my respects all the same if you're such good friends," Grandma said.
"After Sokolowky's I'm going to Mosel's and then to The House of Eternal Slumber."
"The House of Eternal Slumber? Never been to that one," Grandma said. "Is it new? Is it in the burg?"
"It's over on Stark Street."
My mother crossed herself. "Give me strength," she said.
"Stark Street isn't that bad," I told her.
"It's full of drug dealers and murderers. You don't belong on Stark Street. Frank, are you going to let her go to Stark Street at night?"
My father looked up from his plate at the mention of his name. "What?"
"Stephanie's going to Stark Street."
My father had been engrossed in his cake and was clearly lost. "Does she need a ride?"
My mother rolled her eyes. "You see what I live with."
Grandma was on her feet. "Won't take me a minute. Just let me get my pocketbook, and I'll be ready to go."
Grandma applied fresh lipstick in front of the hall mirror, buttoned herself into her "good wool" coat, and hooked her black patent leather purse over her arm. Her "good wool" coat was a brilliant royal blue with a mink collar. Over the years the coat had seemed to grow in volume in direct proportion to the rate at which Grandma was shrinking, so that the coat was now almost ankle length. I took her elbow and steered her to my Jeep half expecting her knees to buckle under the weight of the wool. I had visions of her lying helpless on the sidewalk in a pool of royal blue, looking like the Wicked Witch of the West with nothing showing but shoes.
We went to Sokolowsky's first as planned. Helen Meyer looked fetching in a pale blue lace dress, her hair tinted to match. Grandma studied Helen's makeup with the critical eye of a professional.
"Should have used the green-toned concealer under the eyes," she said. "You got to use a lot of concealer when you got lighting like this. Now Stiva's got recessed lighting in his new rooms and that makes all the difference."
I left Grandma to her own devices and went in search of Melvin Sokolowsky, locating him in his office just off the front entrance. The door to the office was open, and Sokolowsky was seated behind a handsome mahogany desk, tapping who knows what into a laptop. I rapped lightly to get his attention.
He was a nice-looking man in his mid-forties, dressed in the standard conservative dark suit, white dress shirt, and sober striped tie.
He raised eyebrows at the sight of me standing in his doorway. "Yes?"
"I want to speak to you about funeral arrangements," I said. "My grandmother is getting on in years, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to get some ballpark figures on caskets."
He hauled a large leather-bound catalog up from the bowels of the desk and flipped it open. "We have several plans and a good selection of caskets."
He turned to the casket called the Montgomery.
"This is nice," I said, "but it looks a little pricey."
He thumbed back a couple pages to the pine section. "This is our economy line. As you can see, they're still quite attractive, with a nice mahogany stain and brass handles."
I checked out the economy line but didn't see anything nearly as cheap-looking as Stiva's missing caskets. "Is this as cheap as you get?" I asked. "You have anything without the stain?"
Sokolowsky looked pained. "Who did you say this was for?"
"My grandmother."
"She cut you out of the will?"
Just what the world needs . . . one more sarcastic undertaker. "Do you have any plain boxes or what?"
"Nobody buys plain boxes in the burg. Listen, how about if we put you on a payment plan? Or maybe we could skimp on the makeup . . . you know, only set your grandmother's hair in the front."
I was on my feet and halfway to the door. "I'll think about it."
He was on his feet equally as fast, shoving brochures into my hand. "I'm sure we can work something out. I could get you a real good buy on a plot . . ."
I ran into Grandma Mazur in the foyer.
"What was he saying about a plot?" she asked. "We already got a plot. It's a good one too. Real close to the water spigot. The whole family's buried there. Of course, when they put your aunt Marion in the ground they had to lower Uncle Fred and put her in on top on account of there wasn't much space left.