The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman

defrosted.”
    â€œNot bad,” said Ray. “Not what I expected. I thought it was going to be sweet—a miniature turnover, like with fig inside.” Ray chewed, swallowed, popped another triangle into his mouth. “You Greek?” he mumbled through the phyllo.
    Frederick shook his head in the smallest possible arc, and turned back to the sink.
    Ray looked at me: You see that? You gonna let the kitchen help diss your guests?
    I said, “Frederick? My mother wanted you to make up a nice plate for Mr. Russo.”
    Frederick crossed to the refrigerator, returned with a plastic bag of some curly purple vegetal matter. “She didn’t mention this to me,” he said.
    â€œWe’ve been on the road since six A.M. ,” I said.
    Ray helped himself to a deviled egg, then another. “Don’t bother. I’m gonna head out so I can get a good seat.”
    â€œI don’t think you have to worry about a crowd,” said Frederick. “She outlived every one of her friends.”
    â€œI lost my wife at a young age,” said Ray, slipping an arm around my waist. “So good genes mean everything to me.”
    I moved a discreet step away and said, “My other grandmother died at sixty-two of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
    â€œI did the brunch,” said Frederick.
    I said I might lie down for a short rest myself before the limo arrived, if they’d excuse me.
    Ray grinned. “These doctors! They can catnap on a dime. I swear—ten minutes of shut-eye, and she’s up for a triple bypass.”
    Frederick smiled knowingly.
    Ray’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not saying that I’m well versed in this lady’s personal habits—if I read that smirk correctly.”
    Unfazed, Frederick blinked and turned to me.
    â€œI’ve never done a triple bypass,” I said. “I’ve never even watched.”

6.
Alice Makes Up Her Own Mind
    COVERING FOR OUR VACATIONING PASTOR WAS A WOMAN WITH A crewelwork stole, who ruined the funeral by eulogizing my grandmother as “Barbara.”
    At the fourth or fifth misstatement, my mother barked from behind her handkerchief, “Betty!”
    The minister looked up; smiled indulgently at the grieving heckler.
    â€œHer name wasn’t Barbara,” clarified a male voice in the back.
    Everyone knew it was the homely pin-striped stranger who’d arrived ahead of everyone else and whose signature was first in the guest book: Raymond Russo, Boston, Mass.
    â€œBetty,”
repeated the minister. “How careless of me.” She smiled again. “My own mother was Barbara. I think that must say something, don’t you?”
    My mother was having none of it: Her stored grief found a new cause, a new enemy, in the rainbow-embroidered figure of the overly serene Reverend Dr. Nancy Jones-Fuchs, who was told in the recessional, in frigid terms, that her services would not be needed graveside.
    Ray was the only one who had thought to slip the Book of Common Prayer beneath his overcoat. My aunt Patricia suggested we honor my grandmother Quaker-style, which was to say, in silence. After several minutes, Ray opened the prayer book. We looked over. He offered it to my mother first. “I couldn’t,” she said. Nor could Aunt Patricia, which left my father, who looked to me.
    â€œI could read a psalm,” Ray offered. “Or just say a few words. Whatever you think she’d like.”
    â€œRead,” I said.
    â€œThe Twenty-third Psalm is on page eighty-two,” whispered the funeral director.
    Ray’s recitation was from memory, eyes closed, and more heartfelt than I expected. When he finished he said, “I didn’t know Betty, but I wish I did.” His voice turned breezy; he tapped the coffin genially with the corner of the prayer book. “Sorry you have to have a virtual stranger here, Betty, reading the last prayer you’ll ever hear, but I guess I know