Drop Dead Sexy(7)

I’m sure most people would imagine a body preparation room that resembled something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. You had one wall of cabinets filled with everything from cosmetics to replacement eyeballs. In the center of the room was a stainless steel mortuary table that sat over a drain. Beside the table were the machines for embalming.

Before I went over to the table, I flicked on the stereo system. Whenever I worked on a body, I made sure I had music. Being a mortician was kind of lonely work. It wasn’t like you could carry on meaningful conversations with the deceased. So having music not only helped to pass the time, but it helped to fill the silence. Since my father had been a huge lover of the oldies, I tended to lean towards Motown. Out of respect for the dead, I didn’t play anything that could be perceived as offensive.

As the upbeat tempo of The Temptations Ain’t Too Proud to Beg pumped through the speakers, I got down to business working on Mr. Peterson. Considering he was a ninety-year-old stroke victim, the prep was fairly easy. You did your standard wash down with antiseptic soap. It wasn’t just about giving the deceased that final shower or bath before the beyond—it was also meant to kill any bacteria. The death process wreaked some nasty shit on a body.

Once that was finished, it was time to drain the body of blood. In my father and grandfather’s day, they liked to go through the femoral artery in the thigh up to the heart. For me, that was too much guess work, and the last thing I wanted to do was flood the chest cavity with blood.

Just like I was instructed in school, I inserted the cannula, or small tube, into the jugular. Once the blood was drained, it was then time to pump in the embalming fluid. I liked to use a mixture of formulas to ensure the finest finished quality. The death business was highly competitive, and even though we were the only funeral home in town, people wouldn’t hesitate to send their loved ones to the next county.

“You’re only as good as your last body,” my grandfather would say.

I had just started putting on the moisturizing skin rub on Mr. Peterson to even out the embalming fluid when a knock came at the door of the other preparation room. “Come in,” I called over my shoulder.

At the click-clack of heels on the linoleum, I knew it was my cousin, Jill. While she owned her own salon down on Main Street, she had been doing hair and makeup here at the funeral home since we were in high school. She was two years older than me and was the wild-assed sister I’d never had.

“I just finished up with Mrs. Laughton.”

I glanced up to give her a wry smile. “Do we have any hairspray left?”

Jill snorted. “Maybe a little. I’m pretty sure I just contributed to the further depletion of the ozone layer. Not to mention I jacked that shit so high you might not get the casket lid closed.”

I laughed at Jill’s description considering how Mrs. Laughton was as well known for her bouffant hair style as she was her blue-ribbon chocolate pies.

Jerking her chin at Mr. Peterson, Jill asked, “You almost done with him?”

“I just finished putting on the buffer.”

“Good. You better let Todd do the casket transfer, so you can go get ready.”

Instantly my mood deflated. “Oh damn.”

“Don’t tell me you forgot about your mother’s shower?” Jill asked.

“I didn’t forget. I just have selective amnesia where it’s concerned.”

Jill crossed her arms over her purchased Double D’s. “I thought you were cool with your mom getting remarried.”

Three years after my father’s death, my mother had finally abandoned her widow’s weeds and started dating Harry Livingston—a retired mortician who I often brought in to help when we were slammed with bodies. After a year of dating, Harry had popped the question, and my mother had happily accepted. Don’t get me wrong. I was happy for her. She deserved all the happiness in the world, as did Harry who had lost his wife the year my dad died. But was there a small part of me that tap-danced with the green-eyed monster of jealousy that my mother was getting married a second time before I did the first? Sure. I mean, I’m only human.

What really had me wigged out was attending tonight’s lingerie shower. Any eternally single girl would rather walk on hot coals than attend a bridal shower of any sort. Make it your mother’s lingerie shower, and it was a whole new level of torture.

“I am totally cool with her and Harry getting married. It’s just been a hell of a day after the craziness at the Brown funeral, so the last thing I want to deal with is her cronies and their endless barrage of questions about my marital status.”

“Yeah, I heard about the brawl.”

“It was hardly a brawl.”

Jill shrugged her shoulders. “That’s just what Bessie Thompson told me when she came in for color.”

I rolled my eyes once again at how fast the fires of gossip were fanned when you lived in a small town. By the end of the day, people would probably be saying that someone had been pistol-whipped after flashing their junk or something bizarre like that. “Trust me. It wasn’t a brawl, and it’s been taken care of.”

“I told Bessie I wasn’t too surprised they showed their asses considering they’re from Summit Ridge. Nothing but a bunch of meth-heads or rich snobs come from there.”

“Not all people from Summit Ridge are bad. Besides, we’ve had our fair share of people from here showing themselves,” I argued.