Destination Funeral

Prologue

SUNDAY, THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL

If it had been her wedding, she wouldn’t have come.

But it was her funeral.

It didn’t seem like a funeral. With the smell of burning charcoal and freshly applied sunscreen, you would never know that someone was dead. Or that just moments ago, a sunburned crowd had looked on in horror as a casket was dropped, its lid swinging open to reveal its contents.

It’s as if the weather had been specially arranged ahead of time—storm fog burned off by noon, baby blue skies now decorated with puffs of wispy white clouds, a particularly cool breeze breathing through the gathering, lifting skirts and table linens.

Melting ice shifted under the weight of wine bottles and beer cans.

Even the ocean is obliging, moving like it’s tired from all its thrashing the night before.

Or, nights before. Plural.

Tears were tickling the corners of eyes, voices were soft with only-just-remembered anecdotes.

And of course, on an island like Mercy, where life was fueled by tourism and local gossip, people were wondering what might have happened with the kids this weekend.

Because that’s who they’ll always be to most of them. The kids.

The four of them, Didion, Sammie, Austin, and Matt, had been one of those era-defining forces back in the day.

No one knew quite why they cared so much what happened to them—hundreds of other teenagers had been on the island back then—and before and since—bicycling around town, drinking too young, falling too hard in love.

But who can really say what gives anyone or anything star quality?

Maybe it was Babe. Babe at Birdsong and the kids who orbited around it all.

A group of women, who had minutes earlier decided it was fine to open a bottle of wine before the service, whispered to each other now.

No one could believe all four of the kids had come back.

Did Sammie look like she was doing better these days?

God, they hoped so. And Austin—so sad about him, all that potential—they’d all been rooting for him.

Sweet Matt, always the levelheaded one, and now with that beautiful daughter. Was he happy?

“I don’t think so,” said one of the women. “I’m good at reading people, just look at his body language.”

“Oh, Sal, it’s a funeral, of course he’s not happy!”

“No, I know these things,” said the first woman, shutting one eye and sipping her wine.

And of course, Didion. Such a smart girl, so funny and beautiful when she was younger.

A shame she’d gotten so serious these days—but wait, hadn’t they all heard that she, at least, was thriving up there in New York?

She was a famous chef now, like the Barefoot Contessa or—well, none of them could name another chef off the top of their heads, but they all knew what they meant.

“You know they weren’t talking at the end. Didion and Babe.”

“No! Still?”

“Mm-hmm,” confirmed the woman who knows these things. “It must have been something to do with the way she died. You do know how she died, don’t you?”

The other women didn’t, and they all moved in close like fingers pinching in a cootie catcher.

When she told them how Babe died, all the other women’s jaws dropped.

Once they got their voices back, there was a chorus of sympathetic sounds before they lowered them even further and gave their opinions on it all.

Moments later, Didion’s name was called. She rose and made her way down the sandy aisle, up to the shade of the tent. It was one of those cabanas, another thing usually used for fun, that was now repurposed for this somber affair.

Didion fiddled with a folded piece of paper, torn from her kitchen notebook, days and days—possibly a lifetime—earlier, when she’d been in New York and she was a different person. When her hair was neat and her mission in life was clear, if fraught.

When she didn’t have many friends, but hey, she liked her co-workers fine, and loved talking to guests on the rare occasion she was freed from the stage of the open kitchen.

She didn’t have love, a boyfriend or anything, but that was okay, there was no hurry.

And maybe that wasn’t for her, anyway. It couldn’t be for everyone, right?

Weren’t even college kids half-celibate these days?

She’d started thinking maybe she could reframe it as intentional and not what it obviously was, which was the age-old story of the girl who got her heart broken once (twice, actually) and poured herself into her work instead.

That was all the old Didion. Friday Didion. The one who had fought through crowds at LaGuardia to board a plane she didn’t even want to be on to go somewhere she didn’t even want to go, and who was not the same one who stood in front of them all today.

Sunday Didion was pink in the cheeks, her copper hair wild and untamed. She looked like she’d just returned from the jungle. And maybe she had. It’s as good a way as any to describe what had transpired this weekend, at the pink house on the beach.

Didion saw herself differently now. Saw all of them differently. Most of all, saw her mother differently.

She opened the paper in her palm and looked at it, none of the words feeling right anymore. She glanced behind her at the reassembled, open casket. She shut her eyes and opened her mouth, all the words she’d prepared vanishing on her tongue. None of them mattered anymore.

What a difference a day makes.