The Chapel Wars

by Lindsey Leavitt

  “How many Daxes are there? Maybe you should open the envelope and see if there’s a clue.” James fumbled in his pocket again, this time unveiling a Swiss Army knife.

  “Put that away,” I said. “You’ll hurt your hand.”

  “Everyone always says that and I never do.”

  James played the piano. He borderlined on prodigy. “Borderline” is a good overall descriptor for my brother.

  “Where’d you get a knife?” I asked.

  “Boy Scouts say you should always be prepared.”

  “Last time you went to Boy Scouts, you were eleven and your scoutmaster caught you smoking behind the rec center.”

  “Doesn’t mean I didn’t listen when they talked about things that mattered.” James stuck the knife into his back pocket.

  “Grandpa wouldn’t have sealed the envelope if he wanted me to read it. Besides, look at this.” There was an identical envelope inside addressed to me. This. This was what I’d been waiting for. Dreading. This letter would explain Dax, the inheritance, maybe even why Grandpa had to go and die when no one was ready for it. I eased my pinkie nail slowly along the fold, trying to keep the envelope as intact as possible. Grandpa Jim’s small, neat handwriting cut into the thick ivory paper.

  I counted the twenty-six “thes” appearing in the text, but it didn’t do much to stop the harsh burst of emotion. So strange, the way handwriting outlives a person.

  “If you want, I can leave you alone to read.” James’s face softened, like the handwriting had hit him too. “Get us some chili dogs.”

  My stomach was already twisted. Chili would not help. “No, no. I’ll read it out loud. I’ll stop if he says anything too, you know, personal.” I paused, rather dramatically I must say, and read.

  Holly Bean,

  If you are not already freaking out about the chapel, then your dad or Donna will for you. I’m sure it was a shock, but hey. At least you didn’t just take a defibrillator to the chest. There wasn’t a white light, by the way. I’m a little worried about that. Good thing I like warm weather, right?

  I’m doing this all wrong. No, I did this all wrong. The truth is, you’re not just inheriting the chapel. You’re inheriting a mess. It’s a problem that I’ve been trying to fix for years, and in that attempt, I made it worse.

  Let me explain: In the mid-2000s, the wedding business was booming. Literally, everyone and their mom was getting married (sometimes in back-to-back ceremonies). The money was ridiculous. Las Vegas started refinancing their loans, loans on their houses, on their businesses. Rose of Sharon was valued at double what I’d bought it for, so I refinanced the commercial mortgage with a balloon payment. Basically, I got a lot of money up front with the understanding that I would make small payments before paying a lump sum in seven years. I used that cash on the chapel. Okay, I also used the cash to take care of gambling debts and lost some more sports betting (stupid Lakers!), but most went to the chapel. Marble isn’t cheap, and with how things were rolling, there was no end in sight.

  Then the end became desperately visible. Apocalyptic. The economy crashed. People weren’t coming to Vegas to get married; they weren’t coming here period. Businesses failed, homes were lost. And the value the bank had put on my business didn’t exist anymore.

  I’ve been struggling to come up with money for the past couple of years and it’s just not there. My savings are wiped, my assets laughable. I paid myself scraps to get by so I could still get money to your parents and other employees. No one has seen the books. No one else knows what situation we are in.

  When it comes time to refinance this spring, I have to pay off the balloon payment or risk defaulting on the loan. They might refinance me again, but they will value the business at much less, and I will have to pay the difference back or lose the chapel.

  Here, the handwriting switched to a bubbly cursive.

  I’m feeling too weak to write, so I had this lovely nurse finish for me. Her name is Kiki. She’s a keeper. And beautiful. Hey, if I make it out of this surgery, can I take you out for a steak dinner?

  (From Kiki: Your grandpa has flirted with every nurse on this floor. He has a lot of steak dinners in his future.)

  I don’t know HOW you’re going to keep the chapel in business. You’ll have to talk to financial people, clue Donna in (I’m glad I’m dead so she can’t kill me). Come up with a game plan to make some money. Believe me, if I could have fixed it alone, I wouldn’t have to write this pathetic letter or the letter I need you to hand deliver to Dax Cranston.

  Anyway, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m leaving this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I’m sorry that your chances of success aren’t great. I’m sorry because if you’re reading this (and I really hope you never read this), it means I’m gone and our time together is gone too.

  I’m sorry.

  I love you, Holly Bean. You care about this chapel as much as I do. You know what this place means to our family. As for me, U2 said it best: “Home, I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home.”

  Grandpa Jim

  My brother’s eyes were wide and alien-like in the dim cell phone lighting. “I can’t believe he was dealing with all of that and he never told anyone.”

  My throat felt like I’d swallowed James’s Swiss Army knife. “Me too. He was … he was drowning. Since we were kids. The whole time we’ve known him, like, really known him, he’s been dealing with this.”

  “Poor Grandpa.” For all my brother’s toughness, he was a sweet kid. Reminded me of Pony Boy from that old book/movie The Outsiders. He talked big but had these chubby little cheeks. No matter what he did, I figured his cheeks would save him from too much destruction. Unless he joined a gang and they started to call him Baby Face. “That was probably the last thing he ever wrote.”

  “If the chapel closes …” I swallowed that painful “if.”

  “It’s just a building.”

  “No, it’s home.”

  James tossed a rock into the lake. “Home isn’t a place, Holls.”

  I folded up the envelope, then smoothed out the four creases. Folded, unfolded. How desperate did he have to be to leave a failing business to his seventeen-year-old granddaughter?

  James dumped half a bag of the seeds into his mouth and chomped, shells and all. His cheeks bulged. “Well, at least we know one thing.”

  One thing. One thing was a start. One thing could turn this crushing burden into a ray of hope. “What?”

  “You’re so going to screw this up.”

  Chapter 3

  I woke up Saturday and enjoyed a good three seconds before I remembered that my grandpa was dead, just like he had been the morning before, and today … today I was going to attend his funeral. I stared at my alarm clock for five minutes, watching each minute march along, marveling at the power of time to just keep happening no matter what was going on in the world, no matter who was dying or living.

  We had to take a hearse to the funeral. Grandpa Jim said he had to pay for one anyway, might as well get the full use. The vintage car had removable seats, so we all fit, but no seat belts. Irony there, riding a death trap to a funeral. Of course, the seats would need to be removed to fit a casket en route to the gravesite, and our family would have to bum rides.

  The sun shone manically, oblivious. I leaned against the window of the hearse and tried to block out my mom’s voice. She was dreading this as much as her children were, but instead of the normal reaction of sullen silence, my mother prattled. At least she was trying something, which was more than I could say for my dad. He sat in the front with the driver, talking football like this was some leisurely Sunday drive.

  “Your grandfather asked that all flowers be ordered through your subcontractor, what’s her name?” Mom asked.

  “Flowers by Michelle. Or Bunny’s Boutique when Michelle’s schedule is packed.” I kept my eyes glued out the window, no matter how much I wanted to squint.

  “Right. Michelle. Well, she was so touched t
hat she’s offering us a discount now for a year. The wedding community is great that way. Jim knew how to reach out.”

  Prattle. Prattle. Prattle. The responsibility of the chapel was almost as crushing as the funeral, so why did we have to talk about either?

  “Mom,” Lenore interrupted. “It’s clear to all parties that you’re trying to diffuse the situation by filling the void with mundane details.”

  “Lenore,” Dad called from the front. That’s all he ever said, “Lenore,” like stating her name would magically change who she inherently was.

  “I just think we’re entitled to our grief,” Lenore mumbled. James nibbled on a hangnail, his cuticles a short, bloody mess.

  I picked off the sixteen pieces of lint on my skirt, wondering if it really was grief that Lenore was feeling and if that grief was anything like my own sharp hollowness. Whatever emotion was puncturing my insides, it was something I should be allowed to feel inside, not something to display at a funeral. We shouldn’t have to be in this hearse right now, we shouldn’t have to be around anyone; we should have quiet or solitude or music or patches of grass. Whatever we needed. Individually.

  Instead, we had a whole day of dreary events, beginning with the family reception. “It’ll be an intimate gathering area,” Mom said, quoting verbatim the package pitch for the large meeting room behind the chapel. Over the past week, she’d carried around the mortuary’s brochure in her purse until the creases ripped.

  The wallpapered room was divided into work people, poker pals, U2 cover band members, and family, which was further divided by the invisible line between my parents that they swore did not exist.

  Then there was a boy by the entrance who didn’t seem to fit into any group. He was ungroupable. Unclassified. Aloof, alone … unworldly.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets, shirtsleeves rolled. His hair was cut so short it was almost buzzed, and although he was average height at best, he was possibly an inch or two taller than me. Built, though. I could see that even in his dress shirt.

  He didn’t look like he knew anyone in the room or anyone knew him. Also, and I’m probably shallow for noticing this at a funeral, but he was not the ugliest guy I had ever seen. If looks were America and ugly was Los Angeles, this boy was comfortably Kentucky. West Virginia when he smiled.

  He glanced up and caught me staring, and although I should have looked back at a picture of Grandpa’s high school graduation, instead my instinct was to do this really lame … wave. And it was totally one of those moments where he looked behind him, because I did not know him, so why would I wave at him, right? But grief makes you do odd things at awkward times because you’ve forgotten how to act like a functioning human being. This boy happened to be within my age range and, again, not ugly, and I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to talk to someone about something besides that time when I was five and Grandpa Jim made me sing at his wedding to his second wife, a story I’d already heard three times today.

  I took a quick swallow of my cranberry cocktail and was working out this whole explanation, that my grandpa had this secret handshake that started with a wave and ended with air pumps, and I’d be happy to teach it to him. We’d laugh, but softly, because we were still aware of our surroundings. Then the funeral director would come to escort the family and I would say, “That’s me.” He’d give me a go-get-’em-tiger look, and I would never see him again, but that would be okay, because at least I was more in his memory than just a wave.

  The boy (who wasn’t really a boy, maybe a man … an inbetween boy/man) looked back at me and instead of waving did a salute. It was the only possible thing worse than my wave, which made it the perfect gesture. I was about to head over and teach him my new secret handshake when he slipped into the hallway. I actually started to follow him before Sam and Camille blocked my exit.

  “Holly!” Camille waved. Full force.

  I blinked at my friends. It took a second for me to process that they were there, that people were really communicating with me, that I was standing where I was. “Hey, guys.”

  Sam crossed the room in three monstrous steps and gave me a bear hug. I stood there stiffly as he gathered me up. I breathed in that mix of piney soap and fruit Mentos that was Sam. “There’s a country song, Garth Brooks, ‘The Dance,’ that says—”

  “That song’s depressing,” Camille said. “Don’t be depressing.”

  “I’m just saying, if Holly wants to cry or talk, do it now, before the big sob fest starts.”

  They both stared at me expectantly, like I really was going to break down. And I wavered for a second, almost told them about the money problems that I didn’t even understand. But for what? What would it do? Make me think about it more? That wasn’t even possible. It’s like a neon sign was lit in my brain flashing CHAPEL! CHAPEL! CHAPEL! every six or seven seconds. “I’m … I’m whatever. It’s a funeral.”

  “And it sucks.” Sam reached down and tugged my hair like he used to during middle school math competitions. “Don’t forget that part, Holls.”

  Camille sat on the edge of a wingback chair because that’s all the space she took up. She was the girl who ate a half piece of gum and couldn’t finish a whole soda to save her life. It wasn’t a diet thing, she was just a Victorian lady like that. “I was going to get you something,” she said out of nowhere. “Like, for support? But I didn’t know what to get. I’ve never had someone in my life die. So how has it been so far? On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst.”

  “Seventy-four. Seventy-five if you count the fact that Victor Cranston still needs to show up.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Camille said. “Do we hate him?”

  I loved how she did that. Declared someone her enemy if I told her to, as some strange display of loyalty. She did that with Sam too, asked which bands they liked, what they thought on different political issues.

  Sam shifted. “Cranston’s the guy who owns the Cupid’s Dream Chapel.”

  “Oh, we do hate him then, right?” She twisted a strand of strawberry blond hair.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Well, sort of, since I’ve never actually talked to him. If hate were a person, we’d be second cousins.”

  “First cousins for me. Maybe even an uncle,” I said.

  “Did your grandpa mention Cranston in the Instructions?” Sam asked.

  “What instructions?” Camille asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “Cranston is supposed to show up drunk and make some shameful public display. I’m surprised Grandpa didn’t print it in the program.”

  Sam guffawed. A man cleared his throat behind us. Sam wasn’t trying to be irreverent, he just didn’t know how to laugh softly. “Remember that time Jim sent him cheap wine for Christmas with that note? ‘Cheap wine for a whiney cheap.’ ”

  I cracked a smile. “Cranston came over waving that bottle. Thought he would smash it on Grandpa’s head.”

  “When was this?” Camille asked.

  “I don’t know, Clarice was still working here.”

  “Remember Clarice?” I asked.

  “I think Donna fired her because she didn’t know what an alpaca is.”

  “She called it a llama.” I laughed. “That’s when Donna started hanging up all those alpaca calendars around the office, like she was going to educate Clarice.”

  Camille stuck out her bottom lip in a mock pout. “You guys have so many memories together.”

  “Camille, we have memories too.” Sam rubbed her shoulder. “Different memories.”

  Hooking-up memories. Our friends called Sam and Camille “Peter and Cottontail” because those two were always going at it. Camille was homeschooled, with crazy-strict parents, so she wasn’t actually even supposed to date Sam. They’d had this secret, forbidden relationship since the beginning of last year. It was all very romantic/dramatic/stupid, but I loved Sam, so as a favor, I begged Grandpa to give Camille a job working clerical. The number-one problem was Camille sucked at the job. She was great wi
th people, but she misfiled things all the time and was terrible with the computer program. Grandpa kept threatening to fire her, but he didn’t have it in him.

  Now I guess Camille had more job security since I was the boss.

  Ugh. I was the boss.

  The funeral director cleared his throat. “Friends and family, as per Jim Nolan’s Instructions, we’ll now make our way into the chapel for the memorial service. His body will be available for viewing afterward. Graveside service is for immediate family only. Oh, and the bar will remain open until four this afternoon.”

  An open bar at a funeral.

  I hoped this was the end of his crazy Instructions. The end after I delivered that letter to Dax Cranston, of course.

  Chapter 4

  I wish I could say the program was meaningful and special, but an hour of watery remembrances paled in comparison to the man my grandpa was. Plus, the open bar made everyone sloppy, and it was hard to tell if some of the memories were real or fictionalized.

  Afterward, my bleary-eyed dad ushered the guests to the reflection room to ruminate over Grandpa Jim’s legacy/get more drunk. Still no sign of the mortal enemy, which meant someone else was needed to do something dramatically stupid to appease my grandpa’s ghost. With this crowd, I wasn’t too worried.

  Mom pulled me away and nodded to the door. “The viewing room is empty. Why don’t you say your good-byes?”

  “I did. Before he passed.” I looked away. “He’s gone, Mom.”

  “He’s not gone for good. Just gone from here. Go on in. It’ll help.”

  I sat in a foldout chair across from the casket, trying to muster the courage for a chat. The room was chilly, filled with dying flowers to cover up the scent of a dead person. The program may have been upbeat, but that didn’t change the fact that everyone else got to walk out of that room and Grandpa would be in his faux gold box forever.

  I chipped the black polish on three fingernails before I finally approached the casket. Grandpa Jim looked like a shriveled Bono from U2—red hair dyed black and cut short, with the signature tinted sunglasses, skin waxy and cold. I’d fought Mom and Dad on the open-casket thing and obviously lost. They said it brought emotional closure. Whatever—if they wanted healing, then the casket should be the thing closing, forget emotions.