Iced Tea

by Sheila Horgan

  “Maybe the two aren’t connected. Maybe the serial murder investigation is wholly separate from the corruption.”

  I shook my head. “What are the chances that a small group of people, or just me individually, would run into about seventeen dramas all going on at the same time? In order for your theory to be right, we have a bad cop, a good cop, a serial murderer, a possibly murdered cop, a couple of women dead with nothing to string them together to the whole other mess; but pure chance leads the beautiful redhead to miraculously put all the pieces together and save the day. Teagan, you really need to stick to after school specials.”

  Teagan rolled her eyes, “Two things. First, who’s the beautiful redhead?”

  I smacked her. Enough said.

  “Second, isn’t there a very famous quote about life being stranger than fiction?”

  Steph agreed. Of course she did. Their brain cells were zooming around on pure sugar. You put enough sugar in your system and I’m telling you it isn’t like LSD, only cause it’s legal.

  Since we were all sharing, and Teagan and Stephanie had bonded over Sin, Steph started to tell us about some of her cases. I was completely grossed out, but also impressed. She might look like a twelve-year-old Catholic school sweetheart, but the woman has some serious backbone.

  She told us about this one case that started in California. It started as a teen run away. By the time it was all sorted out, they had found a sex trafficking group, she had used her looks to get pulled into it, the bad guy thinking that she was actually a kid on the run. She had been able to get enough information, and keep her virtue intact, by convincing the guy that grabbed her, that since she was a virgin, she was worth more money to him and that if he raped her, it would cost him a fortune. She wasn’t a cop, or a trained investigator, so she didn’t come off as one. She convinced the bad guy, slightly stupid, and heavily drugged, to sell her to the big bad guys, and because she’s a lawyer, and knew exactly what was needed to prosecute, she was able to spring the trap at exactly the right time. The bad guys are all in jail.

  I admit, that I didn’t admit out loud, that Steph’s story kind of proved Teagan’s point, that our story is just as implausible and outrageous, but could still be true.

  If I’d seen that in a movie I’d never believe it, but the look of horror on her face when she described some of the things she’d seen and how close she came to some really dark dark dark tortures, she convinced me.

  I felt much differently about her handling my wee little crisis.

  What’s a potential serial murder slash police corruption case next to something like that?

  When they were leaving, Steph said that she would communicate with me through Teagan, as they had known each other for a long time, it wouldn’t raise suspicion that they were hanging out together. That if anyone was actually watching, it was just a sister bringing a friend over for Sin. The whole body wrap thing would reinforce it. I was welcome to come.

  Um, no thanks.

  After they left, my ex-spy neighbor came over. I told him that I thought I had things moving in the right direction, and that if I needed help, I’d let him know.

  Soon after that, AJ showed up. I hadn’t even had time to think about how I was going to address the trollop issue, but, having heard Steph’s stories, I was inspired to be assertive without being confrontational.

  I decided as soon as AJ came out of the shower we’d have us a little talk.

  When he walked into the living room, he looked really pooped. His hair was still wet, and he didn’t even put on his regular cologne.

  I started off, “What a hell of a day.”

  “Mine was pretty interesting too. You want to talk about it?”

  “Teagan and a lawyer left just a little while ago. I think we have the whole memory card thing straightened out. You want to hear about it now or later?”

  “Can we talk about that in the morning?”

  “Sure. Are you okay?”

  “I just had one of those days where everything that could go wrong did go wrong and I really didn’t have the time to deal with any of it but all of it took extra time.”

  “Sorry. Did you get it all worked out?”

  “Yeah, eventually. You know the designer that I’m working with, the one that’s trading Morgan’s dresses for the images and all that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She showed up today and decided that she didn’t want to do the trade. Basically she stormed in, told me that the deal was off and that she wanted her dresses back.”

  “Crap. Poor Morgan.”

  “I talked to her. Turns out she’s just having a minor melt down. She and her partner have decided to call it done. She hadn’t eaten anything or slept. She’s just getting the business to a point that it could take off, and this all blows up in her face.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened? Why’s her partner leaving? How much control is she going to lose in the business?”

  “Not her business partner Cara, her life partner, her wife, whatever, I’m not sure if they’re married. She owns the business outright, technically, but they’ve been together for a long time, and they both worked at the business.”

  I may have been a bit snippy, “Oh. I had no way of knowing any of that, you never really shared any of that with me.” I hate being kept in the dark about this stuff, well, about any stuff. I’m nosey by nature, and the details of life are what keep it interesting.

  AJ had the good grace to let it go, “Sara, that’s the designer, and Amanda, that’s her wife, just kind of blew up. And to top it all off, Sara’s pregnant. She can’t be this upset. It’s not good for her and it’s not good for the baby.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “She showed up at the studio unannounced. I was in the middle of a shoot. She was falling apart in the office while I did the shoot. I practically had to carry her down the stairs. No easy task considering how narrow that passage is and Sara may be skinny but she is damn near as tall as I am.”

  Damn! The trollop isn’t an AJ hugger, she’s a woman going through a really hard time, pregnant, alone, and she’s the person that made the fairytale wedding possible for my brother and soon to be sister-in-law, and here I’m thinking mean thoughts about her all day long.

  Amazing how perceptions can change.

  One minute she is a woman after my guy, the next she is an unfortunate waif.

  I really need to get myself under control. All this stress is turning me into an insecure idiot, and nobody likes an insecure idiot, especially me.

  “So what happened?”

  “I half walked, half carried her over to the diner…”

  That must have been when I drove by and saw him with his arm around her.

  “I got some food into her. I got her calmed down. Morgan was on her way back over to get the images from the shoot we did for the bar. She pretty much scooped Sara up and carried her away. I don’t know where they went, but I got a text just before I left that Sara is fine, tucked in for the night, and that everything was back to normal.”

  “Sounds rough, but it sounds like you did the right things.”

  “Yeah, well, that was just one little blip on my disaster radar today. I was doing a shoot, and some boyfriend of a wanna be model decided to get weird, he picked up my barn doors and threw ‘em across the room. I couldn’t do the image I’d already setup because without the barn doors, how the hell was I supposed to get no hard lines and no spill on the subject? Not the way I had it setup anyway, so I had to redo all that, then I was so screwed up about that, that I set my snoot down and forgot about it, I ended up kicking the damn thing all the way across the room. It ripped the shit out of a really thin paper I was using as a backdrop so that I could play with the light from behind it. I was so pissed I didn’t even try to fix anything; I’ll work on it tomorrow. I packed up my stuff and called it a day. Then Jessie wanted me to do more crap with him, but I just wanted to come home and be with you.”

  “Can
I feed you?”

  “I don’t want a real meal. How about we just have sandwiches or something. I’ll make them.”

  “You sit. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Thanks.”

  After dinner, which was really more like lunch late in the day, we watched TV for a while, AJ surfed around on the Internet while I read, we went to bed pretty early, and fell asleep, each of us wiped out by our day.

  I love morning. The beginning of a new day. All the bad stuff from yesterday is washed away. All the good stuff is put in permanent storage in my memories folder, somewhere in my wee little brain, to be pulled out in case of emergency.

  I got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, my favorite tennis shoes, pulled my hair back in a french braid, made a huge cup of tea in a travel mug, actually, it’s more like three cups, and headed off toward Jovana’s.

  My GPS kept me ahead of traffic, by accident or design, and I got there a few minutes early. I was trying to decide if I should sit in my car and wait, or if I should just ring the bell, when Jovana came out, wearing a beautiful flowered tunic and white pants. She ushered me into the kitchen, offered me breakfast, which I declined. She had the kettle boiled and tea ready for the making, which I gratefully accepted.

  She walked me into a super huge dining room, with an unbelievably large table, and when I say large table I know what I’m talking about, my parent’s dinner table seats ten everyday, and we can easily add four more.

  It only took a few minutes for Jovana to explain what she needed me to do.

  The problem is that if she’s in the room I listen to her talk and it slows me down.

  I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject, so I fell back on my normal way of doing things.

  Blurtation.

  “Jovana, I don’t mean to be rude, but you are so interesting, I’m listening instead of mailing. I could get all this done, in half the time, by myself.”

  “Oh, Sugar, that would be such a great help to me. If you don’t mind, I’ll excuse myself, and go work on a little something I have going on in the office.”

  “Perfect.”

  I took all the envelopes she had sitting in a box, shoved my fingers between the flap and the envelop of the first one, then shoved the flap of one, under the flap of the next, until I had all the flaps laying on top of each other, then opened them all. Then I took pages she had, put them all in a row; the envelopes lined up at the end of the row, flaps toward the wall.

  I pulled the chairs away from the table so that I had some room to move. I took my iPhone out of my purse, plugged the earbuds in, found my ‘weird’ music playlist, the playlist that has songs that I think are funny, that make me smile, and I went to work. Grab, grab, fold, stuff, put in box. Grab, grab, fold, stuff, put in box. I never seal without approval.

  By the time Jovana came back in to check on me, I was almost done, only had three paper cuts, but I needed tea.

  She seemed pleased with my progress, which pleased me a great deal. I have no idea why. Stuffing envelopes is really no big deal, especially when you come from a big family. Just Christmas cards each year will give you an idea of how a major mailing should be done, and God forbid you get stuck doing the thank you notes for a funeral or a wedding. Each and every one has to be personalized. This, just stuffing envelopes, was a piece of cake.

  Tea.

  We headed out to the kitchen and put on the kettle. While we waited for it to boil, Jovana said, “Sugar, I think that sister of yours, Morgan, is just one of the nicest girls I have ever met. I’d like to do a little something nice for her wedding, but I don’t really want to tell her about it yet. Do you think she would be offended?”

  “Oh, Crap!”

  “What? Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, it isn’t you. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even checked in with my mom. She was going to get together with Morgan’s mother the other day, and I never heard any more about it.”

  “Well, that’s nice. I guess they were planning wedding fun of their own.”

  “I’m not sure what Morgan has told you about her family, but they aren’t really communicating well right now. It’s a long story, and parts of it are really ugly. My mom decided to try to put things right and talk to Morgan’s mom.”

  “Well, that sure is kind of your mother.”

  “I’m not sure Morgan will see it that way.”

  “Morgan didn’t know?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sugar, I’m not sure of much in this life, but I do know, only because I am a daughter, not because I raised any, that the relationship between mother and daughter can be a complicated thing. I’m not sure your momma can fix this.”

  “Me either. More important than that, I hope she doesn’t make it worse. At least they were being civil to one another before, if my mom screwed it up, Morgan might not be happy with any of us.”

  “Sugar, Morgan isn’t like that. She would appreciate the effort.”

  “Maybe. Morgan isn’t used to a big family, and she really isn’t used to people stepping in and taking over her life.”

  “Well, then, maybe my idea isn’t such a good one.”

  “You could always ask Morgan.”

  “I really wanted to make it a surprise.”

  “Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission? Pretty much how I’ve always lived my life.”

  “Well, I’ll think about it a bit more and see what comes to me.”

  “I’ll make a note to call my mother.”

  “You could call her right now Sugar.”

  “Calling my mom isn’t a quick thing. Besides, I want details. I think that I’ll just wait. I’ll finish this up, go visit with Adeline for a bit since I’m here, and then when I pick up my nephew, I’ll bring him to see grandma, and pump her for information.”

  “Using a poor innocent child as a shield against your momma Cara?”

  “Jordan, that’s Morgan’s son, is a smart pipsqueak, he can hold his own, besides, my mom loves Jordan, and he’s still young enough to be cute. That whole thing wore thin with Mom and me years ago. She doesn’t think I’m cute any more. I’ll just scoop up Jordan, stop at the store and pick up something good to go with a cup of tea, and spontaneously drop by my mom’s house so she can visit with Jordan. I’ll just happen to mention that I forgot to ask about the whole thing. It’ll be fine.”

  “Well, Sugar, I wish you luck. Being a more mature woman, I can tell you from both sides of that particular riddle, that your momma is gonna see right through you.”

  “Probably, but with Jordan there she’ll be nice.”

  “A mother’s memory is long Cara.”

  “I’ll finish these up and then go see Adeline real quick, if that’s okay.”

  “I’ve got this. It won’t take me long at all.”

  “I just grab a bunch, fan them out so the adhesive is showing and then swipe them with a damp sponge. I could get them all done in 5 minutes. It really isn’t a problem.”

  “I do the same thing. I’ll take care of it. You go on now. What about your tea?”

  “Can I make it to go?”

  “Of course you can Sugar.”

  I waved as I headed for the door to visit with Adeline.

  Dear Lord, how well I know that a mother’s memory is long.

  I drove to Adeline’s, a two-minute journey. I smiled as I walked to the side door. I didn’t expect what I found on the other side. Adeline looked old. Very old. She seemed to be just a shadow of herself. It kind of freaked me out. I wasn’t sure if I should call Jovana, or drag Adeline to the ER.

  “Adeline? How are you this morning? I thought I’d come by for our visit. Is it too early?”

  She was polite, but obviously confused. “I’m sorry dear. I’m having a little problem placing you. Are you a friend of my daughter’s?”

  “Yes ma’am, a friend of Genevieve’s. May I come in?”

  “You may, indeed.”

  We basically repeated our movements of the day befo
re. We ate in the big kitchen, we chatted about everything and nothing. It all seemed very déjà vu-ee, except that Adeline seemed about fifty years older than when I met her. Very surreal. Very scary. Very confusing.

  I wasn’t sure I should even leave her, but I needed to go pick up Jordan. I called Jovana from the bathroom and explained my problem.

  “Sugar, I told you that Adeline might be suffering from Alzheimer’s or some other affliction. That is why her daughter wanted you to visit. If it is too upsetting for you, we might want to see if we can find someone else to do this.”

  “No, I don’t want to stop seeing her, I just didn’t expect this. It caught me off guard. She was fine yesterday.”

  “She has good days and bad days. They used to call them spells.”

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “She hasn’t seen the doctor on a bad day.”

  “How could that be?”

  “Sugar, we can’t schedule her bad days. We don’t have a reason to put her in the hospital. There isn’t much we can do right now. Her daughter is out of the country. Adeline isn’t going to sign a paper that gives me or you or anyone else, her medical power of attorney. She isn’t doing poorly enough to force the court to do that. For now, we are doing what we can. We monitor, we document, and we help where we can.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this Sugar?”

  “Yes ma’am. I’m worried about leaving her alone.”

  “Sugar, if you’d never met the woman she would be alone and you would never have known. You can’t take on full responsibility for her welfare, all you can do is help when you can.”

  “True.”

  “You tell Adeline that I’ll be by tonight for our chat.”

  “I’ll do that. Thanks.”

  We hung up and I took a deep breath.

  I ran for the kitchen, fixed a few snacky type things so that Adeline wouldn’t be so likely to use the stove, I had visions of her burning the place down.