Chapter 20
Botched Plans, Marilyn Monroe, and a Farkle Future
W
eaving through the crowd of undertakers, stylists for the deceased, and marble monument salespeople, I try to blend in. No easy feat. A woman my height—five feet, nine inches—always stands out. Not to mention that my sleek, swingy brown bob always attracts admiring glances.
Some might call it vanity, but I call it good advertising.
Over the heads of a group of portly, pasty-faced men wearing tags that identify them as hailing from Seattle, Washington, I spot Lulu Farkle, heading into Salon B. She pauses in the doorway to glance over her shoulder.
Quickly, I whirl around to hug the person behind me. A surprised Seattle citizen who calls me Julia.
“Julia! Long time, no see,” he says, his big grin showing gold-capped molars.
“Indeed, how long has it been?” I try to pull myself out of his embrace, but he holds on tight.
“Too long. Let’s catch up over a drink tonight. Say, six? The Turquesa?”
“Super. See you then.” He releases me and I give him a little beauty queen wave. Something all my Southern female clients have down to a fine art. “Toodle-oo.”
Ever since Lovie and I ended up in Las Vegas chasing the missing corpse from Uncle Charlie’s funeral home, I’ve turned into a woman of bad habits. I can lie, break and enter, and impersonate anybody who suits my purposes at the drop of a hat. Or a corpse.
Telling myself it’s all for a good cause—finding Lovie and Elvis—and that when I get back home I’m going to ditch every one of my recently acquired bad habits and go back to being nothing but a hairstylist, I slip into the back of Salon B.
Perfect timing. The room is teeming with people, mostly female, who have come to learn the latest techniques for putting an appealing face on folks waiting for their last, long journey.
Listen, I don’t think about that too much. All I know is that my skills—both with the living and the dead—make people happy, either the client or the surviving relatives.
Quickly I locate an empty chair in the back row, slide into it, and then slouch down in the hopes that Lulu won’t notice me.
Fortunately, she doesn’t. She’s up front tapping the microphone in a way that reminds me of Mayor Robert Earl Getty back home. I almost stand up and say,
hon, it’s working.
Since I’m here without even a half-baked plan, I hunker down to see what will happen next. Lulu drones on awhile about a new line of pancake makeup. I’m about to chalk the seminar up to a lost cause when a bellhop rolls a sheet-draped gurney onto the dais. He brings it to a stop beside a table filled with familiar pots of pancake and blush.
Lulu climbs aboard, then announces that she’s going to be the guinea pig while volunteers from her
esteemed audience of makeup artists—
her words, not mine—come on up and demonstrate what they’re doing in their own hometowns.
“Surprise me,” she yells. “I’m just going to lie down, shut my eyes, and wait for a brave volunteer.”
I seize my chance. The minute Lulu lies down, a woman in the third row springs up and starts for the steps, but she doesn’t stand a chance against Hair.Net’s long-legged beauty goddess with a mission.
I grab a pot of pancake and tower over the unsuspecting Lulu.
“Can I peek now?” she says. I never would have put
coy
in the same sentence with Lulu Farkle.
“You can look.”
Her eyes snap open and she almost comes off the gurney. I put my hand on her chest and push her back down.
Listen, in spite of Lovie’s opinion that I’m all skin and bones, I work out regularly at the Wellness Center back home. I’m much stronger than I look.
“Now, now, have a little faith in your volunteer.” I get a ripple of chuckles from the audience and a huge scowl from Lulu.
“What do you want?” she hisses.
“This is one feisty dearly departed,” I tell the audience. To Lulu, I hiss, “Where’s Lovie?”
“In hell, I hope.” Lulu’s latest, through clenched teeth.
I plop a big glob of pancake onto her face and cover her mouth. “We start with the base.” I smile at the audience while Lulu bucks. “My corpse won’t be still. Do you think I should drive a stake through her heart?”
The audience roars. Maybe there’s more to being onstage than I ever knew. Maybe the heady, triumphant feeling is why Lovie always lobbied for the lead in school plays.
“Blend well.” I keep Lulu relatively immobile while I use both hands to smear pancake. “Oops. Missed a spot.” Leaning close, I whisper. “Why do you hate her?”
“She spoiled the plan.”
“What plan?” Still hovering close, I pretend to be taking great pains to cover every inch of Lulu’s bad skin so she can go on to Glory Land looking more like
Beauty
than
the Beast
.
“The merger with Charlie. A chain of Farkle Funeral Homes.”
Uncle Charlie would never consider a merger with anybody, let alone Alvin Farkle. Though he’s never interfered with Lovie’s love life, I know for a fact that he didn’t cotton to the idea of his only daughter hooking up with a man he considered lacking not only in manners but also in skills as a funeral director.
A few women in the front row are leaning forward in their chairs, apparently catching on that there’s more taking place on the dais than a simple makeup demonstration.
I bedazzle my audience with a smile. I hope.
“Sorry about that. I was catching up on news about Lulu’s brother, Alvin. What a hunk.”
“Die in hell,” she hisses.
“You first.” I tell her, all smiles and good cheer, as I hold her mouth shut with one hand, uncap a lipstick with the other, and paint her surly lips in a perfect cupid’s bow, à la Marilyn Monroe.
Listen, I’m a natural. Most people take years to learn what I sprang from the womb knowing. Give me a few pots of paint and some tubes of lipstick, and I can make the deceased look so good they practically rise up and shout.
A few whisks of mascara, a strategic sweep of blush, and Lulu Farkle looks better than she ever has.
I release her and she pops up, looking ready to claw my eyes out. The audience bursts into applause, which takes her by surprise.
While she’s still sitting on the gurney, undecided about whether to run or to turn me over to hotel security, I clamp my hands on her shoulders from behind, then lean in as if I’m going to kiss her cheek.
“Did Alvin take my cousin?”
“He wouldn’t take her back if she begged.” The audience is still giving us a standing ovation. “As far as we’re concerned, she can take Eternal Rest and stick it where it doesn’t show.”
“Charming.” I smile at the audience.
“Likewise, I’m sure.” She takes a bow.
While she’s clamboring off the gurney, taking another bow, I slip toward the back and ease out the door. Within seconds, I disappear (I hope) into the crowd trying to get to the coffee urns and cookies in the mezzanine.
Now I know why the Farkles hate Lovie. Lulu was bound to be telling the truth. Nobody could come up with such a fantastic tale on such short notice. Especially under the circumstances.
Obviously, Alvin needed Uncle Charlie’s reputation—and probably money—to launch his plan. As one of the senior undertakers and a past president of funeral directors on both the state and national levels, Uncle Charlie commands the respect of his colleagues all over the U.S.
I can just imagine why Lovie never told me about the proposed chain of Farkle Funeral Homes. She wouldn’t have been able to quit laughing long enough.
I’m fixing to call Uncle Charlie to report my findings, when my cell phone rings. It’s Fayrene.
“Callie, come quick.”
“What’s up?”
“Ruby Nell’s been hijacked.”
Holy cow! I try to get a grip on myself. Morgan’s in jail, Uncle Charlie’s on the island, and undertakers are everywhere. How could Mama vanish in the midst of all that?
Besides, Fayrene tends to overreact and exaggerate, and that’s putting it mildly.
“You’ve got to hurry, Callie. I’m about prostate with worry.”
“Where are you?”
“Right here where Ruby Nell said.”
“I can’t find you unless you’re more specific, Fayrene.”
“At the bar on the beach, having a Tropical Double Trouble.”
Holy cow! That’s the near same spot where Lovie vanished.
Grabbing two cookies off one of the refreshment tables scattered about, I hurry through the mezzanine while trying to look nonchalant.
Listen, just because I got by with that stunt in Salon B, I’m not home free yet. Any minute now, Lulu Farkle could descend on me with a security guard.
Or worse. Her brother. Alvin Farkle. Who might have taken Lovie, and now Mama. All on account of the unfortunate Farkle Funeral Home chain.
Hysterical laughter bubbles up. I wonder if I’m falling apart.
Elvis’ Opinion # 14 on Silly Lyrics, Silk Scarves, and Rescue the Perishing
W
ell, bless’a my soul. Now that I’ve got the attention of the natives with my rendition of “King of the Whole Wide World,” I’ve got to do a follow-up.
They leave behind their traps and nets and ropes and come storming toward me like a bunch of frenzied females from one of my Las Vegas concerts, looking for one of my sweat-soaked scarves.
I take a bow and treat the natives to a curled lip.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Though I’m an icon who can steal the stage from anybody, I’ve got sense enough to know a few bows won’t satisfy my Mayan fans for long. I do a quick turn that makes my mismatched ears spin, then strike a flattering pose before I launch into “I’ll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin’).”
Before you start thinking that’s a weird song choice, let me explain a thing or two. Number one, these dudes don’t speak English. Number two, there’s nothing to this phrase I’m singing to confuse the natives. All I’m saying is “well’a, well’a, well’a,” which with my drawl—sounds like walla, walla, walla. I got a big laugh when I explained that to my audience at the June 1975 concert in Dallas, Texas.
I’m getting the same laughs now. Plus, applause and the usual imitators. Natives start spinning and swirling every which way, some of them picking up the chant, “Well’a, well’a, well’a.”
What can I say? The King lives! Satisfied that I’ve put to rest any lingering suspicions about my motives—like,
I’m casing this joint so I can get out of here—
I take another bow, then sashay my transcendent self back toward the hut.
But let me tell you, the scent I pick up stops me cold. Lifting my famous nose, I take another whiff. I’d know that scent anywhere.
Jack. Not too far away and getting closer by the minute.
He’s most likely armed and he’s definitely dangerous. Trust me. If I know my human daddy—and I most certainly do—he’ll strike with the same stealth and cunning of his code name—Black Panther.
Shagging my ample self into gear, I race into the hut to tell Lovie. The sight I behold halts me in my tracks. This place looks like it’s been bombed with flowers. Big, exotic blooms are everywhere—covering the throne, festooning the support poles, banked around the perimeter, and even piled up on my personal sleeping mat.
But where’s Lovie?
I throw back my handsome basset head and howl, “Hey Little Girl.”
An arm emerges. Then a leg.
“Elvis, stop that racket and help me out of this funeral bouquet.”
Now she’s talking. Listen, in this dog’s life, digging is what I do best.
With Lovie’s muscle and my four good paws, it doesn’t take long before we’ve unearthed the goddess of the Earth and Moon.
I nearly jump out of my dog suit. With her painted-on tigress face and dark, dangerous-looking blooms dripping from every crevice and corner, Lovie’s not somebody you’d want to meet in the dark.
“If I ever get out of here, I’m going to kill somebody. Just about anybody will do.”
I lick her feet to show I couldn’t agree more.
“Tonight, Elvis. I don’t care what’s out there in the jungle. It can’t be as bad as staying cooped up here divining the sex of babies.”
I try to think of the best way to say
we’re fixing to spring this joint,
but the only song that comes to mind is “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
Clutching an imaginary microphone in my paw, I howl a few bars.
“Elvis, have you lost your mind?”
I do a second verse to show her I’m serious as sin.
Lovie’s not listening. Furthermore, she’s not buying it. Maybe that Mayan brew did some damage I don’t know about.
I’m casting about for a way to tell her,
Jack is coming,
when outside events render my problem moot. (You didn’t think I knew lawyer talk, did you? Listen, I’m a dog of many talents. You don’t even want to know.)
From the direction of the jungle comes an unholy howling. Natives on the warpath.
And then, Jack’s counterpoint bellow of pure outrage.
“What’s that?” Lovie races out of the hut with me right behind her.
Streaming flowers and bad attitude, we hustle across the compound just in time to see six natives marching into the village bearing their latest prize: Jack Jones on a litter, his right leg shattered by a jaguar trap.
They set him in the middle of the compound, then race off to tell Somebody in Charge. Probably the old lady who speaks English.
All I can think of is a medley of “Hard Luck,” “Hard Knocks,” and “Help Me.”
Looks like if anybody’s going to “Rescue the Perishing,” it’s all up to me.