Through the looking glass

Was it inappropriate to take a date to a funeral?

Alice stopped abruptly when she spied the coffin surrounded by flowers, chairs set up ready for an audience.

So, that was why Gerry instructed her to wear black. She had thought it odd at the time, but after months of awkward hints Alice wasn’t going to question Gerry’s choice of clothing attire when he did finally get around to asking her out.

A waiter sidled up to her with a tray of wine glasses.

“Would you like a drink ma’am?”

At 10am? Before a funeral?

Alice looked at Gerry, who was already taking a glass from the tray. Rather enthusiastically, Alice noted.

“It’s merlot,” the waiter said, as though that was all the convincing she needed to drink red wine at 10am at a funeral on a first date. He angled the tray towards her.

“Umm, fabulous,” she murmured, gingerly taking a glass.

The waiter nodded in relief and moved on to ply the next unsuspecting funeral goer with an early morning beverage.

“Merlot is my favourite,” she offered to Gerry before testing the flavour with a discreet sip.

It wasn’t, but it seemed polite to offer a favourable opinion. A funeral probably wasn’t the appropriate place to critique the choice of wine.

A merlot did seem inappropriate though. Any wine the colour of blood seemed an inappropriate choice at a funeral. She took a second, more fortifying, sip. Testing the quality. Or grappling for some liquid courage.

“It’s very nice,” she offered gamely.

“Is it?” Gerry stared glumly at the glass in his hand. He hadn’t taken a sip yet, his enthusiasm seemingly fading with every passing moment after taking the glass from the tray.

“Yes, it’s very…um…mellow?”

Wasn’t merlot supposed to be mellow? Or was that cab sav?

“Was it your grandmother’s favourite wine?” Alice tried again, taking another sip. This one went down much easier. Maybe Jenny – the recently deceased – was onto something. Or was it Jemima?

“She hated the stuff,” Gerry said, almost bitterly.

“Oh.” Alice looked uncertainly at the glass in her hand. Had there been a mistake?

“It was probably on sale,” Gerry continued. “Jenny was a hoarder. Mostly of money.”

Had Jenny-not-Jemima planned in advance of her funeral and bulk purchased cases of cheap wine to save on costs? Alice took another sip. It didn’t taste cheap, but Alice couldn’t tell a cab sav from a merlot, so she supposed she probably wasn’t a good judge. As long as it didn’t taste like vinegar; that was Alice’s benchmark for good wine.

“She thought she could run a multi-million dollar company and never pay for paperclips.”

Gerry sounded offended by that.

Alice thought for a moment.

“Do people still use paperclips? I can’t remember the last time I used a paperclip.”

Gerry stared at her. Alice looked down at her wine glass.

Was that her or the merlot talking? Was she really talking about paperclips on a first date at a funeral while drinking red wine at 10.15 in the morning?

Was this even a first date?

Suddenly Alice wasn’t so sure. It had been a while since she had been on a date. Two years, 3 months, and 23 days to be precise. Since her divorce was proposed by her ex-husband. And she supposed one didn’t exactly “date” one’s spouse. At some point “dating” morphed into “having dinner with the same person at a different place” and at some point that morphed into “having dinner while your husband outlined all the reasons he was no longer in love with you” and finally sliding, painfully, numbingly, into “pre-heated dinner for one in front of the TV with a G&T.”

Regardless of the philosophical underpinnings of what constituted a “date,” Alice wasn’t entirely sure that she was on one. However, considering her last outing that approximated a “date” was when her marriage crashed and burned, she supposed a date at a funeral was a step up.

Should she ask if she was on a date with Gerry?

Alice looked over the rim of the wine glass at the object of her recent desire, who was still looking into his merlot like it held the secrets of the universe.

Or maybe the location of all the paperclips that Jenny’s multi-million dollar company supposedly needed to survive.

Alice sighed inside and turned away.

“Just going to the ladies,” she muttered.

Gerry barely managed a nod.

Alice polished off the glass of merlot as she walked away, leaving it on a side table with a growing collection of other empty glasses.

The merlot couldn’t be that cheap, Alice mused. It seemed that it was being enjoyed by a great majority of the guests.

She was standing in front of the mirror in the ladies applying lip gloss to smudge out the red merlot stain on the inside of her lips when she was interrupted.

“I saw you outside. I love your dress.”

“Oh,” Alice looked at herself in the mirror. “Actually I wore this when I got divorced.”

Now that she thought about it perhaps the dress she wore to her attorney’s office when she signed the divorce papers wasn’t the best choice for her first post-divorce maybe-date. She had panicked a little when Gerry asked her to wear black and picked the only black dress in her closet. Alice had never been a LBD kind of girl.

“Probably appropriate to wear it to a funeral then, right?” the woman with fuzzy red har laughed. Alice noted the faint merlot-red stains on her teeth.

“How did you know Jenny?” the redhead continued, rubbing her finger across her teeth in the mirror, attempting to remove the stains.

“I didn’t really,” Alice hedged. “I know her grandson, Gerry.”

The woman straightened, giving up on the merlot stains. “Oh yes, I know Gerry.”

“The wine…” Alice half-smiled, inclining her head towards the redhead’s reflection in the mirror.

The woman laughed, exposing more merlot stains. “I know! Bloody Jenny. It’s a shame she couldn’t be here – she loved a good party.”

Alice frowned. A millionaire hoarder who loved to party and didn’t like paying for paperclips?

“Gerry’s…nice,” the woman continued, “different to Jenny. Like chalk and cheese.”

What did that mean? Was Gerry a pauper? Didn’t like to party? Loved paperclips?

He did seem unusually upset about the paperclips.

“Jenny used to throw a fabulous party. Always with red wine and dancing until the early hours. Even in the nursing home she was always up for the wine when the priest came around.”

The redhead winked.

Alice wasn’t sure what to say.

“Jenny sounds…fun.”

"She certainly was," the redhead agreed, propping her bag on the side of the sink, with her hip thrust forward to hold it in place.

******

Alice left the fuzzy redhead digging in her purse for a mint. She decided it was best not to ask for clarification about the redhead's Gerry comment.

She did glance dubiously down at her dress as she pushed the door of the restroom open. If being on a first date at a funeral wasn’t omen enough, the fact that she sub-consciously chose her divorce-dress to wear should have been a sign.

On her way back to Gerry, Alice spied the waiter with his tray of wandering merlots. She veered off course and followed the bobbing tray into the adjacent room.

“Yes please!” she called out a little too loudly.

An elderly man and the waiter turned abruptly at the exclamation. The merlots wobbled uncertainly.

“Thank you!” she caught a merlot before it fell and smiled as though nothing was amiss.

The merlots somehow re-assembled themselves without spilling a drop. The waiter nodded once to her curtly before surveying his tray with a sharp eye.

“You’re welcome ma’am,” he dismissed, seemingly satisfied that the merlots were safe once more as he sailed away.

The elderly man hazarded a smile in her direction.

“Cheers!” He held his glass up.

Did one “cheers” at a funeral? It seemed a touch celebratory.

“Ah…cheers?” Alice tapped her glass to the elderly man’s and took a drink to silence her internal misgivings.

“So, how do you know Jenny?” he asked, after taking a sip of his wine.

“I don’t really,” Alice repeated, “I know Gerry, her –“

“Oh yes, her grandson Gerry. He’s, ah, nice.”

There it was again. Gerry was nice. Nice was good though. Wasn’t it?

Alice took another drink. She felt old and tired now, drinking merlot at 10.30 in the morning in her divorce-dress on a maybe-first-date at a funeral. Was this the world of dating that she had to look forward to?

The elderly man smiled at her. He had merlot stains too. Jenny did know how to throw a party, even in death.

“I heard that Jenny liked a good party,” Alice said, searching for a conversation-starter.

“That she did,” the elderly man nodded enthusiastically. “Even in the nursing home she liked a good time. She once worked out how to steal the nurse’s keys and snuck around at night giving all the residents ice cream!”

Alice – or was it the merlot? – giggled. So, Jenny was a lover of ice cream and parties and didn’t like paying for paperclips.

The elderly man took another sip of his merlot.

“When we were kids, we used to sneak out of our houses at night. We were stepping out, you know. We used to go dancing or go the cinema and sit in the back row. She was a cheeky one too, was Jenny.”

The elderly man chortled.

Alice smiled at his merlot-stained teeth and crinkled sparkling eyes.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to find out some more about Jenny who liked parties, ice cream, wine, and a good time. And who wasn't a fan of paperclips.

******

Later, Alice wandered back into the first room to find Gerry.

On the way she snagged her second - or was it her third? - merlot from the wandering waiter. Alice was slowly getting on board with the idea of wine at funerals. Of course, if she was catering for her funeral, it would be gin and tonic. Not many people liked a gin and tonic these days. Although Alice supposed that the advantage of catering for your own funeral was that nobody could complain to you afterwards.

Her ex-husband had complained about her catering ability. He had one of those sales jobs that for some reason required him to endlessly have people over for dinner and drinks. In the beginning Alice had been a dutiful wife, serving gourmet food with matching wines designed to impress. After several years she started serving food she wanted to eat, with one wine, and, of course, gin and tonic. Her husband had listed her growing disinterest in gourmet catering for his colleagues and clients among one of the many reasons he wanted a divorce.

The day after she signed the divorce papers Alice threw out all her cookbooks and started ordering her meals in a weekly box.

“I wore this dress when I got divorced,” Alice blurted to Gerry when she found him again. She suspected it truly was the merlot talking now.

Gerry stared at her.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” he said finally.

He handed her his untouched glass of wine.

Double parked. Alice giggled.

“Looks like you’re double parked.”

Alice looked to her left. There was a handsome young man with dark hair and dimples.

“Would you like one? It’s not been touched,” Alice offered him Gerry’s glass.

“Oh…I suppose. Trust Jenny to have wine at her funeral.”

“I didn’t know Jenny,” Alice pre-empted as she handed over the merlot to the stranger. “I’m here with her grandson, Gerry. On a date.”

“Gerry’s nice…wait – on a date?”

Alice laughed. “Yes, on a date. At a funeral.”

Did she mention her divorce-dress?

“I wore this dress when I got divorced. I think it’s an omen.”

The handsome stranger laughed. “When you put it like that…”

There was a comfortable silence while they both took a sip from their wine glasses.

“Jenny liked a good drink. And a good time,” he continued.

Alice smiled at the stranger.

“And Gerry is nice?”

The stranger smiled back.

“Something like that.”

******

Before leaving her maybe-first-date, Alice wandered out towards the kitchen. She’d lost Gerry in the crowd of people exiting the house after the funeral. He hadn’t even sat with her during the service. Alice supposed that her first-date that had turned into a maybe-date had well and truly dissolved into a nothing-date.

She didn’t get the chance to talk to Gerry again after she told him about her divorce dress. As soon as she got home, she was putting her dress in the same bin she put the gourmet cookbooks 2 years, 3 months, and almost 24 days ago.

She was optimistic though. It was now almost 1 day since her first “first date” after her divorce. Her last date ended her marriage; her first “first date” was to a funeral. Her next “first date” could only get better.

In the kitchen she spotted some bottles of merlot sitting on the kitchen bench. The waiter was there, packing the bottles away into a crate.

“Can I have one of those?” she asked impulsively.

The waiter looked up at her.

“I don’t think the host will mind,” he smiled, handing a merlot to her.