Going to the Chapel (21 page)

“Aunt Ruth, you need to listen. I have to tell you
something about the chapel….” I close my eyes. “The chapel is in a mortuary.”

I open my eyes. There is silence on the phone line. “Aunt Ruth?”

“We must have had a bad connection. I thought you said the chapel is in a mortuary.” Aunt Ruth gives a little laugh. “Who would put a wedding chapel in a mortuary?”

“Because it’s not exactly a wedding chapel,” I say. “It’s the chapel we use for funerals.”

There’s no response so I finally say. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell everyone right away, but I didn’t want to disappoint everyone.”

“Funerals?” Aunt Ruth’s voice is a little weak. “With dead people?”

Now I know she has the concept. It doesn’t make me feel any better.

“You don’t need to worry about the dead people. They’re all in the viewing rooms. And it’s a really beautiful place. The courtyard has roses all around it and the chapel looks like an old European cathedral.”

“Oh, dear.” Aunt Ruth’s voice is almost a whisper.

It’s silent for a minute. I can almost see Aunt Ruth’s face from here, looking white and all rumpled as if she’s going to cry or maybe faint.

“Is Aunt Inga there?” I finally ask. I’m a little worried that I don’t hear any scolding words. Shouldn’t she be telling me what a mess I’ve made of things? “Maybe I should call Aunt Inga and ask her to go over to your place.”

“Yes. That would be good,” Aunt Ruth says. Her voice is monotone.

I really wish she would say something about how foolish I’ve been. I hang up and stay right where I am so I can make another call. Fortunately, I have Aunt Inga on speed dial.

“Julie?” Aunt Inga says when I tell her I am on the phone. “Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.” I take a deep breath and dive into the hard stuff. “You need to go over to Aunt Ruth’s place. I think she’s a little upset because I told her that the chapel where I work isn’t a wedding chapel, it’s a mortuary chapel.”

Aunt Inga doesn’t make a sound. This isn’t how I intended to tell her. I’m just getting a little freaked out about Aunt Ruth sitting there in shock.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I say. Now I’m a little worried about Aunt Inga. “Say something. Are you all right? I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“You’re my Julie,” Aunt Inga says as though that sums everything up. She sounds disoriented, but not angry. “I’ll always be proud of you. Now, let me get my purse and I’ll go over to see Ruth.”

“Thank you,” I say.

I dab at my eyes before I open the door to go back inside Cassie’s place. The policeman who had been taking notes on what Jerry was telling them flipped his notebook shut so I assume they’re finished.

“Don’t leave any more notes for criminals,” the other policeman says to Jerry as they both turn to leave. “You call us if you think you have a lead.”

“Yes, sir,” Jerry says.

The policemen leave and I just look at Jerry. He needs a shave and the T-shirt he has on is definitely
the one he wore yesterday. But it’s really good to see him still standing here. “Don’t do that again.”

Cassie has the shades up on the windows in this room and the morning light comes in steadily.

Jerry shifts his legs so he is leaning against the wall next to the bedroom door. He’s gets this puzzled look on his face and he looks over at me. “It’s kind of nice to have you worrying about me for a change. I used to think you liked it when I got into trouble.”

I shrug. “We were kids then. The same rules don’t apply now that we are adults.”

Did I just say that? I’ve been playing by the same every-kid-for-herself rules since I was five, at least when it came to my cousins. We wrote those rules in blood and hard feelings. Now, look at me. I don’t even know when I decided those rules don’t apply any more to Jerry.

I am trying to think of something sane to say that would indicate I haven’t gone completely soft in my head when Jerry walks over to me. He stands there a second and then he gives me a quick hug.

“What?” I squeak.

“New rules,” he says calmly as he walks over to the kitchen counter.

I, of course, just stand there. It comforts me a little that Cassie is standing there looking about as startled as I am. Only Mrs. Snyder seems to take it all in stride.

“Isn’t that nice?” Mrs. Snyder says as she starts back to the door. “Well, now that the excitement is over, I’ll head back to my television.”

“I should get dressed,” Cassie finally says.

“I’ll make some more of that oatmeal,” Jerry says
as he pulls a pan out of the cupboard. “Do we have more raisins?”

I stand there for another minute. Who can think about raisins? Jerry just hugged me and it wasn’t an attempt to put a lizard down the back of my shirt or anything. Wait a bit. I concentrate on my back a second just to be sure nothing slimy is slithering down it, but everything feels normal. I guess we are growing up. Wow. I don’t know how I feel about that.

I look over at the counter. He’s even going to cook us oatmeal and raisins. It is a new world.

T
he aunts called back minutes after “Jerry’s incident with the police”—those were Aunt Ruth’s words—just to be sure that everything was okay. Jerry and I reassured them that he wasn’t going to jail and, no, he didn’t need any money for bail. They apparently believed us, because we haven’t heard from them since.

Anyway, it is now Saturday morning and I am lying on my back on the air mattress in Cassie’s bedroom. I have my head under a blanket so the sunshine won’t blind me with its good cheer. I’m awake, but I’m trying to ignore that fact. After all, it’s Saturday morning and I had this pleasant dream last night about a wedding on a cruise ship far, far away from here. I couldn’t see the bride in my dream, but I didn’t need to. Just seeing her twisted up in the long white wedding train attached to her dress was enough to set my mind at rest.

The phone rings and I ease the blanket down an inch trying to see the alarm clock Cassie has on the stand
beside her bed. I’m lying on the floor so I have to twist my head some to see that it’s one minute past eight. Prime aunt time.

Cassie groans in her sleep and turns over, pulling her covers with her so they will block the light in her eyes.

I hear some kind of muttering come from the living room and then a loud voice. “Julie. Phone for you.”

I don’t know why Jerry can’t decide that those new rules of his apply on Saturday morning. A kind cousin would say I had died in the night and couldn’t come to the phone.

“No,” I say and it comes out half wail and half protest. “Can’t you talk to them?”

I sound pathetic to my ear, but apparently it’s not bad enough to move Jerry’s cold heart.

“They need you,” Jerry says and I swear his voice is growing more cheerful with each word. “Rise and shine. It’s past eight o’clock.”

“On a
Saturday
morning,” I say. “It’s the universal day of rest.”

“That’s Sunday. The Sabbath,” Jerry says just as if he’s become some kind of Biblical scholar now that he and Doug sat and talked about religious issues last night until midnight.

Cassie and I were there, too, at the coffee shop, but she and I faded a little after eleven when the discussion turned to how dead you needed to be to see heaven. You know, the near-death people who see all those lights. I had never realized there was so much room for discussion in religion. I don’t think Jerry had, either, and he’s taken with it. It’s a whole new field of argument for him.

“Not everyone agrees the Sabbath is Sunday. It could be Saturday,” I say.

“Well, it could be Tuesday, too,” Jerry says. “But the aunts don’t care. They don’t let anyone rest on Saturday.”

“I know,” I mumble as I sit up. I yawn and then make myself stand up beside the air mattress. I stand there a minute, resisting the temptation to fall back down on the mattress in a heap of weary bones.

I’m not about to let Jerry know, but I don’t mind so much talking to the aunts. Not that I’m wild about their timing. But I was beginning to wonder if the reason they hadn’t called last night as I expected was that I had messed up so bad that they weren’t talking to me. If they’re calling me at this time in the morning, though, they are okay with me. The aunts never call strangers until after nine o’clock in the morning no matter what day of the week it is. The eight o’clock rule only applies to family.

I pull my robe off a hook on the wall and put it on over my pajamas before gently opening the door. I look back at Cassie. She’s still managing to sleep. Or, at least, she’s pretending to sleep so she doesn’t have to say good morning to me.

Jerry hands me the phone the minute I step into the living area and close the bedroom door. He’s opened the blinds in this room so the sunlight is even more merciless.

“Hi,” I say into the phone. I try to put enough energy into my voice so that whichever aunt is calling won’t know she got me up out of bed. I might complain to Jerry, but I don’t want a lecture from any of the aunts
on how late I must have stayed up the night before if I wasn’t awake until now.

“Julie? Is that you?”

“Hi, Aunt Inga.” I stumble over to one of the chairs at Cassie’s table and sit down.

“We’re getting everything arranged,” Aunt Inga says with a surge of excitement in her voice. I bet she’s not sitting down anywhere. “Your mom is meeting Aunt Ruth and me in Hollywood today so we can start to buy all the things we’ll need for Elaine’s wedding. I just wanted you to know that we’ve reserved some rooms at a hotel near Cassie’s place. Elaine found it on the computer.”

“Wow.” That wakes me up completely. It’s a good thing I have the solid chair beneath me, too. “You’re going to be here? Today? My mom, too?”

I look over to Jerry and he arches his eyebrow at me in a question.

“Today? Here?” Jerry asks me in a frantic whisper.

I nod again, this time more emphatically.

Aunt Inga has been talking. “We have work to do. We need to get started.”

Jerry is standing beside the kitchen counter and he reaches down to pull a saucepan out of the bottom cupboard. I wonder briefly if he is going to bang something with it. I wouldn’t blame him. I’m just curious.

I turn a little in the chair so I’m not watching Jerry. I need to focus. “So that must mean everyone’s okay with using the chapel at the Big M. Did someone tell Elaine about—you know—the funeral stuff?”

“Of course!” Aunt Inga sounds indignant that I think she’d keep a secret like that. “And there’s no
need for people to be so squeamish about funeral homes. I can’t believe you didn’t want to tell us you worked in one. We’re not a family who thinks we’re too good to work with dead people. I mean, well, you know what I mean. Everyone dies. They can’t help it.”

“Yes, but no one wants someone dead at their wedding,” I say without thinking because I can’t stand not knowing what Jerry is going to do with that pan. Then I realize what I’ve said. “Not that anyone will die at Elaine’s wedding. Or be dead. I promise. The last funeral at the Big M is Tuesday morning. Then it’s pretty well shut down through Thanksgiving weekend.”

I specifically asked Mr. Z about that and he made some joke about death taking a holiday. I think it’s an old movie or something so I smiled at him, but waited for him to clearly say that there would be no dead people left at the Big M over that weekend.

“Good. That gives us time to get everything ready,” Aunt Inga says. “We’re going to make the phone calls before we leave Blythe this morning so we won’t get there until this afternoon. That’s one reason I’m calling. We need the address for the place where you work so we can tell people where it is.”

I close my eyes. Somehow I was hoping it wouldn’t really come to this. Even though Jerry has measured every stone in the Big M chapel by now, I still thought a miracle would happen and the wedding would take place somewhere else. But once all of the guests are told to come to the Big M, it won’t matter if the wedding does take place somewhere else. All of the people will still be at the Big M wondering what I, Julie White, have done to mess things up this time.

There’s no help for it so I open my eyes. “The entrance to the parking lot is a couple of blocks past Vine on Hollywood going west. The street address is 6314 Hollywood Boulevard and there’s usually some more parking off of Cosmo Street, too.”

“I’m writing it all down,” Aunt Inga says. “That was 63-what Hollywood Boulevard?”

I see Jerry pull the oatmeal box down from a shelf so I relax. He’s just doing the domestic thing. No banging there.

“It’s 6314 Hollywood Boulevard.”

“Got it,” Aunt Inga says and there’s triumph in her voice. Aunt Inga knows how to celebrate her success with little things as well as big things in life.

“You sound good,” I can’t help but say. “How is Aunt Ruth doing?”

“She’ll do fine. Especially when your mother comes to help. Aunt Ruth couldn’t stand it if your mother showed her up in the coping department.”

Now I know why I should have stayed in bed. I was worried about me and my mom making a scene. I didn’t think about my mom and Aunt Ruth. “Do you think there will be trouble with the two of them?”

My mother and Aunt Ruth probably haven’t exchanged ten words with each other since my mother left Blythe eighteen years ago. That’s not even one word a year. My mother and I have passed a lot more words around and my feelings toward her are still a little raw. I don’t give Aunt Inga any time to answer my question because I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. “You’re sure Elaine isn’t going to change her mind at the last minute and decide to get married on that cruise?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Aunt Inga says. “Except for the fact that we are a family and families figure these things out.”

Aunt Inga, to her credit, always thinks of our family as a whole. It was mostly Aunt Ruth and Elaine who were always so insistent on their half this and half that, as if they had some inherent fascination with fractions. Believe me, neither one of them like math. They just didn’t really want to claim any close kinship with my mom and me.

“Elaine would be dragging home a small trunk if she was planning to do that cruise,” I say just in case Elaine was making preparations that Aunt Inga didn’t know about. “One thing I know for sure and that’s that she’s going to get married in that dress she got from Paris. And she’s going to have her train behind her. No matter where she says ‘I do,’ she’ll be in that dress of hers.”

Aunt Inga chuckles. “She’s bringing that dress with her when we drive to Hollywood this afternoon so I think she’s still planning to get married in your chapel.”

“Good,” I say, but I have to swallow to get the word out. “Maybe Jerry can remeasure how long the aisle is just to be sure there’s enough room for that train.”

I know there’s enough room, I just don’t want Elaine to settle for using the chapel at the Big M if she secretly wants to do the cruise.

“Well, I have a lot to do before we can come,” Aunt Inga says. “We’ll call on Elaine’s cell phone when we get into Hollywood.”

“I’ll see you then,” I say as we both hang up. Well,
I don’t quite hang up. I have to walk over to the kitchen counter to do that and I think I’ll just sit here a minute.

“That bad?” Jerry says from where he’s standing by the stove. He’s stirring the oatmeal and has the raisin box on the counter beside him.

“It’s my worst nightmare come true.”

Jerry laughs at that. “Good one.”

I give him a weak smile in return. “Yeah, right.”

I debate on going back to bed, but decide there is no point. The lazy, all-is-well feeling that I had lying in my bed earlier is destroyed for now.

“Did you make coffee?” I say even though I know I would smell it if Jerry had made any.

He takes the hint like a good cousin and reaches over to turn on the switch that will make the coffee start to brew. One of the things I have learned from living with Cassie is to set the coffeepot up the night before. It does make the mornings go better. I wonder if that’s why she’s always such an optimist. She knows she has her coffee ready to go.

Ah, yes, I can hear the water starting to sizzle in the pot. There is hope.

I could sit here all day, but I have to prepare for the arrival of the aunts. And Elaine, of course. Aunt Inga didn’t mention Uncle Howard so I wonder if he will come. It’ll be like having a family reunion. We always have deviled eggs at our family reunions. I look up at Jerry. He knows more about cooking than I ever suspected.

“Do you think we’ll need to feed the aunts?” I ask.

“They’re going to be here for dinner?” Jerry asks.

I almost smile. That thought took all of the good
cheer right out of him. He’s not the only one who can ruin a good morning.

“They wouldn’t want us to fix them dinner, would they?” Jerry asks, clearly appalled. “I only know how to cook breakfast. I can’t see Aunt Ruth having oatmeal for dinner. The aunts never visited me when I lived in Blythe.”

“You still live in Blythe,” I say just to remind him. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with oatmeal. I’m sure they ate it for dinner sometimes when they were kids.”

My grandfather never had much money, not when he was married to either one of the grandmothers. And my grandmother couldn’t cook so she might have made oatmeal for dinner. She’d, of course, serve it wearing one of those scarves of hers, though, and have everyone pretend they were eating in a French restaurant so they might not have minded so much.

“Oatmeal like this?” Jerry looks uncertain as he picks the pan up off the stove.

“Well, it’s healthy food,” I say before I decide to let him off the hook. “Maybe we should just find a restaurant where we can all sit down to eat, though.”

“I have to wash my socks today,” Jerry says as he walks the oatmeal over to the table and sets it on a trivet. “And my T-shirts. Is there a Laundromat around?”

I nod. “I have to do a load of wash, too.”

Jerry sits down even though neither one of us have bowls or spoons. Since he’s clearly in overload, I stand and walk over to the cupboard to get what we need.

I can tell that getting ready for the aunts is going to take the better part of the day. Which, when I think about it, is okay. If I’m worrying about getting ready
to pass the aunt inspection, I won’t be worrying about seeing my mother again.

I set the bowls down on the table and sit back down. It’s not been that long ago that I saw my mother in Las Vegas, but this will be the first time my mother has come to my place instead of Aunt Inga’s place. Okay, rest easy. I’m not doing a Jerry here. I know it’s not really my place; it belongs to Cassie. But it’s my first independent place and my mother is coming. I feel the urge to dust something.

It’s the middle of the afternoon before the urge to clean everything in sight subsides. I am sitting in Cassie’s living area and I am wearing a dress. On a Saturday. I don’t feel so bad, however, because I look over at the sofa and Jerry is sitting there in a new T-shirt. He got so nervous, he drove to the mall and bought another one. It’s brown, of course, but it has a black rim around the neck. The only one here who isn’t nuts is Cassie. She’s sitting on the floor by her coffee table and pinching some yellow leaves off some plant. She told me the leaves needed to be pinched off instead of cut off because the plant would do better that way.