The Tea Series

by Sheila Horgan

  “Adeline, there is no apology necessary. You can’t control the actions of others any more than I can control Teagan’s need for chocolate.”

  Adeline smiled.

  “What can I do? Do you have a part for me to play in this drama? I don’t approve, I think I’ve made that clear, but if you are going to do this, I certainly do not want you to do it alone.”

  “I was afraid of just that. That is why I tried to get you out of town. I thought that Las Vegas would be a good idea only because I am aware of an operative of Roland’s that took very good care of the girls and me.”

  She actually blushed, but I didn’t say anything. It didn’t seem like the proper time to delve into her social life.

  “Maybe we can go to Vegas another time. You and the girls could show Teagan and me the sights.”

  “That would be fun. I was disappointed that Roland and his team were not a little more subtle.”

  “Subtlety isn’t exactly their strong suit, but then I’m not sure you want all that much subtlety in these kinds of situations.”

  “That might be true. Anna and Carolyn will be here momentarily. I would like for them to explain the plan to you in detail. If you are willing to participate, you are welcome. If you are not willing to participate, please do not be shy about it; simply decline.”

  “I’ll do anything I can. I can’t leap buildings in a single bound, mostly because heights terrify me, but I can do just about anything else.”

  “Thank you, Cara.”

  “You are welcome.”

  “And, Cara?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for insisting that Roland tell me exactly what was going on. I should tell you that he had been keeping me informed long before your insistence, but the fact that you stood up to him on my behalf only proves to me yet again that you are so much more to me than an employee. I hope you know that.”

  “Thank you, Adeline. I appreciate you letting me know. I was about to go all ninja on Roland’s ass.”

  Adeline pulled a pillow over her face so that her laughter couldn’t be heard out in the hall. She put her finger to her lips in the universal sign for ‘shhh’ and shooed me out of the room.

  The girls showed up about five minutes later. Both seemed harried, until they were in a room with me with the door closed. Then they both looked perfectly relaxed. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves.

  They spent the better part of half an hour explaining their plan.

  I must admit, it sounded pretty good.

  They seemed to have every base covered.

  It still made me nervous. Why are they playing superhero when Adeline has enough money to actually hire a real superhero?

  Maybe they need a little more adventure than I thought they did.

  Scary thought.

  As I walked up to my apartment door, it dawned on me that it had been more than an hour.

  So much for Teagan calling in the troops if I mysteriously disappeared.

  When I opened my apartment door Suzi and Teagan were sitting on the couch eating, and watching The Incredibles. The one about superhero parents and their kids. I love that one. The mom actually has a butt, and the kids have attitudes, and they aren’t perfect. It is animated perfection.

  “How’s Adeline? How’s Gran?”

  “Gran is perfect. She plans to spend as much time as she can at the hospital for the next few days until they figure out what is going on with Adeline. She and Anna are staying at the loft. Adeline insisted.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. That place is truly beautiful. It is also pretty strict about who comes and goes, which is a good thing, considering all they’ve been through lately. I really don’t think they’ve seen the last of that either. I know that Adeline thinks she has everybody under control, but I think her problems in Las Vegas were just the beginning of her problems with all those people.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Probably hormones. I’m just glad I’m out of the way so that they can do whatever it is they are doing. Gran really seems to enjoy her time with the girls. They have taken, like, ten years off of each other. Did you know they shot weapons in Las Vegas? Weapons. That’s what they called them.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know that.”

  “Gran said a couple of them were big enough for the military to use. She said they were actually going to go out and do a night shoot, where they could watch tracer bullets or whatever, when they found out that you were hurt, and they came screaming back on a private jet.”

  “That must have cost a fortune.”

  “Gran almost had a heart attack just thinking about it, but some guy out there had a friend-type thing, and the next thing you know, they were in town trying to track down Barry. I’m surprised they haven’t told you all about that, Cara.”

  “I think everyone is still a little nervous around me when it comes to all things Barry.”

  “I know I am. By the way, did I tell you that the divorce is final?”

  “No. I’m sorry, Suzi. I know how important that marriage was to you.”

  “Not as important as raising a healthy and happy baby, and that never could have happened with Barry.”

  Teagan couldn’t let it go. “I was kinda hoping you would say something about your own safety and value.”

  “When you have a husband who beats the crap out of you and then almost kills your best friend, finding a lot of value in yourself is a process. I’m just glad — and so grateful — that the O’Flynns didn’t blame me. Can you imagine if I had to deal with Barry and your mom at the same time? On the same hemisphere?”

  “That is a scary thought.”

  “Well, Barry is in prison for a long time.”

  “Actually, he’s still in jail. It’s amazing how long all of this is taking, considering he is willing to just throw himself on the mercy of the court.”

  “I don’t want to say anything mean, but for my sister’s safety, I hope the court has no mercy.”

  “My safety too.”

  Teagan tried to change the subject. Any time we talk about Barry, it is intense. Talking about him with Suzi is worse. “On to brighter things?”

  Suzi looked down at her hands. “He called me, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know.”

  “He tried to talk me out of the divorce.”

  “Well, I’m glad that he didn’t succeed.”

  “He started out just saying that he was sorry and he would do whatever it took to make sure that when he gets out he is healthy and sane, and by the end of the conversation he told me that if I divorced him, he’d kill himself. That he can’t make it in prison without me.”

  Teagan was instantly angry. “You do understand that’s all manipulation from a really warped mind? You get that, right?”

  “I’m trying. I can’t imagine how hard it will be for him in prison. He was the head of his whole division. He was a man that anyone would consider successful. It’s not like he’s some street thug who is used to living a rough life. He had to have special socks because regular ones pinch his little toe and make him really nuts. You know, it wasn’t all that long ago that I married him thinking that we were going to have this great life and we’d spend it together. I loved him. It’s hard to turn that all off in just a few months.”

  I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. She seemed to be on his side again, and if she is on his side, then I can’t be on her side.

  Teagan looked at me and knew I had to know. “Then why did you decide to go ahead with the divorce?”

  Her voice was strong with just a tinge of anger. “Because he is an idiot and a monster and an asshole, and if he has to kill himself because I don’t want to be married to him, then he is gonna have to kill himself, and that isn’t my problem.”

  Teagan threw her arms around Suzi. “I’m sorry you are going through this. No one deserves this kind of thing in their lives. But you know what, Suzi? I think when it’s all over, you
are going to be standing with your head up and your shoulders back and proud that you survived.”

  “I had a long talk with Adeline one night. I have no intention of being a survivor. I am going to be a thriver. I don’t want to just get through it. I want to come out the other side of it a thousand times better than if it had never happened. I want to use it as a motivator to catapult me into the stratosphere of success.”

  “Sounds like a plan. What should we have Cara cook for us?”

  “My brother is going to call in a few minutes and spontaneously offer to bring barbeque to anyone at the apartment. He’s been planning it for days. Something about the only fries in town that you can transport and keep hot.”

  A.J. arrived with bags of barbeque in hand.

  We sat around the table eating and laughing and forgetting about all the challenges we faced.

  It was good.

  Before she left, Teagan told me that she would be back first thing in the morning to hear all about my adventures with Adeline in the hospital earlier in the day and to ask for my help with her partnership agreement decisions.

  Like I know anything about partnership agreements.

  Suzi hugged everyone good-night, thanked Teagan for her support, and told A.J. she’d be late to the office in the morning, she had a doctor appointment, but it was just her normal check, and it wouldn’t take long. She always made the first appointment of the day, hoping that the doctor wouldn’t be too far behind in her schedule. Mostly the doctor started the day behind and never caught up. Says a lot about our health system and the fortitude of the average doctor.

  A.J. cleared the table and walked the garbage out to the dumpster and said that he was going to check the mail and empty his car.

  I ran in and took a quick shower, shaving everything that was important, spritzing myself with just a little too much smelly-good-stuff and changing into my black-and-white lounge wear. The one that has the pleating on the bottom. I love that thing.

  I was sitting on the couch when A.J. walked back in the door.

  “Wow.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry I took so long. You know the guy with the garage that backs up onto the parking strip where we park?”

  “The tall, skinny guy with the weird teeth?”

  “Yeah, him. He was explaining to me that there is something weird going on around the complex. Something about guys in big black SUVs and guys wandering around at night, big mean-looking guys, just walking around to see what there is to see.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “It’s nice to know that someone is paying attention.”

  “You didn’t tell him it has anything to do with us, did you?”

  “No, I told him I guessed it was security the apartment complex had hired on the down-low because some of the cars had been broken into.”

  “Oh, that’s a good answer.”

  “Not if he really stops to think about it. That would be hiring some pretty expensive security for a few GPS and cell phone thefts.”

  “True, but at least you had some kind of answer.”

  A.J. took his shower and joined me on the couch. We spent the next hour watching stars dancing and then some weird documentary on the life of some fish I’d never heard of that glows in the dark and lives at great depths and was only discovered last year.

  Pretty amazing that there are creatures still roaming around that no one has seen before.

  More amazing that after all this time they finally find the fish, and instead of leaving it alone, they grabbed it and went all science geek on it.

  Good news, they found some interesting medical facts.

  Bad news, who knows just how many of the little buggers there are?

  Probably why the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot keep it on the down-low.

  When did I start saying down-low all the time?

  That’s annoying.

  I’m just sayin’.

  SEVEN

  “THERE IS A plan. I’m just not allowed to talk about it, Teagan.”

  “Still sounds like they’re setting you up.”

  “Did you call just to beat me up about this? I swear to you, they aren’t setting me up.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Now you sound like Mom. What time do you want me there?”

  “You’re assuming I want you here at all, but if you are coming over, how about nine-ish.”

  “I can do that. This time can you actually serve me breakfast instead of flinging it all over me?”

  “I can do that.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring the first course.”

  “Make mine a cinnamon roll. You going to do that chocolate thing with the whipped cream?”

  “No, that is a meal unto itself. Jessie gets home tonight, so you will miss me soon.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Me either.”

  Teagan arrived with a little white paper bag in her hand. Always a welcome sight.

  “Remember the guy?”

  “Gee, that’s helpful. Which guy?”

  “That Rosenbloom guy, with the murdered wife and the kid with the girl with the boobs.”

  “Oh, right, yeah, I remember. Mostly.”

  “Kid confessed to the whole thing. It was in the news this morning. I can’t believe it. Turns out he went against his legal guys and just blurted it out in court and told the judge that he deserved a second chance because, after all, he’d only killed one person and it was all about the money, nothing personal.”

  “Doesn’t that make it special circumstances or something? Didn’t he just shoot himself in the foot?”

  “Don’t know and don’t care. Remember you wanted closure on all the stuff that has been leaning on your brain? There you go. Happy early birthday. One down.”

  “This hardly constitutes one down. It has nothing to do with me. Besides, I want a better birthday present than that.”

  “Dingleberry, you don’t get to pick out your own birthday present.”

  “You do! Every year. You tell me what to buy.”

  “That’s because I’m special.”

  “You’re special alright. Fine, one down. Next you can tell me why I’m trying to get Honey a job with Roland when you said she smoked herself stupid. I don’t want to bring a drug person to the attention of the security person of the person who signs my paycheck.”

  “Relax. You are so serious and literal these days. I didn’t mean that Honey actually smoked herself stupid. It was a phrase I heard on television that morning, and I used it. Damn, Cara, relax.”

  “Yeah, that’s gonna happen. Think about it, dink. Think about everything that has been going on in my life for the last few months. If you took all the adrenaline-causing events in my entire life and added them all up, they wouldn’t begin to match the adrenaline-causing events of the last several months.”

  “So you’ve had a boring life. We all knew that, Cara.”

  “Shut up. Would you want the kind of excitement I’ve had lately?”

  “Well, A.J. seems…”

  “Again, shut up.”

  “It’s hard to have a conversation when I’m not allowed to say anything.”

  “You aren’t saying anything worth hearing or conversating about.”

  I grabbed a stack of mail off the coffee table. Mostly because it bothers Teagan when you read when she is talking. Although it isn’t a good sisterly thing, it is a pretty common sisterly thing that I was in the mood to annoy her, and as far as I’m concerned, she deserves a little annoying.

  “Okay, now you are just trying to annoy me. You don’t have to pretend you’re reading mail.”

  “Who’s pretending?”

  “You are. You know that I know that anything important you do online. You’re just going through junk mail to annoy me.”

  “Sometimes you need annoying, Teagan. You seem to go out of your way to annoy me at times.”

  “That’s different.
”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m not the one being annoyed. I think maybe I should just go get myself glamorized. You want to come? I need to do highlights, nails, feet, and wax a bunch of stuff.”

  “Thanks for sharing the details. Oh, that’s right. Jessie’s coming home.”

  “Right. Keep the mystery alive and all that. What’s going on? What’s that look on your face? What did you find?”

  “Remember Steve?”

  “Steve? Steve from the sub shop Steve?”

  “No, idiot, Steve the brother of Louis, the guy with the condo that we cleaned out and almost got killed in.”

  “I don’t really remember him, but, okay, what about Steve?”

  “Remember he sent me that really big check, and I wasn’t really comfortable, but then Mom told me that I should just put it in the bank and wait and see what happens? If I felt better about it, then I’d still have it, and if I didn’t feel better about it, I could donate it or something?”

  “I thought that was actually my plan, but go ahead.”

  “I just got a huger check.”

  “What?”

  “He just sent me a letter. It said that in the time since we’d last communicated — he is a really formal guy, that’s how he writes — his brother’s name has been cleared, and there was some kind of monetary benefit because of it. It says that his estate has been settled, and while I’m not a part of that estate, he wanted me to have the money that would have gone to him. He and his brother were not close, and he didn’t have the faith in him that I did.”

  “Wow, that’s insane.”

  “Literally.”

  “So, what are you going to do? How big is the check?”

  I showed her the check.

  “Cara, that isn’t huge.”

  “Maybe not in your world, but when this much money just shows up for no reason in my life, I consider it huge.”