a lot of them do these days. Hair slicked back, eyes that never look in the same direction for more than a few seconds, a perma-smile. White teeth. He starts towards us and Belle backs away at the same time, which looks weird because there’s no way she has eyes in the back of her head. Maybe she’s on a string.
“I like your boots,” she says as she drifts away from me, and again I can’t tell if she’s joking. Probably not, they’re nice boots.
“Thanks.”
She stops her backward retreat. “What size are they?”
“Seven.” I have small feet, and blush a little when I tell her that.
“Me too.” She turns to walk away and brushes shoulders with Starr Davidson who’s almost upon me.
He shakes my hand. “Andrew, nice to see you.”
“Sorry I’m early,” I say, wishing even more desperately that I wasn’t.
“You’re not,” he says. “I invited you for seven, I wanted to talk to you.”
Flustered, I pull the invite from my jacket pocket and see that he’s right. The printed “8” is crossed out and he, or someone, has written “7” just above it.
“Oh,” I say. “Good.”
“I wanted to resume the conversation we started on email. Doesn’t make sense to have that kind of talk by email, does it?”
I know what he’s talking about, his offer to buy my business for a hundred grand. I wonder if he’s the one who sent those men but I don’t ask because, as far as I’m concerned, that conversation is over: he asked, I said no, done. But here I am an hour early and everything’s set up. What else am I gonna do?
A glass of red wine appears in his hand and he offers it to me. “Have a drink, Andrew.”
I take it. “Thanks.”
He steers me to one side of the room, gesturing to a plush-looking casket. It’s blond wood, silk-lined and padded throughout the interior. And this is what I’m talking about—look, our clients are dead. The ones who go inside these things, anyway. Selling luxury caskets like this is almost a sin in my book because no one needs anything like this. The salesmen are taking advantage of the bereaved in a moment of weakness; it’s as good as stealing from them. In my view, anyway.
“What do you think of this one?” he asks, wafting a hand over it. I smell his cologne now, and I think I might be allergic to it because I sneeze. I glance down and am relieved to see I haven’t spilled wine on or in the casket.
“Looks expensive.”
“It is. Six grand, just for the box.” He’s smiling, like a crocodile sizing up a cornered zebra.
“Waste of money,” I say.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I mean, for some people it might be but we think the customer should have options.”
“All your options are a waste of money.”
“We do offer a higher-end product, I admit,” he says. “We leave the cheap end of the market to you.”
I know he’s trying to insult me, but he’s not succeeding. I have faith in my business model, in my product. And if it’s so cheap, why’s he wanting to buy it?
He tells me. “But Austin does have a growing population of folks who prefer the more … affordable options. Business is good, right, all those immigrants from Mexico, California, New York, all coming to town and dying?”
“Some,” I admit. That has been a growing market for me. Or harvest, as my dad used to call it. I get my sense of humor from him.
“So. Last chance, I won’t bring it up again. A hundred grand for your business, lock, stock, and barrel.”
I’m tempted by the money but there’s no way because I have nothing else I want to do with my life. I buy a few moments by running my hand over the silk interior of the casket. The lid is one of those that opens either as one, or in two separate halves. The head section is open and Davidson opens the lower half of the lid, too.
“Nice inside, isn’t it?”
I nod, but say, “Dead people don’t need that much padding.”
He laughs gently. “This is in case we bury someone who’s alive. They’ll be more comfortable.”
I pick up his joke and run with it. “And with all that padding you won’t hear them scream,” I say, “which would be bad for business.”
“Precisely!” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Your caskets, well, they’d kick their way out in a moment and come sue you.” His grin drops into a grimace. “Not that they’d recover much money, am I right?”
“Yeah, well,” I start, but have nothing to finish the sentence with.
He leaves his hand on my shoulder and pushes me to the end of the casket. “Here, I want to show you something. Special feature, you might call it.” We stand at the bottom of the casket and he puts his hand on the panel where the feet go. He pushes something and the foot panel swings open like a door. “What do you think of that?” he asks, smug.
“What’s the point of it?”
“Several points. If need be, you can get the body out by sliding it instead of opening the top and lifting it out.”
“When have you ever needed to do that?” I know I haven’t.
“Also, it’s a way people can put things inside once the lid is closed. Like, for kids to put in something without having to see the body.”
“Huh,” I say. I guess that could happen but it seems like just another reason to charge more for this box.
“And,” he’s saying, “a reason that wasn’t originally intended but that helps me sell them. When it’s open, the customer can do this.” He turns his back to the casket and perches in the little open doorway. “Think about it. People want to know that their dead relative is comfortable, but who’s going to climb into a casket to make sure?”
“No one, I hope.”
“Right. This way, they actually sit on the end and feel for themselves. Just sit here like this, or even lie back if they want to, without having to clamber in and out.”
“I guess.”
“Try it, feel how comfortable that is.” He slides off and gestures for me to perch where he was.
“Okay.” I disagree that caskets need to be silk-lined and padded, to this extent anyway, but this is his party. At least he’s stopped asking to buy my business. I’m a little shorter than him, so I hop up and kind of settle in. I’m sitting down and it is soft.
He moves alongside me, putting one hand on my back. “What do you think?”
“That dead people don’t need this.”
He laughs. “Andrew, don’t be such a curmudgeon. We sell peace of mind, and you know it.”
“For six grand.” I sound petulant, and wish I didn’t.
“Right.” His other hand moves to my shoulder. “But once you try it, it’s hard to say no. Lay back and see.”
I groan inwardly but decide to play along. He’s powerful in the Association and he’s my host, plus if he’s not dating Belle maybe he can put in a word. And this casket is very comfortable. More like a bed.
“And plenty of room,” he says, as he lowers the lower half over my legs. “You can almost put your knees up, right?”
“Well, not really, but I see what you mean. It’s pretty roomy.”
He swings the foot panel inwards and it shuts with a quality click. Now I feel like I’m in a cocoon-slash-sleeping