Hot Tea (4 page)

“Shit.”

“So what’s your plan B?”

“Teagan, I don’t have one.”

“That’s not good.”

THREE

I walked in the little sandwich shop to meet my sister.  It’s a mom and pop type place that Teagan loves.  They always get your order right the first try.  Their servings are generous.  They have little white tables, made of wrought iron, complete with lots of curlicues.  They have blue and white checked tablecloths and half curtains at the windows.  It’s cute but not in that staged way that so many franchises have.  This is cute because it is right from the owner’s personality. 

My sister looked like she was born there.  She was sitting at one of the tables looking girly enough to enjoy last century and empowered enough to rule this one. 

I sat across from her, “Ok Teagan, so yesterday, after you were so mean to me, I had a stroke of genius.”

She rolled her eyes, “I wasn’t mean to you.”

“Yes you were.  You made fun of my plan.”

“You don’t have a plan.  How could I make fun of something that doesn’t exist?”

I snapped, “See, you’re doing it again.”

“I’m beginning to worry about you.”

“If you’re just beginning to worry, you’re way behind the rest of the world.  Do you want to hear this or not?”

She grinned, “Sure.  You stroked a genius.”

“Only in my dreams.  Don’t be a smartass.  I had a stroke of genius.  I sat down at the computer last night and I typed the word ‘murder’ into the search engine.”

Eye roll, “Yeah, that was brilliant.”

“Do you want to hear this?”

“Yeah, go.”

I said, “Turns out that when you type in the word murder, you get somewhere around 88 million hits.  Isn’t that sad?”

“Yeah, real sad.  Where does the genius part come in?”

“Well, obviously, I don’t have time to read about 88 million murders, plus there’s the whole eewww factor, so I added ‘Florida’.”

Eye roll, “I give, how many hits came up for Florida?”

“Something like 2.2 million.”

“That seems high.  If there are 88 million murders and there are 50 states, how come Florida has 2.2 million murders? Wonder what the population in each state is like.  You really shouldn’t have as many murders in, say, Montana, since there aren’t as many people there, but you would think that a place like New York where there are easily a gazillion more people than Montana would have a much higher number of murders.”

I shook my head and said, “Slow down there my little bean counter.  Remember, it really isn’t the number of actual murders; it is articles about murders and news coverage about murders and pretty much any time the computer sees the word ‘murder’, anywhere in the whole universe I think.”  I wiggled my eyebrows and looked right at her, “And you were making fun of my computer skills.  Listen to me, I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about.  I’m getting good at this computer thing, but, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Ok, so you do a search for Florida murders and you get back 2.2 million hits.  Then what?”

I continued to explain, getting more excited with each layer of the telling.  I’m Irish, that’s what we do.  “Well, that’s still way too many for me to deal with, so I typed in
unsolved Florida murders
.  Now we’re getting somewhere, down to just over a quarter of a million.”

Her eyebrows met in the middle, “Please tell me you’re not going to try to read a quarter of a million articles in hopes that you will get enough information to solve a murder, any murder, that might not even be in that group, to earn $100,000, or some other reward, before they turn your lights off.  What am I missing here?”

“Ya didn’t let me finish.  You might just be the most impatient person I’ve ever met.”

“No Cara, you’re the most patient person on the planet, which just makes us normal people look rushed.”

I puffed, “Fine, you want to hear this or what?”

“Go.”

I took a deep breath and pulled myself back to the subject at hand, “So I’m looking at the first article.  It’s about a child.  Oh my God I cried.  I can’t be reading about murdered kids or I’m going to lose my mind.  Especially murdered children whose case hasn’t been solved yet.  Can you imagine what that would do to your soul?   Think about how it would feel to work on a case like that, or worse, know a child that had been murdered.  I thank God I can’t even imagine how hard that would be.”

I forced myself not to cry for all the lost children and their families and said, “So I’m reading like every third line, hoping to skip the really heartbreaking stuff, and I get to the bottom of the story, and it has related stories.  I click to a related story, and at the bottom, there are stories related to that one.” 

Triumphant, I said, “One of the related stories is about the cops profiling crimes on MySpace hoping someone will come forward with information that could help.  Another related story is about how cops are using other computer stuff.  They’re using computers.  Just like us.”

She rolled her huge blue eyes, yet again, it really seems to annoy me these days, but she couldn’t stop if her life depended on it, so why make a big deal out of it?   Besides which, although few people seem to understand the concept these days, I was raised to believe that my right to not be annoyed does not supersede her right to be annoying.

She said, “Great, so the cops already have this figured out.  You have no idea what you’re doing.  They are trained professionals.  If computers can be used to figure this out, then they have it covered.  I really think it’s time for you to look for a real job.”

“Fine, ya know what Teagan?  You’re a jerk.  I don’t need your help.  I can do this myself.  All I really needed was your boobs, and I don’t really need them if I’m going to be doing this all on the computer.  Besides, if I need boobs, I’ll just buy myself a pair.” 

“How are you going to pay for surgery if you can’t afford your light bill?”

“I’m not going to have surgery.  I’m talking about stuffing my bra you dink.  If I bought permanent ones, they would get in the way when I reach down to grab my foot when I’m trying to put my foot behind my head.  You gotta think about these things.”

She spoke to me as if I were a dimwitted child, “Not if you lay down to put your foot behind your head, then your boobs would be under your arms and they wouldn’t be in the way.”

“That isn’t the way it works with fabricated boobage.  They stand proud no matter what the circumstance.”

“I would just like to point out, that if you bought yourself a pair of boobs, you would no longer need to figure out how to get your foot behind your head, so it would be a moot point, but I stand corrected.”

I was able to keep my tone level, miracles do happen, “As well you should.”

“I’m going to go grab a sandwich, what do you want?”

“Nothing.  I’ve lost my appetite.   I’m going to go work on the computer for a while.”  Out I flounced.  Usually, it’s Teagan that flounces, she has a gift for it really, but even in capris and flip flops, I pulled it off, and didn’t trip or knock myself out with the door, which, I might add, is heavy and moves really fast, and has been known to be a challenge for me. 

Very impressive.  My life is improving.  It’s a sign.

FOUR

The one thing I hate most about Florida is the humidity.  It’s always humid.  They say you get used to it.  They lie.  Your hair always frizzes, or in my case, lays flat on your head.  Your skin doesn’t have a dewy glow like they claim; it’s a greasy mess ten minutes after you get your makeup perfect, having used all the latest greatest tricks from a mattifier, whatever the hell that really is, to a primer to a mineral powder, nothing can keep your skin from looking shiny.  Could be the reason I don’t bother with much.

Everything is limp.  Well, not every thing, but I can’t remember the last time I had a non-limp thing at hand, or should that be in hand?  Why did I go there?  Whenever I get stressed I am reminded of the fact that I have been a very good girl for a very long time.

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t living a chaste life. 

God knows I would rather be living a chased life.  Preferably being chased by some tall, dark and handsome male with a very high level of skill when it comes to all things sexual and a very very understanding spirit when it comes to extended family and t-shirts instead of lacy bras, but, what can ya do?  

Mr. Right is out there somewhere, getting the tar beat out of his wee little heart by Ms. what-the-hell-was-I-thinking, she-is-such-a-bitch, right this very minute so that he can learn to appreciate a woman such as myself.  That would be me, Ms. Dear-Lord-where-has-she-been-all-my-life, she-is-perfect-for-me.

One of the things I love about Florida is most days of the year I can drive with my top down.  The top of my car, not my t-shirt, not that anyone would notice, but if anyone did, and they were to point and laugh, it would ruin my whole day, so I’ve never tried it. 

But really, if you stop and think about it, the door comes up high enough that the only people that would really be able to see in the car to see that I wasn’t just wearing a tube top would be truckers.  Aren’t truckers often long haul drivers?  Long haul drivers have been away from home for a really long time, so they’re probably a little desperate, so really, they might not mind the view.