Because it can just never run smoothly. I went to the place where I summer on Friday night because I had a funeral to attend on Saturday morning.

My childhood friend's father died after a long struggle with cancer and as we do for those struggling with loss and grief, I changed my plans, passed off my Sigur Ros tickets and hopped a hound to be there for my friend and help her say good-bye.

In truth, Mr. J was as much my father as my other friend's parents. Like the rest of the father's, he always knew I was up to something, but he embraced it. He was a man's man, a man who had lived a hard life and who knew about hard times; I think with that in mind, he knew my kind of trouble would never develop into real trouble - just a lot of crazy stories. He used to laugh when he saw me at his back door, throwing my bike up against his wall and my head back, so that I could meet him eye to eye. "What're you up to now, Partygirl?"

"Nothing Mr. J., just minding my business and staying out of trouble, you know the drill" I say with a smile as a pre-teen, a teenager, a college student and an adult.

"Well, I doubt that, but come on in anyway," he would say. And we would sit at the kitchen table, he and I, under the hanging lamp and smoke cigarettes together in as darkness set in and I waited for my friend to get ready.

He was in the defense business, so we'd talk about defense. Budgets, policitians, world affairs, as we smoked.

Later in my life, I would drive past and see him on the summers, sitting on the front porch, smoking cigars at this point and watching cars go by. I would inevitably be speeding down the road with something loud and obnoxious turned up to 11 on my stereo, and would slow down in front of him, beep my horn in greeting and shoot my arm out of the sun roof, waving to Mr. J. He'd lift his cigar and salute back. And it went like that for a number of years.

Friday night, coming into town, I asked my brother to give the salute one last time as we drove past their house; Mr. J's porch chair was ominously empty.

Saturday morning, I overslept. I woke up 15 minutes before the service, to my brother banging on my front door. I ran downstairs in a panic, asking him why he hadn't woken me and he said he'd been banging on the door for 30 minutes. I ran around in a state of anxiety for a minute as my brother told me he was walking the 10 blocks to the church and would leave his car keys for me.

At 10:03am, exactly three minutes after the service was scheduled to begin, I was in my brother's car, wearing the most conservative thing I own, trying to start it. I tried everything, but it wouldn't start, goddamn stick shifts. Desparate, I jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the empty road, flagging down the only car in sight.

In retrospect, I must have been a sight, in this sleepy summer hamlet, in my New York black, with patterned stockings that look like fishnets (but they aren't), four-inch wedge heels and my Sketchers shades. At the time, all I kept thinking was that I must get to the church.

I jumped in front of the vehicle coming toward me to stop the car, and nearly broke into tears as I leaned in to speak with the hippie chick driving the car, a girl about my age, with an infant in the back seat.

"Please, I'm so sorry, my car died and I need to get to a funeral, would you mind driving me to X and X -it's just a few blocks away - please, I'm late!"

She thought for a minute, looking at me, as I squinted at her, and said, "I guess that would be okay," and I jumped into the front seat, with a smile at the baby in the back, as she moved the diaper bag.

"Thankyousomuch," I blabbered. We sat in silence for six blocks, even the baby stopped gurgling, as I thought to myself, can I ever be normal?

I broke the silence, asking her if she'd just been to the obstetrician, and she said yes. I told her she had a wonderful baby and she thanked me, with a smile.

She dropped me off where I asked her to, and I thank her again and then ran two blocks toward the beach and the church. It must have been a sight, on that warm Saturday in the town that never wakes, to see a partygirl, running full force in black sweater and bias cut skirt, paired with patterned black stockings and high wedge heels, toward the church and then leaping into the cool, dark vestibule as if it the demons of hell were chasing me themselves.

Inside, it was a tiny gathering and I had worked up a bead of sweat as I walked up the aisle to the pew with my friends and family.

My friend gave the eulogy and she cried as she remembered her father and spoke on behalf of her brother, currently in combat with the Navy and unable to come home. They will conduct a proper burial at sea, as soon as he can come home and collect his father's ashes.

She cried a little harder, as she looked at me, and remembered when she and her father came to visit me in London for her birthday, a time that she calls the best in her life.

Over refreshments afterward, I told her my story of getting to the church and she belly laughed and told me that her father would have enjoyed that, it was a fitting end for him and me.

I think she's right, and in retrospect, I think he had more than a little something to do with that car coming along when it did. Mr. J., still getting me out of jams, from the other side.

This summer, I'm going to sit in his chair and smoke a ciagrette and see if he left a little wisdom behind for me.

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