The funeral was orchestrated by Premiere Parties, which had done Caroline’s daughter’s engagement festivities and the holiday museum ball.
Lauren arrived at the cemetery in a Marc Jacobs silk sheath with embroidered shrug because the outfit was navy and therefore seemed appropriate. She was glad it was only a graveside service. Vincent, after all, hadn’t been a churchgoer, so Yolanda had spared everyone the pomp and procession.
In the backseat of the limo Lauren shivered to think Yolanda was the one making such decisions. Yolanda, who, with her youth and her looks and the wiggle in her walk, had stolen Vincent’s attention from her.
The driver opened the door for Bob, who stepped into the sunlight, buttoned the center button of his gray Jon Green suit, and inhaled the spring air as if it were an outing and they had all day. Lauren held on to her wide-brimmed navy hat, took the driver’s gloved hand, and emerged outside next to her husband.
“Everyone’s already here,” she whispered, and Bob nodded because it never bothered him to be late to the party, never made him nervous or shy to walk into a room—or in this case, a graveyard—surrounded by others, friends, strangers, everyone. She wondered if that was because he was usually the oldest one there.
He took Lauren’s elbow and guided her toward the mourners, who, instead of looking at the minister, were now looking at them.
“Hello,” Bob said quietly here and there. “Hello. How are you?”
She leaned into his shadow, wishing she’d invented a migraine and refused to come. Even without the bizarre circumstances, Lauren had simply never liked funerals. They were too reminiscent of her angst-driven childhood when the family all gathered for births and for deaths and for milestones in between, which mostly provided a soundstage on which to critique one another, especially her. “She’s too thin,” “She’s too quiet,” “She’s not nearly as smart as Harold, Celia, or Marge,” Aunt Clara would mutter to Aunt Bertie and Aunt Bertie would pass on to Aunt Jane.
It had been at Lauren’s grandfather’s funeral that Uncle Raymond had fondled her at the back of the hearse, when he’d lured her to peer past the dark velvet drapes that hung, slightly parted, at the rear window. When Lauren leaned down, he swooped in from behind her, clasped his hands around her, and caressed her twelve-year-old buds.
No wonder she didn’t like funerals.
Bob led her over the uneven grass to a small opening between Dana and Steven and Caroline and Jack, who stood next to Bridget and Randall. It wasn’t strange, Lauren thought, that they were all there. Most times the people who were gossiped about were the ones who didn’t show up. Besides, she realized, it wasn’t as if any of them was crying.
Across from the metallic blue coffin that held what was left of Vincent DeLano and the deep pit that was poised to swallow him up, dozens of potted lilies were positioned as if it were Easter and resurrection were near. Behind the plants stood Yolanda, draped in layers of frothy black. It would be too much of a farce, Lauren supposed, if Yolanda tripped over the lilies and fell headfirst into the grave.
Lauren straightened her back and tried to pay attention.
“Vincent was a devoted father,” the minister began, and all eyes turned toward Kitty’s homely proctologist son, who propped up Yolanda on her right side, and toward the supermodel daughter who flanked her right. Just because the kids were Kitty’s blood, that was apparently no cause for allegiance.
“He was a wonderful provider,” the reverend continued, though Kitty might have protested if she were in attendance.
“And he was also proud of his Italian heritage.”
Italian heritage?
Lauren sucked in one corner of her lower lip and gently bit down with her teeth.
“The guys in the high school locker room called me the ‘Italian Stallion,’” Vincent had said to her once. “What do you think? Does it fit?”
Though they’d both been naked and he had just climaxed, Lauren was embarrassed. Yes, his penis was big. Yes, it was hard, and yes, it had more staying power than Bob’s ever had to her knowledge. But as much as she liked it—indeed, as much as she coveted the very thought of it when she was at home in her bed, eyes closed, feeling herself grow damp way down there—Lauren did not want to talk about it, at least not to Vincent. She would have loved to tell Dana or Bridget or even Caroline at one of their lunches after a glass of wine, but Lauren couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that because, after all, she was married to Bob, and Vincent had still been married to Kitty, and as delicious as her secret was, it just couldn’t be shared.
Besides, what would she tell them? That Vincent had a dick the size of an Italian flagpole?
She felt Bob’s eyes on her; she realized she had giggled. Well, at least the minister’s words had helped take her mind off Aunt Clara and Aunt Bertie and Uncle Raymond with the traveling hands…and off the fact that a small part inside her felt sad that Vincent was dead, and angry at Yolanda because he’d no doubt still be alive if she hadn’t come to New Falls and ruined the one great thing in Lauren’s life.
They said the Lord’s Prayer and then it was finished quite fast, unlike Vincent. The minister told them to go with God, but before they went a loud wail erupted from behind a tall granite tombstone, and everyone knew who had wailed it.
“Mom!” cried Marvin, the proctologist, as he raced toward the tombstone. “Mom! Don’t!”
And there stood Kitty, maniacally waving something in her hand, something black, something shiny.
Everyone ducked, including the minister.
“No!” shouted Yolanda just as Kitty’s daughter grabbed her by the arm and yanked her in the opposite direction.
“Mrs. DeLano!” the minister shrieked. “Please! Stop!” No one seemed sure if he was addressing Kitty or Yolanda.
“NO, NO, NO!” Yolanda’s voice echoed as supermodel Elise dragged the woman away, her chiffon fluttering like an obscure apparition.
From the tombstone came another big wail.
Heads poked up to see Marvin restrain his mother, then pluck the black, shiny object from her hand. Kitty collapsed against him and sobbed. One by one, the mourners began to emerge from their crouch.
“God help her!” the minister shouted again.
“God help us!” someone, maybe Jack Meacham, muttered.
Life returned to the group. Steven stepped forward because he was always the one who was willing to help.
“Kitty,” he said, “it’s all right,” and Dana nearly wept because she felt so proud.
The rest of the crowd remained half standing, half stooping, frozen in the moment. Then they backed up as Steven moved toward Kitty and Marvin, who slowly approached. Marvin cradled his mother with one arm. “It was her purse,” he said to Steven, as if all the others were gone. He waved the black, shiny thing that Kitty had waved. “It wasn’t a gun. It was her purse.”
Dana recognized Kitty’s patent leather, Bottega Veneta handbag that Kitty had bought at Bergdorf ’s last year. It was nice that she hadn’t lost everything in the divorce.
“I just want to say good-bye to my Vincent,” Kitty quietly said. “Please, let me say good-bye.”
The crowd remained frozen, none speaking, as if they’d been paused on a big plasma screen.
Steven guided Kitty to the blue coffin, where she placed both her palms on the lid. She bent her head and simply said, “Vincent, you bastard. God help me, I loved you. God help me, I still do.”
Then she shook off Steven’s hand and ambled away from the people who had once been her friends before she’d lost Vincent and everything changed.