Iced Tea Read online

  Mom still has the cups sitting in the curio in her living room.

  Not sure how I got off on that tangent, but it made me think of the serendipity of life, if that little kid hadn’t walked in front of my car, or if I were the kind of person that just honked the horn, or if the child’s parent were the kind of parent that actually watched their child, I wouldn’t have been able to get those cups for my mom.

  That thought led me to think about all the stuff that had been happening in the last couple of weeks. Me deciding to try and earn a $100,000 reward for figuring out the truth behind a murder I’d read about online. That led me to the idea of writing eulogies for a living, then Bernie died, and I thought Mom was going to ask me to write Bernie’s eulogy, but instead, she asked me to clean out Bernie’s house, which led the family priest to ask me to clean out Louis’s condo, which brought to my attention that the lady I’d read about online, and Bernie, and Louis all shared three letters of their car tag, which brought me to the attention of a crazy cop, and hopefully not anyone else, like a serial murderer, if in fact all three of them were murdered by the same person, and we weren’t even sure that two of them were murdered at all.

  All those things also led to Teagan looking up a guy from the past. They immediately took up where they’d left off, and then some. My old roommate’s brother moved in when she moved out, and now, well, serendipity is a very good thing.

  All those thoughts reminded me that my talent in life isn’t so much following a logical path, but rather, looking at things sideways. It dawned on me that instead of standing back and letting all the weird and wonderful happenings of the last couple of weeks speak to me, I’d been trying to wrench them into something I could understand. Not smart. When something works for you, it’s just not bright to try to change it all around for no good reason.

  Back to basics.

  For now, I’d collected a bunch of flowers, almost got molested by a rather huge bumble bee, got bitten by at least a couple of fire ants, which I’m allergic to, so the next few days my feet are going to be miserable, but although I carry wrapping paper and scissors in my car, I don’t carry any of that bug bite stuff, so by the time I get home, my toes are going to look like pigs in a blanket.

  A fire ant doesn’t just bite it also stings and when those little boogers sting me, I get a bunch of little white bumps that look like zits, and whatever they bit swells up, and it lasts for a couple of weeks.

  Can I just say that those little suckers do not travel alone? When one of them gets you, all his friends come and join the party, and by the time you feel the first sting, you’re trying to dislodge a bunch of tiny little ants, while they are each trying to inflict as much damage as possible.

  I looked it up. It’s a pheromone thing. Amazing all the roles pheromones play in the lives of breathing creatures. Some for good, very good, and some for evil. I guess the fire ant doesn’t see it that way, she is just trying to protect the farm, but that’s a whole other issue.

  I drove out to the cemetery and went directly to Bernie’s spot. When you see something shiny and new it’s a happy time, a new car or a new wedding ring always brings a smile to your face, but at the cemetery, a shiny new headstone is sad. The cemetery provides a metal cylinder in the ground, just at the bottom of each headstone. They always get stuck and they are always slimy, but I assumed because Bernie’s was new, it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ve lost enough people in my life to know it was a small miracle that the headstone was already in place.

  The simple fact is that it is a Catholic cemetery and Bernie was very involved in all things Catholic, so there was probably someone right here on earth pulling strings for her, she needn’t have counted on a guardian angel or anything. I’d have to remember to ask my mom about that.

  I was convinced that luck was on my side, and the shiny new flower cup was just waiting for my flowers. Wrong. The sucker was stuck in the ground as if with superglue and wouldn’t budge.

  I trudged back to my car, got my scissors, dug the thing out of the grass, walked over to a hose bib they have for such needs, washed the thing off, filled it with clean water, and headed back to Bernie’s property.

  I sat on the grass, right next to where Bernie was placed, and arranged the flowers. A pathetic but heartfelt bouquet was the result. Note to self, there’s no future in flower arranging, at least not for me.

  I mentally had a nice little chat with Bernie. I thanked her for the trunk. I apologized for not treating her better in life. Had I known she had a soft spot in her heart for me, I’d have tried harder. At least I’d like to think that I would.

  I told her all about the last two weeks, and promised her that I’d get down to the soup kitchen every once in a while to serve those in need, and honor her memory, as the soup kitchen was one of her favorite places to volunteer.

  When the conversation was completely one sided, and I didn’t hear Bernie’s voice reassuring me, I decided it was time to go home.

  I was half way down the feeder road when I realized that I’d left my glove compartment scissors at Bernie’s grave. I got to the next convenient spot and flipped a u-ee.

  I got just inside the gate, and there was Joe-the-cop’s car, over by the people in the wall. That’s the way my dad’s always described any mausoleum. I’m not 100% sure it was Joe-the-cop’s car, but I was sure enough that it scared the supreme bejesus out of me. Joe has a personalized Mini Cooper. Granted, I’m not a car person, and I’ve only seen his car up close and personal that one time, when Joe almost ran over me at my parent’s house, but because my mother raised not a single fool, I abandoned the idea of going after my scissors, flipped a quick u-ee and headed for home.

  I called Teagan as soon as I knew no one was following me. She wanted me to pull over someplace unobtrusive and wait to see if it really was Joe.

  Um, no.

  I zipped home and nearly ran for my apartment. Seeing Joe at the cemetery freaked me out more than just a little bit. What are the odds that a crazy cop that you’d never seen in your life, until all hell broke lose a couple weeks ago, would show up at your mom’s best friend’s grave?

  Joe called me a while back, wanted to meet, I put him off, and hadn’t heard from him since, and now he shows up in a cemetery, in the middle of the day, when I’m there all by myself. What are the odds that his showing up was an isolated event? Had nothing to do with me? What are the odds that I would see three of the same letters on the tags for the three cars that had been driven by three people, two of whom I’d come across by accident, one that was Bernie? How do you even figure out those odds?

  I made sure the door was locked, and went online.

  Before everything went crazy a couple of weeks ago, everything I’d ever looked for online, I’d been able to find. In the last couple of weeks, that hasn’t been the case. I’ve been unable to find a business that focuses on emptying houses when a loved one passes. Not crime clean up, but just sorting through the minutia that each of us leaves behind. It’s hard to decide to build a business when you can’t find another business to model yourself after, or to gauge if the idea is likely to make any money. It makes a scary process even scarier, especially when you aren’t even sure what you’re doing. And don’t they always say that the second person to do something is actually the person that makes the most money, since they can do all the things the first person did right, and avoid all the things they did wrong. Not sure that’s true of McDonalds and Wal-Mart, but I’m also not sure they were the first to do what they did. I’ll have to look that up.

  I tried to think of all the ways I could ask my question. What are the odds? Calculating the odds? Stuff about ratios. I read about creating tables and all kinds of arithmetic and mathematics, which it turns out, are nowhere near the same thing, and finally, I gave up.

  I decided the true strength of the Internet is not necessarily learning how to do something yourself, or at least something like figuring out the odds of all this, the true strength of the Internet is
tracking down someone else that who how to do this stuff already.

  As luck would have it, I happen to know a person who’s good at all things mathematical; I just haven’t talked to him in a while.

  MySpace couldn’t find him. Facebook, no luck. Geekhood is a wonderful thing. I found a site dedicated to the social networking of highly educated math people. Sure enough, he was there, front and center.

  I sent off a slightly rambling description of my problem and hoped for an explanation in my email soon.

  I fixed myself a nice hot cup of tea and pondered what to do next. I know that pondering isn’t as popular as it once was. I think that pondering went by the wayside about the time porches and kids helping with the harvest made way for big cities and socializing via satellite communication, but I pondered anyway. I’m pretty sure that we are on the cusp of a social movement, back to all things reasonable, and pondering is going to be a skill that we’ll need again.

  It dawned on me that I hadn’t heard from Steven, my first real client, regarding what I was supposed to be doing about his brother Louis’s condo. There was some stuff still in it. There was the heavy-duty picnic table bolted to the floor in a sound proof room, not as scary as it sounds, but still it has to be dealt with. The table would have to be removed, and hopefully donated to Louis’s physical therapist, another big mystery that had been solved by serendipity. Had the physical therapist not asked for the table, as our meeting was ending, and then, explained the whole situation, Teagan and I would still be wondering if my client Louis was some whacked out serial killer.

  I also need to figure out what to do with the journals that Louis had been writing. He seemed to be keeping a record of his investigation into the murder of several young women, actually, more like he wrote down all the gory details. I’d read the journals after finding them in Louis’s condo, they’re officially part of his estate, but they also seem to be an important part of an ongoing investigation, or maybe several investigations, so I need to find out if I’m supposed to give them to the cops, or to his brother, and what the ramifications are for each.

  Time to wrap up all the details of all this stuff that has been hanging over me. Time to figure out why I’m avoiding all of it. I’m one of those people that never procrastinate. Okay, maybe not never, but hardly ever. I am one of those people that get 5 weeks to complete an assignment and has it done in two weeks; that way I can tweak it, or improve it, or just not worry about it and it won’t drive me crazy.

  Scary thought, maybe I’ve already gone crazy, and that’s why it isn’t driving me there.

  I got back online and looked for the details of the arrest of Mr. Ivy-Rosenbloom, the story that started me down this particular life path.

  It all started when I’d been cruising through the Internet, looking for something wonderful to send to Suzi, my roommate who had just run away from home and gotten married to the perfect guy, when I came across a story explaining that the body of Mrs. Lily Ivy-Rosenbloom had been discovered. Initially it was reported as a suicide, but the details didn’t add up, and their suspicions turned to her husband. It was her ridiculous name that got my attention in the first place, then it was reported that her husband was offering a reward as an incentive for someone to solve the crime. I figured, with all the information out there, and my ability to look at things sideways, I might be able to come up with something. I wouldn’t bet my house on it, I just thought I’d give it some thought and see what happened. What happened was that Teagan rained all over my little parade, and convinced me that I wasn’t going to earn that $100,000 reward.

  From there I got the bright idea that I was going to write eulogies for a living. Turns out that there are a lot of businesses online that will supply you with the appropriate words, that service is available from cheap to outrageous, online to personal visits, and upon reflection, or maybe I just pooped out when the original excitement passed, anyway, that thought has been on the back burner for a while now.

  Then I got all involved in cleaning out Bernie’s house, then paid to clean out Louis’s condo, although I haven’t finished that one yet.

  I haven’t made any real money, yet, but it has kept me busy.

  So busy that I haven’t even checked in with my brother to get the details of his upcoming wedding.

  I used up all of Teagan’s vacation time, and I’ve accomplished next to nothing, which is beginning to get on my nerves, because that’s not the way I live my life. If something doesn’t give soon, I’m just going to find a regular old job and get back to living a real life.

  The same thoughts keep coming back at me. Over and over. Redundantly even. That means that the universe, or my subconscious if you’re not a believer, is trying to tell me something. Why am I not getting it?

  Real life came soon enough, in the form of Teagan pounding on my door. When I opened the door; I was greeted by a fuming Teagan, “That’s it. Either you figure out something to do about boy-wonder or I will.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Joe-the-cop. He followed you to the cemetery? What the hell is wrong with him? What the hell is wrong with you? You know very well that Mom always told us that if you don’t learn a lesson, it just keeps coming back at you over and over and getting uglier and uglier, until you decide you can’t take it any more and you learn the damn lesson. Joe-the-cop is getting more and more outrageous. Cara, following someone to the cemetery is a really bad sign. I’ve never heard a story that started with Once upon a time, a crazy cop followed a beautiful young woman to the cemetery and ends in And they all lived happily ever after.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “You guess I’m right? Of course I’m right! What’s wrong with you anyway? You haven’t been yourself in weeks.”

  “Funny, I was just having that conversation with myself. I’m thinking I’m in transition. I’m in chrysalis stage. I’ll morph into something really special any moment now.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You’ve been special your whole life. Not necessarily a good kind of special, but special.”

  “Thanks, I love you too. Are you saying I’m more moth than butterfly?”

  “If you’re a moth, you’re definitely a lunar moth.”

  “Aren’t those the big green ones?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pretty, but their wings are weird on the bottom and they kind of look pigeon toed?”

  “Only you would see them that way.”

  “That was the other conversation I was having with myself.”

  “That you’re weird?”

  “No, that I have stepped away from my natural talent to see things sideways and tried to force the things I see to make sense, instead of making sense of the things I see.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, you know what? I’m not going there. I don’t need yet another lesson on how your brain works. I just came over to yell at you, I have accomplished that goal, now I’m going to go home.”

  “You want to stay for food?”

  “No thanks, I only stopped by because I was literally driving past. I need to get back into work mode, instead of vacation mode, which means that I need to go home and dig out my apartment and do my laundry.”

  “I thought for sure that you would be neat and tidy since you have a thing going with Jessie. If you have stuff thrown around your apartment like you usually do you’re going to scare him off.”

  “Jessie is not that easily scared. Besides, my apartment is always clean; it just has clothes dropped where I take them off. Jessie doesn’t mind that I take my clothes off as soon as I walk in the door.” She winked at me. Better than rolling her eyes, a habit that seemed to be fading. “The important stuff, like the bathroom and the kitchen are always clean. Okay, maybe they aren’t your kind of sanitized clean, but they’re acceptable.”

  “Hey, if it works for you, then it works. Not my life. Not my apartment. I don’t expect you to live the way I live. On
e of the main reasons we could never make it as roommates. It was hard enough when we lived with Mom and she could referee, but in my house I like every little microorganism to fear for its life.”

  “Please give my condolences to AJ. Now that I’ll be back at the office, and probably working late to put things back together again, I won’t be around, which means he’ll have to figure out some way to entertain you.”

  “I’m confident he can figure something out.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he can. By the way, you need to call Mom, which is kind of the reason I came over here in the first place.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I may have alarmed her a little. I was on the phone talking to her, when your call from the cemetery came in. You know we never click over when talking to Mom, but I did, so it’s your fault that I might have inadvertently said something when I clicked back over.”

  “What did you say? Did you tell her about Joe-the-cop?”

  “I didn’t say anything that specific.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I think I said something like, ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’.”

  “Great.”

  “Mom didn’t take it literally, she just thinks that it’s time for you to take this whole thing a little more seriously and either work it out, or walk away.”

  “That’s my plan.”

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “I have no clue.”

  “Doesn’t sound much like a plan.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out. I need to stop trying to act like you, getting all organized, and act like me, get in tune with my inner Yoda and let the powers of the universe speak to me, or however that works.”

  “Cara, as long as it works, it doesn’t matter how you get there, just that you get there.”

  “I’m going to come up with a strategy today, I’m going to implement it this week. I’m going to make a decision based on the outcome of my implementation over the weekend, and Monday, I either start working on my new career full bore, or I start looking for a job full time.”