Death & All of His Friends (Georgette)

[The Exodus]

OOC: Tristan and Georgette, for kicks. BIC:

Tristan Vidal

Tristan shuffled into the morgue with bleary eyes. He’d just fallen asleep when the phone rang and moron that he was, he’d taken the call. It was three thirty in the morning and some 37 year old male had the indecency to get into an automobile accident. Tristan usually was the last to complain when he had work to do, but the freezer at the funeral home was filling up fast. He had plenty of work to do already. If death could just take a break for maybe a week to let him catch up – or sleep—then maybe he wouldn’t be so damn tired…

He flashed his ID to the receptionist, who didn’t even look before saying, “Georgie’s on duty, Tristan. Go on in.”

He walked down the familiar hallways. Hospital morgues, Tristan found, always smelled worse than funeral homes. Sickness had a smell that death just didn’t. Decay was normal, natural. Illness was not. Illness was corrupted and you couldn’t hide the smell with any amount of Pine-Sol. But, for some reason, the cleaning staff almost always tried. The result made his stomach turn; made him thankful he hadn’t eaten breakfast and that dinner was hours and hours ago. He pushed open the metal door leading the operating theater. Laid out on the table was his latest project.

This was a hell of a case. Skin was missing in large patches; Tristan would have to reconstruct the entire left side of the guy’s face. The cheekbone was in several pieces – Tristan could see fragments sitting in a blue container next to the autopsy tools.

“Must’ve been a hell of a car wreck,” Tristan said, letting out a low whistle as he approached the autopsied bodies. “Usually the bodies you autopsy are cleaner than this.”

He looked over at Georgette Duguay and frowned. She was the best the hospital morgue had to offer. Like Tristan, she was a death junkie. She’d grown up in a funeral home; the one Tristan interned at eleven summers ago. He wondered, not for the first time, why she’d become an ME instead of taking her father’s business. He shook his head.

“I mean, thank God no one let one of the guys examine him,” he said. “What a way to start a Monday morning, huh?”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

When Georgette received a phone call at 3:30 in the morning, she was almost relived. She didn’t have plans on sleeping that night, making progress on her fifth cigarette and second glass of wine. Something about the backdrop of nighttime made her feel exceptionally productive. Somewhere between glass number one and cigarette two, she had paid her credit card bills that she had neglected for the past few months, vacuumed her living room, and worked on her Spanish. By glass number two and cigarette five, Spanish seemed far harder than it once did and she was glad that the call offered her a nice distraction.

Some guy had blown his face off in a car accident and it was Georgette’s duty to peel what was left of his singed skin off the pavement and then determine the cause of death. Really, Georgette was grateful they had called her and not her hobgoblin colleagues. They would have been content to write down “car accident” or “burned to death” without actually putting to use the ‘examiner’ part of their job description. Georgette preferred to dig a little deeper. So she arrived without complaint, pulling her lab coat over her bedtime clothing and set to work.

At the morgue, she was greeted with fresh, already made coffee, handed to her by Samara and the distinct smell of antiseptic and early onset decay. It was a smell she once asked her father to bottle into a perfume bottle for her, but now it meant strictly work and she longed for the smell of lavender or cinnamon when she got home.

Or black leather, motorcycle exhaust, and cigarette-stained Spaniard…

Tristan arrived just on time, as usual and Georgette didn’t need to look up to know he had entered. “Must’ve been a hell of a car wreck,” he said as the doors closed behind him. “Usually the bodies you autopsy are cleaner than this.”

“Usually the bodies I autopsy hadn’t been drinking and driving, suffered a heart attacked, flipped their car five times and burned for forty-five minutes before emergency vehicles arrived. Here,” she handed him her report. “See for yourself.”

It hadn’t been the alcohol that made him drive off the road and hit a barricade. It had been a heart attack. He was dead before the car caught fire.

“I mean, thank God no one let one of the guys examine him. What a way to start a Monday morning, huh?”

“Starting the day off right,” Georgette corrected, taking her autopsy tools to in a tray to be sanitized. She would leave that for one of the guys. It was her job to determine cause of death, not do dishes. “How are you, Tristan? Still screwing your secretary?” She asked, pulling herself to sit up on a free metal table. “I told Dad. …He approves. Says hi.”

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

“Starting the day off right,” Georgette clarified.

Tristan chuckled. But he stopped quickly. He could smell alcohol and smoke on Georgette’s breath. Georgette didn’t smoke. Tristan shook his head. Her latest squeeze was probably responsible for that. He wondered if Monsieur Duguay knew what his little girl was up to these days.

“How are you, Tristan?” said Georgette, putting away her autopsy tools. “Still screwing your secretary?”

A snarl pulled at Tristan’s lips. Did everyone in Paris know he and Solange were together? Maybe Tristan should just make an announcement off the steps of the capitol building: Attention, all Paris. If you haven’t heard by now, I’m dating my secretary. Feel free to pass judgment!


They weren’t “screwing” though. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed Tristan’s mind, but he and Solange were taking things slowly. If he said as much, Georgette would only mock them more. Better to let her go ahead and think what she wanted.

“I told Dad,” she continued from her metal perch on the examination table. “…He approves. Says hi.”

“He also approve of that rent-a-cop you’e f*cking?” Tristan asked before he could stop himself. He’d met Georgette’s boyfriend – or whatever – a handful of times. The man was a private investigator and as thoroughly unpleasant as they came. Tristan rolled his eyes. “Georgie, do everyone a favor and worry about your own boyfriend.”

Tristan wasn’t usually sharp with people. His career taught him to speak softly and be discreet. But Georgette wasn’t a client. And she was sticking her nose where it didn’t belong. And though he shouldn’t let her get to him, Tristan rolled the words around in his head anyways. “Screwing your secretary”… Did Georgette have to ask him that while there was a burned body a foot away? The last thing Tristan wanted to associate with Solange was burnt, human flesh. He glared at Georgette as he walked over to the sink to wash his hands.

“How is you dad?” Tristan asked Georgette. “Retirement treating him well?”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

“He also approve of that rent-a-cop you’re f*cking?” Tristan asked with a bitter bite she had never heard before. It had always been something about him she found irksome: his lackadaisical response to her playful jabs. When they were younger and she teased him for his haircut or his clothes, he mostly ignored her, but and when he fought back, it was with such delicious underhandedness that she almost found him cute. Almost.

Careful, Tristan she thought wickedly, respond like that again and I might want to f*ck you instead…[/b]

Georgette was lucky. Tristan rolled his eyes in that same non-aggressive, non-confrontational way that made her hackles stand up. “Georgie, do everyone a favor and worry about your own boyfriend.”

She laughed. At what, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was his tone of voice. Perhaps it was the fact he called Santiago her ‘boyfriend’. Or maybe it was his quick defeat. She raised her hands in surrender and hopped down from the table with ease. She crossed to the coffee maker and poured two mugs of coffee, hoping the guys had done the dishes.

“How is you dad? Retirement treating him well?”

“We use the word ‘retirement’ loosely,” she said, handing him a cup of coffee with no consideration as to if he really wanted it or not. “Nohemi has him working at the groomers almost every day. But that’s opened a whole new market for him.” She sipped her own black caffeine. “People have come in and asked that he perform funerals for beloved pets. It’s sad, really, that people love their pets that much, but… whatever. Not the first or weirdest weird request he’s had.” Her head pounded from the alcohol and the coffee tasted bland. She slipped a small flask (a gift from Santiago) out of her bra and tipped it into her drink. “Shh… You saw nothing.”

After a long gulp of her overpowering concoction, she looked back up at Tristan. “What’s really new with you, Tristan? Other than your illicit in-work affair and the fact you’re picking up this body from me.”

There was a time when ‘this body’ carried more weight, hid within it more innuendos and insinuations. But today, it was as literal and bland as her coffee had been before she added her secret ingredient. Today, she was more professional (more or less), was in a semi-committed semi-relationship, and found Tristan somehow loveable and repulsive at the same time. Today, she was genuinely interested in his life at a clinical distance. Today, he was something of an unfortunate, accidental friend. “I mean, I actually want to know.”

She finished her coffee.

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

A decade ago, Tristan had interned at Duguay Funeral Home. It was a short drive from Paris to Versailles and in those days, Tristan’s car was in better condition. It was the same, beat up, hunk-of-junk that sat in the parking lot at his funeral home now. Back then, it had been a sweet ride and an even sweeter internship. Monsieur Duguay was one half of Tristan’s pantheon of role-models-slash-deities, but until recently had always been more tangible, more approachable than Torben. Funny, how times changed.

Monsieur Duguay taught Tristan everything he knew about running a business, building it to last. If Tristan had had the capital at the time of Monsieur Duguay’s retirement, he would have happily bought the business and its name. Few funeral homes had the clout his mentor had; few funeral directors were as warm and approachable. It was a good thing – for Tristan’s business, anyways – that Monsieur Duguay retired when he had.

“We use the word ‘retirement’ loosely,” said Georgette, handing Tristan a coffee mug, which he gladly took. Neither of them was prone to putting sugar and other crap into their coffee. Thankfully. Tristan was almost sure that Georgette would have slipped him whatever cleaning solution she had on hand, just to spite him. She’d put soap in his coffee when they were kids, just to tick him off. “Nohemi has him working at the groomers almost every day. But that’s opened a whole new market for him. People have come in and asked that he perform funerals for beloved pets. It’s sad, really, that people love their pets that much, but… whatever. Not the first or weirdest weird request he’s had.”

“Yeah, people are stupid about their animals,” Tristan agreed, knowing full well that one day, Isolde would die and he wouldn’t know what to do about it. Cats and dogs you could cremate or embalm, but a cockroach—

Georgette reached into her bra and Tristan shot her a perplexed, irritated look. A couple years ago, he wouldn’t have minded even half as much. Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have minded at all. Ten years ago, he didn’t have a girlfriend.

And then he noticed that Georgette held in her hand a silver flask.

“Georgette—“

“Shh… You saw nothing,” Georgette said, pouring the contents of the flask into her own coffee.

Tristan rolled his eyes and told himself not to judge. Theirs was a rough industry. If you didn’t walk away alcoholic, depressed, or a little bit warped, you probably weren’t human. He dreaded the day he found out where he landed on the damaged scale.

“What’s really new with you, Tristan? Other than your illicit in-work affair and the fact you’re picking up this body from me,” said Georgette. Tristan snorted. “I mean, I actually want to know.”

“Yeah, right,” Tristan said. “You never actually want to know. You usually are just looking for a new way to yank my chain.”

He leaned against the counter heavily and looked over at Georgette, trying to see if there were any physical changes he could discern. Any tattoos or piercings on her visible skin. Other than a few sleepless lines under her eyes, there was nothing new. Just the alcoholic thing. Tristan shook his head. He wouldn’t tell Georgette he was concerned. That was almost like an admission of care or fondness. And even though he was fond of her, the way an antagonistic sibling might be, he wouldn’t say it. She’d probably twist his meaning until it resembled something she could blackmail him with.

“What was the name of that classic car dealer that sold your dad the 1930s Cadillac?” Tristan asked suddenly. “You know, the Cathedral Hearse. You remember that car?”

Tristan could remember plenty of fights with Georgette over who got to drive that beauty to the cemetery and a handful of joyrides Monsieur Duguay probably still didn’t know about. Solange had been on his case since last year about getting a new hearse and the numbers were lining up favorably. Tristan didn’t think for a second Solange would jump for joy if he brought back an antique car – theirs was from the 1990s and it was a piece of sh*t – but a guy could dream.

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

Tristan offered a skeptical snicker, a snort, really that reminded Georgette of allergies and piglets. “Yeah, right. You never actually want to know. You usually are just looking for a new way to yank my chain.”

Georgette raised her empty coffee mug in agreement. It was true. She cared about him in a detached sort of way, but didn’t want to hear him speak more than she had to. But somehow, being with him was made more bearable when she was making him cringe with frustration or swear with anger as she sliced him with words and then poured salt into his wounds. But he was a fitting and worthy adversary who kept her barbed tongue and wit sharp, kept her on her feet, and kept her competitive.

“What was the name of that classic car dealer that sold your dad the 1930s Cadillac? You know, the Cathedral Hearse. You remember that car?”

Georgette smiled. She remembered that car. She remembered fighting for the keys with Tristan. She remembered stealing it once for a date with her boyfriend and not returning until the morning with sex hair and the clothing she wore yesterday torn in places or missing entirely. She took it through drive-throughs with Tristan and pulled pranks on people on the street. Her father made her wash it when she was in trouble or bored and she once drove it drunk through her mother’s backyard. She remembered it fondly, but rarely saw it anymore. Her father kept it in storage, hidden under a tarp in a garage somewhere. She didn’t know if still ran, but if it did, she wanted to be the first to get behind that wheel.

“Do I ever,” she smirked wickedly. “You want to know what the name of that car dealer is? Of course I’ll tell you! …But it’ll cost you.”

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

There had been a time when that Cathedral Hearse was Tristan’s dream car. He’d loved everything about it. The way the open driving carriage made the wind play with his hair; the sound of the new engine under the old hood as it hummed. You felt really alive driving that hearse. Electric, pulsating. You didn’t get that in a 1990s Lincoln. You just didn’t.

A dreamy smile overtook Georgette’s usually harsh features. And for a moment, Tristan smiled at her – because of the car and because his memories of her weren’t all bad. There’d been a time when he’d been younger, more reckless, when the pair of them had a lot of fun. Racing classic hearses in country cemeteries. Getting drunk after a teenager’s funeral and hiding the empty bottles in a display casket until they could sneak them to the trash. And of course there had been a million trips to the cemetery, to drive-thrus, to the morgue in that Cathedral Hearse, where it was just Tristan and Georgette. They’d had a good time back then. She was the only friend he still had from his teenage years and one of few he still had from his early twenties.

But Georgette stopped smiling and smirked. It was the same smirk that always made Tristan inwardly roll his eyes.

“Do I ever,” she said. “You want to know what the name of that car dealer is? Of course I’ll tell you! …But it’ll cost you.”

“Name your price,” Tristan said, knowing he could always haggle with her. Negotiate.

Chances were, she didn’t want money. She probably wanted a favor or for him to humiliate himself for her amusement. A bargain could be struck for the first; the latter, he’d just tell her to piss off with a good-natured laugh that would get under her skin.

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

The dreamy look on Tristan’s face snapped into ugly irritation that put a delicious taste of revenge in her mouth. It wasn’t specific revenge. He hadn’t wronged her recently or crossed her any defining way, but the intent was the same. She wanted him to suffer for the sake of watching him suffer. It was the one thing her mother had given her: a penchant for making deals at the expense of others and the gain for herself (her mother got the house, the car, the monthly alimony checks in exchange for a busy, moody teenager). For all she knew, he would do something later that would require true revenge, an actual vendetta. Georgette figured she might as well beat him to the punch.

“Name your price.”

“Right here? Right now?” Georgette said, pouting. “That hardly seems adequate, to just tell you what I want. Why don’t you guess?”

In truth, Georgette had no set price in mind. She didn’t want his money, she had no real desire to blackmail him. So maybe, if Tristan “guessed” what she wanted, he would hit on something so juicy and golden that she would have to agree to it. The car in exchange for something glorious. Not a bad bargain.

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

“Right here? Right now?” Georgette said, pouting. “That hardly seems adequate, to just tell you what I want. Why don’t you guess?”

“No. I’m not playing your stupid game,” Tristan said firmly. “I can get the name and number from your dad.”

Besides, it wasn’t like he could afford a car from the 1930s. The maintenance alone probably had a lot of zeros in it. Not unlike the piece of sh*t parked outside… Tristan supposed that if he was going to spend a lot of money on a car, he might as well buy one that was from this century that still had all its original parts in working order.

Tristan turned his attention back to his coffee. It was actually kind of bitter; he made better. Maybe Georgette had put the alcohol in it to dull her taste-buds. It seemed tempting, suddenly, possibly because Georgette was back to being her irritating self. Tristan drained his coffee.

“You got the death certificate for me to sign off on?” he asked, walking over to the sink and adding his mug to the pile of dirty dishes. “Or are you going to make me guess where it is?”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

“No,” Tristan said adamantly. Georgette hadn’t seen that much finality in his eyes since he was eighteen and told her father that he was positive being a mortician was his life calling. Georgette bit the inside of her cheek. “I’m not playing your stupid game.”

Georgette shrugged and rolled her eyes, her hands lodging themselves into the recesses of her lab coat. It was funny that something could be so white when something inside her felt so black. Maybe it was her lungs that she was slowly turning to tar and mush with each cigarette. She lit up another.

“I can get the name and number from your dad.”

Georgette wanted to laugh and twirl around with her hands over her head singing ‘not if I tell him not to’, but knew it would do no good. Even if she called up her father and begged him not to tell Tristan the name of the car company, he would do it. He loved them both, and though there was a time when he couldn’t say ‘no’ to his little girl, his only child, she was almost thirty now and times were changing. She shrugged. Oh well. Her game had come to an end. There were dead people to suture up, papers to sign, work to be done. She could toy with Tristan’s mind later if she promised to be good and eat all her vegetables.

“You got the death certificate for me to sign off on? Or are you going to make me guess where it is?”

Georgette sighed, pulling her hands from her pocket and the certificate from the filing drawer. “Here,” she said dully. “It already has my autopsy-graph on it. Sign away, my friend.”

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

Georgette was smoking now. In the morgue. Tristan didn’t care what she did on her own time, in her own space, but the operating theatre was sacred space, much like the funeral home or the cemetery. It got under Tristan’s skin when people disrespected the deceased. A person was a person, no matter how dead. He glared at Georgette as she pulled out the death certificate.

Here,” she said dully. “It already has my autopsy-graph on it. Sign away, my friend.”

He took the death certificate with one hand. The other plucked Georgette’s cigarette out of her lips and in a moment of folly, Tristan crushed it out in his hand. If it wasn’t for the pre-existing nerve damage, it would have hurt a lot more. Now his hand ached and there were dirty ashes in his palm.

“Show some respect for our patients,” he told her. “It may not kill him or anything, but you can take it outside.”

Inside, he was screaming, swearing a blue streak. Why had he grabbed the cigarette? It hurt like a motherf*cker. He crossed the room and dusted the trash into the bin before washing his hands. The cool water was bliss on his skin and if Tristan wasn’t worried about not looking like a wuss, he would have kept running the water over his burn. He’d worry about first aid when he got back to work and could have Solange take a look at it. She'd probably get on his case for being stupid. It had seemed worth it at the time. Tristan shut off the water and gave both his hands a shake to dry.

“Now, help me move this guy out to the hearse,” he said. “There’s a smoking zone over by the parking lot where you can light up when we’re done.”

[Lets_Eat_Paste]

Georgette Duguay

Instead of taking the pen from her hand, Tristan plucked the cigarette from her lips and all but crushed it in his palm. She looked at it flicker one last ember and die, a sad-looking snakeskin that left ashes in his life and love lines. Georgette was shocked. Tristan was so laid back and so hard to bother and that was what made yanking on his nerves all the more fun. But rarely did he snap at her. Sometimes, she yanked the wrong nerve too hard or in the wrong direction and his claws came out, but she was never thrown off balance like this.

“Show some respect for our patients. It may not kill him or anything, but you can take it outside.”

She watched him toss the smothered cigarette into the sink and rinse the filth from his hands like a human ashtray. She expected him to yell again, shake her, even, strike her. But instead, he flicked the water from his hands and spoke calmly, professionally. A voice that was so foreign to Georgette when it came from Tristan. “Now, help me move this guy out to the hearse. There’s a smoking zone over by the parking lot where you can light up when we’re done.”

“I—“ Georgette sputtered, looking for words. She didn’t know what to say. She stood, flabbergasted for a moment before shaking it off. “I think you can handle it yourself, don’t you? The wheel was invented for a reason: to move dead guys single handedly and with ease.”

She turned her back and poured herself another cup of coffee. “Royal Automobile Paris,” Georgette said, holding the lukewarm cup of slosh in her hands. “That’s where he got the hearse.”

[The Exodus]

Tristan Vidal

A sense of smug, self-satisfaction welled up in Tristan’s chest when he looked at Georgette. Her mouth hung open, her eyes were wide. Sometimes, getting a little burned was worth it. His hand still hurt like hell, but Tristan was very glad he’d reminded Georgette that he wasn’t just here for her amusement. He was a real person with a busy schedule and he didn’t have time for her to desecrate decedents this early in the morning.

“I think you can handle it yourself, don’t you?” Georgette said when she found her voice. “The wheel was invented for a reason: to move dead guys single handedly and with ease.”

Tristan pursed his lips. There were protocols. One person was not meant to move a body alone. Typically, one of the morgue attendants rode back with him to the funeral home to help out; the thought of Georgette using his hearse’s cup-holders as ashtrays made Tristan wonder if breaking protocol just this once wouldn’t be so bad. He walked around to the handle side of the stretcher. He could handle this; if worse came to worse, he’d call Torben and pay him to help out. What were friends for, if not to help you move bodies?

“Royal Automobile Paris,” Georgette said suddenly. Tristan looked up. “That’s where he got the hearse.”

“Thanks,” Tristan said. A smile – less like a smile than a smirk, since the self-satisfied feeling had doubled at the words “Royal Automobile Paris”. He’d won this round with Georgette. For the first time in a long time. Maybe she’d been onto something when she said they were starting the morning off right. “Always a pleasure doing business with you.”

OOC: End Scene? BIC: