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?
No comments:
Post a Comment