Iced Tea (29 page)

“Wow, that was kind of quick.”

“They say that a man that had a happy marriage will remarry quickly if his wife dies or leaves him or whatever.
 
My boss had a happy life until it just kind of imploded.
 
Maybe this will work for him.”

“Maybe.”

“Back to your problem.
 
The lady I had lunch with is a top-notch lawyer.
 
She doesn’t have an axe to grind, but she also isn’t buddy-buddy with the cops or those in power in this area.
 
She’s getting married and moving out of state in the next few months.
 
Already took the bar exam in Ohio, Iowa, some state like that.
 
She has nothing to lose by pissing off the cops.
 
She said she would handle it, and that ‘my friend’ didn’t even have to come out from behind the curtain.
 
You can stay completely anonymous.”

“Yeah, right.
 
If I’m so anonymous, how did I find the stuff to begin with?
 
Anyone that knows anything about what’s going on is going to know that I’m involved in it.”

“You want to meet with her?”

“I guess so.”

“When?”

“Sooner is better.”

“Well, she and I are going to get body wraps at that new place tonight, so I can’t do it tonight, how about tomorrow for dinner?”

“How come everything you do revolves around food or glamour?”

“I is what I is Cara.
 
Don’t mess with the formula if it’s working.”

“Then how come you’re always trying to dress me up, and glam me up, and make me go to one of your houses of torture, oh, I mean, beauty?”

“I said, if it’s working, don’t change it.
 
Draw your own conclusion Dingleberry.”

“You’re Dingleberry delusional today.
 
Quit calling me that.
 
Have fun getting mummified, call me tomorrow and tell me what’s going on.”

“Will do.”

“And Teagan?”

“Hmmm…?”

“Thanks.”

“That’s what sisters are for.”

Teagan out of the way, at least for today, I turned my attention to all things AJ.
 
I was walking back toward my closet, to get into some eveningwear, when I remembered that he is a trollop-hugger, and that must be addressed before I can share something as personal and intimate as my eveningwear.

I made myself a cup of tea and tried to decide just how I felt about seeing him with that girl.
 
I tried to remember the body language and everything, but to be really honest, all I saw was him, and her, and his arm around her.

There’s a huge part of me that thinks I should just keep my mouth shut and see if he says anything about it to me.
 
There is an equally huge part of me that thinks I need to talk to him about this, because I don’t like playing games, and if I can’t be open and honest with AJ about everything, then what have we really got going anyway?
 
Great sex.
 
That would be about it.
 
For some people, that might be enough, but I’m not some people.
 
If I can’t have it all, relationship wise, I don’t want any.

I could call Teagan back and see what she says.

That’s probably a bad plan.
 
She’s busy at work, and after work she is going to go get mummified.

Mom wouldn’t be much help with this one.
 
She’d go all Mom on me, and say if I were married to him, instead of just living with him, I wouldn’t have these problems, which isn’t true anyway, because if a guy is a trollop-hugger, he is gonna hug a trollop with or without a wedding ring.

I guess I have to handle this one myself.

I’ve got too many things on my plate.
 
That’s the problem.
 
I’m trying to do all this stuff, and getting none of it done.
 
I’m just spinning in circles.

I got out some paper and made a to-do list.

           
Talk to the lawyer.

The phone rang.
  
Teagan.
 
What could she want?
 
Okay, so I sighed out loud, but she couldn’t hear me, and it really isn’t a sign of getting old, although, you get a lot more of those kinds of sighs from old people.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you busy tonight?”

“I thought you and your lawyer were going to get mummified.”

“We were, but my technician called and said they have this really special formula on sale tomorrow only, and only for loyal customers, so we are going tomorrow.
 
I thought maybe we could come over tonight, since we are available and since she is doing this pro-bono.”

“Free?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t realize.
 
Actually, I didn’t even think about it.
 
Tonight is good.
 
You want dinner?
 
You want me to take you guys out to dinner?
 
What time?”

“No dinner, we are going to grab something on the way, but if you want to run out and get dessert, that would be good.
 
Is AJ going to be home?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“Jessie asked.
 
I think he needs help lifting something.
 
They seem to have bonded.”

“I’ll text him.
 
Can you text me Jessie’s number and I’ll forward it.”

“Done.”

“What time?”

“How about seven-thirty.”

“Any requests for dessert?”

“Nope, it’s pretty much just something to stuff our faces with when we are trying to think, sugar helps with that, doesn’t it?”

“Got it, high octane.
 
See you at seven-thirty.
 
Thanks Teagan.”

I texted back and forth with AJ for a while; it was decided he would be home late, he was going to help Jessie, then they were going to go out for a couple of beers.
 

I told him to call me if he needed a ride.
 
I have a real thing about drinking and driving; there is just no reason, and no excuse.
 
He promised if he had more than one beer, he would call.

I ran around the apartment, making sure everything was in its place.
 
Refreshed my makeup and hair, and headed out to the grocery store to find the perfect high calorie dessert.

I went up and down the freezer aisle.
 
Nothing.
 
I even went to the bakery section.
 
Nothing.
 
I decided this called for special measures, got back into my car, and went to the bakery on Berkeen and 17
^th
.

I walked in and saw a lovely lady.
 
She smiled and asked what I would like.
 
Since I really don’t eat anything a bakery prepares, aside from the occasional cinnamon roll or glazed donut, I was at a loss.

“Well, I am having guests tonight, two women, one of them being my sister Teagan…”

“Teagan O’Flynn?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Such a nice girl.
 
How she keeps that figure with her trips in here, is beyond me.”

“Does she have a favorite?”

“She does.
 
Sin.”

“Sin?”

“It is the most decadent dessert we prepare.”

“Sounds like Teagan.”
 
I smiled.
 
“Can you give me enough Sin to serve 6?”

“A dinner party?”

“Actually, Teagan and a friend are coming over, and I thought I’d get some extra for my boyfriend.”

“Good choice.
 
It’s in the back.
 
I’ll just be a minute.”

Several minutes later, the woman appeared with a pink box, tied with the traditional red string.
  
I always love that.
 
Some bakeries use tape now, but I like the red string.
 

The bakery my dad used to stop at once in a while used the string, and he would bring home a little box with two donuts, and he and mom would have tea.
 
We’d sneak out of bed and watch them chat and eat and drink their tea.
 
The way they looked at each other brings tears to my eyes even now.
 

I want that.

The romance after years of being together, I can take or leave the donut.
 

But, I need to discuss the whole trollop-hugging incident before I go any further down that path.
 
One trollop can lead to another trollop, who can lead to a full-blown floozy, or maybe floozy comes first, then onto harlots, then I’ve lost him forever.

“Will there be anything else Teagan’s sister?”

“I’m sorry.
 
My name is Cara.
 
I think this will do it.”

Once the bill was paid, I headed for my car, thinking about trollops and floozies and harlots, and wondering why I was being so judgmental of this other woman, never mind of AJ.
 
I’ve never been the jealous type, what’s up with that?

I put the pink box with the red string in the trunk and was just to my door when Officer Jerkface caught up to me.

Maybe I read too many weird stories, but they all seem to agree, that the most dangerous time is when you have discovered there’s a problem, but before you extricate yourself from the situation.
 
Just my luck that I’d be meeting with a lawyer tonight and the could-be bad guy shows up now.

You know what they say about the Irish.
 
If it weren’t for bad luck, we’d have no luck at all.
 
Seems ‘they’ were right this time.

“Joe?
 
What’s up?”

“Just headed for the bakery.
 
Saw your car.
 
Wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“You never know Cara.
 
Life can be dangerous.”

“For everybody, right Joe?
 
Especially for people like you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Cops.”

“Yeah, right.
 
What you up to today?
 
You ever finish with Louis’s condo?”

“His brother never got back to me.
 
I’m just kind of waiting on it.
 
He sent me a really generous check when I first started, but that was used for locksmiths and boxes and everything.
 
I’m really not going to do any more until I hear from him.”

“But you went there with your sister, and two guys.”

“Actually, that wasn’t about cleaning the place out, that was about my sister’s boyfriend looking at the place to buy.
 
At some point it’s sure to go up for sale, and it’s just his kind of place.
 
I figured since I had the key, there was no harm in showing him the place.”

“Well, I gotta go.
 
You be careful Cara.”

“Always.”

He disappeared as fast as he appeared.
 
My heart was pounding so hard, I wasn’t sure I could drive.
 
My sister calls it jackrabbit gas.
 
Your foot shakes and you kind of progress down the street in spurts.
 
I was all the way to Buchannan before I was driving like a normal person.

The question is, or the questions are, was he following me?
 
And if not, how did he know we’d been at the condo?
 

Thank God Teagan has help coming, this is starting to scare the Sweet Jesus out of me.
 

I know normal people say bejesus, but my mom always thought that was disrespectful, and you could end up with a smack if you were disrespectful.
 
I’m not sure why Sweet Jesus is better, but in my mother’s world it is, and we all live in my mother’s world.
 
It’s kind of like when she was cold, you wore a sweater, didn’t matter if you were cold or not.
 
Same thing.

I got home in record time, terror will do that for you, put the dessert in the fridge, and tried to decide what the lawyer could do for us, considering we don’t even know what’s on the memory cards.

Then I got forty-three kinds of paranoid and started to wonder why the lawyer suddenly showed up at Teagan’s office, and why they had become so buddy-buddy so quickly, and why was she doing this for me for free?
 
Maybe she isn’t a lawyer.
 
Maybe she’s some kind of plant.
 
Maybe she’s Jerkface’s sister, the one that he said was at the cemetery that day, and maybe she’s trying to take the memory cards before we do anything official.

They say that you should never give out any personal information on the phone or through the Internet unless you are the one that initiates the contact.
 
Shouldn’t it be the same way with a lawyer?
 
I didn’t contact her; she contacted me, so how do I have any idea who she really is.