Inherit the Dead

under Cornelius’s feet. “Nicky, why don’t you grab your coat so that Mommy and Cornelius can dive into that chicken together?”
    “Wear your heavy jacket, Nicky, the one with the hood,” Noreen ordered. “I’m sure your father doesn’t have an umbrella in the car, and it may start raining again.”
    “Detectives don’t carry umbrellas. They carry guns,” Perry protested, heatedly forgetting for the moment that he wasn’t an NYPD detective anymore. Before Noreen could come back with a zinger that, thanks to his getting into trouble he’d been thrown off the force, he added firmly, “or they should.”
    Before she could reply, Cornelius lowered his feet from the hassock and heaved his body from the chair. “I may have been a top-drawer tennis player, but it’s left its mark on the bod,” he groaned.
    Cornelius never missed making that speech whenever he got up. Perry wondered if he even said it when he slid off a barstool. The guy had made the quarter finals at Forest Hills twenty-five years ago, lost all his games, and then dropped like a stone from competition. Now he sold tennis clothes and equipment for a manufacturer and occasionally was invited to comment on a minor league tennis match.
    “Noreeny,” Cornelius said in an intimate tone that made Perry want to belt him, “we planned a big lunch for an hour ago. I’m worried that the chicken that your detective ex thought was a pot roast will get tired of waiting for us.” He smiled the too-white smile that lit up his salon-tanned face and brushed back his fading blond hair.
    Noreen turned from Perry to him. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. Sit down at the table. I’ll bring the salads out.” She turned back to Nicky. “Warm jacket,” she said firmly. “And don’t be late. You didn’t finish your calculus homework, and you have a test on Monday.”
    “Mom, please.”
    The ringing of Nicky’s cell phone interrupted another round of acrimonious dialogue. She answered it and clasped her hand to her forehead. “Oh my God. I totally forgot. She did text me, but she’s always texting about something. You’d think this show was going on Broadway. Is she mad? Tell her I’ll be right there.”
    Nicky snapped the cell phone closed. “I have a rehearsal for the play. Oh my God, how did I forget it?” She grabbed Perry’s arm, raced into the foyer, and reached into the clothes closet with her other hand. “Dad, can you drop me off at school then bring in a pizza to the auditorium? We can eat lunch together there. I don’t come in until the third act, but the director insists we be there for the whole rehearsal. She said otherwise we don’t absorb the uncertainty and sadness of the human condition.”
    Perry barely had time to yell, “Bye, Noreeny, bye, Cor- nel -ius,” before he was out the door. Before it closed he had the intense satisfaction of inhaling the distinct odor of something burning coming from the kitchen.
    He and Nicky raced to the car. “Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry,” Nicky gasped. “The director moved the rehearsal time. I totally forgot because I was looking forward so much to seeing you. But of course you were late, so it’s not like it’s my fault that we don’t have much time. It’s yours.”
    “Your mother could not have put it better,” Perry sighed as he unlocked the door for Nicky and jumped into the driver’s seat. “What’s the play?” he asked as he pulled out of the spot with the same Houdini-like dexterity with which he had gotten into it.
    “It’s Our Town . Last year we did Little Shop of Horrors, remember? I really liked that one. This one makes me cry. I mean, Emily dies; little Wally dies because he has a burst appendix. A neighbor who wants to go to Paris only gets to Gettysburg every other year. George throws himself on Emily’s grave. Too much.”
    “It’s considered a classic, honey. I think you’ll appreciate it more when you’re in college.”
    “But I like being in it. I play ‘first dead woman.’ I don’t have a big line, but I like being onstage.”
    Perry remembered that he had played the male lead in Our Town when he was a sophomore in high school. Gigi Jones played Emily, he thought. She was one hot cookie.
    “My line is, ‘She lived on the same road we lived on, mmmhmm.’ ” Nicky shrugged and switched subjects. “I think Mom is getting sick of the tennis champion, Daddy.”
    “It’s a miracle she didn’t get a blinding headache the first time she was