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You look great, honest. Paul will be proud of you.
    I hope so. Maybe his charming mother-in-law will even refrain from calling the vice squad when she sees me coming. God, I hate funerals. He could already feel a pall falling over him, it still reminded him of Dori. Christ, that had been awful ' the shock, and the unbearable pain of it. The sheer misery of trying to understand that she was gone forever. It had taken him years to get over it, although he had tried to fill the void with a thousand women. But there had never been another woman like her. She was so warm, so beautiful, so sexy and mischievous and appealing. She was sensational, and just thinking about her, as he rode the elevator downstairs in his somber outfit shortly before noon, genuinely depressed him. It had been twelve years since she died, and he still missed her.
    Jack didn't even notice the women watching him admiringly as he left the store, and slid behind the wheel of his Ferrari. He peeled it away from the curb with immediate speed, and a roar of the powerful engine, and five minutes later he was on Santa Monica Boulevard, heading toward All Saints Episcopal Church, where they were holding the service. It was ten after noon by then, and traffic was worse than he had expected. It was a warm January afternoon in L.A., and everyone in the world seemed to be in their car and going somewhere. He was twenty minutes late when he got to All Saints and slipped quietly into a pew at the back of the church. He couldn't even imagine how many people were there. From where he was sitting it looked like seven or eight hundred, but he was sure it couldn't be that many.
    He tried to catch a glimpse of his daughter, Julie, but she was lost in the crowd somewhere. And he couldn't even see Paul at the front of the church, sitting between his wife and her sister. And his view of the widow was completely obscured. All Jack could see and think about was the inexorable inevitability of the coffin, so stark and severe, a rich mahogany with brass handles, covered by a carpet of moss and tiny white orchids. It was beautiful in its own grim way, as were the rest of the flowers in the church. There were orchids everywhere, and somehow without thinking about it, Jack knew that Amanda had done it. There was the same kind of impeccable attention to detail, even at a time like this, that she had shown during their children's wedding.
    But Jack quickly forgot about her, and sat lost in his own thoughts, reminded of his own mortality, during the High Episcopal service. A friend spoke, and both sons-in-law. Paul's words were brief and to the point, but very moving, and in spite of himself there were tears in Jack's eyes when he praised his son for it after the service.
    That was very nice, Son, he said, sounding hoarse for a moment. You can speak at mine, when the time comes. He tried to make light of it, but Paul shook his head with a look of disgust and put an arm around his father's shoulders.
    Don't flatter yourself. I couldn't say a single decent thing about you, and neither could anyone else, so don't bother.
    Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Maybe I should give up tennis.
    Dad ' Paul scolded, with a quick warning look. Amanda was approaching, moving quietly through the crowd to the place where she would stand to greet a few of the mourners. And before Jack could move, he found he was looking right at her. She looked amazingly beautiful, and in spite of the years since, still very much a movie star. She was wearing a huge black hat and veil, and a very distinguished black suit, which he suspected immediately had probably been made by a French designer.
    Hello, Jack, she said calmly. She seemed very much in control, yet the huge blue eyes held so much pain, that he actually felt sorry for her.
    I'm sorry, Amanda. Even if he wasn't fond of her, it was easy to see how ravaged she was by the loss of her husband. There wasn't much else he could say to her, as she looked away and bowed her