Funeral Flowers

“Roses or magnolias?” I ask, holding up two hats. Henrietta rolls her eyes and turns her back to me.

“I’m taking one of your cards,” she says. She opens the top drawer of my desk and takes a condolence card from my stack.

“Roses or magnolias,” I question again.

“Clarice, please, we’re going to be late.”

“We are not going to be late,” I say, choosing the pink hat with the Irish lace and large tangerine yellow roses. I place it on my freshly-curled hair and check the clock. “The service is at ten-thirty.”

Henrietta signs the card quickly, then picks up a pair of black satin gloves off the desk. She drapes them gracefully across her open palms and walks to the mirror, extending her arms to me. I take the gloves and put them on, careful not to pull too hard on the antique fabric, then hold my right arm out. Hen wraps my watch with the tiny pearls around my wrist, clasps it, and checks the face.

“Actually, Terry’s mass is at ten,” she says. “It’s time to go.”

Hen has been my friend since wearing hats was fashionable and long before my hair turned gray. It doesn’t bother me that she thinks I am eccentric. My hats are some of my most beloved possessions and I am proud of the skill it has taken to acquire the collection. They are made of high-quality materials like brocaded silk, curled ostrich plumes, burnout velvet, and flowers, always flowers. One hat, a delicate satin pillbox with perfect geometric netting, is even an heirloom, having once been worn by my own mother at the funeral of my deal old pops.

I have fond memories of my mother’s outfit that day. The hat with tiny rosebuds sat on top of her head like a crown while her long, black dress cascaded to the floor. I stood beside the flowing folds of fabric, enjoying the attention of strangers. My sister clasped a moist handkerchief and aunts with sympathetic smiles shook my hand. I was mourning. I was ten. And I felt strangely important.

“Come on Clarice. I can’t be late,” Hen says. She stands by the door, holding her leather purse with two hands beneath her breasts, closer to her waist then she would like. Hen does not like being old. She still puts Oil of Olay on her face twice a day to prevent wrinkles. Imagine that! Seventy-two and trying to prevent wrinkles. “Give it up,” I once told her. “Embrace your age and honor your wisdom. Throw a party and burn the house down with a candle-laden cake.” Hen reminded me that she doesn’t bake and can’t eat cake because she’s diabetic. She is always putting out my fire.

“Are you ready?” she asks.

“Of course. Don’t I look ready?”

“You look like you’re going to an Easter Parade with that foolish thing.” She points to my hat.

“I chose it just for you Hen,” I say, accentuating my “H.”

She inhales with a spurt through her nose and pushes her bosom out. She does not like that particular pronunciation. I can’t help but think she looks appropriately like a chicken. I do not, of course, say this.

“Let’s go,” she says. “I need to sit up front so Father Matheson can see me.”

This funeral is important to her. Attendance counts towards her status at church. A few more funerals and she might be able to move up a step in the pecking order and perhaps get to work on the Finance Committee instead of the Bake Sale Committee.

Outside, the wind blows and makes the tulips and calla lilies in my garden dance. There are no roses yet, but it still looks lovely. I bend to admire the blooms, touch a powdery petal with my satin finger and inhale the scent. I have already sent flowers ahead to the church. Not fresh flowers from my garden, but a tasteful arrangement from the local florist shop. I promptly ordered the bouquet as soon as Hen called to tell me of the death. She is quick on the draw with such news due to her being on the Casserole Committee. Sending flowers in one of those acts, along with signing the card and donning a hat, that signifies my routine grief.

Hen beeps her horn, twice, in short impatient pecks. I stand and head towards the Century wagon, a practical senior citizen’s car. I open the door and look at the passenger seat. The card sits next to a shiny metal object in my spot. I clear my throat.

Hen reaches over with both hands and moves the pan to the middle.

“Move it to the back,” I insist. “I can’t fit my tush in there.”

“Get in Clarice,” she says, tipping the large skillet up on its side. “You can fit.”

I enter and scowl with disapproval. I do not like cars and I especially do not like to be uncomfortable in cars. I nudge the heavy pan with my elbow so it rests against Hen.

“Should I ask?”

“It’s for the kitchen,” she says. “The Free Meal Program is on Tuesdays and I had to buy a large enough pan for a dozen chicken legs.”

“You make fried chicken for the homeless?”

“Not me, the Meals Committee. But I had to pick up hose anyway and they needed one. I figured I’d bring it along today and save myself a trip.”

Hen pulls out her seat belt and straps it across her chest. She is propped on a pillow for added height and grasps the wheel with tight-fisted hands. “Enough of the chatter. Let’s be respectful.”

It is only a short drive to the small church in Wilmington. I have been there before and am sure I will go there again. It is a nice, quaint church.

I have a sincere affection for churches, though I am not a religious woman and do not sit on committees like Hen. I pray when prayers are needed and I believe there is a God, but I was not grown in a church and Sunday attendance is not part of my life. My condolence cards, which I buy in bulk at Hallmark, do not have crosses and I do not get down on my knees in front of the coffin at the wake. Still, I have attended enough funerals to learn the Apostles’ Creed, the order of service and the proper thing to say when the peace is passed. Only once did I have to ask Hen for the words to “On Eagle’s Wings.” The religion of it all is not what drives me to attend.

“May I turn on the radio?” I ask, unsure if she wants to continue with respectful silence.

“Only if it’s public,” Hen says, “and not if they’re talking about politics or violence. And no jazz, only classical, or that man with the soothing voice that tells the quirky stories.”

I decide not to bother and fiddle with the band of my watch, making sure the links do not snag the smooth fabric of my glove.

“You can roll your window down,” Hen suggests.

“No I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” she says. “The button is on your side by the handle.”

“I know, Hen. I meant my hat. I don’t want it to blow away.”

“Oh, of course, the hat,” she says sarcastically. “Did you bring tissues?”

“Yes.” I always do. Though I do not expect to do a lot of crying today. That usually only happens when a relative dies.

And Hen, my fond friend, I will cry when she goes. Though I do plan on sneaking one of my hats onto her head in the coffin. Which in the afterlife, if there is one, she will nag me about for eternity. But it will be worth it on that day to look down at her and see her frozen smile as she lies still with — gaudy pink, plastic carnations I think — resting on her head.

“What are you smiling about?” Hen asks, looking at me.

“Nothing,” I say. She stares at me in a squinty way, as if she were trying to read my mind. I am about to ask about her arthritis if only to change the subject when we are interrupted by a thump.

Hen turns back to face the road and the car swerves right. She lifts her pencil eyebrows and pulls the car over. We look out the back window.

“Oh no,” she says.

“Goodness.”

She turns the ignition off and unbuckles her breasts. I adjust my hat and follow her outside.

We meet in the middle of the quiet street and stand in our dark heels over what will be the cause of our funeral tardiness.

“Jesus Christ,” I say.

“Clarice, please,” Henrietta requests. “Can’t you say Jiminy Cricket or something? We’re on the way to church.”

“Jiminy Cricket? There is nothing exclamatory about a talking green bug.”

She signs. “Well then, JC or something.”

I concede.

“JC Henrietta, you killed a cat.”

“Oh dear me.”

“What happened? Did it run out in front of you?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says, turning to glare at me. “I was too busy looking at you with that ridiculous outfit and goofy smile. I didn’t see him.” She turns back to the cat. “What do we do?”

“Drive on.”

“Clarice, we can’t leave him here. He’s dead.”

I look at the flattened animal on the street, popped like a ripe tomato. There is probably bloody fur on the tires, though I do not inspect.

“It’s a cat, Hen. It’ll decompose.”

“Oh Clarice, don’t say that!”

“Well, what do you want to do? We can’t be late.”

She nods in agreement. “But we can’t leave him here,” she says. “The procession to the cemetery comes this way. I couldn’t stand knowing that all those cards would be driving past my accident.” She removes a tissue from her purse and blows into it like an old lady should. “We have to move him.”

“I am not touching that thing,” I say. I don’t even take the giblets out of turkey.

Henrietta stands over the dead animal, clasping her hands and bowing her head. I know she is praying and I want to ask if there is a saint for dead cats, but I resist. There are some tease-able moments you just have to let pass.

She opens her eyes and in a deadpan voice says, “Get the skillet.”

I obey and she stands watch over the lifeless animal until I return with the pan. I hand it to her. When she has taken it, I remove my satin gloves, lay them across my hands, and offer them out.

She places the pan on the ground and accepts the gloves. She puts them on, picks up the pan and walks to the cat where she hunches over in her support-hose and scoops the dead animal into the large chicken-fryer. She holds the pan’s neck with two hands and outstretched arms as she walks to the side of the road and deposits the animal behind a bush. Then she returns to the street and drags the pan on the tar, scraping the remains and a few loose pebbles off the pavement. When she has finished she carefully places the pan behind the bush with the carcass, tugs at her fingers to remove my gloves and drops them on the ground.

“You’re going to leave the pan?” I ask when she returns to me. The road is clean. She has done a good job.

“I can’t bring it to church now. I could never show my face to the Meals Committee. It’s bad enough I’ll have to lie and pretend I had a lapse in memory. I can just hear the rumors of Alzheimer’s.”

I understand this will pain her almost as much as bringing a dirty pan to church would and I drop the subject.

I enter the car and sit in my now roomy seat. I reach over to fluff Hen’s pillow before she gets in. She enters and takes a deep breath, then turns to me.

“You really do look nice today.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Hen starts the engine and we pull away from the street and head for Wilmington.

“Don’t forget to sign the card.”

I take the envelope she has left on the seat and remove the card.

“Do you know how to spell his name?” Hen asks.

“His name? I thought Terry was a woman!”

“Terry, as in Terrance. I thought you knew him.”

“No. When you said Terry Woodward the organist died, I thought you meant that sweet lady who played at Mabel’s funeral.”

“No, that was Shirley. I think Terry played at Jeremiah’s last year. I didn’t really know him. I thought you knew him from town.”

“Hmmm.” I pause and contemplate my signature, holding the pen in my ungloved hand. “Do you still want to go?”

Hen stops the car at an intersection and turns to me. “We might as well. We went through all that trouble.”

I nod and sign with my usual flourish.

She looks both ways, then steps on the gas. “And you do have that hat.”