Iced Tea Page 10

  Then comes the ugly part. The guest list. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to get married and not have my family there. I know I wouldn’t do the big wedding thing. I would probably just go to the courthouse and call it done, which would break my heart, but not as much as walking down the aisle without my dad. I can’t even think about that.

  For once in my life, I’m gonna mind my own business and let it be what it is.

  The wedding dress is next on the list. That’s going to be an interesting conundrum. Maybe she can rent a dress. Wonder how she feels about that. I’ve seen those shows on cable TV where the bride goes in months and months before the wedding and chooses the dress. We don’t have that kind of time, and we don’t have that kind of budget. I think Morgan has two choices, rent a dress, or go with an off the rack, pretty but not a wedding dress, dress, because if she was going to do a wedding dress, she would want to do an over the top wedding dress, especially with that ballroom, unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.

  What is Liam going to wear? Does he even own a suit? If she goes simple on the dress, he won’t look right in a tux, and I’m not sure if you can rent a suit. Simple enough to check, I remembered to make a note.

  Music. Wonder how much a DJ costs. I can’t remember if Jovana said anything about a DJ. I made a note.

  Well, at least we don’t have to worry about bridesmaid’s dresses. Jordan is going to stand up for Morgan. I’m going to have to find something to wear, but at least it won’t have to be taffeta.

  Photographer. Got that one covered.

  Flowers. I’ll bet they’re expensive. Wonder what it will take to get enough decorations into the ballroom so that it doesn’t look like a huge, beautiful, cavernous space. Maybe Troya and Sinead can look into that. Troya is the world’s best planner, she can triage the hell out of the situation, and Sinead is young and energetic and sometimes that’s all you need to be.

  Lastly, it says you’re supposed to register at your favorite stores, so that people know what to buy for you. Probably won’t have to do that. Everyone coming to the wedding knows the bride and groom well enough to know what it is we can get them. Right?

  What the hell am I going to get them?

  Restless, I gave the apartment a quick once over, trying to relax enough for my brain to tell me what it was trying to tell me, but couldn’t get through to me. I hate it when that happens. It’s kind of like when you forget the name of a movie star, and then wake up at three in the morning, with a start, the name screaming in your head. I knew that I knew what didn’t make sense about the whole Louis slash Officer Jerkface thing, it just wasn’t coming to me.

  Teagan called and said she was on her way. I set the oven to preheat for the french fries. AJ called and said he was on his way, perfect timing. I popped some Pepsi in the freezer so that it would be really cold, and played a computer game to kill some time before I put the fries in the oven.

  The thing on the oven that tells you it has hit the right number of degrees went off, that sound scares the hell out of me every time. I got up, arranged my frozen fries on my metal cooling rack and put the rack over the cookie sheet. Is it called a cookie sheet if it has sides on it? I don’t care; I’m calling it a cookie sheet. Anyway, the metal cooling rack holds the fries up in the air, so they cook evenly and all the way around without having to flip them mid-cook. I popped those puppies in the oven just as AJ walked in the door.

  “How much time do I have?”

  “25 minutes to seating.”

  “Plenty. Your sister’s here. She was pulling stuff out of the trunk. I offered to help and she gave me a Cara look.”

  “A Cara look?”

  “You know that look you get.” he pointed at me, “that look!”

  “And I always thought I was adopted. That seals it. Teagan and I share blood.”

  “There’s no doubt Cara. You and Teagan are so much alike, but so different, you have to be sisters.”

  “That makes perfect sense.”

  “I know. I’m gonna jump in the shower, I’ll be out in five minutes. Think of something useful for me to do.”

  “Everything is done.”

  “Thank God, it’s been one of those days.”

  Teagan shoved her way in the door as AJ went toward his room.

  “Can I get a little help here?”

  “Sure. What’s all this crap?”

  “It’s stuff from the office.”

  “Why is stuff from the office coming to stay at my house?”

  “What makes you think it’s coming to stay here?”

  “Two things, first, you’re carrying it in here, second, you don’t like your place cluttered, so you bring junk here, cause you know I’ll actually put it away, instead of stacking it by the door.”

  “You know me so well.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “Decorations.”

  “Decorations for what?”

  “For Morgan’s shower.”

  “I thought we weren’t doing a shower.”

  “Fine, for Morgan’s non-shower.”

  “We need decorations for a non-shower?”

  “Yep. Besides, they’re free, they’re pretty, and if we decide we don’t like them, I just shove them all back in my trunk and bring them back to the office and try to shove them back in the closet behind the break-room.”

  “Sounds like a great plan, but you know what, I already put the fries in and I need to cook the chicken or we’re going to have cold fries with our dinner.”

  “We can’t have that.”

  “No, it would be a travesty. Our pallets are so well formed.”

  “Want me to set the table?”

  “Nope, all done.”

  “Bless you, it’s been one of those days. I’m telling you Cara, if you weren’t my sister, you would make me a great wife.” She rolled her eyes, “Don’t give me that look, it was a compliment.”

  “Fine, I’ll take it that way. I’m going to go fry chicken.”

  I got out my big red stockpot, because it has high sides so the spatter from frying chicken isn’t quite so bad, put in a generous amount of Crisco, and set it to heat up. I dumped the chicken pieces into the plastic bag with the seasoning and shook it all around to make sure every piece was well coated. I know you aren’t supposed to, but I put a drop of water in the oil so that it would pop when the oil was hot enough, dangerous but effective, and waited for the popping noise.

  Teagan looked at me weird. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “What?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “There’s no towel on the floor. You always put an old beach towel on the floor when you’re going to cook something that might splatter so that you don’t have to go all OCD and get down on your hands and knees and clean the floor before we can eat.”

  “Crap.” I grabbed the towel I keep handy for just such occasions.

  “So, what’s going on?”

  “I know that I know that there’s something weird going on with the whole Louis thing. I feel like it’s right on the edge of my brain, but it just won’t come to me.”

  “Stop thinking about it.”

  “I know if you don’t concentrate on it, it will come to you, it always does, but it’s bugging me.”

  “Well, as soon as I leave, AJ will pounce on you, and you’ll know.”

  AJ walked in the room. “Know what?”

  I could feel myself blush. “I just have something about the whole Louis thing swimming around in my brain and it won’t come to the surface.”

  Teagan volunteered, “I told her when she gets her mind off of it, it will come bubbling to the service, I didn’t think you would mind helping her out.”

  AJ smiled. “I don’t mind. I also don’t pounce.”

  I laughed. “That’s true.”

  AJ just had to add, “And it’s your sister that pounces.”

  I rolled my eyes, and shook my head, and looked
at the floor, like a puppy that just got caught leaving a surprise on the new carpet, “That’s true too.”

  Thank God the oil popped just then.

  “Everybody out of my kitchen. There are cold Pepsis in the freezer, or go watch TV, or talk amongst yourselves, dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  They dutifully walked out of the room.

  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 imp
ortant 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?