As Henry walked Deirdre down the aisle, simple piano chords accompanied Ella Fitzgerald’s sweet, silvery voice on the sound system. “With a Song in My Heart.” Deirdre’s eyes teared up. She’d helped pick the music.
Henry walked her up to the casket. Deirdre ran her hand lightly over its smooth coffered lid. The words I’m sorry echoed in her head. For blaming him all these years. For not accepting him for the complicated human being he was. For not getting down off her high horse, as he’d have put it, and just enjoying their time together. And for what she was about to do: run out on his funeral service. She knew it wasn’t respectful, but respect had never been her father’s strong suit either. Besides, she was sure he wouldn’t have wanted whoever killed him to get away with it.
She sat between Henry and her mother. A movie screen was set up in the front of the chapel. When she turned to look behind her again, the rows had filled and people were standing at the back. Frank Sinatra was on the sound system now, crooning about how he’d done it my way. Her father might have argued with that choice—he’d always said Sinatra was a thug and a bully. But the lyrics were perfect for a man who, facing the final curtain, would have thought he’d been king.
A little while later, the lights dimmed in the chapel and the hum of voices went silent. The screen at the front of the room lit up with the words ARTHUR UNGER 1926–1985, white lettering on a royal-blue ground. There was a long pause to allow stragglers to file in, and then the back doors shut and the slides began. First was a stiff, old-world portrait of Arthur as a baby in his bearded father’s arms, surrounded by his mother and three older brothers. Then, Arthur sitting on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone with one of his brothers. Arthur, handsome and muscled in bathing trunks at a pool where he’d spent summers as a lifeguard and sometime emcee at a resort in the Poconos. As a bridegroom in a dark suit, Gloria in a tailored suit, too, carrying a bouquet of roses. Both of them looked impossibly young and handsome and—Deirdre tried to find the right word—tentative.
Silence, piano chords, and Nat King Cole’s smoky voice began singing. “Unforgettable” . . . Her father would have found the choice entirely too mushy, but it was Deirdre’s cue. She made sure that her scarf and sunglasses were secure and leaned over to her mother and then to Henry. “I’ll be right back,” she told each of them. Without waiting for a response, she grabbed her crutch and made her way to the back of the chapel.
With her sunglasses on and the lights low, the audience was pretty much a sea of indistinct faces. But when Deirdre pushed into the lobby where it was brighter, she recognized the one person still out there: Detective Martinez. She appreciated that he was keeping a respectful distance from the mourners, and fortunately he was preoccupied writing some notes and didn’t notice her until she was nearly to the ladies’ room.
“Miss Unger?” She heard his voice as the restroom door closed behind her.
The white-and-blue Mexican-tiled room with gleaming brass fixtures was empty. No one stood at the sinks. No feet were visible under the doors to the stalls. Music from the service was muted but still audible.
Deirdre really did need to pee. While she was in the stall, she heard the door to the room creak open. Deirdre raised her feet so they weren’t visible. It wouldn’t be Detective Martinez. All he had to do was wait for her to reemerge. She hoped it wasn’t Marianne Wasserman, concerned as she was about Deirdre’s mental status.
Then she heard a woman’s voice. “Zelda?”
“Thalia?” Deirdre lowered her feet. “Hang on.”
“There you are,” Joelen said when Deirdre opened the stall door. “How do I look?” She turned around to show off a tan raincoat over a short black dress. Her hair was done up in a French twist. She turned her toes out and gave the black umbrella she was holding a Charlie Chaplin twirl.
“Perfect,” Deirdre said. “But better when you’re wearing this.” Deirdre took off her coat and gave it to Joelen. Joelen took off hers and they swapped. Deirdre unwound her scarf and tied it around Joelen’s head. Dropped her sunglasses into the pocket of the coat that Joelen was now wearing.
“Thanks for sending Tyler over to get me,” Joelen said. “He’s pretty cute, though I can’t say I remember him.”
“Well, he remembers you.”
Joelen smiled. “Story of my life, but never with a happy ending.”
“So far.”
Joelen opened up her large black leather handbag and pulled out a blond wig. Deirdre took it from her, shook it out, and started to put it on her head.
“Wait. First you need to put this on.” Joelen took out a net cap with banded edges. She snapped it over Deirdre’s curls, then tucked in stray strands of hair, just like in a bathing cap.
Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were playing on the sound system now, singing a soused duet and proclaiming What a swell party this is. That meant the slide show was past its midpoint.
“Hurry up,” Deirdre said, “before they send someone in looking for me.”
“Don’t have a cow. Hold still.” Joelen eased the wig over the cap and tugged it a bit sideways, then back the other way. “There. Done.” She stood back and assessed.
Deirdre turned to face the mirror and considered her own reflection. Blond bangs and shoulder-length curls framed her face.
“How do you like it?” Joelen said. “Seriously, you should consider going blond.”
“I look like me with a wig on.”
“That’s because you know you.” Joelen got out a comb and teased some of the hair on top, then smoothed it all around with her hands. “There. Fabulous.”
Deirdre looked into Joelen’s reflected eyes. Suddenly she was right back in Joelen’s bathroom, sitting on the fluffy pink fur-covered stool and watching Joelen do her hair and makeup for Bunny’s party, just hours before both of their worlds imploded.
“What?” Joelen said.
“Why did you confess if you didn’t do it?”
Joelen’s eyes widened. “I thought you wanted me to hurry and get back in there.”
“Was it to protect your mom? Or my brother?”
After a few beats of silence, Joelen gave a tired laugh. “Does it matter at this point?”
“I don’t know. It might. What if what happened twenty-two years ago isn’t finished playing out? What if my father’s murder is connected to what happened to Tito?” Deirdre turned to face Joelen. “So please, did you kill him?”
Joelen shook her head. She put her finger to her lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anyone.” She paused. “Did you?”
“Did I . . . ?” For a moment Deirdre was too shocked to even form a response. “Are you kidding? You’re telling me that you don’t know who did it?”
“Let’s just say I wasn’t sorry he got killed and I’m not sorry I confessed.” She glanced toward the door and lowered her voice. “I thought I was protecting my mother. It worked out. I only wish that had put an end to it.”
Before Deirdre could ask Put an end to what?, she heard a familiar piano introduction, then horns, then Louis Armstrong. “Oh, Lawd, I’m on My Way.” They’d picked it not for the lyrics but because her father loved it, and because it was so deeply sad and hopeful at the same time, and because if her father had had his druthers, he’d have wanted a jazz funeral procession that stopped traffic and marched right down the middle of Avenue of the Stars in Century City, once a back lot of the studio where he’d done his finest work.
The song was the last in the medley accompanying the slide show and Deirdre’s cue to get going. “Here. Take my crutch,” Deirdre said, and gave it to Joelen.
Joelen gave Deirdre a pair of oversized white-rimmed sunglasses and a black umbrella. Deirdre put on the glasses and gripped the umbrella handle—flat instead of a hook. She took a few tentative steps, using it like a cane. The tip, with its corklike rubber fitting, didn’t slip on the tile floor.