The Run Around

by Bernadette Franklin

  Jacob laughed, came over, and crouched near my pets, holding his hand out so they could decide if they wanted to make his acquaintance. “You took me as the kind who couldn’t say no to an animal in need. When we’re doing the floors, I’ll make sure to get the best heating system I can for him, as he’ll appreciate it. I have a litter box set up in my office in case she needs one.”

  “That’s great. Thanks, Jacob.”

  “Come with me, and I’ll get you three settled in my office so you can get your work done. I’ll have someone bring up the boxes in a few minutes, but I’m sure you can discuss other matters while they’re ferried upstairs.” Jacob led us to the elevator and pressed the button to the clubhouse floor. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Water or tea, please.”

  “Black, green, white, rooibos, herbal, or would you like me to pick for you?”

  “Chai if you have it, and I’ll take mine with no sugar or milk,” I replied.

  “I see you like to discipline your taste buds. For you two?”

  “Water, please,” Alice replied.

  “And you, Lance?”

  “Coffee, black. With extra darkness added if possible, as that’s what it’s going to take to get me through dealing with these taxes.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to be that bad, Lance. It’s just a little complicated is all. That’s why Garret sent Hope our way. He said she was qualified to handle this mess.”

  Messes I could handle, but I really hoped their taxes wouldn’t be a mess. “I’ll do my best to make sure everything is sorted, and if you need to file any adjustments with the IRS, I’ll walk you through everything and prepare the forms so all you have to do is sign and send.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Lance announced.

  “Hey, I got Ruby this morning. That’s the best news of the day,” Alice protested.

  “How happy Ruby makes you is the second-best news of my day, but having someone fix our tax disaster is better news. That means I don’t have to try to make sense of the tax code.”

  Alice pouted, which made Lance smile.

  Damn. If I had a man look at me the way Lance looked at Alice, I’d have it made. “Well, I can take care of making sense of the tax code, and if I don’t know something, I work with a lot of people who do, so I’ll make sure they’re filed accurately. Don’t you worry about that at all. My job is to make this as painless as possible.”

  Alice grinned. “I like the sound of that. Still, I’m sorry. I had no idea the lawsuit and getting married in the same year would make such a mess of our taxes.”

  “That seems to be as good a place to start as any. What happened with the lawsuit to make it a tax nightmare?”

  “I was awarded a cash settlement in an assault case.” Alice gestured to her scarred face with a shrug. “I opted against paying out the ridiculous amount for anything more than the basic reconstructive surgery and spent the rest on cars and our house. Then I was repaid for one of the cars and the house, and we have no idea how to handle the taxes as a result. The last tax person I gave the file to cried.”

  That didn’t sound promising. “The government does enjoy getting every penny out of you as much as possible.”

  “Yeah, and we received extra to cover the taxes, which made it even more complicated. I think I overpaid our taxes, too. Well, I know I did. I got a hefty check back from the IRS, but that shouldn’t be right.”

  Ah. When someone owed a lot in taxes, and they received a refund after paying, triggers were tripped, anxiety kicked in, and doubt usually won. “Did you happen to register all of the various health bills associated with your injuries as part of your taxes?”

  Alice frowned. “Yes, one of the accountants did make me hand over all of the receipts, even the one I got while out west. I broke my stupid foot being stupid.”

  The elevator pinged and opened to the clubhouse level, and Jacob led us to his office, which had a few extra chairs and a card table brought in to offer extra room if his desk lacked sufficient space. Alice’s spider was placed in the far corner, and she plugged in a mat, which she placed beneath the tub. “Don’t worry, the mat doesn’t get hot enough to hurt the plastic. It just makes sure she stays warm enough.”

  “Alice, stop fretting. Your spider is fine, nobody minds you have her here, and you’re not going to burn anything down while you’re in here watching the heat pad. Please relax. Please, I beg you. If you keep fretting any more today, I’m going to have a heart attack.”

  She scowled, and I recognized an old complaint when I heard one. As the last thing any of us needed was a bundle of anxiety fretting over taxes and her pet at the same time, I said, “It’s okay. We’ll keep an eye on your spider, and I’ll make sure Edgar Allan Paw and Lenore don’t bother her. Their favorite hobby is sleeping, although I expect the kitten will start getting into trouble soon. That’s what kittens do. Or that’s what I’ve been told kittens do. I’ve never had a cat or a dog before, so I expect the next few days of my life will be interesting.”

  “You’re sure?” Alice asked.

  “Absolutely. Let’s sit down and start going over these papers so I can see if there’s any obvious issues, and I’ll take the lot with me tonight and get to work on it. I’ll make sure all of the deductions you can claim have been claimed and close any potential audit risks to keep the IRS from poking its nose in your business. Of course, that won’t stop you from being selected as part of the random draw for audits, but my job is to keep your audit risk as low as possible. If you are audited, my job also involves making certain you get through it as quickly as possible without incurring any bills.”

  “I thought an IRS audit automatically meant a huge fine,” Alice muttered.

  “There’s only a fine if they find anything wrong with your taxes. If it’s discovered they overcharged you as part of the audit, they owe you money. They try to avoid auditing anyone that might result in them having to pay a refund.”

  Two of Jacob’s employees brought in a stack of four boxes, which they placed on the desk. I raised a brow, making a mental note over how I’d need to add a few extra hours to every day for a while. “Is this all medical?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know what I’d need, so I brought everything. The renovation payments for the house, the car registrations, the medical bills, the court paperwork showing how much I was owed and paid, taxes paid everywhere, charitable contributions, and that other thing Lance said we’d need.”

  Lance laughed. “Our W-2s, babe.”

  “Yeah, those.”

  I giggled. “How is this organized?”

  Alice gulped. “It’s not. I’m a secretary, and I should know better, but I got frustrated, I couldn’t find a paper, and I made a mess of it, so I just shoved everything in the boxes, and then I kept shoving things in them I wasn’t sure I needed, and now there’s four boxes, and I don’t even know how much of it you actually need.”

  Alice’s admission made her husband smile even more. “You’re such a mess, Alice. Anyway, we’re sorry, Hope. She got flustered, and she didn’t know if we’d done it right, and once she gets to that level of flustered, she becomes the equivalent of a toddler on sugar. While I think it’s hilarious, she gets pretty upset over it. I put an end to the train wreck and hired your firm to handle the taxes before she went insane. If you could make a list of what we need to keep and what we don’t need to keep to prevent future meltdowns, that would be amazing.”

  “I can do that. I’ll organize the papers by what is actually needed, what isn’t needed, and make any notations about anything that might be missing when I compare them to the tax documentation you have already filled out.”

  Alice pointed at one of the boxes, which had a black spider sticker on it. “That one has the tax documents in it. I put it in numbered envelopes because there are that many pages.”

  “That’s normal when taxes become complicated. There are often a lot of supporting forms.” I took
the lid off the box with the tax documents, found the envelopes, and tried not to sigh at the six inches of hell waiting for me. Somehow, I succeeded. “While the tax code has been confirmed to break tables, I think you could turn your tax package into a lethal weapon. Someone should sue the IRS for weaponizing their documentation.”

  That got both of them laughing, and by the time Jacob returned with drinks, the pair relaxed enough to give me a better feel for them and their financial situation. Helping good, funny people get through a tax hell appealed to me, something I hadn’t gotten to do at my old place of employment.

  Silver linings helped me get through the rough times, of which there would be many in the upcoming days. If I could turn their tax woes into a victory for them, it would console me when my personal and professional life went from weird to miserable.

  And it would. The shine of the new and interesting couldn’t last forever, especially when auditing a company with twisted morals.

  It took until midnight to get the basics of the McCarthy file situated, and I put an end to the discussion out of worry for them, as both yawned and seemed barely able to keep their eyes open. A single glance at Jacob got the man to send a pair of his employees with them to make certain they got home in one piece.

  I accepted his offer for the same, although the older man who drove my vehicle back to the hotel would walk back to work rather than partner up with someone else. Settling my new pets took longer than anticipated, as Edgar Allan Paw whined if his bed was too far from me, which transformed my hotel room into a maze. Lenore insisted on staying with her friend, and she allowed me to pet her.

  Morning came early, with a hungry dog and a kitten both pawing at me in a demand for a walk and their breakfast. It amused me the pair had figured out I would be their provider, and I fed them first before taking them into the hotel’s miniature yard so Edgar Allan Paw could take care of his morning constitutional at his leisure rather than mine. To spare the old man from walking to work, I herded them to the car and drove them in, laughing over how my initial plan to avoid traffic and get exercise hadn’t even lasted a week.

  Working without a hangover did me a world of good, and despite the oddities of my assignment, I discovered I could settle into a routine and gain back some control over my life. Over my lunches, I both amused and tortured myself with planning a wedding for Rick, narrowing the field to one old church, several potential yachts, a cruise liner willing to host a wedding if we could plan for it eight months in advance with an upfront payment for the use of the ship, and several parks and gardens suitable for wedding photography.

  Some of the yachts reminded me of miniature cruise liners, and they took luxury to excess—as did their operational costs. One yacht, with a maximum capacity of over seven hundred, would cost a hundred thousand to rent for the wedding, including rehearsals, catering, and entertainment. I particularly liked that yacht, as it oozed luxury and would sail anywhere within six hours of port, resulting in a party nobody would forget anytime soon. The cruise liner would be willing to take the entire party anywhere they typically sailed at standard cabin fare plus an additional fee for the wedding itself.

  I worried that the rich and famous might even bite on a week or two adventure for the entire wedding, as that seemed something the excessively wealthy would indulge in.

  I wondered if my boss would let me take a week or two off to go to a wedding.

  On Friday night, I headed to the hotel with my pets in tow, braced for a conversation I’d ultimately hate and love at the same time, and called Rick.

  “I was wondering when you’d call me,” Rick answered. “How is everything going?”

  “I survived my first week of work, and I have a weekend of helping a couple with their taxes ahead of me. One of the clients has pet spiders, and I’m pleased to report there were no fatalities from the spider. I’m not sure her husband is convinced he’s going to survive sharing a home with his wife’s pet spiders, but he seems to be a good sport about it. I did find some time to work on the wedding, and I had some questions.”

  “I may have answers, and if I don’t, I know who to ask.”

  “There is a cruise liner that would be willing to allow you to book the entire ship to any of their regular destinations for the standard cabin fare plus a fee for the wedding. With the numbers you were tossing around, you almost have enough to fill almost the entire ship, hitting the liner’s minimum to sail. There are some pretty big yachts out there, but they run the same price as the cruise liner if you have a big enough guest list, which you might.”

  “We can make the guest list larger if the ship can host the entire wedding party. We were limiting it due to space restrictions. My uncle is handy with technology, and we were going to record and distribute for those who couldn’t come anyway.”

  That sounded like my personal hell in the making, but I would figure some way to survive through the planning.

  Focusing on the perks of using a cruise ship for the wedding might help. “It’s a pretty big ship, but I expect the deck would be crowded if we tried to cram that many people in one place at the same time. I can ask if they have places on the ship where we could spread the gathering. It would be extra planning to account for several celebrations happening at the same time, but it could happen. Depending on the total size of the wedding, yachts are an option, and there are some really nice ones that sail out of New York. The yachts usually max out at no more than six hundred guests, so if you want a bigger wedding, you might want to go with the cruise liner. They have cruises ranging from a week to an entire month, although they’ll do a one-day event if you book the ship before they establish their schedule. They essentially make the ship available between official cruises, and they charge a fee for doing it because they’ll need so many staff on board. But you have to book it far in advance either way. If you take the whole ship, they have to schedule everything.”

  “That’s tempting. If we use a week-long cruise, most should be able to get the time off, and I would have sufficient time to make my plans. That said, what about our dogs?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t ask if they’d allow dogs on board. I can ask them next time I talk to them.”

  “Please do so, as I think that’ll matter. I’d rather not leave Annabel Lee for a week.”

  “I wouldn’t want to leave mine, either, but I have a good pet sitter in mind if it’s necessary.”

  “For some reason, a cat on a cruise ship seems to be a recipe for disaster.”

  “So are a bunch of dogs, but it might be viable. Lenore doesn’t seem to mind her harness if it means she gets to stay near Edgar Allan Paw.”

  “Ask the cruise liner if they’ll accommodate cats and dogs, what the extra fee for it would be, and what their room cleanup fees would be afterwards. Annabel Lee loves boats, so she will adapt nicely, but you may want to take your old man on a test cruise to see if he does okay on the water. Some dogs don’t. Some cats don’t, either.”

  “I’ll do that, assuming I can find someone with a boat willing to take me out. It won’t be a cruise liner, though. Aren’t they different from one of the smaller boats?”

  “Somewhat, yes. If they can’t handle a small boat, I’d be worried about them on a cruise liner.”

  Where would I find time to take my pets on a mini cruise to see if they liked the ocean? I added it to my list of things to do. “All right. I’ll see about that as soon as I have some time. What is the timetable for this?”

  “Honestly, once I tell my cousin about the cruise liner and a week on the water, it will be as soon as you can get one booked. She doesn’t even need a destination port. She loves everything about the ocean. Her groom likes the water, too, though not as much as she does.”

  “And you?”

  “I very much like the idea of having a week to work on the target of my affection, even if I don’t get to ask her during the actual wedding ceremonies. That’ll let my cousin shine at her wedding too, despite her willingness to have me
encroach on her turf.”

  “You told me it was basically a family tradition to double up on these things.”

  “She’s willing to accept a proposal instead of me trying to toss a woman into a wedding gown on a whim. Members of my family and the family friends are used to that sort of thing, but it might be a harder sell this go around.”

  Interesting. “So, you’re willing to double up but you don’t think the woman you like will be willing to double up?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, I just don’t want to spring it on her without giving her a chance to think about it. I’m not the kind to force someone to give me a yes or no with an audience, so I figure I’ll be sly about it. She can decide without an entire cruise liner watching and waiting for her answer. If she wants to double up, I’m sure my cousin would be happy to toss her into something and drag her along for the ride. And if she is interested in that sort of thing, I get a chance to stick it to my parents and the other intermediate members of my family who have ideas about who I should be marrying.”

  Ah. Poor Rick. “They want you to do one of those alliance marriages, don’t they?”

  “Precisely. I’m trying to teach Annabel Lee to tell my mother no, but my mother has charmed my dog too much for it to work. Her inability to speak English also hampers with my attempts to have her tell my mother no.”

  I laughed. “That would be some trick, though.”

  “I tried telling Annabel Lee that, but she doesn’t listen, and she insists on adoring my mother even when she’s being a pain in my ass.”

  “Just tell your mother you’re happily dating someone, pass on her kind offer to be set up with a woman, and go about minding your own business. You’ll have to be sneaky with when you see your lady until the cruise, but that’s a small price to pay for some peace, right?”

  “I’m not sure my lady will like being treated like she should be hidden from sight, though.”

  “Have you asked her?”

  “Not precisely. I’m trying to figure out how to convince her I shouldn’t just stay in the friends category.”