Chapter Eleven
Leonard’s entryway was overflowing with greenery and the sign on his door said Stay Awhile (Until You’re Asked to Leave). That felt pretty on brand from what little interaction I’d had with him.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Leonard asked as he welcomed me in. He wore a fitted yellow coverall and carried a matching cane. It was a very if-Elton-John-were-a-mechanic vibe. I had a feeling there was a cane for every mood hidden away somewhere.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Maybe you could show me what you’re trying to sell and we could go from there?”
A chirping sound came from the living room and I peered around the corner to find a bright blue bird with a black-and-white striped head, balancing on a bar inside of an ornate gold cage.
“Oh, that’s Patrick,” Leonard said. “He thinks every visitor is here to see him.”
“Very handsome.” I hoped it wasn’t the bird he was attempting to sell.
“Just follow me on back to the guest room. It’s quite the . . . remarkable piece. But it was a final sale and—well, you’ll understand when you see it.”
He swung the door open and motioned for me to step inside.
“Oh my god,” I said with a gasp, and immediately stumbled backward. “I—uh, that thing is empty, right?”
Leonard laughed so hard he wheezed.
A baby-blue coffin sat displayed on a stand like you’d see at a wake and on the side was a bedazzled dove.
I had yet to breathe. I stood there, unmoving and unable to take my eyes off what I could only describe as the Mary-Kay-by-way-of-Elvis Cadillac of coffins.
Finally, air filled my lungs, and I looked to Leonard, who now appeared to be slightly self-conscious when he saw I wasn’t laughing along with him.
As I rushed to regain my composure, I said, “I think I’ll take that cup of coffee if you don’t mind.”
Leonard nodded and led me back to the kitchen, where he directed me to sit down while he let Patrick out of his cage and then began to brew a fresh pot.
He took his time slicing coffee cake and humming to himself while my brain tried to supply reasonable explanations and I also wondered if I was in the presence of the world’s most fabulous serial killer.
Patrick landed on my finger, stopping me from drumming them, like the bird was telling me he knew just how bizarre all of this was, but he needed me to calm the fuck down if either of us was going to get out of here alive.
Or maybe he was just annoyed by the tapping sound.
Or maybe he was going to poop on me. Something birds had done to me an unusual amount of times.
Patrick perched on the back of an armchair as Leonard served up the coffee and cake. “Well, what do you think?” he asked.
I took a sip of the coffee, which was in a mug from Marfa, Texas, that said I Saw the Marfa Lights.
I didn’t even bother asking for cream, letting the bitterness force my brain into submission.
“I think . . . I think . . . I’m trying to find a way to say this gently, Leonard.
But it’s a coffin, right? So even if you don’t need it now, you will . . . someday.”
His brow tilted, like he was ready to use that cutting voice on me again like he had in my office.
“And—and I don’t say that because of your age. But if you already have one . . . why not hold on to it? Hell, I’ll need a coffin one day. Maybe next week. Maybe in fifty years. I don’t know.”
“So you would be interested in buying it, then?” He took a bite of his coffee cake and continued to talk with his hand covering his mouth. “That would certainly solve a lot of problems and I’m willing to part with it far below market value, even though it is unused.”
Oh god. I would hope it was unused. “That’s very generous of you to offer,” I said. “But can I ask why you’re selling it?”
“It doesn’t fit my vision anymore,” he said simply.
“For your funeral?”
He smirked. “You’re not as dull as they say.”
“Who exactly is they? Did my grandmother call me dull?”
He zipped his fingers over his lips and then stood up to retrieve a tabbed and perfectly color-coded binder from his hutch.
There was a section for flowers, dress code, menu, musical arrangements, and even guides for how he would like his hair, clothing, and makeup to be styled.
“This was The Plan,” he said, flipping through the binder for me to see. “I’m a screenwriter down to my bones. I see the whole picture. So it’s important that I have a vision for every major moment in my life.”
“I’m a writer too.” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were a lie.
“Are you, now?” Leonard challenged, like he’d heard that line many times before.
Before the conversation turned toward my own doomed writing, I redirected. “So when did your feelings about your funeral change?”
“Well, recently I saw a documentary about environmentally friendly funerals and now I would like to change The Plan.”
I skimmed a page about suggested guest attire that called on Leonard’s loved ones to upstage him if they dared. “But—but this seems so lovely and well thought out and—”
“We all just end up rotting in the dirt, my dear.” His voice went a little high; a little impatient. “So why not get to it sooner without all the waste?”
I couldn’t argue with a green funeral, but it didn’t really seem to be on brand for someone of his tastes. “Leonard, I wonder if I could ask a sort of touchy question.”
He nodded and twirled a hand for me to speed it up.
“How much . . . time do you have left?”
His manicured brows knitted together. “How much time do you have left?”
“Well, I—I don’t know.”
“Neither do I,” he said simply. “Why is it always so shocking that someone might plan for the end? We plan weddings and baby showers—none of which I’ve had, by the way. So why wouldn’t I take great care to plan my own farewell?”
“Okay,” I said. In some ways, Leonard reminded me of Ruby.
This was so far off from my mother’s own response to her impending death.
She had wishes, of course, but she was more concerned with her last moments on earth and not how we might commemorate her after.
She firmly believed that time was for us and not her.
But weddings. Baby showers. Those words I felt deeply.
I didn’t have many friends, but among them I was the only one who was childless and single.
I’d spent so much energy over the last twenty years going to bachelorette parties or saving up for destination weddings or splurging on baby registry gifts I definitely could not afford.
My friends weren’t bad people, but there were never many opportunities for any of them to reciprocate those efforts. There were birthdays, sure, but I was never the type to plan an elaborate celebration for myself. I couldn’t think of anything more tedious, honestly.
“So, it would seem that a green funeral would be way more low-key than some of these really impressive plans you already have in place here . . . How long exactly have you been planning for?” I asked.
He leaned back and made a birdcall. Patrick responded by swooping over to sit on his shoulder.
“Probably since my fifties. I’m eighty-one now.
I’ve had the coffin for—oh, I don’t know.
Six years, I suppose. I wouldn’t tell a buyer this, but I have taken a nap in it once or twice just to test-drive it. With the lid open, of course.”
“Of course,” I said, as though leaving the lid open was the most obvious and normal part of that story. “Let me do some research and see what is the best way for us to find a new home for your . . . item.”
“Good, good.” He nodded. “I’ve got other things to off-load as well. Decor. A memorial guest book. Then, of course, there’s the headstone, though that might be a sunk cost. But surely there’s another Leonard Simmons out there.”
“Surely.” I drank the rest of my coffee as Leonard proceeded to tell me all about the day he brought Patrick home.
Something about him and this whole situation made me feel like I was in a rapidly filling tank of water with only so much air remaining.
After I left, I locked myself in my office.
This place was supposed to be my escape from Hollywood, but it seemed that my escape plan now required an escape of its own.