The Funeral "Meet" Market

OK, so don’t think less of me for saying this, but funerals are a great place to meet men. Seriously. I never would have thought it, but I’ve met a few guys over the years through my work. And I’m not the only one. I have seen hook up after hook up at the funerals I’ve arranged. I won’t say, “love connections,” because that’s probably overdoing it a bit in most cases. But you’d be surprised how many people leave a funeral in a different car (or cab) than they arrived in.

Maybe it’s New York. I don’t know. But, let’s face it: dating in the City can be scarier than a drunk, six-foot-five Judy Garland at the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade (do they really make ruby slippers in a size 13?). Navigating the dating scene in New York is not for the faint of heart. Seen Sex and the City? Doesn’t even do it justice. Everyone has an agenda – and the agenda is never the same. Half of the guys seem to want a phone number and nothing more (even names are optional), five minutes after dropping their best (worst) pick-up line. Meanwhile, half of the girls want a detailed resume, three letters of reference, and the name of your childhood dog before agreeing to a first date.

Hmm, speaking of dogs, maybe now is a good time to mention Roxie’s role in my own dating life. Everyone said that having a dog would be an amazing way to meet men. Not having had a dog since the dearly departed Cadfael, I had no way of knowing if that was really true. Tamsin seemed to believe it, though, and even went so far as to buy Roxie a little pink t-shirt that said, “Mommy’s Single” in little rhinestones. I have to admit, it was adorable, but I’ve never had the guts to put it on her. At any rate, I don’t think it would really matter, anyway. As delightful a little girl as my Roxie is, she’s a quirky one. OK, she’s nuts. And, when it comes to men, she’s a total wackadoo. I’m not kidding. Last fall, I had to replace some guy’s Ray-Bans which had somehow fallen into the East River. I say somehow. It probably had something to do with the fact that, when he tried to shake my hand, she tried to take his off (by the way, comedy gold watching a little ten-pound rugrat try to reach a six-foot-tall guy’s wrist). In the ensuing panic, which involved him shrieking like a four-year-old girl and jumping away from Roxie’s tiny snapping jaws of death, his sunglasses flew from the top of his head into the drink. And I was out a couple of hundred bucks.

I did date this one guy for a while, Rob. Nice enough guy. Worked for the Manhattan DA’s office. We met through mutual friends at a Yankee game, and dated for about four months. It was good, until he decided to stay the night at my place. Now, I should say, I do have boundaries for Roxie. She a spoiled little devil, but there are rules. And, one of those rules is – only Mommy sleeps in Mommy’s bed. Unfortunately, Roxie apparently takes that rule a little too literally, as evidenced by a somewhat humiliating (for Rob) trip to the ER in the middle of the night. He stopped calling me after that. I guess I can see why – I understand it’s a very sensitive, uh, area. After that, there were new rules. Well, just one new rule - when Mommy has company, Roxie sleeps in the living room!

So, yeah, demented dogs – not really the best matchmakers. And that brings us back to funerals. And, yes, I do know those are not my only options, but what can I say? I don’t know what exactly it is about funerals, or wakes. Certainly emotions are high, but it would have to be a pretty tacky person who preys on the truly devastated mourners. No, the real hook-ups tend to come with what I like to call the “periphery” mourners. These are the friends and extended family members of the bereaved who have come out of a sense of duty or compassion, but aren’t directly affected by the death themselves. So, once they’ve made it through the receiving line and paid their respects, they find themselves at loose ends. They can’t just leave, but they don’t really know anyone. So, they seek out a pretty girl (or guy, as the case may be) and strike up a conversation, using the skills finely honed in the clubs and bars of Manhattan.

Seems a little crass, I know, but I don’t think anyone really does it deliberately. Well, OK, that’s not strictly true – there have been a few times I’ve wondered at a person’s true motive for being at a service. But, for the most part, I think it’s just people looking for a way to make an uncomfortable situation a little easier to deal with. And, I have to admit, a new service I added seems to have contributed to a recent rise in funeral parlor hook-ups. My professional mourners have proven useful not just at the poorly attended funerals, but also at the ones that are overrun with visitors. Most of us have been to services at some point that have been so full, you spend your whole time on the line waiting to pay your respects. Part of the problem is that, inevitably, there are people ahead of you who have decided that now is the perfect time to catch up on the ten years that have passed since they’ve seen the bereaved. Enter the “Pushers” and “Pullers.”

I got the idea from a college friend of mine who’s in the Foreign Service. We were at a wake for one of our classmates who had been killed in a terrible accident. We stood on line outside the funeral parlor for an hour and a half, and then inside for another hour or so, before we could pay our respects to our friend’s mom. While we were waiting, my friend commented that they needed “Pushers” and “Pullers.” I was busy making mental notes about flowers and the placement of the mass cards, so I didn’t register what he had said at first, but then I was intrigued.

“What do you mean, ‘Pushers’ and ‘Pullers?’” I asked.

“We have them in the Foreign Service,” he said. “Keeps people from getting too chummy with the Ambassador at receptions. Junior Officers hover near the receiving line and, when someone starts trying to monopolize the Ambassador’s time, they step in and say, ‘Hi, I’m Mary. Can I show you the Picasso?’ or ‘Can I show you to the bar?’ Pretty good system actually.”

“Pretty good system,” I murmured, distractedly. I was only half listening again, as I was now absorbed with watching the funeral director restock the memorial cards a few feet away. They were of the inferior cardboard variety, and I couldn’t help but think that I would never have allowed cards like that at one of my services. I felt instantly ashamed by the thought and turned my attention to signing the guest book, which I had finally reached.

From the guest book to the front of the line took another forty minutes, and by then, I was exhausted from standing, and more than a little annoyed (and more than a little ashamed by the fact that I was feeling annoyed). I paid my respects and, since the viewing hours were nearly done, I just took a few minutes to look at the photo collages and then left.

It was on the train ride home that the little cartoon light bulb went off over my head and I finally took in that conversation. Pushers and Pullers. That was the perfect new service to offer my clients! Soon enough, my professional mourners had more work than they could handle – at empty funerals, they fill the pews, and at busy ones, they keep the line moving. Now it is a little trickier at a wake or funeral to “push” and “pull.” I do occasionally have services in private homes that might actually have a Picasso to look at, or a bar set up. But, most often, in funeral parlors, there’s a dearth of distractions. My Pushers and Pullers have a tough time encouraging people to look at floral arrangements and photo collages. And, frankly, “Can I show you to the casket?” really doesn’t work.

So what, if anything, does this have to do with meeting the opposite sex? Well, like I said, the addition of this service seemed to correlate with a rise in funeral hook-ups. It seems that conversations started up over a pretty floral arrangement or a photo collage can lead to, well, you get the idea. It’s been a side effect that my friends and employees have thoroughly enjoyed. Believe it or not, a couple of my Pushers and Pullers met their spouses (or life partners) that way.

But, after all that, that’s not how I met Michael.

The Name on Everybody's Lips is Gonna be Roxie!

Welcome to "Funerals By Francie." If you're new to this online novel, or haven't visited in a while, please start with the oldest post first. You can follow Francie on Twitter (@franciefellowes), and you can visit www.kristenmareecleary.com for more information. Enjoy!

One of the good things about good friends is that they can be relied on to remind you to live your life. When you’re getting a business off the ground, there’s a tendency to develop tunnel vision – nothing matters but the success of the business. And, if you’re not careful, that tunnel vision can become a way of life. Three years into my new career, I had developed a really bad case of tunnel vision. If it hadn’t been for my friends insisting that I go out with them once in a while, I would have had no social life whatsoever, never mind a love life!

Case in point – April 26, last year. I was sitting at my desk, in my apartment, pouring over account books, trying my hand at creative accounting. Things had been slow for about a month, and I was starting to feel the pinch. I was so absorbed in the negative numbers before me, that I almost didn’t hear the phone. When I finally answered, it was Tamsin on the other end.

“Hey, love, what are you doing?” she asked as soon as I picked up.

“Bookkeeping,” I replied. “Want to help?”

“Not at all. Now, put the calculator down, get dressed, and be ready by half four.” Tamsin had a familiar determination in her voice that immediately raised my suspicions. It was a moot point, though, because I had way too much to do today to be drawn into whatever scheme she was hatching.

“Sorry, T,” I said. “I’ll have to raincheck. Too busy.”

There was a short pause, and then Tamsin asked, “Do you know what today is?”

Mystified, I replied, “Thursday, why?”

“What date?”

I was starting to get a little annoyed, and snapped, “It’s the 26^th.” Then I stopped. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“How could I forget?”

“Because you work too hard,” was Tamsin’s succinct reply. “But, lucky for you, I didn’t forget. Now, get dressed, throw on some makeup, and be ready by half four. You only turn 25 once, and I’m going to make sure your birthday is something to remember – even if I had to remind you!”

I started to protest again, although this time it was a bit half-hearted. But Tamsin had a counter for any weak argument I could think of for why I should continue to work on my birthday, and finally I relented. “OK,” I said. “I’ll get ready and I’ll meet you at ha – at 4:30.”

“Fab. The car’ll be downstairs.”

So, at 4:30, Tamsin picked me up in her Bentley, and her driver set off to destinations unknown (that’s one of the perks of hanging out with Tamsin – no waiting for cabs). When I asked where we were going, I just kept getting, “You’ll see. It’ll be great” as a response.

As we crossed the river into Brooklyn, I started to get really confused. Tamsin rarely visited the outer boroughs, so I couldn’t imagine what were doing here. But Tamsin remained annoyingly tight-lipped throughout, so I had to just wait and see where we were headed.

The car soon pulled up outside a beautiful brownstone, and as soon as it stopped, Tamsin hopped out. I followed her up the front steps, and watched her suspiciously as she rang the bell.

“T, seriously, what gives?” I asked. I didn’t get an answer. Instead, I got another surprise as Keeley opened the door to the brownstone. “Keeley?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

Keeley didn’t answer me. Instead, she looked at Tamsin and said, “Good, you got her. She forgot, didn’t she?”

“She did,” Tamsin said as she followed Keeley into the house. I had no choice but to follow as well.

“If you mean I forgot to meet you at some strange brownstone in Brooklyn, no I didn’t,” I protested.

“You forgot your birthday,” Keeley replied. It wasn’t a question, and I couldn’t deny it, so I just continued to walk through the rather attractive house toward what seemed to be the kitchen. It was, in fact, the kitchen, but we didn’t stop there. Instead, we headed out into the tiny backyard, where an attractive brunette sat on the patio, surrounded by three tiny balls of fluff.

Upon closer inspection, those tiny balls of fluff turned out to be two impossibly small, impossibly adorable puppies, nestled close to a Yorkshire Terrier who looked bored and indifferent to what was transpiring around her. I couldn’t quite tell the breed of the puppies; they were a curious black and grey color, but I couldn’t place the features. But they were criminally cute.

My attention was diverted from the puppies by Keeley’s introduction of the attractive brunette. She turned out to be Miranda Lane – yes, that Miranda Lane, currently starring as Velma in Chicago. Keeley had been in the chorus for about six months, and had landed the part of Miranda’s understudy a few weeks ago.

“You have a lovely home,” I said after the introductions had been made. “But I’m not sure exactly why I’m here,” I added, looking pointedly at Tamsin and Keeley.

Keeley shrugged and picked up a puppy. She walked up to me, grabbed my hand, and placed the little furball in it, saying, “Happy Birthday.”

I instinctively brought up my other hand to secure the puppy before it could wriggle free, and it started licking my thumb. “Come again?” I asked, not liking where this was headed.

“Happy Birthday.”

“You didn’t tell her?” Miranda asked.

“Tell me what, exactly?”

“Keeley adopted one of the puppies for you for your birthday,” Miranda explained, clearly confused.

“Did she?” I glared at Keeley. Tamsin remained suspiciously quiet.

Keeley squirmed slightly, but she didn’t back down. She did, however, drag Tamsin under the bus with her. “Tamsin and I thought it would be good for you. You love dogs. You’re always playing with people’s dogs in the park.”

“And you’re always banging on about that mutt you had when you were a kid,” Tamsin added, feeling the heat of the glare turning her way.

“Cadfael was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel,” I retorted defensively.

“Right, whatever, he was a little ankle biter.”

I raised an eyebrow in an effort to look haughty. I’m fairly certain I failed miserably. But I did taunt Tamsin a bit, saying, “Cadfael’s lineage goes back farther than yours!”

Tamsin managed to look haughty without the least bit of effort. Another skill instilled by the Earl and Countess, no doubt. “I can trace my family back to William the Conqueror,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, well,” I responded, my sails rapidly deflating. “Cadfael’s family was waiting on shore when your family landed!”

We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the debate, and then the little ankle biter in my hand bit my thumb. With a yelp, I jerked my hand back, which sent the puppy airborne for a second, before I realized what I was doing and grabbed hold of it again.

“Sorry!” Miranda cried, reaching for the puppy.

“No, it’s fine,” I said, a bit distracted. I had just looked the puppy in the eye for the first time, and there was a little glint there – as if she knew exactly what she had done, and she was proud of it. Shaking my head, I asked, “What breed is this, anyway?”

“Well, the ‘designer’ name is a ‘Snorkie,’” Miranda replied. “But there’s no lineage here – these two little monsters can trace their heritage back about three months to a midnight rendezvous between my Lola and the neighbor’s Schnauzer.”

“A Snorkie?” Really? That can’t possibly be a real name. It sounded like a piece of diving equipment for kids – or a Saturday morning cartoon from the eighties. I decided that, if this little puppy was coming home with me (yes, of course I was taking her, was there every any doubt?), she needed a different name for her breed. OK, she also needed an actual name, but that comes later. So, after minimal consideration, I decided that my new puppy would be known as a “Schnauzie.” Much better. And more grammatically correct too.

*   *   *   *

“So, this was the big surprise for my birthday, huh?” I asked Tamsin when we were back in the car, this time with Keeley. The Schnauzie stayed behind as she was still a little too young to leave her mother. I would take her home in a few weeks.

“No, that was just Part One. Have you thought of a name yet?”

I realized that Tamsin was only asking because she wanted to keep me from asking what Part Two was. After all, Tamsin’s idea of dog ownership generally involved riding to hounds, or walking the moors with a mastiff. She didn’t do lapdogs.

“No, I need to think about it. So, where—“

“You’re not going to give it some stupid name like, Cadfael, are you?”

“That was a great show!” I blurted out. But I grinned. My mom had indulged my childhood obsession with Masterpiece Theatre, and had agreed to let me name our dog Cadfael against her better judgment. But, considering the alternative was Felicity’s choice, “Tinkerbell,” (he was a boy dog!), it probably worked out for the best. “Anyway,” I continued. “I have to give it some careful consideration before I decide on a name. She’ll have to live with it for the rest of her life.”

“It’s a dog, not a baby,” Keeley muttered.

I was going to respond, but I finally noticed that we were back in Manhattan and were approaching the World Financial Center complex. “Uh, T,” I asked. “Were exactly are we going?”

Tamsin ignored the question, intent instead on her I-phone. The car stopped and Tamsin got out, beckoning us to follow. “I’ll call you when we’re ready,” she told her driver.

Keeley and I followed Tamsin down the esplanade, and found ourselves in the North Cove. Tamsin walked purposefully toward a large yacht that was moored at the end of the marina. It was getting dark, but light and music poured out of every window, and I could make out people on the decks and inside. Reaching the gangway, Tamsin shook the hands of the crew members standing on the dock, and turned to me.

“Happy Quarter Century, Francie,” she said, with a grin. “Let’s party!”

“No way.” I said in disbelief.

“Can I just say,” Keeley said, grinning as she followed us up the gangway, “that I bless the day you brought Tamsin into our lives!”

When I reached the top of the gangway, I grabbed Tamsin’s arm and turned her around. She smiled and raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“You’re the best,” I said, and hugged her. “Thank you.”

It was a great night, full of friends and laughter. And, yes, a fair amount of booze. In fact, at about one in the morning, after one too many kamikaze shots, I found myself on the small stage in the lounge area of the yacht, belting out a medley of Chicago tunes in honor of Keeley. I had just butchered “He Had it Coming,” and had screeched out the first line of “The Name on Everybody’s Lips is Gonna Be Roxie,” when I suddenly stopped and yelled, “That’s it!”

And that was about it. I don’t really remember much after that. But, according to Tamsin (who has always had a higher tolerance than me), I apparently babbled somewhat incoherently about a monk, a fairy and a Schnauzie, and then was hustled off to the bedroom of the yacht to sleep it off.

But, from that intoxicated moment, I had the name of my new best friend. And a year later, I can’t imagine life without her. Of course, she’s as much of a diva, and as much of a troublemaker, as her namesake! But I love her. How could I not? Look at that face!

Will Mourn for Food

Welcome to "Funerals By Francie." If you've never read this online novel before, or haven't visited in a while, please be sure to start with the oldest post first. You can follow Francie on Twitter (@franciefellowes), and you can visit www.kristenmareecleary.com for more information. Enjoy!

So, I’ve mentioned my sudden loss of friends after my sudden loss of money. And, like I said, in some ways I suppose I’m grateful for how things played out. At least now I know the people I call my friends really are my friends, and aren’t just hanging out with me because they think they can get something out of me. Today, other than Tamsin, the friends I’m closest to are from backgrounds so distinctly different from my own that I probably never would have met them if it weren’t for my unusual career choice.

That’s the one thing money can’t buy – friends. I’ve had plenty of clients over the past few years who had boatloads of money, but only a handful of people showed up at their funerals. This was generally either because the person was very old and had outlived most of their friends, or because the person was a right bastard and the only people who bothered showing up were just looking for proof of death. Either way, it’s kind of sad to turn up at a service and see just two or three people in the chairs. It reminds me of The Great Gatsby – Gatsby had so many people pouring out of his house every weekend for his lavish parties. Then, when he died, the only mourners were Nick, Mr. Gatz and Owl Eyes. The Life of the Party died alone and unmourned.

After the second or third such service, I realized I couldn’t stand to see people sent off to their reward unmourned. It was just too sad. Tamsin said I was being too soft (I love her, but she’s not particularly sentimental). Strangely enough, this was one time when Felicity came through for me. We were having one of our rare phone conversations – she had just been dumped by the first rich boyfriend, and was looking for reassurance that she would find another. She may also have been looking for a loan, but I’ve known her too long to be fooled by her schemes, so I kept the conversation away from that dangerous area. I was still struggling to get my business off the ground, and was in no position to be bankrolling anyone else (not even my twin sister). Anyway, during the conversation, I mentioned how sad that day’s funeral had been. Only the deceased’s lawyer had been there.

Felicity didn’t seem all that interested, but suddenly she blurted out, “You should have hired some actors.”

“What?” I asked, not sure I’d heard her right.

“Actors,” she repeated. “You should have hired some actors to be the mourners.”

“Actors?” I asked. I suddenly felt like I had the day Tamsin had first suggested going into the funeral planning business. It was such a bizarre suggestion, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. “Actors as mourners.” This time it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah. There’s tons of out of work actors waiting tables in New York. They’d probably love the chance to do something else once in a while. Why not add the hiring of professional mourners to your list of services? Can’t be any weirder than what you already do.”

And thus, as Felicity giveth, so Felicity taketh away. As usual, she just couldn’t resist taking a dig at my career. Still, I was too intrigued by the suggestion to get annoyed with my sister. “How would I go about that?’ I wondered.

Felicity surprised me again, saying, “Call my friend Keely. She just moved to New York to try her luck in the theater.” The sneer in Felicity’s voice indicated her opinion of the theater versus film and television work. But, considering her entire Hollywood career had consisted of a couple of Doritos ads, a role as an extra in Sex and the City 2 (which ended up on the cutting room floor), a few catalog shoots, and countless waited tables, she didn’t really have a leg to stand on there.

I quickly got Keely’s number from Felicity before she could change her mind, and after dodging a few leading questions about money, and telling her that, no, I didn’t know how to get in touch with Derreck Pennington, her high school sweetheart (and heir to a major oil fortune), I got off the phone with the confidence that it would be a while before I had to have another awkward phone conversation with my sister.

* * * *

“You want to hire me to do what?” Keely Dennis sat across from me at a tiny coffee shop near her apartment in Clinton (or Midtown West, as the realtors are fond of saying). She was a stunning girl in her early twenties and, unlike Felicity, she had serious acting training – and serious talent. At just 16, she had won a position at Julliard and had moved to New York with her mom from a small town in the Berkshires. Every now and then (especially when she said words like “want” and “what”) the New England accent she had worked so hard to shed slipped back in. I had only met her once, during an ill-conceived visit to Felicity in LA, but I had liked her.

“Well, sometimes my clients don’t have a lot of friends or family, and I can’t stand to see an empty funeral parlor, or deserted pews in the church.” I waited for Keely to laugh in my face, but she didn’t. She just stared at me with her shockingly blue eyes for a very long time.

“So,” she finally said, “what would I have to do?”

“Not much. It would only be for a couple of hours. One, maybe two days. Show up at the wake if there is one, and the funeral. Look suitably mournful. Have brunch. Go home.”

This time Keely did laugh. “I think I can look ‘suitably mournful,’” she said. “Not to be crass, but what kind of pay are we talking about here?”

“Well,” I considered carefully. “It’ll be an additional service, and I’m not sure everyone will want to go for it, so I can’t put the price too high. I could maybe swing 10 bucks an hour per mourner, plus the brunch. If the service proves popular, we could probably up that.  I’ll add in a travel allowance if you have to travel outside the city.”

“Per mourner?” Keely asked. “How many mourners are you looking for?”

For some reason, we both just burst out laughing at that point. Maybe it was because we realized that we were taking part in possibly the world’s weirdest business negotiation.

“Well,” I said, once I had stopped laughing. “I thought maybe you could ask around. See if anyone else might be interested. Different clients will probably have different requirements for mourners. Plus, it’s a short notice type of gig, so people might not always be available.”

Keely sat back and took a long drink of coffee. She stared again with those unnerving eyes, but this time with a hint of a smile. Finally, she said, “Sounds like fun . . . in a strange and slightly disturbing way. I’ll ask some of my friends and see what they think.”

And, just like that, I had my mourners. At first, there were just four –Keely, James, Selena and Rebecca. A lot of people thought it was just too weird, and that went for my clients too. But, the service caught on, and soon my mourners were in high demand. The service has proven so popular, I’ve been able to double the pay too, making it a very attractive job. Keely began referring more and more struggling actors my way. Now, I have more than twenty professional mourners on call at any given time. I usually only need a handful at once, but occasionally I get a request for a dozen or more.

But, it always comes back to the “Core Four” for me – they came through for me at the start, and didn’t bail, even when it was looking like a really stupid idea after all. But, they did more for me than that – they welcomed me into their little group, making me feel like a part of something for the first time in a long time. They even welcomed in Tamsin, who was a little skeptical at first about hanging out with actors. I’m not sure if that was because she so disliked Felicity, or because of some unconscious snobbery bred into her by the Earl and Countess, but she really resisted meeting my new friends in the beginning. Then we happened to run into James at Whole Foods on a rainy Saturday afternoon. One cup of cappuccino and a torrid holiday weekend in Cabo later, Tamsin was suddenly singing s very different tune. James and Tamsin didn’t last (probably because, on the plane ride back, James broke the news to her that he was going back to his partner, Dave), but Tamsin, surprisingly, forgave him and now we’re a pretty tight-knit, if unconventional group. Who’d have thought?