“I KNOW YOU have meetings, but when you have time, can we talk again?”
“I’ll make time. When?”
“No, it’s not like that. I just want your opinion. You said some things to me, like the floating away thing. I just want to talk about it some more. Whenever. It’s not an emergency.”
“How about we meet for dinner in Old Town tonight? I should be done for the day at about six. We could meet across the street in the diner if you want to do casual, or we can go down the block to the Cuban place if you want something a little nicer, or we can go to the steak house if you want fancy.”
“How about the barbeque place?”
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way. Does that work for you?”
“Yep. Thank you.”
He was kissing me goodbye when my phone rang.
He didn’t even look toward it. “That’s Teagan.”
“How do you know?”
“‘Cause until she gets back from her honeymoon, things are gonna be a little intense. I’m gearing up for it. I hope Jessie is ready. And once your Mom and Dad get home, watch out. And when they find out about Sinead, it’s going to be over the top. Oh, can I ask you a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can you check on Suzi today? She should be moving in. She’s having some furniture delivered.”
“She can hang out here and wait. You want me to invite her to dinner tonight?”
“I thought you wanted to talk.”
“I do, but that can wait.”
“No. We aren’t going to do that anymore. We’re just as important as everybody else. If there isn’t an emergency, other people can just wait.”
“Deal.”
“Good. See you sometime around six.”
“Tell you what. I’ll invite Suzi over for dessert. If her furniture isn’t set up, she can stay in the guest room.”
“Thanks.”
The missed call was from Teagan. I called her back.
“Hey.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“I swear to God, that woman has smoked herself stupid.”
“What?”
“Honey. She called this morning. She has a new plan. Did you ever ask Roland if he would hire her? Tell him he’ll be my very best friend forever if he can find someplace to put her. I swear I won’t testify against him in court if the place he finds to put her has a one-way — ”
“Roland isn’t a hit man, Teagan.”
“But maybe he knows some.”
“I haven’t asked him yet.”
“You suck as a sister.”
“I’ll call him, and I’ll call you right back.”
“Thanks. I’m not working today. You want to do something?”
“I told A.J. I’d check in with Suzi. She’s supposed to be moving in today. I said she could hang out here while she waits for her stuff to be delivered.”
“How boring are you?”
“What?”
“Hang out there? Why? Give the people in the office twenty bucks, ask them to open the door for the delivery guys, leave a tip on the counter, and bring Suzi with us.”
“I’m not sure that would work.”
“Okay, then figure out something to do there.”
“Like what?”
“Oh my God, what happened to you? You’re so boring these days. I mean, you’ve never been all that exciting, but I kinda got my hopes up when you did the trendy hair and the beautiful clothes. Some of your clothes are actually better than mine. Well, my old ones at least. You need to break out of this mood you’ve been in since forever.”
“I’m trying…”
“Don’t even start with me. Just knock it the hell off. Cara, happiness doesn’t just happen to you; you create it. If you want to be happy, then, dammit, decide to be happy. You told me yourself that the counselor told you that you aren’t post-traumatic whatever and you aren’t depressed, so you are just in a mood, and if you are just in a mood, the only way to get out of it is to just get out of it.”
“I’m trying.”
“I said don’t start. You know what Mom says. When you say you’re trying, you have already given yourself permission not to succeed. For God’s sake, Cara, if you need to scream, then scream. If you need to cry — ”
“I’ve already done that.”
“Fine. If you need to beat the crap out of someone, I’m here for you. I’ll call Liam and tell him there’s free food. I’ll even hold him down when he gets there so you can beat him up, but, Cara, you need to stop this crap. It’s time to get past it. I’ve been patient. Damn near a saint, really, but I’m losing my sense of humor.”
“Well, I guess that’s what’s important.”
“Stop it. You have been out of control for a while. No, that’s backwards, you have been overly controlled.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I did some research, Cara. I know that it’s normal for you to have some difficult times after getting beat up. Worse than beat up, Barry tried to kill you, and I’ll give him this much, he came close. Your reaction to that has been normal. I checked. I don’t know much about all this stuff, but according to everything I’ve read you are right on track, but you have gotten stuck in crazy — ”
“I’m not crazy.”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
“Sorry. Finish. Please.”
“Cara, you went from normal — well, normal for you — to this ultra-conservative weirdo.”
“I’ve always been a little bit conservative. I think of myself as a moderate liberal with conservative habits. I like having a savings account, and I like worrying about an endangered species now and then.”
“Okay, leaving that simplistic view of politics behind, because you need more help in that area than I can give you, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then tell me, Teagan, what exactly are you talking about?” Okay, it came out a little crappy, but I’m so tired of everybody picking me apart. It feels like everybody gets to pick apart everything I say and do and I don’t get to pick back or I’m being unreasonable.
“You keep throwing out all this weird stuff. Cara, Mom has become your personal ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ campaign. I even went along with it for a while. I actually encouraged it for a while. I was trying to be supportive. But now it’s just getting on my nerves. You’re taking the stuff that Mom said out of context — the stuff she said when we were five years old — and applying emotional steroids and claiming it’s all things O’Flynn. It’s not. And we both know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I just told you, Cara. Listen to me. Don’t argue with me in your head before I even get the words out of my mouth. Listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think this whole Barry thing has been harder on you than we thought it was, and I’m getting worried.”
“I went to the counselor. She said I was fine.”
“No, she said that you could work your way through it with the help of the family. That isn’t the same as fine.”
“So you really do think I’m crazy?”
“Not crazy. Well, not the way you’re using the word crazy.”
“Broken?”
“I can live with broken.”
“So, what am I supposed to do, Teagan? It’s like I’m lost.”
“You could start by taking off those weird O’Flynn glasses. It’s like rose-colored glasses, but instead of seeing everything rosy, you see everything O’Flynn-ee. Remember how Grandma always used to say that about you? You were the one in the family who wore the rose-colored glasses. She used to say that you could find something good in everything.”
“Yeah, I’m a regular dung beetle.”
“Don’t be like that. You’ve always been O’Flynn crazed, but it’s getting a little ridiculous, Cara. And now everything is so twisted. It’s like you think that O’Flynns are all little clones of the perfect little Irish…” She searched her mind but she couldn’t even come up with the words, which made her all the more frustrated. I could picture her face. And her clenched jaw. And her clenched fists. Even with her in her apartment and me in mine and miles between us, I could see it all. That’s what happens when you have a sister. You can picture them. Perfectly. Sometimes that isn’t a blessing.
“Cara, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just weird.”
“I don’t think the family is perfect.”
“Sure you do; you always have. That isn’t the problem. The problem is that until recently, even you understood that your view of things was your view. Like those nightgowns you always wear.”
“I can’t remember the last time I wore gowns two days in a row.”
“That’s probably part of the problem.”
“Yeah, me and my weird fetish.”
“I wouldn’t call it a fetish.”
“You have called it a fetish.”
“Yeah, but that was before I read that trilogy. I now have a better understanding of fetishes. You aren’t a fetishist; you’re just weird.”
“Gee, I feel better now.”
“Good, I’m here to help.”
“So, what do you think I should do? You said I’m not crazy, but I am screwed up. How do I unscrew myself?”
“I saw a concoction in New Orleans. Guaranteed to make you happy. He called it Happy Tea. The tea was a weird color, and it smelled funny, but if you pinched your nose, you could probably get it down. It’ll fix whatever the problem is. The guy said so. Of course, he said the little dolls by the door with the pins were another choice.”
“I think I’ll stick to regular tea, thanks.” I was on the edge of tears but tried not to let her hear it. “Teagan, I’m serious. What am I supposed to do?”
“Success breeds success. I think you just need to do the things that always made you happy before Barry used you for kickboxing practice.”
“I thought I was.”
“You just said it had been ages since you wore one of your gowns two days in a row. You used to do that every day.”
“I know, but I had Jordan here, and I’ve been busy, and A.J. has been working late.”
“When did the gowns become about A.J.? You wore them for you long before you knew A.J. And you’ve had a busy life all your life. It never stopped you before.”
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
“Sorry, I forgot. Note to self. Teagan’s always right.”
“See, you’re better already. I’m on my way. Be ready.”
“So what are we going to do? Let me call Suzi and see if she even wants to join us. I’ll call you back in a half an hour.”
“No, we’re doing this the old Cara way. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. You will feed me. You will smile while doing it. We will go from there.”
“Sounds good.”
“Actually, I’ll bring junk food.”
“Sounds better.”
“I’m on my way. Oh, and do you want your clothes back?”
“Huh?”
“From the water fight.”
“No, you can keep ‘em. They look better on you anyway.”
“See, you’re beginning to see things more clearly already. Sounding like the old Cara we know and love.”
“Now you sound like Mom.”
“Thanks. See you in a little bit.”
I called Suzi. While the phone rang, my mind wandered to the whole “smoking herself stupid: comment Teagan made. I know it is ageist, but Honey is a bit on the mature side to be a smoker, isn’t she? And if she does, does she smoke a lot? And if she smokes a lot, does Roland test for such things? He must; he’s a security guy. And if I introduce Roland to Honey and he tests her for marijuana and she comes back positive, because to smoke yourself stupid, you have to smoke a lot and often, then what is that going to say to Roland about my choices in life, and what is he going to say to Adeline?
Long story short, Teagan will be here in half an hour, and we’ll figure out what to do from there, but Honey is going to be a topic of conversation before this day is done.
“So, Cara, what did Suzi say?”
“She’ll be here in a little while.”
“Are we just going to sit around and stare at each other?”
“No. I thought that we would spend some time talking Suzi into allowing us to throw her a baby shower. It’s just going to be O’Flynns. Well, mostly. Suzi had a few friends from when she lived here before, but she’s not sure anyone would show up because of the whole Barry thing. When people found out about it they kind of backed away.”
Teagan’s response actually surprised me. She hasn’t exactly been Suzi’s biggest fan since the whole Barry thing. “It isn’t her fault that Barry’s an idiot.”
“Some people don’t know what to say; some people blame her for not turning him in or whatever. Who knows how people think? I think that mostly it is just easier to walk away than to work through it. Everything in life is disposable these days; isn’t that what you keep whining at me about?”
“Okay, you’re going back to that dark, boring place. So, when do you want to throw a shower for Suzi, and where, and who?”
“First let’s get the okay.”
“But if we have an idea of what we’re going to do, then it’ll be harder for her to say no.”
“How about here?”
“Yuck.”
“Why yuck?”
“Because you’re going to do the same old thing, which is great if you’re an O’Flynn and you’re doing that whole O’Flynn-tradition thing, but she isn’t an O’Flynn, and she’s a single mother, and she doesn’t want to do the traditional shower from the nineteen fifties.”
“You want me to call in male strippers?”
“That’s a thought. A gross thought, but a thought.”
“Funny.”
“Let me think. If Cara was a single pregnant person, what kind of shower would I throw her? Think, Teagan, think.”
“Cara, a single pregnant person? Why me? Why not throw yourself under the bus?”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Fine, use Sinead; she is a single pregnant person.”
“Yes, but I like her.”
“You don’t like Suzi?”
“Of course I do, dingleberry. What’s up with you?”
“Sorry, but you are the one who said that you like Sinead, which made it sound like you didn’t like Suzi. Should have known that one was directed at me. Continue.”
“We could do a sprinkle or a mommy party.”
“Sprinkle I know about, but isn’t that usually for a second or third baby? This is Suzi’s first baby. What’s a mommy party?”
“Cara, open your mind. Rules are made to be broken. We can have a sprinkle if we want one. A mommy party is just what it sounds like. Instead of focusing on the baby you focus on the mom. Make sure that she has everything that she needs to deal with life after the baby. Moms always get the short end.”
“Another good idea, but I’m not sure that Suzi has all the stuff she needs. She has the big stuff, but I don’t think she has all the basic little stuff.”
“Then you can have a diaper shower. That kind focuses on baby essentials.”
“How do you know all this stuff? We’ve always done the same thing. A party at Mom’s house. Is everybody at your office pregnant or something?”
“There has been a little bit of that, but to be honest, I’ve been doing a lot of research since I found out about Sinead. She’s so young. I’m not sure that she’ll want to do all the traditional stuff that Mom does, and I also think that maybe we should do more than one shower. One with just the O’Flynn types, the way we always do it, and one with her friends from school and Howard’s family. One, you know, from this century.”
“Really?”
“Don’t sound so disappointed. I know you’re a tradition addict, but Sinead isn’t, and that’s okay.”
“But tradition is what anchors you. She’s going to need all the anchors she can find.”
“No, Cara, tradition anchors you.”
I didn’t say anything. I had the strangest feeling. That stupid voice in my head again. The one that’s like a radio turned down so that you can hear something, but you have no idea what you’re hearing.
“Cara, are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look so good. Are you sure you are okay?”
“There’s just this thing in the back of my head that I can’t get rid of.”
“From when you got kicked? Does it hurt?”
“No, on the inside of my head. Some little voice that’s always there, but I can’t hear. It’s driving me crazy.”
“No need. Short distance. You can walk to crazy.”
“It’s really starting to freak me out. I know there’s something going on, but I don’t know what it is. It’s like trying to remember a word you can’t find. Have you ever had that happen?”
“Of course. Everybody has.”
“Well, multiply that by about a gazillion. It’s so frustrating I want to punch someone.”
“You want me to call Liam?”
“Maybe later. For now, let’s stick to figuring out Suzi’s baby shower.”
“Let me do it.”
“Teagan, I appreciate the offer, but Suzi is more my person.”
“I know. But if you give her a baby shower, she’s going to feel like you have to do it because A.J. is her brother and you are her friend and that people will just show up because it’s you giving the shower. That makes the shower about you instead of about her.”
“I didn’t intend — ”
“I know, but she’s hormonal and sad, and she needs something more than her best friend doing a pity shower. Oh, and we’re going to make it a surprise. Preggos always know that someone is going to surprise them with a shower, but in this case, we might really get away with it. You know how much I like that. Besides, I need the practice. I’m going to put on a shower for Sinead that the O’Flynns will talk about for years.”
“Are we back to the male strippers?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Don’t forget that Mom likes lean. Not too many muscles. Make sure at least one of the guys is what Mom likes, or we’ll never hear the end of it.”
Mom and strippers. The thought made me laugh. Not in a it-could-never-happen way, but more in a dear-God-what-if-Teagan-really-does-it kind of way.
The truth is Teagan wouldn’t do strippers for a baby shower.
I don’t think.
No, I’m sure.
Kinda.
The kettle was just about to boil when Suzi arrived. She looks so cute these days. She is tiny and has kept her shape, except for her pregnant belly and a little bit of softness around the lower part of her face. She’s glowing and looks happy most of the time, and I love to see her like this.
“Gran says hi.”
“You could have brought her.”
“She’s getting together with the girls to plan their next big adventure. She told me that Roland told her that you forced him to talk to Adeline and tell her what is really going on and to say thank you from her and Anna as well. Adeline said she was not going to call you until she has something to report. Adeline was sitting right there when I left, so it is a direct message, not one wandering around or anything.”
“I already talked to Adeline a little bit. I’m not sure what they’re doing about all of it. I’m kind of out of the loop. Plausible deniability and all that. Roland is big into that. All I know is that Roland gave me his word he would talk to Adeline and that no one would be breaking into my apartment or threatening me again, and then Adeline said that she and Roland had talked.”
“Yep. I’m not sure why they told me anything at all, but Gran said because I’m staying with her, it’s important that I at least know the basics. From that I’m guessing Adeline wanted to make sure the girls were aware just in case anything happened. I guess when they were in Las Vegas some stuff happened, and they were caught by surprise. They don’t want that to happen again. I don’t know the details, but they got pretty involved with Roland when they came back. I’m guessing part of it was because of Barry and part of it was because of Adeline’s family.”
Teagan changed the subject. No reason to bring Barry into the middle of a good day. It would whack out everybody.
“What are we doing today?”
“I just have to wait for my furniture to be delivered. They gave me a four-hour window.” Suzi pulled her phone out of her purse. “The window starts in three minutes. So for the next five or six hours I’m kind of stuck sitting around waiting for them to show up. I appreciate you letting me stay here, not quite comfortable in the apartment yet.”
Teagan looked confused. “I thought you said four-hour window.”
“I did, but you know how it goes here. I’ve had delivery people call me and tell me I was next on the list, then call back an hour later and tell me that it was just too nice a day, they were going fishing, and they’d see me tomorrow.”
“I’ve had that happen too. Jessie about killed a guy for that. Not literally. Well, maybe literally. He actually took time off work so that he could meet the guy, and the guy called forty-five minutes after he was supposed to be there and said that he wasn’t feelin’ it and would make arrangements to get there another day.”
“Let’s hope today we got delivery people who actually like their job. Maybe it will be different in this economy. Who knows?”
“I’m just going to go stick a note on the door so that they know to knock here.”
“Good.”
Suzi opened the door to walk across the hall about the time a huge white truck pulled up. “That can’t be them. I’m not that lucky.”
Two little tiny guys got out of the truck. It was like a clown car, reversed.
Kinda.
They walked up to Suzi. Away from the truck they didn’t look so little. The driver showed her some paperwork on a clipboard, then followed her into the apartment.
Ten minutes later Suzi walked back into my apartment. “They must have been desperate for a tip.”
Teagan sounded confused. “What?”
“The driver asked me out.”
“What did you say?”
“I laughed. Who asks a woman as round as a whale if she wants to go out on a first date?”
“The driver!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No normal guy is going to want to start a relationship with a pregnant woman.”
“Who said anything about starting a relationship? He asked for a date, not a relationship.”
“I just can’t think about dating or anything like that right now. Besides, it’s just kind of weird.”
I tried to think. “I can give you a dozen examples of women who were pregnant when they met their person.”
“Yeah, but celebrities don’t count. They live in a false world.”
“But you would recognize their names. If I said Bob and Cheryl, you wouldn’t know who I was talking about.”
“But if you told me Bob and Cheryl met while she was pregnant, I’d believe you.”
“Actually, other way around.”
“Bob was pregnant?”
“Yep.”
“How did that work?”
“He and his wife wanted a baby. She couldn’t have one. They got a surrogate. The wife was killed in a car accident. He met Cheryl.”
“So a man, madly in love with his wife, has a baby on the way and tragically and unexpectedly loses his wife and falls for another woman while the surrogate is still pregnant, and you’re using that as a testament for sane people?”
“Okay. Good point. But he met her while the surrogate was still pregnant. I didn’t say they fell in love that fast.” I decided to let it go. “What are we going to do today?”
“Well, I’m going to go settle my apartment. You guys don’t have to babysit me.”
Teagan laughed. “The pregnant woman saying we don’t have to babysit her. Classic.”
Suzi blushed.
“We can help you with your apartment.”
“Teagan, I appreciate the offer, but it isn’t necessary. I can do it.”
“I know you can. But do you want to? I’m pretty good with décor. Cara can feed us. You can supervise. And when Cara and I put our pointed little heads together — my Mom’s phrase — we can accomplish just about anything, so we should be able to assemble any furniture you need assembled.”
“Thanks. I had them deliver it assembled. I didn’t think I would be able to bend and get up and down very well.”
I shook my head. “A.J. would have done it for you, you know.”
“A.J. does enough for me. He created a job for me.”
“My God, I can’t even imagine what he would do without you. He’s already working twenty hours a day with you there. He needs you.”
“I’ll concede he needs me now, but he didn’t need me when he hired me; he just felt sorry for his screwed up sister.”
Teagan smiled. “Don’t let that worry you. I feel sorry for my screwed up sister all the time. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Gee, thanks, Teagan, I love you too.”
“See, she loves me anyway.”
Laughter is a good thing.
“Tell you what. I’m going to put the kettle on. We can grab something to eat, and we can decide what we want to do while we munch.”
Teagan is good. She’s a good sister. She’s a good friend. She’s a good negotiator, and she is as supportive as any person can possibly be.
Don’t tell her I said it.
I would deny it.
She went to the store and got some plain-white temporary wallpaper — I didn’t even know there was such a thing — a variety of paints, brushes, and a few other art supplies.
She sent us to the discount linen place with a list of sheets, pillowcases, and quilts. She must have told us ten times that the goal was cheap and plain. White.
We came back and Teagan got to work. She drew simple little kid pictures — as if a child drew them — on the temporary wallpaper and painted them, cut them out and stuck them to the wall. It looked like a child had drawn on the wall, really big. Then she did the same thing with fabric paint to create curtains out of sheets, and she used really big pushpins to attach them to the wall, which carried the “kid art” theme further.
Once she had the walls and curtains done, she painted some basic white sheets for the baby. She said they needed to be washed once they were set. They were adorable. She did another couple of small temporary-wallpaper works of art to put on the outside headboard of the crib.
Then she took it from cute crafty to really remarkable.
With the same colors, she attacked Suzi’s side of the room. She made bright flowers for the wall and sheets. Huge flowers on the pillowcases and bed skirt and a couple of throw pillows.
She got one more sheet and did the little kid drawings across the bottom and then just kind of mingled those with a smaller version of the flower pictures that she had done for Suzi’s side of the room. Somehow she got just the right balance. Then she did flowers up one side of the sheet and a little kid sun on the other side. It was this strange combination of little-kid art and sophisticated flowers, and it looks really elegant and kid-friendly at the same time.
She said that when it was all set, I could just put a row of buttonholes on the top, and Suzi could use it as a shower curtain with a liner.
When she was all done we stood back and looked at all she had accomplished. “God, I love doing this stuff.”
“Teagan, it’s spectacular.”
“It really isn’t that big of a deal.”
“I never would have thought of it. The baby and I would have been in a white room with nothing for her to look at.”
“Her?”
“Still don’t know. I know it’s silly, but I don’t want to know. Every time I go to the doctor they ask. All the women in the waiting room ask. I know that most women can’t wait to find out, but I don’t want to know until I give birth. As long as the baby is healthy, that’s all I want to know before I give birth. So far the doctor says there’s no reason for me to worry. All the stress while pregnant could have caused some problems, but the doctor says she thinks we’re fine.”
Teagan smiled warmly. “I think that’s nice. This room will work for a boy or a girl. I think it turned out pretty good. It’s all disposable. When you decide to move, just pull it off the walls, and throw it all away. The landlord won’t care because the wall will be back to the way it was when you moved in.”
“It looks like something out of a magazine.”
“I’m really glad you like it. Cara, you can feed us now.”
“I’ll be happy to take you guys out to dinner. It’s the least I can do.”
“Appreciate the offer, but we’re hot and sweaty, and, besides, Cara’s food is better than anything we’re going to find anywhere else.”
I don’t think my sister has ever said anything like that before.
It really touched me.
Not sure why it was such a big deal to me, but it was.
Guaranteed good dinner, coming up.
Suzi decided to go back to her grandmother’s condo for the night. The smell of paint was a little too much in the small apartment. She left the windows open, and I promised I’d send A.J. over to close them before we went to bed.
Teagan left shortly after Suzi.
I completely forgot to ask her what she meant by Honey smoking herself stupid.
I gave her enough time to get home and was about to call when my phone rang.
“I think your friend is mad at me.”
“Morgan? What’s going on? Which friend is mad at you?
“Suzi called me. She’d just left your house.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve talked a few times over the last couple months when I’ve gone in to meet with A.J. If I had to categorize our relationship, I’d say we are more than acquaintances but less than friends.”
“Okay.”
“She called because I’d offered to give her some designs I have for her new apartment. She told me that Teagan went crazy and decorated the whole place.”
“Mostly the bedroom and bathroom, but I guess she did set a tone. We didn’t know that you were already working on it. I’m sorry.”
“No problem. I was just going to print some stuff out for her and have it blown at the printers. It isn’t important either way.”
“Then why did you guys get into it?”
“We didn’t. I’m sorry. I’m not explaining this well. Too many twenty-hour days in a row. Basically she called to tell me that Teagan had decorated the apartment, and somehow we got onto the subject of being a single parent. From there we got onto the subject of benefits. I guess she has decided that she’s going to sign up for every program out there and see what she can get. I wasn’t aware of that. Not until after I told her I didn’t believe in handouts and that I worked for everything I have while taking care of a baby, starting as a teen.”
“Oh.”
“I went on and on. I can’t believe it. My friggin’ foot was so far down my throat I may never recover.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But, Cara, I said all that before she said anything about applying for everything. She works at the studio. I never thought that she would be applying for benefits. She has a job.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re entitled to your opinion. If Suzi doesn’t agree, then she doesn’t agree.”
“But I work with her brother. All day. Every day. This project is so important for both our businesses. I just don’t want to do anything that will jeopardize that.”
“A.J. isn’t like that.”
A.J. came through the door as I made the statement.
His eyebrows met in the middle.
He kept walking, dumped his stuff in the office, and went in to take a shower.
I spent the next several minutes trying to convince Morgan that she hadn’t done anything wrong and that A.J. wouldn’t be upset.
Then I spent the twenty minutes after I hung up the phone trying to convince A.J. that we didn’t need to get in the middle of it, that if his sister wanted to apply for benefits, that was her right, and that it didn’t mean that the family was failing her or that she was going to starve to death.
“There has to be more to the story. I’ll talk to her.”
“Really? You told me that I needed to back away and focus on us instead of my family’s every move. Don’t you need to do the same thing? If Suzi wants us to know, she’ll tell us.”
“Okay.”
“I know I’m being totally hypocritical here. I’m in the middle of every O’Flynn thing there ever was, but I swear to you I’m trying to change. I’m trying to focus more on my life and me. I made that decision after you talked me into it, and I think it is a really good decision. I think it was really good advice. For me. For us. How about we just wait and see what happens with Suzi, and if she needs our help, I will do everything in my power to help, and I’ll support you in anything you decide to do for her. Or with her. Or behind her back.”
He looked calmer.
I took a deep breath. For a second there I thought he was going to get mad at me. He didn’t. He rarely does. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
“You could have joined me.”
“I was too busy breaking my own rule and trying to fix things between Morgan and Suzi. See? A missed opportunity because I didn’t stay focused. I could have been in the shower with you instead of talking to Morgan. Missed opportunity.”
“We can fix that.”
“Oh, I intend to, but first, I’m gonna take my shower. Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Can you put the kettle on when you hear me turn off the water?”
“Of course. And, Cara?”
“Yeah?”
“I like that you’re focusing on you. On us. I like it a lot.”
“You’re going to like it more.”
I came out of the bathroom in a puff of smelly-good-stuff, with my hair blown dry but not poofed out and one of my favorite lounging outfits on. It’s long and mint green with really light peach-colored appliqués. The appliques are kind of like flowers but remind me of butterflies. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but they’re beautiful.
The straps are the thinnest little whispers of chiffon. You could never sleep in the nightgown because the straps wouldn’t last five minutes, but I really don’t sleep in my loungewear anyway. It was Bernie who used to tell me, even when I was pretty young, that the best way to sleep is in perfume and a smile.
Strange how all these little details about Bernie and my grandmother keep finding their way to the front of my brain. It’s not an uncomfortable feeling; it’s just weird that they seem to be popping up more and more often. I know I have the worst memory in the world, always have, but it feels like little tiny moments of memory are flitting around in my brain and I can’t quite catch any of them.
Maybe getting kicked in the head has advantages. Maybe it shook something loose.
Or maybe I’m not really remembering anything and my brain is just all screwed up. Isn’t that how déjà vu works? Things get mis-indexed in your brain, and then your brain finds them again, and you think you’ve done it before, but it is really an almost instantaneous thing. I think I saw something about that on television one night.
Anyway, back to my eveningwear.
The bodice is basically like a bikini top, the triangle type, connected to a really fitted elongated diamond that connects to the skirt part with just a tiny bit of gathering. In the back the elongated diamond from the front meets to form a very plunging back with the chiffon straps crisscrossing and barely holding the front onto your body. Hard to explain but beautiful. The appliques start at the bottom on the left side and stay along the hemline until they get to the front on the right side and then just float across the front, up under the left breast, then between the breasts, and end up on the right shoulder. They get smaller as they move up.
There’s a robe that matches. It’s very sheer and has belled sleeves, with the appliques around the neckline, the bottom of the sleeves, and at the beltline at the back.
So strange. The moment I slipped the nightgown over my head, I just felt like all this stress and meanness escaped while I let out such a heavy sigh.
Maybe Teagan is smarter than she looks.
But even I know a nightgown can’t cure all that ails you.
That’s what tea is for.
A.J. was sitting on the couch when I walked by. He didn’t even look up he was so engrossed in something that he was reading. I saw Morgan’s logo on the top of the paper, so I’m assuming it’s something they’re working on for Old Town.
I wanted to make a noise and force the point, but the old Cara never would have done that, and the old Cara is the person I’m trying to find.
I walked into the kitchen, made my tea, and called to A.J., “Want anything?”
I didn’t realize that he’d come around the corner and was standing right behind me. I must have been lost in thought. Or maybe it was the sound from the kettle.
I said more quietly, “You want anything?”
His voice was a little deeper than usual. “Yep.”
The look on his face was great.
I hadn’t seen that smile in a while.
My tea got cold.