Adventures in Funeral Crashing (Complete Novel)

Chapter 11: Funeral Dating

 The rest of the room was full of the rise and fall of murmurs, as people carried on conversations in whispers. These were the relatives, friends, and neighbors mingling. Maybe one of them had some detail that would give us more to go on regarding Vanessa's death. There were a lot of them, though, and we'd need to be very careful trying to glean information from them. In no way, could we interrogate anyone. Nobody wants to be interrogated at a funeral, especially if they're in mourning. The last thing we needed was a hysterical scene, so a lot of our information gathering would have to be done by observation and eavesdropping.

Ethan was pulling at my arm with his hand. I had lost myself. Yes, it was time to move away from the coffin before anyone took notice of us. My hand still in his hand, he led me to some chairs toward the middle back of the room. It was a perfect place to sit, relax, and unobtrusively listen in on the whispered conversations happening around us.

I strained to hear the hushed whisperings. I was only able to catch snippets here and there of people gossiping about what went wrong with Vanessa. Another girl lost to heroin, who didn't seem the type to do drugs in the first place. That was the general gist I got, at least, as I tried to listen in on people. It wasn't helping much with my concentration either that Ethan was still holding my hand. He even started absently rubbing my hand in his – like we were really going out.

"What are you doing?" I whispered before I had time to think about what I was saying. I mean, what was wrong with me? My stomach was doing excited flips. Ethan Ripley was not only holding my hand, he seemed into it!

"Oh, sorry, just trying to look like a couple," Ethan whispered back a second later, and fell back into just holding my hand in his.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I scolded myself. What was wrong with me? I should just take what I could get. Would I ever learn to just go with it? Okay, I needed to go back to listening now.

It had to have been almost an hour since we arrived at the wake and my butt was falling asleep. It was more of the same for the last hour. Nothing interesting had happened. Most people were talking about the shock of it all. Nobody could believe Vanessa was gone.

People had come and gone, but I had spent the last twenty minutes listening to who I thought was Vanessa's elderly aunt, prattling on about all her ailments. She had started with her arthritis and was now complaining about a pain in her lower back when she walked. She was going to see the doctor next week.

Troy Matthews had not made an appearance yet, if he was even going to. We didn't know exactly what his relationship was with Vanessa anyway. If he wasn't expected to be there, he had good reason not to show up. I still hoped he would.

There was a couple of younger women, probably Vanessa's friends, wandering around in groups, but nobody odd or out of the ordinary. They all seemed normal enough. We had tried to make conversation with one group of them when they sat down next to us, but it was short lived – one of them kept tearing up and within minutes her friend had to lead her out of the room. It was really awkward and completely heartbreaking. They hadn't come back, so Ethan and I sat back down in our chairs.

Now, the old woman I had been eavesdropping on or Aunt Eileen, as the man next to her was calling her, was complaining about her stomach, "And, I just can't handle coffee anymore. It makes me sick. They couldn't have brought some 7-Up for me?"

Her companion was nodding and he was probably wishing he was somewhere else. My stomach growled. I was starving. Lunch seemed like a zillion years ago.

"Are you hungry?" I whispered to Ethan, whose eyes had glazed over.

"Hungry?" He whispered back, snapping out of the bored zone he had fallen into.

His hand was still holding mine. I hoped it wasn't sweaty or anything, my hand, that is. Even if his was, I could have held his hand forever if he'd have let me, "Yeah, my stomach is grumbling. Let's go check out the food."

"Food?" Ethan asked, as I pulled him toward the door, exiting the room.

There was almost always a room, from a kitchen to a living-type room, where some kind soul had brought cookies and other snacks. There was usually at least tea and coffee too, if not soda and water. I had been to this funeral home before and I knew there was a kitchen/dinette area right next to the restrooms.

Ethan followed me there in silence.  This was a spot where people felt free to mingle and talk and it could be the best place for us to get some clues from Vanessa's friends and family, but it was also going to mean that we'd have to talk to people and risk getting caught. Still, there was food and I was starving. We had already claimed to be only Vanessa's acquaintances when we were talking to the girls in the other room. They had bought it. Hopefully, Vanessa's relatives would buy it too, if they spoke to us. I knew in all likelihood that they would, but there was always that small chance that freaked me out. 

The kitchen/dinette area was crowded with people talking, eating cookies, and drinking coffee and tea. It had to be around 6 pm by now and dinnertime. Some people had probably been there all day, so it was prime snack time. I hadn't eaten since Ethan and I had lunch fifth period. I was starving. I glanced at Ethan, who must also have been hungry the way his eyes lit up at the sight of the snacks.

Ooo, they had cookies! There was chocolate chip, peanut butter, and snickerdoodles – heaven! I moved ravenously toward them and my butt was finally feeling blissfully awake. Thank goodness elderly Aunt Eileen and I weren't going to have any common ailments to talk about – I'm sure she had a thing or two to say about her butt, if she was asked.

I grabbed a plate and was starting to fill it with the yummy goodness known as peanut butter cookies, until I felt Ethan's body go completely rigid next to me. I looked up, followed his gaze, and almost dropped my cookies because standing next to the coffee pot, refilling her styrofoam cup of coffee and adding cubes of sugar, was the dead girl, Vanessa Martin.