“He hasn’t seen a lot of recent pictures, but we’re going to a show tonight.”
“You’re seeing him again?”
“Yeah. I wanted to call and thank you for fixing me up with him,” she said.
“Am I one hell of a matchmaker, or am I one hell of a matchmaker?”
“I also wanted to let you know that even if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be gentle with him. He told me about Wilma. What a rotten thing! I wanted you to know that I’m aware she put a couple of cracks in him, and I won’t ever hit him too hard.”
Tony was amazed. “He told you about Wilma the first night he met you?”
“He said he used to be unable to talk about it, but then you showed him how to handle his hostility.”
“Me?”
“He said after you helped him accept what had happened, he could talk about it without pain.”
“All I did was sit and listen when he wanted to get it off his chest.”
“He thinks you’re a hell of a great guy.”
“Frank’s a damned good judge of people, isn’t he?”
Later, feeling good about the excellent impression that Frank had made on Janet Yamada, optimistic about his own chances for a little romance, Tony drove to Westwood to keep his date with Hilary. She was waiting for him; she came out of the house as he pulled into the driveway. She looked crisp and lovely in black slacks, a cool ice-blue blouse, and a lightweight blue corduroy blazer. As he opened the door for her, she gave him a quick, almost shy kiss on the cheek, and he got a whiff of fresh lemony perfume.
It was going to be a good day.
***
Exhausted from a nearly sleepless night in Helen Virtillion’s bedroom, Avril Tannerton got back from Santa Rosa shortly before ten o’clock Sunday morning.
He did not look inside the coffin.
With Gary Olmstead, Tannerton went to the cemetery and prepared the gravesite for the two o’clock ceremony. They erected the equipment that would lower the casket into the ground. Using flowers and a lot of cut greenery, they made the site as attractive as possible.
At 12:30 back at the funeral home, Tannerton used a chamois cloth to wipe the dust and smudged fingerprints from Bruno Frye’s brass-plated casket. As he ran his hand over the rounded edges of the box, he thought of the magnificent contours of Helen Virtillion’s breasts.
He did not look inside the coffin.
At one o’clock, Tannerton and Olmstead loaded the deceased into the hearse.
Neither of them looked inside the coffin.
At one-thirty they drove to the Napa County Memorial Park. Joshua Rhinehart and a few local people followed in their own cars. Considering that it was for a wealthy and influential man, the funeral procession was embarrassingly small.
The day was clear and cool. Tall trees cast stark shadows across the road, and the hearse passed through alternating hands of sunlight and shade.
At the cemetery, the casket was placed on a sling above the grave, and fifteen people gathered around for the brief service. Gary Olmstead took up a position beside the flower-concealed control box that operated the sling and would cause it to lower the deceased into the ground. Avril stood at the front of the grave and read from a thin book of nondenominational inspirational verses. Joshua Rhinehart was at the mortician’s side. The other twelve people flanked the open grave. Some of them were grape growers and their wives. They had come because they had sold their harvests to Bruno Frye’s winery, and they considered their attendance at his funeral to be a business obligation. The others were Shade Tree Vineyards executives and their wives, and their reasons for being present were no more personal than those of the growers. Nobody wept.
And nobody had the opportunity or the desire to look into the coffin.
Tannerton finished reading from his small black book. He glanced at Gary Olmstead and nodded.
Olmstead pushed a button on the control box. The powerful little electric motor hummed. The casket was lowered slowly and smoothly into the gaping earth.
***
Hilary could not remember another day that was as much fun as that first full day with Tony Clemenza.