilee Harmon’s funeral, I know we stick out like sore thumbs as soon as our black heels touch the dewy grass.

“Chin up, Morgan. Don’t smile?—”

“That’s never a problem.”

I restrain my own smile. “I’ll do the majority of the talking, but if anyone asks how you know Mrs. Harmon before I get up to say anything, just tell them, ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’”

“Oh, cryptic. Nice.”

“Then, after I say something, if anyone asks you to repeat how we know Mrs. Harmon is our mother, say we were notified by Henry Spencer in regards to the execution of the will upon hearing of Mrs. Harmon’s death.

We never knew she was our mother. She birthed us out of wedlock before meeting Mr. Harmon and was forced to put us up for adoption because of high society and all that.

It’s actually widely known that in real life, she went away for a couple of years.

Worst years of her life, according to her.

But three years later, she met Mr. Harmon, and she birthed a couple of brats, forgetting about us.

We’re broken up about it, wishing we’d had a life with our biological mother, but are so grateful she is leaving her legacy with us. ”

Morgan’s eyes go wide. The juiciness of this story is clearly exciting her.

“Is she really leaving the legacy with us?” She emphasizes the word legacy, and I know she means money and how much.

“No, she’s leaving his fortune to the Two Sisters Foundation, which is a nonprofit that helps bring awareness to sexual abuse of women and children, provides resources to the victims, and funds court cases to bring perpetrators to justice.”

“That’s… amazing… and specific,” she says slowly, nodding at a couple eyeing us as we walk toward the gathering at the top of the hill. A white tent is perched at the top to protect the casket from the drizzle in the air. “Why did she pick that foundation?”

“Her sons assaulted some girls in high school, and Mr. Harmon is big money—high on power and a I-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-right-and-wrong, family-over-justice attitude—her words, not mine—and he hired a powerful defense attorney.

They got a year of probation. Mrs. Harmon was angry, and instead of getting a divorce, she came up with a plan.

This plan. I guess the greedy little shits celebrated after their father’s funeral five years ago, saying one left to go.

This made Marilee solidify her delivery of the news.

Taking the money from them wasn’t enough.

She wanted to make it hurt even more. She wanted to make sure they are humiliated.

It ended up being ten years in the making, but this is going to cut deeper than any slap on the wrist they ever got did. ”

“And you?”

I smirk at her. “I get ten grand… and you get ten grand.”

“For an hour of work?” She shakes her head, her jaw practically on the ground. “I am in the wrong industry. I would have done this for fifty bucks.”

“Me, too.” I restrain another laugh. “But money is money. Mrs. Harmon was ready to give it away like candy on Halloween… except to her sons.”

“Yes, of course. Except them. Assholes.”

“Scum of the earth.”

“The worst kind of dicks. I want to burn them alive. I wish we could pluck out their fingernails and hang them up by their toes to bleed out?—”

“Okay,” I cut off her dramatics, squeezing her hand lightly. “Let’s get this job done.”

We walk up the hill and take our seats. I spot the will executor, Henry Spencer, in the front row, next to Barron and Timothy.

A middle-aged woman with smoky eye makeup and maroon lipstick dabs at her eyes next to Morgan, who makes a quick, empathetic noise.

“How did you know Marilee?” the woman asks.

Morgan’s empathetic face drops into a stone-cold stare, and she says with bereft vibrato mixed with a heeded warning, “You will know soon enough. You all will.”

I bury my face in a handkerchief to stifle my laughter as the woman’s eyes go wide. She withdraws back to her assumed husband, and Morgan looks at me and winks. I shake my head.

“That was good,” she whispers.

“Yeah, but tone it down,” I murmur.

“Right. Mysteriousness is subtle.” She raises and tilts her chin robotically and stares ahead, her face a mixture of shock and devastation.

I decide to stop looking at her, or I’m going to start laughing, and once I start, there will be no stopping.

The ceremony continues. Finally, after the sons’ crocodile tears and the priest’s prayers, Henry Spencer stands to say the final words about Marilee. Tears fill his eyes as he speaks about her, a fondness of a dear friend lost too soon.

Then he says, “When we went over her will and her final wishes, she was very clear that she wanted everyone here to hear from two people.” He nods at us. “Ladies, if you would.”

Morgan and I walk toward the casket hand in hand. When we get to the front, she lets out a whimper, and the sound startles me, almost making me laugh, but I recover enough before we turn to present a united front.

All eyes are on us—I can feel them, not see them. My gaze stays fixed on the giant evergreen tree in the distance, just above the crowd.

“Everyone. Marilee’s daughters.”

Collective gasps abound, covering my skin in gooseflesh and making my heart pound. I hate public speaking. I’m not even a good actress. But this is a unique job, and I do what it takes to get it done.