Authors Note: The setting for this novel is Brooklyn Heights NY. My main character is a reluctant funeral director who performs in local theatre productions, hoping her big break as an actress will come. Her boyfriend is the local anchorman, who dreams of becoming the next Arthur Miller. The death of the girlfriend of the city's biggest crime boss sets off a chain of events which play out in well known locales in the borough of Brooklyn.
CHAPTER ONE
I’ve always thought far too much about death. That is not so surprising, considering that death is my life. More precisely, it is the way I make my living. I am a funeral director, a joyless job if ever there was one and not really by choice.It’s a job I sort of fell into and saw as a way to make a living, while waiting for my big break as an actress to come. It hasn’t come yet. Of course, that’s not to say it is from lack of trying. I am honing my craft all the time. Over the years, I’ve done a lot of community and regional theatre, as well as some bit parts in movies and on television, mostly on soaps. A highlight was a month long recurring role on All My Children in the late 1980’s. Got to act with Susan Lucci, who some people said I resembled, although I am a several inches taller, about ten pounds heavier and have green eyes. “Green eyes like a cat”, is how one of my foster mothers described them. However, we are both of Italian extraction, with dark, wavy hair and have been described as sultry. I had originally auditioned for the part of her sister, but didn’t get it. That part went to an actress who looked nothing like her. Go figure.
A few years ago, I got to make an all expense paid trip to Hollywood to audition for a really well known movie, which I won’t name, because I didn't get the part, but it was a fun trip, nonetheless.Got to visit Forest Lawn and Hollywood Forever Cemeteries, where many famous actors and actresses are buried. Call me weird, but visiting cemeteries is one of my favorite things to do. There’s a peace and serenity I find there that I can’t find anywhere else. That may be the only thing I like about being a funeral director. What I like least about being a funeral director is that people die. The actual death part really gets to me. One day somebody’s here, then they’re gone, often without any warning. They go somewhere we can’t know; are not privy to. It’s a big secret. We can’t communicate, no phone calls, letters or email. We don’t know when or if we’ll ever see them again. Or how they’ll look when we do or if we’ll even recognize them. We try to make sense of it and cope as best we can, each in our own way. And, until death touches us on a personal level, we believe it’s something that happens only to other people.
My Catholic faith tells me the dead are in a better place. But, some of my client families, in a moment of pain and denial, have asked, “Where? In the ground!?” If heaven is such a better place, then why do we resist going there? We are skeptical. We want assurances. My dear friend, Father Mackenzie says it is all a question of faith. So, Father, can we agree that we all do want to go to heaven, but we just don’t want to die to have to get there?
I digress, My agent is trying to get me a role on a new cable television show about a family of funeral directors, as an actress/funeral director visiting from NY. One would think that’s a natural. Acting is so competitive and so hard, it makes being a funeral director look easy. And let me tell you, it is not. There is so much competition and so many egos, just like acting. But, on the positive side, you can work as a funeral director until the day you die. Youth is not an advantage in the funeral industry, unlike in entertainment, where youth is such a commodity. I’ll turn 39 on Halloween, so ingénue roles are behind me. Although, as the director of my current theatre group likes to point out, “In acting it is not your chronological age, but your ‘age range’ that counts. And, you, Jordanna, can play younger”. I live above a small funeral home that I run in Brooklyn Heights on Love Lane, of all streets.
Brooklyn Heights has the distinction of being New York City’s first suburb and first historic district, so designated in 1965, as the signs in the neighborhood proudly state. Hard to believe it was once a haven for artists and writers because of the cheap rents. The real estate prices are now staggering. I don’t do a booming business, even though the funeral home is replete with all the somber appointments one would expect of a funeral home. I don’t pursue it, as I am too busy going on acting auditions. But the views in the area are sublime and I could not ordinarily afford to live here, so there are compensations.
The melodious ring of my cell phone interrupts my reverie about real estate and back to the reality of making a living from the dead. There are few people I feel like speaking to. I am in in one of those “I hate my life. Why am I working as a funeral director when I have all this acting talent?” moments. But the screen displays a familiar number. It is Dante's.