The Funeral Planner by Lynn Isenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

forget your student ID card. And by the way, assume it’s a business meeting.”
     
    I pace outside the UCLA library watching the second-hand tick inside my Lucite watch. This girl is already twenty-six minutes late. I shake my head. It’s a good thing I brought a Financial Street Journal with me. If she’s not here by the time I scan the Market section, she’s history. I glance over the paper. There’s nothing particularly exciting to read. I fold it up, getting ready to find an alternative means of entrée into the library, when a petite blond fashionista strolls toward me applying cherry-red lipstick to her generous lips before looking me over.
    “Madison Banks, I presume?”
    “Eve Gardner, I take it. You’re thirty-two minutes late.” I look her over. She can’t be more than nineteen years old, but she dresses like she’s thirty-four on her way to an afternoon tea party with Prince Charles. There’s an iPod and a cell phone clipped to her hip. A total high-tech princess complex. What on earth was Osaka thinking?
    She gazes at her shoes. “I couldn’t decide between the Prada leather loafers or the Fendi Black Zucchinos.”
    I have no idea what she’s talking about. I only know she’s late. “Really? Well, that kind of indecisiveness will cost you in business.”
    “That’s okay. I’m not looking for business. I’m looking for a husband. Do you know what kind of MBAs hang in libraries? The kind who like Pradas or Fendis? Or should I be wearing Cole Haan?”
    “I wouldn’t have a clue.”
    “That sucks. I thought I was going to learn something from you. The way Osaka raves about you, you’d think you were Card Captor Sakura or something.”
    “Who?”
    “Whatever.”
    “Here’s something to learn, Eve. I don’t get caught up in appearances and I’m not obsessed by…stuff. We’re here to enhance life by creating products, services and experiences, not fill it with competitive junk.”
    “Are you saying my Mac lipstick is junk?”
    “Let’s just say, I don’t need it.”
    She glances at me in my khaki pants, white T-shirt, baseball cap and running shoes, and blurts, “Well, for someone who fits all the requirements of a modern-day woman, you sure do make a horrible consumer.”
    “Yes, I know. Now come on, I’ve got an assignment for you to do.”
    “Assignment? I thought I was supposed to watch you do your thing.”
    “I’m of the constructivist school of thought—learn by experience, experience by doing. Come on.” I start for the library when Eve plants her Pradas or Fendis or whatever they are in the ground.
    “I need a latte first,” she whines. “Starbucks only. Besides, that’s where all the smart guys go…isn’t it? Or do they go to the Coffee Bean…or is it Caribou?”
    I sigh. “Do you know how much lattes cost over time? Like, five lattes a week in the course of a month?”
    Eve looks at me disdainfully. “Excuse me, but math is not my major.”
    “You’ve got statistics to pass, don’t you?” She swallows hard and nods. I continue. “One latte a day, five days a week is approximately eighty dollars a month, which comes to $960 a year. In your world, that’s two-point-five pairs of Prada shoes a year or fifty Prada shoes every twenty years.”
    “No way,” she says, impressed.
    “Yes, way. Of course, in my world, with dollar-cost averaging in the stock market, that’s nearly one million dollars over twenty years, the equivalent of two thousand pairs of Prada shoes.”
    Eve’s jaw drops in astonishment. Any moment and I think she’s going to start to salivate with Prada envy. Now that I’ve got her full attention, I head inside the library, and this time she follows in silence as her student card opens the door for all my immediate needs. I find two empty computers next to each other. I sit down and start typing while Eve scopes the place.
    “How are you supposed to meet guys here if you can’t talk?” she whispers.
    I roll my eyes. “You meet