“Five thousand dollars!” he said again, sharing the crowd’s astonishment and skepticism—even though it was well known in the city that Priss Windsor had once given away a three million dollar inheritance from her godfather.
“A crazy girl, I thought,” the man confessed. “But five thousand is five thousand, so I said, what would I have to do? And she said, you have to be kind to people, you have to smile at them, and say things courteously. You have to thank them for their business, and you can’t throw things at them!”
He shook his head. “Sometimes, it’s true, I hate it when people pay in pennies and nickels. Sometimes, it’s true, I throw it all back at them.”
He made fast work of the rest of the story. How she gave him half the amount to start, how she had brought a blanket and sat on the grass to observe him, and how she gave him grins and thumbs-up as his courteousness improved throughout the day. And how, at the end of the day, she gave him the rest of the five thousand dollars, and he gave her a free hot dog.
“She was an angel,” he said, turning toward the family whose faces had not turned toward him. “She changed my life that day. My wife says thank you, too!”
There was a low murmur of chuckles.
“I just want to say all that, and how sorry I am that she … I was so shocked when I saw …”
His voice trailed off, and he sat down.
But then he popped back up again.
“Somebody has to speak for the dead!” he proclaimed. “She says, ‘Be kind.’ Thank you.” He sat down again, flushed with exertion and emotion.
Someone else stood up, a pretty young woman.
“He’s right, Priss really was an angel, and she was funny! I was in a taxi with her two days before she died, and right after we got in, the driver laid on his horn something awful. Priscilla leaned forward and told him that she’d give him a hundred dollars if he didn’t honk for the whole rest of the ride—”
There were little explosions of laughter among the crowd of frequent taxi riders.
“And he didn’t! When he let us off, he grinned at her and he said, ‘So what will you give me if I don’t honk for the rest of the day?’ ”
At that, nearly the entire crowd laughed, the kind of heartwarming, affectionate laughter that makes shocked and grieving people feel better.
“What did Priss say to him?” a man called out.
The young woman turned a trembling smile toward him. Her eyes shone with tears. “She said that she and several million people in Manhattan would give him their everlasting gratitude.” Again, the crowd burst into laughter. “And then he said, the driver said, ‘Is it okay if I tap on my horn if I need somebody to move back at a stop light?’ And Priss laughed and said, ‘What? You think fifteen cars behind you won’t beat you to it?’ ”
There was laughing and clapping, but not from the family, Sam noted. Their shoulders did not shake with laughter; they still did not dab tears from their eyes. Whatever was damming them up inside did not give way.
As yet another mourner got up and started to tell a story, Sam saw Mrs. Windsor give a sharp sign to the minister to get his attention. Then she pointed to the organist, making it clear what she wanted. Almost immediately, the music rose to Bachian heights, drowning out the testimonials. Ushers walked rapidly into place at the ends of pews and began to move the big, and now boisterous, crowd out of the sanctuary.
Shocked, Sam realized he might have just heard evidence of Priscilla Windsor’s bucket list: Tell the truth. He wondered, If this was what she did with strangers, what was on her list for people she knew well?
“Now, that was more like it,” Mrs. Darnell said approvingly as they rose to their feet. “Even if Maggie hated it. Did you see how fast she got that minister to move? Oh, well, at least we had a little fun, and that dear girl would be glad, I’m sure of it. You’re going to the reception now?”
“No. I wasn’t invited. I don’t know the family.”
“Oh, well, bosh to that. You just crook your well-tailored arm and let me hold your elbow, and I’ll get you in as if you live there. I’m assuming Priscilla was your patient, although I know you won’t tell me so. You know us better than our husbands do, and that makes you at least as close to her as family. Closer, in the case of her family, and don’t you ever tell anybody I ever said so!”
Sam smiled at her. “I won’t.”
A few pews from the exit, he managed to ease away when Mrs. Darnell wasn’t looking and lose himself in the crowd. He wanted to chase down the last person who had risen to speak, the one who had been defeated by Bach.
A floral dress, puffy hair, a round face.
He spotted her standing between two younger women, and immediately he intuited whom they might be: teachers at the preschool where Priscilla had worked, a school so unfashionable that it didn’t even have a waiting list. They looked unfashionable themselves amid the chic crowd. The older woman looked like somebody a child might run to for a hug.
She didn’t smile when he said, “Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“You started to get up, in the sanctuary just now, to say something about Priscilla—”