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3
Sage
Sage wasn’t sure whether to laugh at the man’s almond comment. Surely he didn’t seriously think almonds possessed milk extraction points like an udder on a cow?
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I haven’t been myself since my husband’s accident. I meant to bring the contract, not my shopping list.”
Irving looked at her with disappointment, more disappointment than she thought appropriate. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why would you come here if you don’t want to go any further? Why go to all the trouble of filling out the paperwork? This operation does generate a dreadful amount of paperwork, I must admit,” he continued. He studied her for a moment. In the soft light of the chandeliers, his eyes almost appeared silver.
Sage was so transfixed with his beauty, she forgot to speak. What was even more mesmerizing about him was his soft, slightly accented voice. His speech flowed in a song-like quality, and she couldn’t quite pin what kind of accent he had. But, of course, it didn’t matter where he was from. All that mattered was her husband’s funeral.
Evidently, she needed to explain herself further. She couldn’t be the only person who’d found themselves with insufficient funds for a funeral. “The thing is−” she started to speak, only to be silenced as Irving leaned intimately close to her. Sage’s heart skipped a beat, her face flushing. For a swift moment, she thought he was going in for a kiss. She found herself exhaling heavily when he instead adjusted the earring on her right earlobe.
“Good god that was driving me batty,” Irving proclaimed. A look of horror came over him and he quickly corrected himself. “No, not batty. I don’t mean that in a literal sense of course.”
“What?” Perplexed, Sage fingered the crescent moon stud he’d adjusted. His hands had felt abnormally cold.Why would I take that phrase at face value? Of course, he’s not going to turn into a bat.Irving Garrow was certainly a peculiar man, though, his oddness was different from the other two men she’d spoken to that night. He was strange, but not in a creepy way. His quirkiness was charming, innocent, even.
“The earring was crooked,” Irving explained. “It was very distracting.”
“Right…” Sage said, absently. She stared over Irving’s left shoulder to find the other two men who had entered the chapel with him, bumping fists while watching her. Irving followed her gaze, immediately groaning when he realized who she was looking at.
“Ignore them,” he stated. “You would think five centuries would be enough time for them to mature.” He laughed, bitterly. “Alas, my brothers are as childish as ever.”
Five centuries?Sage gaped at Irving. “I think that’s the biggest most specific hyperbole I’ve ever heard,” she stated.
Get to the point already!Mark’s impatient tone rang in her ears. Sage tended to go on tangents and get distracted. In Mark’s words, she was a scramble-brained mess but these days she liked to think of herself as creatively side-tracked. You say potato, I say potato right?
She gathered her wits, taking a moment to arrange her thoughts. The last thing she wanted to do was offend Irving by telling him she no longer wanted him to conduct her husband’s funeral service. “The thing is,” she began, “I’m not canceling the contract because I think you’re incompetent…”
“I beg your pardon!” Irving shot from his chair, peeved by her words.
Sage cursed her use of terminology.You moron!She thought in self-deprecation. By attempting to spare Irving’s feelings she’d only succeeded in pissing him off beyond belief.
“Who told you I’m incompetent?” he demanded. “From which of these knaves did you hear that filthy rumor?” he fumed, gesticulating to the other women sitting around him. “I’ll have you know I am very competent. I’ve got at least two inches of length on all these other mother-suckers!” He seemed to settle himself when he noticed the others staring at him in contempt. Flustered, he returned to his seat, frantically smoothing his hair back. In a much calmer voice, he said, “I am perfectly capable behind closed doors.”
His mad display had Sage completely on edge. Never had she heard someone use such bewildering speech.Mother-suckers? Two inches of length?Irving Garrow was completely insane, but what was more insane was the fact that Sage found herself inexplicably taken by him. “Listen, I−I’m sure you could nail it,” she said, sheepishly. She then realized how awkward her phrasing was.
Irving chuckled somewhat maniacally. “Now you flatter me. Tell me, because I’m dying to know−not literally of course, because I can’t die−who told you about my nailing? Was it Stacey? It’s been a long time since I nailed. I’m both a shower and a grower. I thought I’d warn you of that beforehand, as it tends to shock people.”
Sage nodded. “I must admit this place is a spectacle. I was shocked myself when the receptionist showed me here.”
“Oh, please,” Irving said, waving his hand in dismissal, “the wanton extravagance of this place has me wrought with melancholia on the best of days.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sage responded. It must have been depressing working around despair all the time. “ As for growing,” she continued, “it’s always wise for a business to search for growth opportunities.”
“My good woman, are you accusing me of running a brothel?” Irving asked, his brows knitted intensely.
Sage laughed at the preposterous question. “You have an interesting sense of humor,” she told him. “If my circumstances were different, I would be willing to go all the way here, but I can’t.”
Irving hummed, studying Sage as though she was a curious new species of creature. “Surely you came here looking for a long term solution, no?”
His words proved cryptic to Sage. She wondered what he meant by ‘long-term solution.’ Was he referring to the disposition of Mark’s body? Sage still didn’t know what she wanted to be done with him. As far as she knew there were only two options: burial or cremation.
As harsh as Mark could be, with his constant criticism and judgment, there was still a small part of Sage that had loved him. It pained her to imagine his body broken and bloodied from the impact of his accident. The police had told her that she wouldn’t want to see him in the state he was in. Thankfully, there had been no need for her to identify him, as his wallet had been retrieved from the wreck. Inside, his driver’s license had been fully intact.
“The truth is,” Sage began, “my husband went behind my back with this agreement. He signed all the paperwork without my knowledge.”
Irving’s eyes widened. He appeared visibly aghast. “What sort of vile man would do such a thing?” he proclaimed.
