Elvis and The Dearly Departed. Peggy Webb

believe her. She’d never win anybody’s Mother of the Year Award, but she has taught me to value the things that really count—family, friends, and a faithful dog.

      “All right, Mama,” I tell her now. “But just one more time.”

      “I promise.”

      Pigs are likely to grow wings and fly before Mama keeps that promise, and both of us know it. But we laugh and pretend otherwise because that’s the Southern way: look on the bright side, no matter what.

      One hour, two BC powders, and an act of God later—a big thunderclap that has driven the California Latons inside—I’m in Uncle Charlie’s office at Eternal Rest.

      “You look a bit frazzled, dear heart,” Uncle Charlie tells me.

      When he hugs me it’s like being embraced by a combination of Santa Claus and a Sicilian godfather who wouldn’t hesitate to cut off the head of an enemy’s prized racehorse and put it in his bed.

      “I’m fine, Uncle Charlie.” Not exactly the truth, but I don’t like to worry him. He takes his job as head of the Valentine family seriously.

      “If all the Latons are here, we’ll commence.”

      “Everybody’s here except Bevvie.”

      “And where is she?”

      “Hunting big game in the African bush with an arsenal of weapons that would make the U.S. Army green with envy.” Lovie struts into the office sporting a hickey on her neck and a hairdo that looks like it was styled by a Mix Master. Red. Titian number six. Compliments of yours truly. “I pumped the information out of Kevin.”

      “Well, good for you, sweetheart.”

      Uncle Charlie offers both of us an arm, and if he’s aware of Lovie’s double entendre, we’ll never know. He can win your new Cadillac in a poker game and make you think he’s doing you a favor, wear a fifty-dollar suit and make you believe it’s designer, show off a niece and a daughter with a dubious family tree and make you think we’re blue-blooded aristocracy. “Shall we go into the viewing room and unveil the good doctor?”

      The Latons are waiting for us in the sitting area off the viewing room. The rowdy Mims teenagers are lined up like bowling pins behind their daddy, Bradford, the middle-aged jock type, who has his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Janice Laton Mims showed more emotion over her defaced Prada purse than she’s showing over her deceased daddy. Of course, it could be her face-lift. Her skin’s stretched so tight she can hardly blink, let alone move her mouth.

      Mellie, too, is composed—her patent leather purse clutched in her lap, lips and legs pressed tightly together. Wearing glasses that went out of style with Herbert Hoover, she looks like she wouldn’t say boo to a fence post.

      And I won’t even comment on the doctor’s adopted son, Kevin. A hunk, granted. Lovie naturally gravitates toward brawn.

      Uncle Charlie seats Lovie and me in two wingback chairs, then moves to the front of the room.

      “Dr. Leonard Laton was a brilliant man and an asset to our town. It’s an honor to assist you in making his journey to the hereafter memorable.”

      Leading us into the viewing room, Uncle Charlie sweeps open the casket to display the late doctor in his final splendor.

      Janice screams, Mellie faints, and Kevin says, “I didn’t know the old boy still had it in him.”

      In plain view on Dr. Laton’s chest is a pair of red sequined pasties.

      Uncle Charlie slams the lid shut. While I fan Mellie, Lovie plucks the pasties out of the casket.

      “I was wondering where I left those.” Any fool can see she’s lying. These pasties wouldn’t fit Lovie’s fist, let alone the ballistic missiles she likes to show off with low-cut blouses. “I was in the casket trying it out for size.”

      “Kinky,” Kevin says, and Janice whacks him with her Prada purse.

      “I’m sure Uncle Charlie will get to the bottom of this,” I say. “Meanwhile, the powder rooms are right down the hall. After we freshen up we’ll retire to the reception room for some of Lovie’s good food.”

      Janice perks up at this information. No self-respecting survivor would put Kentucky Fried chicken and potato salad featuring mustard on the table when they can have shrimp jambalaya, grits soufflé, and Prohibition punch made by the most famous caterer in Tupelo, if not the whole state of Mississippi.

      I leave the Laton sisters in the powder room pressing wet handkerchiefs to their foreheads and putting on hot-pink lipstick that doesn’t match a thing they’re wearing. Then I race toward the kitchen.

      Lovie tosses me a bottle of bourbon. “Quick, Callie, dump some in.”

      “Where?”

      “Everywhere.” She’s emptying a vodka bottle into the punch and I pour in the bourbon.

      If we’re lucky the Latons won’t even remember their names tonight, let alone that the late Dr. Laton was in possession of a set of red pasties complete with tassels.

      Dr. Laton’s funeral will be memorable, all right. But for all the wrong reasons.

      Chapter 2

      Hairdos, Body Heat, and Bubbles Malone

      After yesterday’s fracas at the funeral home, it’s a relief to go to work.

      I never meant to settle here in spite of the local saying, “When you die, if you’re lucky you go to Mooreville, Mississippi.” After college I was going to move to Atlanta, make a life for myself as wife, mother, and pillar of the community, and a name for myself as a hairstylist.

      But Mama had to have knee surgery, and my best friend and cohort in crime (as Lovie and I call ourselves) had started a catering business she didn’t want to leave. Plus, this great little shop came up for sale.

      This is my domain, the one little segment of my life that’s completely manageable. I renamed the shop Hair.Net and installed a manicurist’s station (sans manicurist, which I can never afford until I pay off my mortgage and my credit card bill at Lucky’s Designer Shoes).

      Mama’s Everlasting Monuments is conveniently located next door (or inconveniently, depending on the day).

      Now I’m here rolling the hair of one of my regulars, while Elvis snoozes nearby.

      Personally I’d prefer to be giving Bitsy a modern cut and a blow-dry, but I pride myself on three things: keeping my mouth shut, satisfying my customers, and wearing cute shoes.

      This is life as I know and love it. Outside, a Peterbilt rig puts on air brakes at Mooreville’s one and only four-way stop, the King’s hit “All Shook Up” blares from the video store next door on my right, and Elvis rouses from his nap in the sunshine by the front door to howl.

      “Good Lord.” Bitsy covers her ears, and Elvis, sniffing with disdain, sashays toward the break room and the comfort of his duck-down doggie bed.

      In this lazy ebb and flow of my days I can almost forget that I lost Jack Jones to a Harley, my prospects of children and financial solvency get dimmer every day, and the California Latons are sleeping off Lovie’s punch in my upstairs guest bedroom.

      Mama breezes in with a five-hundred-dollar plate of brownies. That’s the way I’ve learned to look at the loans I make to subsidize her predilection for poker chips.

      I give her the cash and she gives me a hug. Plus, unsolicited advice.

      “Honey, now that you’ve cut Jack loose, women are drooling all over him.”

      She worships the quicksand he walks on.

      “Mama, I don’t care.” Unfortunately, this is not true. “Don’t forget to shut the back door on your way out.”

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