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Funeral Sandwiches

“Look at her. It’s like she was made for this.”

Nancy nudged Pam with her elbow and nodded toward Marlene.

“What?”

Shalisa asked. “Widowhood?”

Nancy nodded. “Not to be insensitive, but have you ever seen Marlene look better?”

The trio formed a tight circle, each holding a small plate of triangle sandwiches, and watched their friend, flanked by her three daughters, greet mourners in the receiving line. Marlene looked like a movie star’s widow. Her long, blond hair softly framed her face, and a demure smile showed beneath a black fingertip veil. A sleeveless black shift skimmed over her sheer pantyhose above high heels.

Pam had to agree. “She’s practically glowing. Do you think she had her makeup done?”

Nancy said, “She must have got extensions. Her hair wasn’t that long. Was it?”

Shalisa added, “That dress is new. I bet she’s wearing a double set of Spanx. Looks fabulous on her.”

As word of Dave’s death had spread, Marlene’s family had swooped in, and while initially Pam, Nancy, and Shalisa had been in the periphery organizing airport pickups, receiving flower deliveries, and heating up casseroles, on the third day they had retreated to their own homes to leave Marlene and her relatives to await the coroner’s official report and plan Dave’s funeral.

As expected, given the tragic circumstances, it took a couple of days to confirm Dave had died “an unnatural death resulting from an inadvertent chance happening.”

In other words, a horrific accident.

Dave’s female relatives bemoaned what a shame it was for Dave to have a closed-casket funeral; he was such a handsome man with an exceptionally full head of hair—they’d have loved a goodbye peek.

Following the service his family and friends gathered in a casino reception room Hank had arranged: a courtesy offered to employees’ families so they have one less thing to worry about during their time of loss.

As car doors had slammed shut in the church parking lot, two black limousines had carried the new widow, her three daughters, and their husbands the ten city blocks to the modern structure that towered over the water’s edge: the area’s sole casino, cornerstone of its bustling tourism industry and anchor to the adjacent one-hundred-room hotel and its conference facility; the complex dominated the shoreline.

One after another, vehicles had pulled to a stop at the circular driveway, dropping mourners off to climb the ten steps to the casino’s steel-and-glass-canopied entrance.

In the center of the circle, the flag was lowered out of respect for Dave, its fallen employee.

It flapped in the salty breeze that blew off the Atlantic.

Pam had known Hank and Larry would already be inside, having raced to Hank’s car as soon as the hearse departed for the crematorium.

As the casino’s director of operations, Hank wanted to arrive first to ensure the details had been taken care of.

Andre had driven the women with Shalisa in the passenger seat, and Pam and Nancy in the rear.

He had parked in the far parking lot, saying the walk would do them good and they could get their steps in.

Nancy had opened her mouth to protest, but Shalisa’s head shake had let her know it wasn’t a battle worth fighting.

Once inside they had navigated the clusters of tourists in their crisp khakis and the locals in their dark denim.

They had made their way through the cacophony of whirring video slot machines, past the quiet click-click-click of roulette wheels, and beyond the soft snap of dice bouncing on felted tables, to the escalators where discreet signage had directed them to Dave’s reception on the third floor.

There was a good turnout.

Dave’s death came at the optimum age for funeral attendance. Young enough that his family and friends hadn’t died off ahead of him, and old enough that his daughters’ friends had the good manners to be present. Some brought a plus-one.

On occasions like this, Pam missed her daughter, but the cost of air travel kept Claire in New Zealand, on the other side of the world.

Pam shifted her gaze to admire Marlene and her daughters.

They stood in front of a wall of flowers flanking a poster-size photo of Dave, propped on an easel.

Projection screens were dropped down along both ends of the room, and snapshots of Dave’s life changed every five seconds.

Pam was trying to catch the photos that they’d contributed of Dave with their group of friends, starting years ago at kids’ soccer games, then moving to fishing on Hank’s boat, hanging out in each other’s backyards and family rooms, Christmas parties, New Year’s, cottage vacations—but where were their pictures?

Across the bright, primary-colored mosaic carpet, a buffet table ran along the side of the room, anchored at one end by a coffee station and the other by a bar.

Scattered in between, tiered trays were layered with sandwiches, crudités, and dessert squares.

The women watched Shalisa’s husband, Andre, hike up his suit pants, pick up a plate, and travel down the table straight to the vegetable tray.

“That fucker.”

Shalisa scowled.

Shalisa’s sharp reaction to her husband selecting a few carrot sticks jolted Pam. “What do you mean?”

“I think he could be having an affair.”

“Who? Andre?!”

Pam and Nancy simultaneously snapped their attention back to the tall man with the tight Afro. Dressed in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened, he used plastic tongs to transfer individual grapes to his plate. One rolled to the ground, and he looked around before he toed it under the long, white linen tablecloth with his shiny black loafer.

Pam wasn’t sure which was more surprising to her now: that Dave Brand’s handsome face had been crushed by his garage door, or that crotchety Andre Murphy had found someone to fool around with. She asked, “What makes you think that?”

Shalisa narrowed her eyes. “He skipped the funeral sandwiches.”

Nancy and Pam gasped.

In the thirty years the couples had been palling around they’d attended enough of these kinds of events together to know Andre loved a good funeral sandwich.

Although usually focused on having a healthy diet, to Andre, funeral sandwiches were a big deal, so he allowed himself this indulgence to offset whatever grief he was going through.

His go-to was the squishy, white-bread triangle stuffed with egg salad, not too heavy on the mayo or onions.

He appreciated the surprise of a bit of gherkin pickle and a light skim of salted butter.

He didn’t mind tuna fish if it was done right.

But according to Andre, chicken salad elevated any funeral. Finished off with a chewy brownie—not cakey—and Andre’s mourning menu was made.

Shalisa kept her eyes on him. “He’s always watched his diet, but now he’s ramped it up. You saw how he is about his steps. He’s downloaded a calorie app, and I found a gym brochure in the car.”

“Ah.”

Pam considered this. “Maybe he’s trying to improve himself.”

Shalisa raised her eyebrows at Pam. They watched Andre replace the tongs and scratch his ass.

Nancy chuckled. “Who’s the lucky gal?”

She caught herself. “Sorry, Shalisa.” She cleared her throat and reframed her question. “Who do you think he’s seeing?”

Shalisa shrugged. “I don’t think anyone yet. I think he’s still planning—”

Her train of thought was interrupted by movement at the entrance, and she pivoted her attention. “Ugh.”

Nancy followed Shalisa’s line of sight and echoed the sentiment. “Uh-oh.”

Pam joined them. “Fuck me.”

Sabrina Cuomo stood framed by the reception room doorway. The cool mom who had one-upped them throughout their kids’ school years; the first mom to have an Elf on the Shelf and bento lunch boxes. Sabrina wafted into the room, almost in slow motion. Perfect from the tip of her wide-brimmed hat to the toes of her peekaboo slingbacks. A Chanel bag dangled from her shoulder. She could have been holding a negroni sbagliato made with prosecco, and it wouldn’t have looked out of place.

Without a word, Pam, Nancy, and Shalisa shuffled en masse five steps to the right and cowered behind a group of tall, dark-suited men. Nancy peeked around the shoulder of one. “She’s scanning the room.”

“We should be okay. She’ll find somebody better than us. She usually does,”

Shalisa said.

“I’m not so sure.”

Nancy looked around. “It’s mostly Dave’s golf pals right now. Uh-oh. She spotted me. She’s headed this way.”

“Don’t make eye contact. Pick up some dishes. Pretend you’re helping,” Pam said.

Nancy reached for Pam’s plate, but Pam wasn’t about to let her off the hook and held on tight. Nancy looked Pam directly in her eye and pulled harder. Pam wasn’t giving up. “It was my idea,”

she hissed through clenched teeth.

“Bonjour, mes amies.”

And Sabrina was upon them.

Begrudgingly, Pam released her plate, and Nancy scooted toward the kitchen while Shalisa headed to the buffet table and elbowed past the startled waitstaff to straighten the cutlery.

Pam, abandoned, tightened her smile. “Been to France, have you, Sabrina?”

Sabrina scanned the room beyond Pam’s shoulder. “Just got back. I told my husband, I bet we’ll see Pam and the girls at the funeral. So sorry for your loss.”

Conversations with Sabrina were transitory, lasting only as long as it took her to find someone better. The pickings must have been slim, because she started another sentence. “I haven’t seen any of you in ages. Now that Gene is retired, we spend most of the year in Europe.”

“Mmm, mmm.”

Pam mirrored Sabrina’s rudeness by watching Dave’s slideshow over her shoulder, feeling some disquiet, but unsure why.

And then, without warning, Sabrina threw her sucker punch. “When are you retiring, Pam?”

Pam swallowed. Then pasted a smile on her face and hoped a flush didn’t creep up her neck. Whenever someone asked when she and Hank were retiring—a way of combining man, you got old and how successful were you? into one socially acceptable question—Pam struggled to answer. She found it downright humiliating that she’d worked her entire adult life but couldn’t afford to retire. Not now, not in five years, and most likely never. So she did the only thing she could in the situation—she lied. “Oh, we’re in no hurry. Hank and I love our jobs.”

Pam hated her job.

She didn’t know how Hank felt about his anymore, and she didn’t care.

Since he had lost their life savings in that misguided investment five years ago, they’d stopped talking about their work.

Full disclosure, they’d stopped talking about most things.

Just like Marlene and Dave had.

And Larry and Nancy.

And Andre and Shalisa.

Pam’s only solace in the ongoing shame was that misery loves company, and at least her closest friends were in the same, leaky financial boat.

All victims of Hank’s bad advice.

Pam didn’t like to dwell on it too much, lest she spiral into guilt and despair.

So she’d pulled up her pantyhose and resigned herself to remaining a secretary at Dutton Realty until she died.

Under the guise of inclusivity, she had spearheaded the campaign to ensure the office was wheelchair accessible so she’d always be able to get to her desk.

“I recall you were a secretary?”

Sabrina wrinkled her nose.

“Oh, Sabrina, you have such an awesome memory.”

Pam wrinkled her nose back, then cast her eyes to the screen in time to see photos of Dave and his family and then his soccer friends flash by. She wanted to tell Sabrina she recalled she leeched off her husband, who one day suddenly seemed to have inexplicably made a killing in an investment, but Pam bit her tongue, fully self-aware she would have been happy to leach off Hank if he’d been leechable. But Hank could barely support himself. That’s what happens when you live beyond your means—it catches up with you when you get old. An image of Dave holding golf clubs filled the screen.

Pam had to get away from Sabrina before she said something she might regret. She made an excuse. “I need to check on Marlene—au revoir.”

But Pam really wanted to find Nancy and Shalisa because something was rubbing her the wrong way, even more than Sabrina.

And now she knew what it was.

A few days earlier, Marlene’s daughters had called to say they were putting together a slideshow of their dad’s life and asked for shots of the eight friends from over the years. Now, as sunny scenes of Dave’s past flashed on the screens, Pam had watched the complete cycle, but where were their photos? She found Shalisa in the kitchen, halfway through a piece of pie.

“You can come out now.”

Pam waved from the door. “Sabrina found another victim.”

Shalisa forked a bite into her mouth and looked for a place to discard her plate. Pam let the door close behind her and turned in time to catch Nancy making her way across the room toward her son, Paul, standing in a circle of young people. Always a great kid, he was over thirty now and dressed in a smart suit and tan leather shoes. He was well groomed with close-cropped hair and a smooth shave. His face brightened when he spotted his mom. He broke away from his friends and Nancy flung her arms around him.

Shalisa joined Pam. “What’s with Nancy and Paul? She’s hugging him as though he’s just back from a tour of duty.”

Pam answered, still watching Nancy and Paul, “I was thinking the same thing. Maybe it’s just grief. Oh. Here comes Larry. Wonder if he’ll join their hugathon.”

Larry Clooney turned into the room and stopped at the entrance, his feet splayed, shoulders back, hands in his pockets, probably rattling his change in that annoying habit of his. Pam had to admit Larry had aged relatively well. Although his hair had grayed, his jawline was still crisp, and there was only the suggestion of a paunch above his belt. But he looked lonely, standing there, surveying the room without Hank, Dave, or Andre by his side. Pam saw Larry’s eyes land on his wife and son embracing, and he took a half step forward, then stopped, spun around, and left.

Pam said, “Wonder what that’s about.”

Shalisa drew Pam’s attention to the other side of the room. “Who’s Sabrina talking to now?”

She nodded toward the coffee bar, where their former mom-pal held a cup and saucer and loomed over a diminutive woman in sky-high heels.

Pam answered, “She’s cornered Padma.”

“That’s Padma?”

“Where’s Padma?”

Nancy asked as she joined them.

Pam gestured to where Sabrina was chattering away to Padma Singh, Hank’s new boss and the casino’s president of operations. She’d arrived from the head office in Mumbai two months earlier. The young woman in her late twenties tucked her long, dark, glistening hair behind her ears, which were heavy with chunky diamond studs.

“I thought she’d be taller,”

Nancy said.

Pam frowned. “Why would you think that?”

“Everything you said about her. Being so powerful and all. You know. Sketchy, crime boss billionaire mom, MBA, climbing the corporate ladder, coming here to prepare for the big-time casinos in India. I just thought she’d be . . . taller.”

Nancy shrugged.

Shalisa said, “She wishes she were tall. Why else wear those heels? Look at how she keeps shifting her weight. Her feet are killing her.”

Nancy nudged Pam with her elbow. “Have you met her?”

“No, but I want to. As soon as she ditches Sabrina, I’ll say hello.”

Pam turned away to study the screen, her eyes flitting back to keep track of Padma. “Hey. Have you seen any of our photos yet? Any of Dave with us?”

Shalisa shook her head, and Nancy frowned. “Now that you mention it, not a one.”

“Huh,”

Shalisa said. “I wonder if our file was corrupted. But you’d think the girls would have said something.”

“Hmm, maybe. Oh! Padma escaped. I’ll be right back.”

Pam thrust her glass into Nancy’s chest and moved to intercept Hank’s boss as she teetered toward the door. “Padma! Padma! Hi. I just wanted to say hello.”

The woman stopped and turned. Pam’s stomach flipped. She knew that look.

As Pam closed the distance between them, Padma’s cool eyes and frozen smile made Pam painfully aware of the one-inch swath of gray that cut a path along her roots.

Pam straightened as Padma’s gaze traveled down her body, tallying Pam’s clearance-rack dress, outlet-mall purse, and ten-year-old funeral shoes.

Pam could see the moment Padma was satisfied that her left earring cost more than Pam’s whole outfit, and probably everything in her closet, as the young woman’s smile widened uncomfortably to reveal straight bottom teeth, and Pam knew she wouldn’t be grabbing coffee with Hank’s new boss anytime soon.

But Padma was now the gatekeeper to her husband’s much-needed income, so Pam extended her hand. “I’m Pam Montgomery. Hank’s wife.”

She couldn’t help herself and edged a little closer than necessary, towering over Padma’s petite figure.

Padma craned her neck to greet her, then asked, “Do you come to all the employee funerals?”

“What? No!”

Didn’t Padma know Hank was best friends with Dave? Admittedly, no one watching the slideshow would think she and Hank even existed in Dave’s life. “Oh, no. Hank and I—”

“There you are!”

Hank inserted himself in between them and put his arm around Pam’s shoulder.

Pam jumped and glanced at Hank.

Where had he been since the service and why was he suddenly touching her? His fingers felt strange against her bare upper arm and his shirt was damp.

Despite the air-conditioning, beads of sweat dotted his forehead.

Was he okay? Pam didn’t pay much attention to him anymore, but could he have morphed into a candidate for a heart attack? He was out of breath, as though he’d run to get here.

He looked from one woman to the other.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Padma, something has come up out front.” Hank released his grip on Pam and started toward the door in step with his boss.

Pam watched them go.

What the fuck? As weird as Hank had been in the five years since he’d ruined their retirement plans, he’d ramped things up tenfold since Dave’s accident.

But Pam had read that grief was unpredictable.

Pam turned away and was considering whether she should fill up on more funeral sandwiches so she wouldn’t have to worry about dinner, when Nancy and Shalisa fell in beside her. Shalisa said, “You’re not going to believe this.”

“Believe what?”

Pam said. Her eyes found Marlene, still in her funeral veil.

Shalisa whispered, “Marlene is moving.”

Pam squeezed her eyes closed. That was fast. Her poor, poor friend. Her husband was barely gone and already she was being forced into a dreary, basement granny flat at one of her daughters’ homes. Pam would support her. She’d go see her and invite her back to visit. She braced herself for the details. “Which daughter is she moving in with?”

“Oh, she’s not moving in with a daughter.”

Nancy beamed. “She bought a condo in Boca Raton. Marlene’s moving to Florida.”

Pam swung around to face her friends. “Boca Raton! How the fuck can she afford that?”