Hi, my name is Frances Fellowes. You can call me Francie. And you should call me. At the worst moment in your life, I can be your best friend. You see, I run a rather unusual business: “Funerals By Francie.” If you couldn’t guess by the name, it’s a funeral planning business. And it’s a pretty successful one too, if I do say so myself. My clients have included some of the top names in New York society. I’m not a funeral director. What I do goes far beyond that. I will coordinate every aspect of your event, from dealing with the funeral parlor, to selecting flowers to booking a five-star funeral brunch. Now, some people think this is a little weird, but I ask you – if you’re going to spend a fortune on a sweet sixteen or wedding, why wouldn’t you want the same style and glamor at the final event you’ll ever attend? I mean, really, how do you want people to remember you? In The Boy from Oz, Hugh Jackman (as Peter Allen) said when he died he wanted to go out with a big production number. I can make that happen, complete with a Broadway chorus line (for an extra fee).
So, how did I get involved in such an unconventional profession? Well, I suppose to understand that, you need to understand a bit about my background. Growing up, I never thought about doing something like this. Actually, growing up, I never thought about doing much of anything. I was a trust fund baby, and I had a pretty idyllic childhood. Well, with the exception of losing my dad when I was six, that is. I don’t remember much about my dad, but my mom more than made up for the lack of a father figure in my life. My mom, Felicia Fellowes-Drayton, was the toast of New York society, but she was just as happy spending the evening playing with me and my twin sister Felicity as she was at an art gallery opening or a $1000-a-plate fundraiser at the Waldorf. We lived in an amazing penthouse on Fifth Avenue, attended the most exclusive private schools, and took the type of vacations the Travel Channel would make documentaries about.
We were happy. But, Mom was lonely. She loved us, and loved being with us, but after Dad died, Mom never really got involved with men. She said Dad was her soul mate, and she could never recapture what they had, so why bother trying? Felicity and I tried to set her up a couple of times when we were in high school (I wanted to see Mom happy, but I think Felicity was more concerned with making sure Mom was too occupied to notice her sneaking out at night). Mom would go on the dates, and then graciously decline any offers to get together again.
That changed when Felicity and I turned 18. That September, I headed off to Oxford to study Art History (that’s the type of degree trust fund babies who never need to work a day in their life study in college, after all). As I headed 3000 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean, Felicity headed an equal distance in the opposite direction – to LA to try her hand at acting. Felicity’s a lousy actress. She really just went to LA to perfect her tan and continue her partying away from prying parental eyes. Once we were out on our own, I guess that penthouse just felt really empty. Until one day when it was filled with a presence that would have a greater impact on my life than I ever imagined. Less than a year after I left for school, Mom married Roger Drayton, owner of a small financial management firm, who she met at a charity brunch at the MoMA .
Roger seemed like a decent enough guy. He treated Mom well, and she was happy with him. He was nice enough to Felicity and me, too, never trying to act like he was suddenly our dad. And, when Mom got sick, he took care of her, and made sure she had every possible treatment she could get. Of course, the thing about money is it can’t buy you health. Less than a year after my mom was diagnosed with uterine cancer, despite being at the best hospital, with the best doctors, she died. I have vague memories about the days and weeks that followed – I came home from school (I was only a few months shy of getting my degree) and I took charge of planning the funeral. Roger was too overcome to do anything, and Felicity couldn’t be bothered. I was just glad she came – I wasn’t totally sure she would. I went through the motions, accepting people’s condolences and vaguely registering their compliments on the quality of the service and the brunch.
There’s one thing I remember with perfect clarity, though. The day after the funeral, I got a phone call from the funeral director, telling me that my check had bounced. I knew that had to be a mistake, so I went to the bank, ready for battle. I couldn’t believe it when they told me my account was overdrawn – by thousands of dollars! I called Roger, who had taken over the management of Mom’s money when they got married, but he didn’t pick up. Ever again. You may have seen this coming faster than I did, but, yes, Roger scammed us all. The day after the funeral, he disappeared, and it was only then that we found out that he had cleaned out my mom’s accounts, and even managed to find a way to break the trusts in Felicity’s and my names. So, in the space of a few days, I had lost my mother, and every penny I had.
We tried for months to track Roger down, but he’s probably on some sandy beach somewhere, drinking a piña colada, laughing at how stupid the Fellowes women were to trust him. Felicity booked straight back to LA and set about finding a rich boyfriend, so she was sorted pretty quickly. Not feeling comfortable bartering sex for financial security, I needed to think of something else, and fast. Debts were mounting, and I came to the inevitable conclusion that I would have to sell the penthouse. There was no mortgage on the place, but the maintenance fees were through the roof. There was no way I could keep it. It was hard to part with the place that had been such a happy home, but I had no choice. In the end, I even had to sell it for less than market value because I couldn’t afford to keep it on the market too long. By the time I cleared the debts, and gave Felicity her share, I had just enough left to get a small one-bedroom co-op, much farther east of the park than I think I had ever been before (to be honest, I probably could have counted on one hand the number of times I had been east of Lexington Avenue before then).
And then came the inevitable conclusion: I needed a job. Turns out a partial degree in Art History (I never did go back to school) doesn’t really qualify a person to do very much. I had no degree, no work experience, and no real skills. Except one.
“You throw amazing parties,” my friend Tamsin pointed out to me one summer afternoon, over drinks at The Boathouse in Central Park. “You should be a party planner.”
“Do you know how many party planners there are in New York?” I asked irritably. I had just had another fruitless day of job hunting, and was in no mood for stupid ideas. “No one is going to hire me when they can have their pick of a thousand people with actual experience.”
“What about weddings?”
“A thousand and one.” And I jerked my head in the direction of the bar where, sure enough, a perky blond with a clipboard was engaged in an earnest conversation with an eager young couple about color schemes.
We brooded in silence over our drinks for several minutes. Well, I brooded. Tamsin contemplated the handsome bartender. At least, that’s what I thought she was doing, until she blurted, “You know, your mom’s funeral was the best I’ve ever been to.”
“Huh?”
“Your mom’s funeral—“
“I heard you. What are you talking about?” And how many vodka tonics had she drunk?
“A lot of people said so. You probably didn’t notice because, well, you know.”
I had noticed. In the back of my mind, I had registered the compliments on the arrangements at Campbell Funeral Home, the flowers from Floralia, the service at St. Ignatius Loyola, the brunch at The Plaza. I look at Tamsin speculatively and asked, “What are you getting at?”
Tamsin looked uncomfortable. “OK, listen, I know it’s weird, but . . . well, what if you become a funeral planner?”
“A what?” Seriously, how much had she drunk this afternoon?
“A funeral planner.”
There was another long silence. Not a brooding silence this time. More like a stunned silence, actually. “A funeral planner,” I finally said.
“Yeah.”
“A funeral planner?”
“Yeah, why not?” Tamsin leaned forward, clearly warming to the idea. “Funerals are just as important as any other event, aren’t they? But people don’t think to put the same effort into planning them.”
“Maybe because they won’t actually be there to enjoy them,” I pointed out.
“But their family will be. And their friends.” Tamsin shrugged a Donna Karan-clad shoulder. “And let’s face it. The type of people we grew up with are all about showing each other up. Who among them wouldn’t want to have the funeral everybody’s talking about for months afterward?”
I stared at Tamsin for what seemed like forever. The idea was crazy. But, at the same time, she had a point. We had both grown up in worlds of privilege, me in New York Society, Tamsin among England’s titled aristocracy (her dad’s an Earl). And there was one thing no one could deny. People in those worlds liked to impress. But, would they really pay for someone to plan their funerals?
Turns out, the answer was yes. A week after that afternoon at The Boathouse, Tamsin gave me the phone number of a friend of a friend, whose 99-year-old great-grandmother was dying. They wanted to give her a proper send-off, they said, and Lady Tamsin Greer had raved about my services (apparently Tamsin had spun them some tale of me having handled the funeral of a minor royal. “A white lie,” she insisted. “For a good cause.”). And so my unusual career began, and, five years later, my company, “Funerals By Francie” is the premier funeral planning service in Manhattan. Go figure!
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