7. Emmie
7
EMMIE
A s was fitting, it was dark and overcast as I tried to zip up my black funeral dress.
“The bus is leaving,” Gran called.
“Can it wait?”
“Let’s go. I want to get a good seat.” Gran peered into the bathroom. “You need more shapewear.”
“I’m already wearing two layers. Just help me with the zipper.”
Gran gave a halfhearted tug on the zipper. It didn’t budge. “You can wear one of my dresses.”
One of the beaded monstrosities from the seventies? Wasn’t this funeral going to be bad enough?
Outside, a horn blared.
“Don’t leave without us!” Edna shouted.
I groaned as she hurried out the door.
I didn’t have money to call a taxi. Though I didn’t want to roll up at my husband’s funeral in the senior bus, it was better than spending money I didn’t have.
“Go up,” I hissed, jumping up and down. The zipper inched up.
There was loud knocking on the front door. Gran must have locked herself out again.
“Coming! Can you just take down the cupcakes?” I yelled, running to the door in my stocking feet. “Oh!”
Marius drew back when he saw me standing there my dress half on.
“Emmie.” He turned around abruptly.
The awkwardness hung in the air as I banged my elbow, trying to close the door. “I thought you’d already be there to get a good seat.”
“Unlike the other residents of this building, I’m not particularly excited to attend the funeral.”
I could hear the wry smile in the words.
“Really? Because you sound happy,” I grumbled from the other side of the door, “or is that because you get to stand there in your suit and be superior?”
“Would you like some help?” he offered.
“Just tell the bus to wait for me.”
“It’s already left.”
I raced to the window to see the bus driving off.
“Dammit.” When I turned around, Marius was there.
“I’ll give you a ride,” he offered, motioning for me to turn.
My face hot for some reason—it was always so hot in the senior center—I turned my back to him. His fingers barely brushed my skin as he held the fabric together then tugged up the zipper.
I smoothed down the front of my dress and slipped on my heels.
Marius was already standing at the door, holding the dessert carrier and the casserole.
“Just a tip from your lawyer”—he bent down to murmur in my ear, making me shiver—“you might want to at least pretend to be sad.”
Even though Brooks had been a cheating asshole, I wasn’t going to show up to his funeral empty-handed. That was just not how I was raised.
I held the umbrella, sleet pattering the fabric, as Marius and I darted up to the house.
My house.
Where the funeral was being held.
Marius set the casserole and dessert on a groaning table laden with food.
Now that I was back in the house where Brooks and I had lived—mostly unhappily, though I’d tried to be a good wife—it hit me that he was well and truly gone. My marriage was done.
And I’d failed.
Oakley was wailing in front of the coffin.
Heart sinking, I approached, not sure if I wanted to see Brooks like this, all laid out.
Beatrice rushed over to her friend. “Oh, don’t cry! Poor Oakley. Brooks is in a better place. He’s smiling down on you and your beautiful baby.”
Theo stood in the corner, fists clenched.
“We’re going to say goodbye to Brooks,” Beatrice said as Oakley sobbed.
Because of where I was standing, I was the only one who saw Beatrice lean over the coffin and snip a lock of Brooks’s hair then tuck it into her pocket.
“Why don’t we get you some food? You haven’t had anything all day.” Beatrice led Oakley away.
“Till death do us part.” Zoe handed me a glass of wine and toasted me. “Congrats on escaping this wad of public restroom toilet paper.”
“You won’t believe what I just saw,” I hissed, Marius’s warning about looking sad completely forgotten.
“From a corpse ?” Zoe almost shrieked when I told her what I’d seen. “She put it in her pocket?” Zoe made a face. “Maybe she’s making some sort of unhinged memento for Oakley.”
“No one can be that codependent in their friendship,” I whispered behind my hand.
“You did have me check to see if you forgot a tampon up your snatch that one time, remember?”
“That’s different. No one was dead.”
“You monster!” Oakley screamed from the refreshment table. Then she was racing over to me, more like an angry rhino than a heavily pregnant woman.
I ran, keeping the chairs between us as Oakley charged me.
“You’re taunting me and my baby!” she shrieked.
“In hindsight,” I said to Zoe as I dodged the bouquet of flowers Oakley threw at me, “maybe bringing my usual sympathy cupcakes was the wrong idea.”
I flinched as Oakley hurled a Santa’s Surprise cupcake at me. It glanced off the wall, leaving a smear of red frosting on the white wallpaper I’d agonized over and Brooks had yelled at me about.
“She’s taunting me. The murderer is taunting me. Emmie killed the love of my life, and now she’s rubbing it in my face.” Oakley’s sobs were attracting the attention of the whole room.
“Beatrice.” Marius was there. “Why don’t we take Oakley outside? This isn’t good for the baby.”
“That’s right—the baby,” Oakley said, sinking dramatically into a chair.
“Why is Marius being nice to her?” Zoe hissed at me.
Yeah, why is he?
“Very suspicious. But not as suspicious as Beatrice…”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Brooks was sleeping with multiple women.” We glared after Beatrice and Oakley.
“And one of them got mad enough about it to kill him.”