Guilty Pleasure Songs by Peter Pendras
My phone chirped, coming to life. Don't forget: yogurt and bananas for your smoothie. Followed by three heart emojis. A text from my wife who had been dead for a year and two months. I felt a stab of rage. Definitely not the “warm fuzzy feeling” described in the promotional sales claptrap. When Diane passed, I wanted the simplest, most straightforward process. Take the body to the industrial oven and turn it to dust. Give me the dust in a cardboard box. Done.
I did not want her ashes scattered by drone over the sea (an extra $1,000), or the updated bio scrolling on the WillowSeed cremation service website ($35 a month, maintenance fee), or the softcover memory album compiled by their award-winning team ($150 worth of recycled paper). Who comes up with this shit?
The Eterno feature, supposedly a free trial, could be canceled at any time. Heard that before? Trust me, I have deleted the WillowSeed app from my phone, home computer, my tablet, everything with a connection. But there is always a workaround. They slipped that into the package, and it is not free.
Diane’s ashes now sit on top of the fireplace mantel in an ornately tooled plastic music box ($200). The music box was programmed to play her favorite song every time I tilt up the top to look in at the purple velvet display of her wedding ring, a few of her bracelets, and a shared fortune from that Chinese joint we both loved. The instructions suggested that I rotate the relics to keep the remembering a dynamic experience. Since I was paying for it anyway, I figured I might as well give it a fair shot.
“If I Were a Boy,” by Beyonce, was a surprise to me the first time I opened up the music box. I think she may have mentioned that the song was on her list of guilty pleasures, something said in passing. My guilty pleasure song is “Islands in the Stream,” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. But nobody knows that except Diane. Those things are private.
I wanted to know how WillowSeed found out we had that conversation. I did not fill out a questionnaire. I was not interviewed over the phone. A grief consultant did not come calling. I imagined some relentless internet search performed by an army of ferrets roaming shoulder-to-shoulder across a barren field of code, using their detective algorithms to pick up crumbs of data and then depositing small, marble-sized turds outside the silver-sided barn where WillowSeed music boxes are stomped out like widgets.
Free trial, my ass.
I get home and put down the bananas and yogurt. After that text this morning, I had to run by the store. How did the data ferrets know about that? I head over to the music box on the fireplace, opened the lid, and Beyonce's synth voice started to croon. A good song, and it has grown on me over time. Especially the part about turning off your phone and sleeping alone.
I looked in at the purple velvet and blew my breath across the relics. "Diane, honey," I said, "I stopped at Knapps for a beer." I could feel her giving me the side eye. "Okay. Two beers. And thanks for the reminder... I got sidetracked."
That was new, talking to the music box, but I kind of enjoyed it. The defiance. Telling Diane things I would have tried to hide if she were here waiting for me. "Take that, WillowSeed," I said. "What you gonna do about it?"
Right, I can see myself telling Eddie, "I told the music box I stopped by Knapps for a couple of beers on the way home." Wouldn't want that getting around. "Get this, George thinks his wife is in that plastic music box." Followed by laughing. So, I won't be telling Eddie.
Later that night, halfway through my video stream, my phone pings and it's WillowSeed. The screen says, Click here for preview. Then the right arrow. I hit delete, but it plays anyway since any action is yes.
There's Eddie, Ramona (my latest possible girlfriend), my mother, and John and Tilda from my last band, Apache Cline, the psycho surf trio. They are all standing around what looks like the Maritime Museum. Classic wood boats, all varnished and restored to Bristol condition as "Lay Lady Lay” plays in the background. Everybody knows I like classic Bob Dylan, but why don't they use "Islands in the Stream," my guilty pleasure song? So the ferret detectives got that wrong.
People in the photo are holding drinks and have that pie-faced look, like, when will this be over. Believe me, I know the feeling. There are a few tears and some hugs. The video zooms in. On a wooden stand, next to a small sailing dinghy, is a plastic music box with my name on it.
Like I said, they got the song wrong, so there could be other factual errors. Like, I might not really be dead.
