Rachel Caine: Working Stiff

She swallowed and managed a smile. “Very good, sir. Thank you.” She’d let him order for her, and if the salad was this weird, she had no idea what she was in for with the main course—but she’d eaten worse overseas; that much was certain. It was part of why her tastes remained so damn simple.

“I have to admit, you’re the first woman I’ve ever hired who served in the military,” he said, and nodded to the hovering, perfectly dressed waiter who waited to refill their water glasses. The whole restaurant had that hushed, whispering elegance to it that made Bryn feel every thread of her not-designer clothes and Payless shoes. There were ladies in here wearing jewelry that cost more than her annual salary. “I’m very interested to hear about your experience. You served in Iraq, I understand?”

Baghdad seemed like it wasn’t in the same universe as this place, and Bryn felt a creeping sense of unreality in even tackling the topic. “I’m afraid it’s not very interesting,” she said, hoping he’d take the hint. She quickly took another bite of the salad. Not so bad. She could get used to it. You could get used to anything, in time.

“On the contrary, I find it fascinating that someone like you would choose to sign up during a time of war,” Mr. Fairview said. “That tells me quite a bit about your character, you know.”

Not so much about her character as her upbringing, Bryn imagined, but she didn’t see any need to tell him about growing up poor in a family with two parents on minimum wage and six brothers and sisters, and doing it in a semirural town where aspiring to go to an Ivy League college was looked on as suspiciously elitist. Joining the military was a good, proper thing to do—even for a girl, these days—and if it paid off those expensive college bills, well, that was all right. Her brother Tate had followed in her footsteps, right into the uniform. He was a smart kid, the only smart one in the family, really. She had hopes for him.

She’d taken too long to answer, she realized, and covered it with a smile that felt shy. “You flatter me, Mr. Fairview,” she said. “The army seemed like the best option to help me pay off my student loans. It trained me, showed me the world, and gave me a good start for the rest of my life.” That sounded straight out of the recruiting brochures, and it said nothing at all about the sheer hell she’d gone through—the merciless and constant hazing, the blatant discrimination, the harsh conditions and constant fear of her surroundings and even of her comrades. She’d learned a lot, all right.

Mostly, she’d learned she never wanted to go to war again, and to avoid those who did want to.

And to keep her mouth shut about all of it.

“You’re a very private person, aren’t you, Bryn?” her boss asked, and she got the laser examination from those weirdly cold gray eyes again. “Not that I mind that. I like to keep things professional at the office, of course. But one more question: working with the dead and the bereaved doesn’t bother you? Because I find that a number of recent entrants to the funeral home profession aren’t emotionally suited to the requirements.”

It seemed a weird time to be asking the question; after all, he’d already hired her. But she remembered that Fairview was known—notorious, in fact—for going through funeral directors quickly. She had the feeling that every conversation, every seemingly innocent moment, was another evaluation.

Yeah, that was relaxing. She tried to breathe and eat her salad without letting him see her discomfort.

“I don’t mind the dead,” she said, after she’d swallowed her bite of who knew what kind of weeds. “Bodies are just shells built of muscle and bone. They smell, and they’re messy—alive or dead. But there’s nothing frightening about a corpse once you get over the idea that they’re …” She couldn’t think how to put it, and then it clarified in her mind. “Once you get over the fact that you’re just like them. And will be them, in the end.”

“Ah,” he said. She’d surprised him, apparently, or at least that was how she interpreted the quick up-and-down motion of his carefully groomed eyebrows.

She looked down at her salad and continued, more quietly. “We shouldn’t ever forget that, out of respect.”

“No,” he agreed, in the same tone. “No, we shouldn’t.”

The waiter arrived and whisked away her uneaten salad, and delivered the main course. To her relief, it was some kind of chicken in sauce. Delicious. She didn’t miss her PB and J at all, and when Mr. Fairview poured her a glass of wine, she let herself drink it and enjoy the rest of the meal.

She almost regretted going back to work, in fact.

I could get used to this, she thought.

Especially if she didn’t have to pay the crazy expensive bill.

There was a second appointment for her, two hours later, in the midafternoon. It was—oddly enough—almost exactly the way Mr. Fairview had role-played it for her—a man coming in to make arrangements for his deceased brother. Only this man was a whole lot younger than Mr. Fairview—Bryn put him at around thirty—and he had a blank, closed-in face and watchful eyes that really didn’t look too grief-stricken to her.

Mr. Fairview apparently had other things to do, because he just introduced the two of them and then left. I’ m flying solo , she thought, and instead of making her nervous, it made her feel steadier.

“Mr. Fideli,” she said, and shook the man’s hand. “How may I assist you today?”

“My brother,” he said. “He’s passed away. I’m looking around for a place to hold his funeral, take care of things, you know.”

There was something about Mr. Fideli, something familiar. Not him, but his type. From the close-cut hair to the straightforward way he assessed her to the way he sat alertly on the couch … Military, or recently cashiered out. He wasn’t in uniform, but you didn’t have to see the clothes to know the man. He might have seen it in her, too; she knew it showed in her straight back and the way she held herself. If he did, he didn’t comment.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, sir,” she said. She did a lightning-fast glimpse around to be sure her materials and tools were in the right places. They were, although Mr. Fideli didn’t strike her as the type to need much in the way of tissues. “Can I offer you anything to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“No.”

Bryn cleared her throat. “May I ask how he passed …?”

“What does that matter?”

“I’m afraid it does matter when it comes to suggesting options,” she said. “If he was in some sort of accident, Mr. Fideli—”

“Joe,” he said, and smiled at her. It was a nice smile, a real one. She found that … odd. Most people were a lot less at ease. “He died in the hospital. Cancer.”

“I see.” So no restorative work. Damn . “Are you thinking of interment, or—”

“Probably cremation.”

Cremation wasn’t much cheaper, when it came down to it, and she immediately zeroed in on the up-selling aspect of the urns. When people found out the cremains came in a plastic bag in a cardboard box, even the most cost-conscious of them usually opted for something better.

She reached for the brochures, but Mr. Fideli did something unusual—or at least, she thought it was unusual. “Before we talk about that stuff,” he said, “can I take a tour?”

“A tour,” she repeated. “Oh, you mean of the viewing rooms?”

“To start with, sure.”

She’d been planning to do that, but normally one settled on the basics up front. The order of events didn’t really matter, though, and she led him out of her office, down the lush carpeted hallway, out to the viewing rooms. Two were occupied, and they looked in from the doorways on the floral displays, the coffins like centerpieces, the grieving—or the bored, or the curious—who filled the seats. She took her time demonstrating the empty room, showing him all the features available, describing the services. Mr. Fideli was a silent observer, patient and unhurried. He didn’t check his watch once.