he’d dropped out of SUNY Oswego after one year, that he’d gotten out of the “party business,” so to speak, and into the party rental business, the delivery aspect of it. Billy had the dubious distinction of having clocked more deliveries than any other party trucker in the Hamptons, whatever that meant. Probably just that he was a menace on the local highways.
“The secret to success,” he informed me, “is the ability to be in two places at once.”
“One seventy-five, that’s right,” Mrs. Fleming confirmed, tying her robe tighter. She kept making her robe tighter and tighter all morning, though it wasn’t even slipping open.
One hundred seventy-five chairs sounded like a hell of a lot to Mr. Fleming, who appeared from the kitchen, Bloody Mary in hand, complete with celery stalk stirrer. When his wife reminded him that the service was scheduled for Friday afternoon and that colleges were out for summer, she sounded stretched and wilty, like she would not have been able to withstand an objection from him should he choose to make one. He ended up saying nothing, which had less to do with the fact that he agreed with her than that Billy and I were standing there, staring at him. As usual he seemed gigantic, though that was more in attitude than actuality. It was true that the service would most definitely be crowded, not only for the reasons Mrs. Fleming had mentioned. Though he may have had damaged relationships, Jack had had messages.
Mrs. Fleming shrugged and shook her head, quaking with her mouth agape as though she didn’t know what to say, or how to speak, or what it was that anyone even wanted. She drew a strand of white hair behind her right ear and tightened her robe again, trying to collect herself. It was the nearness of her husband that had thrown her. I did not surmise this; I knew it absolutely. Just Mr. Fleming standing there, with that Bloody Mary, looking, well, looking exactly like Mark.
Billy asked, “The chairs, Mrs. Fleming? Where do you want them?”
“This way,” I said, taking over, and the men followed me up the driveway around the west side of the house to the service area.
Billy examined the tautness of the tent ropes and the fixedness of stakes. “Who did these—Party Animals or Monumental Tental Rental?”
“Monumental, I think.”
He shook his head. “You should have called us.” He handed me a card. “Next time.”
I’d arrived at the Flemings’ at about nine-thirty that morning. I’d been thinking about going over all week, only I hadn’t. I just kept driving by the house, making sure things appeared normal, that lights came on at night and cars moved around in the day. When my mother found out what I was doing, she got mad and told me to knock on their damn door. She told me this was no time for bullshit city manners.
“I don’t want to impose,” I said.
“Kindness is not an imposition.”
“Maybe they need space.”
“They don’t need space,” my mother said. “They need someone to answer the fucking phone.”
I was pretty sure the Flemings didn’t like anyone using their phone. Jack always said how his mother would bleach it every time someone touched it.
“There’s no one better equipped than you to make sure the family is holding up—especially that woman—and to see to it that Jack is properly represented. You are a diplomat,” she said, and liking the sound of that, she added, “A diplomat of the dead.”
“Your mother’s right,” said Powell, who had flown home from Anchorage for the funeral. “Imagine you had died first. Jack would be sitting right there where you are, telling us what and what not to do—what music to play, what clothes to wear, what stories to tell.”
My mother looked at Powell quizzically. “Do you really think he’d be sitting?” she asked. “I imagine he’d be lying. You know, sprawled out on the couch.”
Powell nodded as he considered that. “I suppose so. Lying and crying.”
“And being a tremendous pain in the ass,” Mom added.
“You’re right, Irene. He wouldn’t be worth shit.”
Though I could not exactly imagine the Flemings giving me a warm welcome, I trusted my mother’s opinion. She’d been to hundreds of funerals. She was always the first to volunteer in cases of crisis. If anyone tried to discourage her from attending yet another memorial service, she’d say, “There’s nothing worse than poor turnout at a funeral. I certainly hope you’re not alone on the day you bury one of your people.”
When