Melissa Ostrom
1. THE DISPATCHThree Funerals
I.
Justin would have had nothing good to say about it.
On her way to the reception, Margaret mentally replayed the funeral, from beginning to end, stingingly, Justin-style: the director with his slicked-back hair (too Boris Karloff), the minister’s walk-through-the-valley-of-the-shadow-of-death sermon (too pat), the time of year (a gross cliché). And the weather! Violent wind, slanting rain, the orange crowns of maples shuddering against a pewter sky: Worse and worse, Justin would have groaned.
Leaves skidded across the road. Margaret stepped on the gas, anxious to get the drive, the reception, the whole day over with.
Summer would have been preferable, Justin seemed to whisper in her head. Spring even better. And please, if you find mini quiches on the hors d’oeuvres table, send them back to the 1950s.
She wouldn’t have escaped Justin’s criticism. He would have called her black dress a costume. Tune in for the Hallmark original movie, Justin might have quipped, Life after Love, starring Margaret Reed, as the grieving widow.
Life after marriage, perhaps, Margaret thought. She straightened her back and sucked in her stomach. Her hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly. She resisted an impulse to check her appearance in the rearview mirror. “Never mind,” she said, then winced and pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to become one of those women who started talking aloud to themselves, just to hear a voice. She didn’t want to look silly and pathetic.
Not that it would matter. No one would notice.
Justin would never criticize her again.
II.
We knew Hunter Noyes before he died. Actually, we knew him years ago, before he’d become the Hunter Noyes, the one the critics had coined, “Poet Laureate of Paint.” Back in high school, we half-believed we owned him or acted like it anyway. He let us. We didn’t have to ask Hunter. We just had to tell him. Loan us five, be back by ten, drop us off at Mandy’s, buy some booze. He’d shrug, an upper body nod.
He was really just Annie Egan’s, but she shared him with us like she did the pool in her backyard and the lunches her mom packed for her so she wouldn’t have to buy the cafeteria crap. Annie was generous like that—and Hunter Noyes, even more so, letting us pile into his car with our big hair, driving us wherever, putting up with long rom-coms, and waiting by the fountain in the mall while we tried on clothes, perfumes, makeup. This lasted until graduation, as long as Hunter and Annie lasted, the latter talking and directing, the former shrugging and obeying.
The relationship probably would have kept going if their separate colleges hadn’t lessened his usefulness. Not that Annie admitted this. It was just obvious. And then Hunter Noyes became a famous painter. And then he moved from New York to Los Angeles. And then, at forty, he got into a car accident and died.
At Hot Java, after reading us the obituary in The New York Times, Annie sniffed over her cappuccino and sighed, “Hunter was the only guy I ever really loved.”
It took some effort not to snort. Annie definitely loved that she’d dated Hunter Noyes, even if she’d dated him before he’d taken up painting and become famous. But that wasn’t the same as loving him.
III.
It was too bad Mike Bell, the mortician, had to mention the defect on the body of Bernice Plimpton at all—talk about unprofessional—but especially bad he’d shared it with Jimmy Hobbs (who, as everyone knew, couldn’t be trusted with a boring secret, let alone an interesting one) and on a two-for-one Tuesday at the Top Shelf Lounge, no less, when Jimmy doubled his drinking pleasure, which further loosened his tongue.
The discovery had left Mike shaken, and he’d cut out from work early, headed to the lounge, and tried to pull himself together with the help of a vodka gimlet.
An hour later, Jimmy had the news out of Mike. Fifteen minutes after that, the rest of the bar had heard it, courtesy of Jimmy; the following day, so had pretty much every other citizen of Billings, Ohio.
Finally, the lifelong single state of Bernice Plimpton—who’d been a real knockout in her day, the old guys hunched over their beers at the lounge agreed—made perfect sense.
The many curious and the few caring showed up for the viewing, forming a line so long, it stretched from the casket, out the funeral home doors, down the sidewalk, and into the parking lot.
The progress by the body was slow.
The problem was, this bizarre defect—at the base of the nape, just off to the side—was hard to spot and now practically impossible, given the foundation Mike Bell had personally applied. And it wasn’t like you could lift up poor Bernice’s head to get a better angle and closer view, though Jimmy Hobbs tried.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYPics of kids and dog
Laptop, printer, phone
A poetry anthology called Cries of the Spirit
Three antique paper weights, inscribed with the words aujourd’hui, demain, and souviens toi
A desk calendar from my friend Carrie Danaher Hoyt, featuring her beautiful poems and photographs
A cute mug rug my pal Lisa Fitzpatrick sewed
A coffee cup, made by me!
3. BIOGRAPHYMelissa Ostrom is the author of The Beloved Wild (Feiwel & Friends, 2018), a Junior Library Guild book and an Amelia Bloomer Award selection, and Unleaving (Feiwel & Friends, 2019). Her stories have appeared in many journals and been selected for Best Small Fictions 2019, Best Microfiction 2020, Best Small Fictions 2021, Best Microfiction 2021, and Wigleaf Top 50 2022. She lives with her husband, children, and spaniel Mocha in Holley, New York. Learn more at www.melissaostrom.com or find her on Twitter @melostrom.