The Lost Queen of Crocker County: A Novel

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  When I finally get out of the car and enter Happy Days Funeral Home, it does not smell like death. It smells like casseroles. This is the midwestern way to console; flowers are just not practical. I imagine dozens and dozens of them—tater tot, hamburger pie, tuna noodle, and other mothers’ versions of Mom’s died-and-gone-to-heaven scalloped corn casserole—lined up in Happy Days’ main room, in the form of neighborly, rectangular mourners bathed in butter.

  Happy greets me at the door, and despite his name and the funeral home’s name, looks neither like the Fonz nor one of the seven dwarfs. He is a very tall Vietnamese man wearing a very outdated suit in the middle of rural America. Yet another surprise in this land that I thought had no surprises.

  “Willow,” I say and shake his hand. “Jane Willow.”

  Happy lets out a subdued, “Janie,” like it’s an apology. There is something off about him. He cups his other hand around both of ours. These are the same hands that touched my parents as he prepared their bodies for this day. An achy cold shoots through me, which is when I realize I’m still wearing all four of Mom’s cardigans. I should take them off, but if I do, that means there will be no more lilacs, no more Mom.

  Happy turns out to be the antithesis of his name. His pouty countenance makes way for his childlike, melancholy voice. “Such a sad, sad day.”

  Isn’t he supposed to keep things positive? Isn’t there a class in mortuary school devoted to distracting the mourners so they forget how damn sad they are? I force a half smile. “Trying to keep it together. For my parents.”

  His eyes widen. He places his hand on his chest in the “oh dear” position and begins to shake his head. Then he takes my hand. “Janie,” he says quietly, pathetically, like I am mentally challenged, like he knows something I don’t. “Your parents are…dead.”

  Hearing this and seeing the confused look on my face, a woman wearing an apron over her church dress flutters over to us. “Now, Happy, we talked about this. Don’t upset the mourner, remember?” The woman whispers to me, “He’s got the mind of a seven-year-old but the heart of an old soul.”

  It turns out Happy is the one who’s mentally challenged. “Why… What…”

  The woman puts her hand on my shoulder. “Happy’s part of True City’s Special Jobs for Special People program. Happy’s dad, Happy Sr., ran Happy Days for years, but he recently passed away, God rest his soul, so Happy Jr. here is helping out. Happy gets lonely. He’s an adopted only child.”

  I want to ask why they don’t just make him a greeter at the Walmart, but then I remember there is no Walmart here, no Starbucks, no cynicism. Midwesterners historically see the best in people. They always find a place for everyone.

  I grimace and softly say, “Should he be touching dead bodies?”

  The woman adjusts her apron and raises her strong, ungroomed brow. “I hardly think they mind, darlin’. Plus, Hank over there”—she points with her head, and Hank raises his hand to say hello—“has been taking care of the embalming since Happy Sr. passed. Happy Jr. just talks to the deceased. I think it makes him feel better, ya know?”

  I am officially in the Twilight Zone—not the Rod Serling, quirky television version, but the John Landis do-you-want-to-see-something-really-scary film version—and here’s how I know I’m in another dimension: My parents are dead. A six-foot-four man-child of a funeral director named Happy, who possibly has a G.I. Joe action figure in his pocket, probably had a better conversation with my parents today than I have had in years. Farmers and little girls, strangers, know me better than I know myself. All the while, the Music Man prepares to sing and dance his way in and out of True City’s hearts and minds and into my dreams. So as it turns out, there is another dimension, but it doesn’t lie in either fear or intellect; it lies in the middle, the heartland, between a willow tree guarding my shame and two giant grain silos that I swear are watching over me. This is the dimension of reinvention, my home, redefined, revised. It is an area which we call…Iowa.

  Happy lowers his head but keeps eye contact with me and speaks like he’s rehearsed it. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He looks to the woman for assurance of a job well done.

  I hand him a CD I’ve burned just for today, and he tells me there’s no sound system, that’s for the fancy funeral homes, but he’s brought his very own stereo system today just for me.

  “Thank you,” I say, for Sid. “I’ve got everything else lined up. This is the last thing.” I clear the regret from my throat. “I’m not letting them down. Not this time.”

  My parents, I want to explain, but somehow Happy, who shouldn’t know, now knows. He pats my shoulder, one parentless child consoling another.

  Just when I think it is Tim Burton who has been following me around with a camera, transforming the plain, predictable home I used to know into some fantastical, macabre landscape as only true auteur could, the master shot changes into a slow pan of the room, a Wes Anderson-inspired collection of misfits—my parents’ funeral attendees posing as Royal Tenenbaums stand-ins—a father and son in matching track suits, a woman in her house coat and work boots, a man in an Elks’ Club sweater and cowboy hat, and yet another in his letterman jacket from 1959 over top of freshly soiled overalls.

  I glance down at Mother’s sky-blue cardigan, one of the four that I’ve layered over my black Betsey Johnson dress, and realize I have more in common with the characters in this scene than not. This ensemble, no doubt a disgrace to my three-hundred-dollar shoes, would have gotten me laughed off an LA street, but the ever-present smell of lilacs makes me forget that. I reach into the pocket and pull out a neatly folded handkerchief—one I knew would be there—and dab at my messy mascara to avoid looking like the predictable, grief-stricken only child.

  By now, the entire town has arrived. Happy has opened up the two extra rooms, and since it is late summer, not yet harvest-cold, they’ve opened up the double doors and placed metal folding chairs they’d borrowed from the Lutheran church on the outside patio. There was a small service on Friday, but my parents would not have wanted two big events devoted to them. That is to say, never be a damn nuisance, kid.

  “Janie.” A woman touches my shoulder and gently takes my hand as I move through the whispering throng. When I see her face, I feel like a child back from summer camp.

  “Mrs. Davis.” Without thinking, I hug the woman, my other mother growing up, and for a few seconds, forget to let go. “Is Charlotte here?”

  “She’ll be ’round later. She’s got her hands full on the farm with Steve gone and all.” And because I’ve been gone so long, Mrs. Davis had to explain. “Pheasant season.”

  “Of course.” I try not to think about how many times my childhood best friend Charlotte has sent me Christmas cards over the years, none of which I reciprocated. “I heard the house has become some sort of tourist attraction—tell me she’s charging admission.”

  Mrs. Davis shook her head. “My home…a circus sideshow.” Her home, the house Charlotte now raised her family in, was the birthplace of Grant Wood and the backdrop for the iconic American Gothic painting.

  I search the room for words to break the tension. “Lots of casseroles.”

  “Hot dishes.” Mrs. Davis squints a bit as if she felt sorry for my forgetting the proper term.

  Used to being the corrector, not the corrected, I give Mrs. Davis a polite but awkward half hug and make my way toward the main room. I feel the crowd watch me, taking in what they can see of my dress, much shorter than everyone else’s, and my leg line, much thinner.

  “Guess they don’t eat much out in that Los Angeles,” I hear a woman whisper as I walk by.

  I glance down at a body that is ten pounds heavier than it ought to be and remember these people consider butter a food group.

  “At least she has the good sense to have a cardigan on, what with this weather comin’ and all,” I hear another woman say back, “but Good Lor
d, she must be cold, she’s wearing enough of them to clothe half the Ladies Auxiliary Club.”

  As I pass, I see a woman in her own black cardigan look toward the reception room and say, “I don’t think I used enough butter in the hot dish I brought.” Shaking her head, she adds, “I hope they don’t run out of the fancy paper plates.”

  Happy appears from a back room. “It’s time to celebrate,” he says and rings a cowbell—an actual cowbell—and the entire population of True City, whether they were in the main room, the patio, or adding butter to hot dishes, hush. Happy turns up the volume on a small amp, and then taps on a corded microphone until it thumps. “Friends,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment to remember the next memorized part, “it’s time to celebrate the lives of Jack and Mary Willow.”

  With no hesitation, an endless line forms behind Happy and his microphone. Dozens of almost-familiar people take polite turns talking about my parents. The six-o-clock supper siren had blared at the beginning of the “celebration” and now I see the sun setting as the mini eulogies play out like a well-edited montage.

  The whole room nods while Stew Jenkins boasts about Mother’s food drives and the hundreds of young people she’d helped put through college with her philanthropy. By the time he begins to rattle off just what Dad meant to True City, I start to wobble in my heels, not from exhaustion, but from a combination of pent-up pride and shame.

  “Jack Willow was the only guy I know who could convince you it was totally appropriate to swear in church.” Stew laughs. “He wasn’t a religious man—only went to church to see his friends.” Stew looks out the window. “There they are.” He points to the silos, standing tall and firm, together forever. “Jack and Mary held us up.” He pauses. “True City has a crack. We’re wide open today.”

  Stew hands the microphone to the last person in line, Larry Peterson. He speaks in slow succession, sure of every word as he defines Dad—his best friend. “Jack Willow: Justice-bringer. Peacemaker. Confidant. Mayor. Weekend farmer. Parade director. Elks’ Club president. Benefactor. Story-time host. Prankster.” He smiles. “Friend. Jack liked having the last word, but since he can’t this time, I’ll speak for him, which he truly would’ve hated.” The crowd grows quiet. “He’d say, ‘Mary and I are just fine; don’t worry about us. We’re happy. That is to say’”—and with that, the crowd erupts in smiles—“‘we’re flying high.’”

  Larry lowers the microphone for a moment, and then brings it back up as if he’s going off the script. “You know what I loved about Jack and Mary the most? They both had the daggum, hair-brained notion that they could will anything to happen. They believed anything was possible. They did things that mattered.” Larry lets the silence grow thick. “That is to say”—his voice now sounds like he’s lost his best friend—“the sky’s the limit. Believe so.”

  I turn my head away from the crowd to blink away potential tears as Larry hands Happy the microphone. The heaviness of the day pounds in my head. This is almost over. I will do what I came to do as people begin to exit, then sneak out the back.

  But instead of the crowd getting louder and dispersing, it suddenly gets funeral-home quiet. When I turn, I’m startled to find Happy an inch from my face, breathing his mid-funeral tuna casserole snack on me.

  “Fuck, Happy!” I say under my breath. But the words aren’t under my breath. Without my knowing, Happy has plopped the microphone right in front of my foul mouth so that all of God-fearing True City can hear my always-inappropriate-under-pressure self say the f-word on Happy’s highest volume.

  “Bad word!” Happy scolds, covering his ears, and drops the microphone on the floor with an amplified clunk.

  Chapter Eleven

  A woman wearing a Carhartt jacket over her dress blurts, “Gads-zukes!” a favorite curse word in this part of Iowa. “Is she drunk?”

  Oh, how I wish I was drunk.

  I hear a man explain, “She’s from Los Angeles,” and the crowd around him lets out a collective understanding with nods and aahs.

  Fuck Happy. And Peaceful. And Content. And Hopeful, while we’re at it.

  “I guess she used to be funny and clever when she was young,” another woman tells her husband, loud enough for me to hear. “Now she’s just mean, rumor has it. Writes things about movies. Is that even a job?”

  I’m right here! Do you think I can’t hear your mean little critiques?

  I usually observe others’ mistakes, but right now a naughty little halo hovers above me, and I look out at the crowd like an uninvited child who’s crashed a birthday party.

  Happy is not happy. He looks at me like the ungrateful child I am, picks up the microphone, and then dangles it until I take it.

  Dad fathers me from afar. Fix it, kid. That is to say, make it right.

  “Um, thank you,” I force out, “for coming.” Uncomfortable silence and disapproving stares compete for attention until the microphone screams out a mean feedback screech that I know I deserve. “My parents were a lot of things to a lot of people.” I look out and now recognize Henrietta, the town librarian; Dr. Nance; and Mrs. Jones, my high school history teacher who has a kind, pitiful smile on her face. I let out an honest laugh, try to softly say, “Who knew that you could be so many things here,” but it comes out loud and clear, so much so that a few skeptics have begun to show traces of affirmation.

  I need to say goodbye and get the hell out of here.

  But my grip on the microphone only tightens, and to my own surprise, I begin to talk with intention. “Did you know”—I smile, looking up at the people who had spent their entire lives with my parents—“that Dad never complained when Mom turned off James Bond so she could watch The Music Man? All he wanted to do was fantasize about shooting people in the kneecaps while wearing a sharp suit, but instead, he sang along with Harold, made her believe in the impossible.”

  I cling to the microphone cord like a lifeline. I conjure up Dad’s gruff delivery and say, “‘Believe so, kid,’” and my voice breaks. With this, Mrs. Douglas begins to cry, and Larry’s upper lip trembles as he proudly tries to sniff away the moment.

  I want to run, but I hear Mother’s voice: Work hard. Be nice.

  Mrs. Davis is on the verge of rescuing me when I muster up the strength to continue. “My mom told me that a girl knows she’s in love when she’ll ride on a tractor with a boy and not want to say a word. And with my dad, well, he liked to talk, so that worked well.”

  I concentrate on keeping the tears from unleashing. “They sure loved it here.” I hear the wind pick up outside and imagine the August breeze traveling in waves across the county, one cornfield, one family at a time. “And they loved each other. After all this time.” I try to disguise my quivering voice. “It’s a good thing they went together.”

  Then, with the closing credits of this tragedy looming, I realize what I need to say—what I’ve come here for. “I make a living from words. My dad always liked that. But sometimes words aren’t enough.” I decide to say exactly what each of my parents would’ve wanted to hear, what they deserved to hear. Here it goes. I look to the sky and say, “Mom, I’m home,” then straighten up tall. “And, Dad, here’s the song you requested many, many years ago,” I say, seeing him tap his foot in time, drumming his fingers on the roof of the Aston Martin. “That is to say, you’re right. Believe so, Dad.”

  I motion Happy to bring me what I’ve asked him for, and he delivers what he promised. It is ridiculous and perfect. Happy hoists up a giant boom box like he’s John Cusack on a mission. It is loaded with the CD that’s traveled five states to get here, and the song that transcends space and time.

  I blow out the two candles that are flickering by Mom and Dad’s pictures on the display table. Two tiny puffs of smoke billow into clouds much bigger than I expect them to be.

  It is time. I look over at the door and give a farmer nod as a signal. A boy lugging a standing bass l
eads in the rest—four trumpet players, a drummer, a French horn player, one flutist, one baritone saxophonist, one alto saxophonist, and twenty-three of True City’s finest singers.

  Just yesterday, I’d called the members of the True City high school band and choir to personally ask them if I could pay them for a favor. They all declined payment because Dad had raised money each year to send them to the Iowa State Fair, and they said he’d always given them more than they’d needed.

  But given what they are about to do for me—my father, really—I feel gratified to give them all the envelopes I have tucked in my purse. Inside each is a generous check, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times scholarship fund, to put toward their futures. I had thought about hiring professionals at first but heard Dad’s voice: Hell, kid, there’s nothing you can’t find in True City if you look close enough.

  I give Happy a wink, and he pushes Play. The room first fills with the sound of a schmaltzy snare drum, then deep notes plucked on a bass, and finally Frank Sinatra’s smooth, cool voice. “Fly Me to the Moon” rings out as clear and crisp as a full harvest moon. Frank sings of playing in the sky, life and love on faraway planets. That is to say, being in love.

  In a seamless, uniform maneuver, evidence of a late night’s practice, horns erupt in little sections all over the room—first trumpets, then the French horn, then the saxes, and like a little bird who wants to contribute to the song, the flute sings in airy little chirps—together, their small group plays like a big band. When Larry Peterson bobs his head and begins to snap his fingers, the citizens of True City follow suit, and soon Happy’s funeral parlor lives up to its name.

  The choir, planted strategically among the crowd, flash-mob style, explodes into perfect harmony and joins Frank on the second verse. This time around, Frank’s heart, Dad’s heart, is full, wanting to sing until the end of time, wanting his love to never die. That is to say, a love that lasts an eternity.