Page 79 of Cherry Picking

“Briggs. When you say good seats, you mean on the glass, right?”

“Glass,” he says, a grin evident in his voice. “For the girl with equity.”

I hang up and spin once in the empty hallway, clutching the phone to my chest like a teenager. Tomás picks that exact second to lean out of the preparation room.

“What?” I ask, my neck flashing hot.

“Nothing at all.”

I roll my eyes. “Just say it, Tomás.”

“I’ve never seen you look quite so moony. It’s disturbing.” He holds the door open. “Come help me dress this woman before her family arrives.”

We work together as he manages the weight and I manage the fabric. Her daughter brought pearl earrings in a sandwich bag, so I thread them into her lobes myself.

“So,” Tomás says, adjusting a sleeve. “That hockey guy has finally worn you down, then.”

I’ve been working with Tomás long enough that it’s become difficult to hide my life from him. I know he’s hooked up with his ex Devon, a barista at the place on Water Street, six times since New Year’s. He knows I’ve been texting a man I met at his own brother’s funeral.

Neither of us has the moral high ground here.

We keep each other’s secrets. It’s the whole basis of the friendship.

“He’s flying me out for a weekend,” I reply. “It doesn’t mean we’re together.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t ‘mm’ me.”

“I made a single, noncommittal noise.”

“It was a very pointed noise.”

He adjusts Mrs. Ferriera’s left hand over her right and steps back. “Phil’s going to lose his mind. He’s already convinced you’re going to marry into the tax bracket of the elite and abandon us for a life of leisure.”

“Phil also thinks that weird horse brought us good fortune.”

“We booked four full services the week Diamond arrived.”

“There was a multi-car accident on the 15. That’s the definition of a tragedy, not luck.”

“Morbidly the same difference for us.” He checks the line of the dress one last time. “Ask your dad about the time off today. He’ll need to move some things around.”

I wait until the viewing is underway.

Mrs. Ferreira looks peaceful under the chapel’s amber lamps. Her daughter stops in the doorway and presses a hand to her mouth. On her way out, she catches my arm and holds it tight for a heartbeat without a word.

I find my dad in the prep room at half past noon, gowned up, with the county paperwork clipped to the wall where the reference photo usually goes.

“Thought you’d be at lunch,” I say.

“I wanted to get this done first.” He nods at the table. “Coroner released him Tuesday. Nobody’s coming.”

I take a look at the file clipped to the rail.

The man occupying the table is somewhere north of seventy. According to the intake paperwork, he was discovered in a rented room off Fremont, and apparently, he has a sister in Bakersfield who has ignored four separate attempts to reach her.

Clark County contracts these cases out at a rate that handles the cremation but accounts for zero labor. Most funeral homes do the bare legal minimum, a choice that’s technically valid and one nobody would ever fault them for making.