Iced Tea (16 page)

My phone rang.
 
Teagan called from the other room.
 
“It’s Mom.
 
You want me to get it?”

“Please.”

I put the chicken pieces in the hot oil, one at a time, so that the oil would stay hot.
 
As I got the last piece in, the first piece was ready to flip over.
 
As I got the last piece flipped over, the first piece was ready to take out and place back in the bag.
 
I double dip.
 
It’s the secret to my chicken fingers.
 
I got all the chicken back into the hot oil as Teagan walked in the room.

“That was Mom.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“She called with an update on Jordan.
 
Turns out he didn’t fall at school; he got hit in the head.
 
They brought him to the hospital just to make sure.
 
With the head injuries you read about these days, it’s scary.
 
They did a bunch of tests on him, said that he had a minor concussion, no sports for a while, but other than that, he’s fine.”

“I’ll remember to say a prayer of thanks tonight.”

“Me too.”

“Mom have anything else to say?”

“She said we need to talk.”

“Oh, oh.
 
That’s never good.”

“She sounded okay.
 
I said we could do lunch tomorrow.
 
You and she could come over toward my office, or I could meet you guys somewhere.
 
She suggested a cup of tea tonight.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“She also said not to bring AJ or Jessie.”

“Crap.
 
Now we’re all the way to bad.”

“But she didn’t sound upset at all.”

“Why should she be upset?
 
She can kill us and she still has plenty of other kids.”

“True.”

“We’ve pretty much failed her.
 
No husbands.
 
No grandkids.
 
Rory is younger, and he has both going for him.
 
Maeve will take care of her in her old age.
 
Seamus runs the world, and has always said that Mom and Dad should just have quit having kids after he was born, since they’d hit perfection right out of the bucket.
 
Face it Teagan, we’re dispensable.”

“It’s never been a secret.”

“Well, if I’d known it was our last supper, I would have fixed something nicer.”

“I’d have gone lighter on the highlights.
 
Funerals are no place for party hair.”

AJ had been leaning up against the wall.
 
“You guys are nuts.”

“Guilty.”

“Did I hear right Cara?
 
Are you going out after dinner?”

“Yep.
 
Command performance at my Mom’s.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Well, there was something that I was going to do, then not, but I’d like to try, but not if it meant missing the evening with you, but if you’re gone, then that’s good.”

Teagan shook her head, “I’m not even going to ask.”

I snapped, “Good, cause it’s none of your business.”

The timer for the fries beeped, saving me from trying to explain my totally stupid response, the chicken was done, and it was time for dinner.

Teagan got the fries out of the oven, while I fished the chicken out of the oil and placed it first on a paper towel, then on a huge platter with hibiscus print.
 
I dumped the fries next to the chicken and carried it to the table.
 
One set of tongs for the fries, another for the chicken, Pepsi all around.
 

Teagan broke the silence by regaling us with stories of her workmates and the outrageous conversations they were having with Whitney, her boss’s girlfriend, who’d recently become a life coach and was insinuating herself in the lives of each and every employee, ostensibly to help them sort out their lives, but probably just to keep her out of the boss’s hair.
 

When dinner was done, Teagan rinsed and stacked the dishes, which gave me about two and a half minutes alone with AJ.

He looked at me, asking quietly, “Are you mad at me?”

“Should I be?”

“Please don’t do that Cara.
 
You’re important to me.
 
I don’t want to play games with you, and I don’t want innocent mistakes I’ve made to grow into something that will come between us.
 
If I’ve done something wrong, you need to tell me what it is, so that I can figure out how not to do it again.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong.
 
This whole thing with Officer Jerkface is making me crazy, and cranky, and things that would never normally bother me, are bothering me, and unfortunately, I don’t have the grace to just let them lie on the floor like the mouse turds of life that they really are.
 
I guess I should say I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to say you’re sorry.
 
You need to tell me when you’re hip deep in mouse turds.”

“That’s a whole lot of mouse turds.”

“No kidding.
 
The last few weeks have been really hard.
 
I’m just a guy, but even I get that.
 
You can be cranky all over me if you need to be, I don’t have any kind of problem with that, but if I’m doing something wrong, you need to be honest about it, and tell me.”

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

“Oh God.
 
That line is right up there with: we need to talk, and no, really, size doesn’t matter at all.”

Teagan wandered in to see what the laughing was about.

I kissed AJ goodbye.
 
He told me he’d probably be home before me, either way, he’d clean the kitchen.

Teagan laughed, “Boy you know just how to get our Cara all kinds of excited, nothing she likes better than a clean kitchen.”

AJ let his eyebrows dance around on his forehead just long enough to embarrass the crap out of me, “Oh, I can think of a few much more interesting things than cleaning a kitchen.”

We were half way to the car before I stopped blushing.

“You girls know it is not my way to get over-involved in your personal lives.”

I was proud of Teagan.
 
She didn’t choke on her Oreo or anything.
 
I did.
 
Mom should know better than to serve something that stains if she is going to make statements so blatantly outrageous that the only reasonable response is to spew something half way across the room.

Teagan used her most innocent voice, and almost pulled it off, “What’s going on Mom?”

“I’m trying to decide if I did the right thing.”

Teagan and I exchanged a look that closely resembled panic.
 
Just whose life was Mom mucking around in?
 
And just why didn’t she want AJ and Jessie here?
 
And come to think of it, where was everybody?
 
Not even Daddy was at the table.
 
None of these are good signs.

If Mom noticed the terror in our eyes, she didn’t say anything.

I took a breath and sacrificed myself, “What did you do Mom?”

“I went against the wishes of your father, and I’ll admit that I went behind your brother’s back.
 
I called Morgan’s mother.”

Teagan sputtered, “Oh, Mom, I can’t believe you did that.”

“Well, someone had to do something.
 
I thought about it for some time before I made the call.
 
To my way of thinking, if I can help to get Morgan and her family back on better terms, then it is something I’m bound to do.
 
If I can’t get them on better terms, better that Morgan think that it is her meddling mother-in-law that keeps her parents away, then the girl herself.”

“Mom, I understand that you think about things that way, but I’m not sure Morgan is going to.
 
She isn’t even officially a member of the family yet.
 
What did her mother say?”

“I haven’t yet spoken to her, Love.
 
I left her a message.
 
I said that I’d like to meet with her.
 
I told her that I’d be at that little sandwich shop that Teagan likes so much tomorrow at one o’clock.
 
When we went over to check on Jordan, he mentioned that his other grandma doesn’t work, so I hope she is free, and that she will come.”

“You didn’t ask Liam?”

“No, I felt it important that if this doesn’t go well, he can look his bride in the eye and say he knew nothing about it.”

“How are you going to feel if they disown all of us Mom?”

“I don’t think it will come to that, Love.”

Her tone was a clear indicator that the conversation was over.

We spent about twenty minutes filling Mom in on the ballroom, everything that Jovana had offered, and tried to figure out if the family could come up with a dress for Morgan.
 
Mom’s wedding dress was beautiful, but Mom is short and Morgan is not, so that wouldn’t work.

Mom seemed to have a lot more details about Morgan’s plan than we did, but she wasn’t really sharing a lot of it.
 
I’m not sure if she’d been sworn to secrecy, or if she just didn’t want us sticking our big noses into it.

Teagan and I took off after just one cup of tea, not a common occurrence.
 
She dropped me off without even coming in to grab some leftover chicken.
 
Things are changing in my reality.
 
Teagan leaving without food is damn near unprecedented.

AJ wasn’t home yet.

I was somewhere between disappointed and annoyed.

I went in and cleaned the kitchen, changed into a pretty, but not overly sexy nightgown, and plopped down on the couch.
 

I flipped through channels looking for content that reflected my current interests.
 
Wedding stuff.
 
How to solve crime stuff.
 
Maybe I could find something on how to act like a sane, grown-up person.

I wanted to focus on the problem with Officer Jerkface, but the problems with AJ kept seeping into my wee little brain.

Why was he sneaking around behind my back?

I know we aren’t even an official couple, whatever that means, but still, we are living in the same apartment and we are definitely more than roommates, and I sure as hell don’t do ‘roommates with benefits’ and if he knows me at all, he knows that, so if I’m so flipping important, and we are well into a real relationship, and Morgan is going to be my sister-in-law, not his, what the hell?
 
Why is he meeting her in private and keeping secrets from me?

Of course, the more reasonable side of me reminded myself that he is a grown man, and he doesn’t require that I tell him everything that I’m going to do, and if he even tried to do something that stupid, I’d be all over him, so what gives me the right to expect him to act differently than I would act?

If he tried to control me, I’d be pissed, so why am I trying to control him?

Thank goodness he walked in the door when my more reasonable side was winning.

“Hey.”

“Hi, Handsome, did you get whatever you were going to do done?”

“I did.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“I am not.”

“Why?”

“I’ll give you a hint.
 
A picture is worth a thousand words.”

“Is that a photography joke?”

“Kinda.
 
I need you to do something for me.”

I decided not to point out that asking for a favor while keeping secrets is not a good way to win hearts and influence people.

“What?”

“I need you to show up at the studio tomorrow morning at ten.
 
I want you to see something.”

“I think I can make it.”

“Please.
 
It’s important to me.”

“Fine.
 
I’ll be there.”

I can be stubborn, but I’m not stupid.
 
When AJ went in to clean the kitchen, and saw that it was all done, he came back out and asked how he could possibly make it up to me.
 

I said it was no big deal since I like to clean.

He reminded me of the comment that Teagan made earlier, about cleaning getting me all excited, and how he knew a few things that excited me more, and then, we were dancing, and he was whispering all those things in my ear, then, before I knew it, he was, you know, showing me just how wrong my sister can be, cause there are things in life, a whole lot more exciting than cleaning.
 
I’m just sayin’.

I walked into the photography studio about 5 minutes early.
 
It’s not that I was trying to catch AJ doing something wrong, but it’s only polite to be on time.