Iced Tea (7 page)

“Well, you’ve done a beautiful job of finishing it out.
 
I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Me neither Honey.
 
You know that show they have on the TV every year, where the DIY people go to the big convention centers and see the best of everything that the builders offer, well, we set us up a little TV in the bedroom, and we put a little recorder on it, and we’d tape all those shows.
 
Then we would look it up on the Internet.
 
We got to knowin’ some of the vendors, and for most of this stuff, it was from somebody that ordered it, then didn’t want it any more, so we got it at a real steep discount.
 
We didn’t have most of the walls built out yet, so we could build around their custom order numbers.
 
Then, of course, we got some connections because of the restaurant, and my business takin’ pictures.
 
I traded some stuff for glossy brochures.
 
I am a firm believer in the barter system, I’ve traded for some of the best stuff in my life, don’t ever discount talents you have and someone else needs, and never discount the talents they have that you might need.
 
I learned that young and it has served me well.”

“Wow.
 
You could start a whole industry just around this.
 
You could be a builder or a house flipper or something like that.”

“Honey, those kinds of jobs are for the young, when you got more energy than you do sense.
 
I’m older now, and I’m real comfortable with what I do.
 
We’ve done well, we aren’t gonna starve, but we aren’t as rich as you would think lookin’ at us from the outside.”

“Thank you.”

“For what, Darlin’?”

“For making me feel so comfortable.”

“Well, that is such a sweet thing to say.
 
Now that I’ve gone on and on ‘bout us, you tell me about you and AJ.
 
He is such a lovely young man, and he loves you more than spit.”

I burst out laughing.
 
“Spit?”

“Honey, you can’t do nothin’ in life without spit.
 
You can clean a baby’s chin, you can lick your lips and give your man a sexy smile, or you can get marker off a white board.
 
Spit is a powerful thing, and that boy’s love for you is powerful.”

“I’ve never heard love described quite that way before.
 
I love it.
 
Everyone is always telling me I have a unique way of phrasing things, but that’s more cultural than anything else.”

“Cultural?”

“I’m 100% Irish.
 
But at the same time, I’m very American.
 
When you put those two things together and shake them up pretty good, you get some interesting reactions.
 
Some things just don’t survive the translation.
 
And other things do well with the whole translation thing, but I say them wrong, or heard them wrong as a little kid and kept them the way I like them.
 
Kind of like a little kid saying besgetti instead of spaghetti.”

“Give me one.”

“Beware of the anger of a patient man.”

“Oh, I like it.”

“Or, another one is, ‘Many times it is a man’s own mouth that breaks his nose’.”

I love to listen to her laugh.

“My grandmother used to say, ‘A lock is better than suspicion.’
 
One of her other favorites was an Irish curse,
 
‘May the curse of Mary and all her nine blind illegitimate children, chase you so far over the hills of Damnation that the Good Lord himself can’t find you with a telescope.’ And then there is my mother’s favorite, ‘No matter how fast you run, no matter how far you go, when you get there, I’ll be there, and God help you.”

The guys walked in to see what we were laughing about.

Turns out they’d been busy with preparing dinner.
 
A nice steak, baked potatoes prepared on the grill, ice cold Pepsi, and warmed rolls.
 
Not a veggie in site.
 
I’m thinking that they were talking about my food peculiarities behind my back, which is fine with me; I hate eating food I don’t like just to be polite.

We chatted in the kitchen for a while, meandered out onto the patio and admired the surroundings, sat with our toes in the pool and smelled the food as it cooked.
 

Jovana commented on the fact that it is rare to see people our age that don’t drink.
 
I filled her in on my theory that there are people that have the guts to be themselves, and people that need the excuse of being drunk to be themselves, and I am in the former group, so I don’t need to drink.
 
Besides which, my family is so big and always getting themselves into one conundrum or another, that I need to be able to jump up and drive away at a moment’s notice.
 
Can’t do that if you’ve had a few drinks.

It dawned on me a little to late that I was speaking to a person that owns a bar.
 
Good job.

Over dinner we talked about everything from owning your own business, to my brother’s upcoming wedding.
 

I admitted feeling guilty that I don’t know more about the arrangements.
 
Liam and his lovely fiancé were just engaged when we lost our Bernie, and everything seems to be put on hold.

I tried to give Jovana the big picture of the last few weeks, without sounding too crazy.
 
I was probably just desperate to explain why the wedding had been put on hold, and how I wasn’t a terrible sister for not even knowing the basics about such an important day in my brother’s life.

Jovana said that they often use the ballroom over the bar for wedding receptions, and that if Liam and Morgan were interested, we could figure something out.
 
Her generosity was overwhelming, but very much appreciated.

FIVE

“Liam, I need you and Morgan to be honest with me.”

“Morgan is always honest.”

I laughed, “Which means that you are not?”

“I’m always honest about the important stuff.
 
When people ask me if I really do like having you as a sister, I might be generous with the praise, truth is I might not like you nearly as much as I make it sound, I’m kinda generous with the good things I say about the family.”

“That’s not dishonest, that’s smart.
 
Teagan and I could still do you some serious damage if we set our wee little minds to it.”

Sounding just like my mother he said, “There will be none of that!
 
Now tell me, just what is it that you need our honesty for?”

“Maybe the better word would be blunt.
 
I need you guys to be blunt.”

“I’ve a gift for it.
 
What’s going on Cara?
 
Are Mom and Dad okay?”

“They’re fine, it’s nothing to do with anything like that.
 
I have a kind of weird offer to make you, and I want to make sure that you know that there would be no hard feelings if it didn’t work out and that there are no strings attached.”

“What’s going on, Cara?”

“AJ met this wonderful woman…”

“Oh, oh.”
 
He went to a full-blown mafia B movie accent, “You want I should break his legs?”

He took my laughter for reassurance.
 
“Not like that you dink.
 
She has a photo studio in Old Town.
 
They’re going to share a workspace.”

“That sounds cozy.”

Again, I laughed without a moment of concern, which really is a good thing, because it shows the world, and me, that I have complete faith in AJ.

“The woman’s name is Jovana.
 
Think Mom, minus a few pounds, plus lots of money, minus a few kids.”

“Minus a few kids would explain the lots of money.
 
We brought Jordan clothes shopping last night.
 
I swear to you, the kid outgrew everything by this morning.”

“Mom used to say that the mall had some kind of special power over boys, that they would go to the mall, and that night, a growth spurt would hit.
 
I’m convinced that’s why men hate the mall.”

“I swear Cara, if I had known Morgan a few years ago, I’d swear that Jordan was my biological son.”

“Biology is just an accident.
 
Jordan is your son by choice, which brings us around full circle.
 
The reason I’m calling.”

“Oh yeah, what can I do for you?”

“It’s more about what Jovana and her husband have generously offered to do for you and Morgan.”

“What?”

“You know that huge old building in Old Town.
 
The one a few doors down from the old cigar factory thing.
 
There’s a bar.
 
I never really knew what the rest of the building had to offer, cause it’s huge, and that bar isn’t all that big.”

“You mean the one with the windows?”

“Yep.
 
The one with the really ornate clerestory windows.
 
Yeah, I looked it up.
 
Those windows are something else.
 
You would expect to see them on an estate in the country, in another country, not in Old Town.”

“Yeah, I know the building, what about it?”

“Jovana and her husband own it.
 
The bar is on the front of the first floor.
 
They have a full-fledged kitchen in the back.
 
They have meeting rooms, I think some are on the first floor, but there are some huge ones on the second floor.
 
They also have a ballroom.”

“Wow, I didn’t know all that was in there, but I’m still not getting it.”

“Poor Morgan.”

“Funny.
 
What’s going on?”

“Jovana and her husband have offered you and Morgan the ballroom for your wedding, or your reception, or both, at a more than generous price.”

“You’re kidding.
 
Why would they do that?”

“Jovana only has one son.
 
They like to do this kind of stuff.
 
They own it, they aren’t going to be out anything, and it’s worth looking at.”

“I think it’s kind of weird.
 
I’ve never even met the people and they want to host my wedding?”

“I didn’t say host it, I said that they would make their building available to you for a very reasonable price.
 
If you aren’t interested, no harm, no foul, I just thought I’d make the offer.”

“I appreciate it, but I don’t see it happening.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll talk to Morgan, but I don’t think we’ll do it.
 
I really appreciate the offer.
 
Should I contact them and say something?”

“First talk to Morgan.
 
If she doesn’t want to even look at the place, then I’ll talk to Jovana.
 
If she wants to look at the place, then we can do that, and if you guys decide against it, then maybe it would be good to send a little note or something.”

“I don’t think Morgan is going to want to get married over a bar.”

“It isn’t like that, but you guys need to decide what’s right for you.”

“When do we have to decide?”

“Considering I don’t even know when you’ve decided to tie the knot, that’s hard to say.”

“Right.”

“That was a rather non-subtle hint for you to share your wedding date with me.”

“Last I heard it was the third weekend, next month.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Liam, what’s wrong with you?
 
Why haven’t you told the world?
 
That doesn’t give anyone much time.
 
Have you told Mom and Dad?
 
Do you guys have a list?
 
Do you need help?
 
What can we do?”

“We don’t want to make a big deal out of the wedding Cara.
 
We want to make it about the marriage, not the wedding day.
 
All we want is to be married.
 
We’ve talked about just going down to the courthouse and seeing a JP.”

“You know we’ll support you in anything you decide, and if you decide to go to the courthouse, without Mom and Dad there, we will be sure the two of you are buried together.
 
The family will take very good care of Jordan.”

“That’s what I told Morgan.”

“How did she take it?”

“She said that she loves being part of a family.
 
She thought she had a tight family growing up, but it didn’t work out that way.
 
Her family kind of went to the winds a while back.”

“She’s in for a hell of an adjustment.”

“I tried to warn her.”

“There’s no way to do that.
 
The sane cannot communicate with the insane.
 
The uninitiated can not fathom what it’s like to be an O’Flynn.”