Read Online The Final Arrangement by Annie Adams - Free Book Online

on it signaled her annoyance at having to stop reading her book.  She said nothing but continued to glare at me, her eyes saying, “What the hell do you want?”
    “Hi, my name is Quincy McKay.  I’m from Rosie’s Posies in Hillside.”
    Her probably late forty-ish body, which looked more late sixty-ish, started to heave and rock, presumably in order to get her legs moving off of the table.  I couldn’t imagine how she got them up there in the first place.  She sighed heavily as she snapped her paperback shut and used her now free hand to grab the table after some major coaxing of her stomach muscles to lean forward.  It wasn’t exactly that her body was that much overweight, at least not to the point of being morbidly obese, it just seemed to be quite underused.  She exhaled loudly and I couldn’t tell if it was more a communication to me of her annoyance or a forcing of air out of her lungs as she rocked forward once and again in order to build up the inertia to sit up.
    “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother you,” I stammered. 
    “Djuh need a funeral arrangement or somethin’?”  She asked, out of breath. 
    “I um…  No, I’m from another flower shop in Hillside and I thought I would come to offer my condolences.” 
    “Oh.  Yeah, okay.”  She looked as if she were going to try and sit back down and kick up her legs, and while I would’ve loved to see how she could possibly accomplish that gravity-defying feat, I couldn’t ignore my mission. 
    “So, do you work here all the time?”
    “Eight days a week,” she deadpanned with her ten-Camels-a-day voice.
    “I bet it’s been hard for you with all that’s been going on around here.” 
    “Phew, you’re telling me.  People have been calling almost non-stop.  Yesterday I had to take the phone off the hook." 
    She squinted and cocked her head to the side as if trying to retrieve a thought.  A long pause ensued. 
    “Oh my good hell!”  She shouted, followed by a phlegmy, wheezy, cackle.  “I guess I forgot to turn that damned thing back on!”  She ambled over to the phone, where the handset sat on the counter next to the base.  She hesitated, opting not to replace it, and instead walked back to the high-legged chair and gahlumped down again.  “Yeah, it’s been quite a zoo around here.  Except that I haven’t had a single order since then.  Been able to catch up on some stories.”  She picked up the paperback.  “You ever read these romance novels?  I quite like ‘em.” 
    “Well actually, the reason I’m here, if I can be honest with you,” I changed my tone as if offering something in confidence, “I was wondering, do you know who the mortuary is going to call for flowers now that, well you know, Derrick and all?” 
    “Oh hell honey, I have no idea.  Absolutely none.  To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I showed up today.  I just wanted to see if my paycheck would get here.  I’ve been waitin’ for it for four days now.  It’s late for the second month in a row.  I’ve quit countin’ on Derrick to show up with it.” 
    Especially now, I thought to myself.  “Oh, did Derrick use a payroll service?”  Unless he had, I didn’t see how she would be getting her check after her boss had been found in a box.  Maybe she expected his ghost to bring it by. 
    “He used one until about three months ago.  Then they started calling everyday asking if he was here, which he never was of course.  They finally said if he didn’t pay his bill, they weren’t going to send us any paychecks.” 
    “It seems like you guys were pretty busy all the time from all the arrangements I’ve seen at the mortuaries.  Are there other employees that aren’t getting their checks?" 
    “It’s just me and sometimes my daughter.  Like I said, he was hardly ever around, so I did all the designs and once in a while my daughter would help.”
    “Wow, that seems like a lot of work for just one or two