Wedding Tea Read online

  “I told A.J.” I took a deep breath. “We were just kind of hoping all of this would be out of the way before our wedding. The person who tried to break into our house knows where we live.”

  Even I rolled my eyes at my comment. So stupid.

  “You know what I mean. I meant, we don’t want someone showing up at our wedding, which we’re having at our house, to disrupt the ceremony.”

  Roland shrugged. “If I need to have your place locked down like a celebrity soiree, so be it. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “I’ve seen those Hollywood parties with the helicopters and all. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” My attempt at humor didn’t raise A.J.’s spirit.

  “The functions I provide security for have no helicopters. No one is aware they take place until well after the fact. That’s my point. For the record, the media only finds out about our events after the fact if the celebrity chooses for them to learn about it.” Roland smiled and stood up. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

  “Good news. You got the” — I took a deep breath — “jerks. We may not be happy it happened, but we’re thrilled it’s over. Thank you, Roland.”

  “You always look at the positive side. I’ll give you a little more positive. Since we’re already working on your case because of Adeline’s grandson, I’m not gonna charge for any of this. Plus, we’ll stay on this until we are one hundred percent sure there’s nothing for any of you to worry about.” He thought a moment, and decided he had nothing else to say about the ugliness. Like Roland often does, he left on a good note. “Happy wedding.”

  “Thank you.” I gave Roland a hug. He seemed uncomfortable but pleased.

  Roland was walking toward the door when Suzi reappeared. “I’m sorry I lost it, but I’m fine now. If you need anything, call me. I will be happy to do anything you need done to keep those men in jail so they can’t hurt anybody else.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Miss Cooper. You have no reason to feel any guilt. You did nothing wrong. These men were so squeaky clean, if I’d done a background check on them before your first cup of coffee, I’m not sure we would have found anything on them. Don’t blame yourself for someone else’s bad deeds.”

  Suzi tried for a smile, but it got lost before it found her eyes. “I’ll try to remind myself of that.”

  “Well, if you start to feel shaky on that, give me a call. I believe every individual should be fully responsible for his or her actions and decisions. It’s one of the reasons I got into this business. If there were any portion of this case I felt you could have altered through better decision-making or being more pragmatic, I wouldn’t hesitate to mention it. This was simply a case of you being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Suzi deflated. “So, I’m just a target for assholes, and I have no way to fix it.”

  “Not what I said at all. Do not allow your past to define your future, Miss Cooper. Your unfortunate relationship with your ex-husband does not in any way factor into this situation. I deal with facts. Not emotions. This was a random event. You could not re-create the circumstances that brought you and Grant together. Do not attribute nonsense to a random fact of life. Sometimes good people are taken advantage of by evil. That does not make the good person anything other than a good person caught in the crossfire of evil. You are a good person, Miss Cooper. Please do not allow your ex-husband or Grant to take you from the world. Then they would truly win.”

  Roland shook A.J.’s hand and left before any of us could respond.

  A.J., his shoulders slumped, led the way back into the studio proper.

  “Well, I won’t be picking out your next boyfriend. I’m sorry, Suzi.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I chimed in. “It wasn’t your fault either, Suzi. Roland’s right. You can’t let this eat at you.”

  Suzi gave me a look. “Pot, meet kettle.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Cara, you take responsibility for everything. You’re telling me not to take responsibility for this?”

  “Learn from my mistakes. One of me in this family is enough.”

  A.J. smiled. “True.”

  “Hey, be nice!” I pulled a face.

  It was enough to make Suzi smile.

  Which was enough to make A.J. relax.

  Suzi tensed. “I need to call Gran. I need to tell her what’s going on just in case it gets out there.”

  “Why don’t you drive over? Tell her in person. Cara can stay here and cover the desk.”

  I didn’t say anything. The truth was I had things to do, but nothing that couldn’t wait an hour or two.

  “Cara is trying to put your wedding together. Remember? She has enough to do. I’ll just drive over to Gran’s on the way home from picking up Evelyn. Nothing’s going to happen in the next few hours.”

  “If you’re sure.” I was relieved, but I hate it when people tempt fate, and the last part of her comment was about as tempting to fate as it gets.

  A.J. and I walked down the street to Jovana’s bar and had a soda. We only had a few minutes, but we needed to check in with each other.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Your sister seems to be taking this pretty well, all things considered.”

  “I can’t believe I actually introduced her to that … ” He took a sip of his drink. He tries really hard not to cuss around me. I hate cussing. Not because I am morally opposed to it; it just seems to me that there are better ways to deal with things.

  I guess the nuns really kick that kind of crap out of you when you’re young.

  And for the record, crap isn’t cussing. It’s a freebie. Teagan and I decided on a list when we were little.

  “Where did you meet him?”

  “You know those pickup basketball games we had going for a while?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He showed up for a couple. Seemed like a nice guy.”

  I swirled the ice in my glass. I only do that when I’m not thinking. I actually hate when all the little bubbles come zipping to the top and then leave my drink flat. “I’ll bet he was on the hunt even then.”

  “Hunting a bunch of guys? How does that make sense?”

  “Because of the age demographic. You guys are all about the age of guys having little kids. If we hadn’t lost the baby, you would be a new father before too long. If a guy introduces another guy to his wife or girlfriend, then chances are the new guy is pretty safe. No guy would introduce a dirtbag to his girl.”

  “I introduced one to my sister.”

  “How could you know? If Roland’s telling the truth, which he always does, then even a background check wouldn’t have helped. Sometimes you just gotta accept bad things happen to good people.”

  “I know my sister. She’s never going to date anyone again.”

  “We’ll just have to set her up with … ”

  “I’m not setting her up with anybody. Ever.”

  “I was going to say we’ll have to set her up with someone we trust. My brothers are out. They’re all married. Maybe someone in Roland’s organization.”

  “Don’t start, Cara. She can just be single for a while.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You have me.”

  The look on his face was perfect.

  We both laughed.

  A good thing.

  FIVE

  THE PHONE RANG. “Do you want to be here for the first cut?”

  Teagan really has to start with hello.

  “What?”

  “Agatha is going to start your dress. You okayed the sketch. She took all your measurements. You tried on the mock-up. We’re good to go with the next step. Do you want to be here for the first cut?”

  My heart sank. What if it didn’t work? What if I was about to ruin Mom’s beautiful fabric? What if it looked terrible? The mock-up made sense to Teagan and Agatha, but I have a problem visualizing the final product.

  “Teagan, I’m not sure my hea
rt could take it. I think I’m better with the finished products.”

  “Wimp.”

  “Proud to be.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll keep you apprised. She’s actually going to do the work here at the house. The hotel just didn’t have enough room. She’s taken over the dining room. We extended the table as far as it would go. Put all the chairs in the den to make some room for her. We even got that plastic sticky stuff to put on the carpet to protect your dress.”

  “Sticky stuff?”

  “Don’t worry about it. Soon our dresses will be done, and you’ll be thrilled.”

  “Have you and Jessie figured out a date yet?”

  “After yours.” Her tone told me the topic was not up for discussion.

  “Okay. Thanks. I think.”

  “It’ll be fine, Cara. Don’t panic. Is there anything else I need to do?”

  “I actually think we have it all under control.”

  I knocked on wood just to make sure I didn’t jinx myself.

  Sinead has all the table decorations done. She and Maeve worked on them over at Daddy’s house. Troya and Gavin — her best friend and roommate — were working on little mementos and the kid’s table. Morgan took care of everything print related. Like the invitations and the napkins. She said she also had a bit of a surprise. If it were one or two of my siblings, I’d panic, but whatever Morgan plans will be subtle and low-key. With such a small and intimate wedding there really isn’t as much to plan as you would think. Not the way we’re doing it, anyway. This is going to be a regular family dinner — on steroids.

  A.J. and I agree it isn’t about the wedding. It’s about the marriage.

  Why do I feel the need to keep reminding myself of that?

  I got online and did a bunch of work for Adeline after I got Teagan off the phone. I should have left it at that, but you know how I am. I can never leave well enough alone. I decided — in all my wisdom — I’d just take a couple of seconds and see if I could find anything about people snooping with baby monitors. I’d heard of a guy screaming at a baby over a baby monitor, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like they did with Suzi.

  I’m an idiot.

  Okay, not a fair statement.

  I was uneducated.

  Have you looked this stuff up lately?

  Everything from smart toys, to your television, to just about anything else that has a microphone or a camera — which just about everything does these days — can be hacked. I found a website describing all the ways some person with bad intent can hack their way into what you thought was your private world. They’re talking about rumored plans Mattel will soon be releasing a Smart Barbie. It can interact with your child. Kind of like Siri. They’re saying some creep could possibly listen in on your child’s most private thoughts. The doll’s going to ask all kinds of questions about the child in a friendly and intimate play environment, and some perv is going to be able to listen to the answer? How far would a pervert take such intimate knowledge? And how much could they overhear? Could they tell where the child is?

  I can’t remember where it was, but just recently I read an article about some people using geotracking to figure out the neighborhood in which certain Facebook posts they found offensive originated. They took out big billboards in the areas they had identified as belonging to those specific users. The offending users believed they could get away with saying just about anything because they were more or less anonymous.

  It makes me worry all the guys that might see those videos of Suzi and Evelyn might be able to track them down to our house.

  I got the feeling from Roland it was Suzi they were interested in, much more than Evelyn, but either way, this is a problem. Anyone that would want to see those videos has a mental health problem. You want to turn lactation into something sexual with your loved one, okay. I’m not here to judge. But a stranger privately feeding her baby? Now we’re talking a completely different story.

  I looked around.

  My lovely new house I love so much and felt so secure in.

  Why do people ruin things for everybody these days?

  I feel like we should move. But where would we go? My mom always said running away is silly because the problem you run away from is most likely running in your shoes. But that’s about relationships. This is about moving to a safer environment.

  But where do you go? It’s gotten to the point that we are at the mercy of whackos. And not the good kind of whackos like the O’Flynns.

  It seems like people have just lost their damn minds.

  I sound like I’m a hundred and seven.

  I know that.

  But every time I leave my house, I feel like things are out of control. Mom always said people are cyclical, and you just have to wait a little while and everything will swing back to the way it was, but it seems to me things aren’t swinging back fast enough. If at all.

  I never really thought about it a lot. Every once in a while, when I would see things on television, it would smack me in the face. Like little kids in bad situations. But I turned on the television the other day, and some grown men lured a little kid into an alley and killed him because they had a problem with his father. Who does that? How’s it allowed to stand?

  But the part that really kicked me over the edge was that they aren’t really making a big deal out of it. Where are all the celebrities? Where are all the idiots that show up every time there’s something going on? You know the ones that’ll get in your face and not go away until everyone agrees with them? Where’s Jessie Jackson or Sharpton? Hell, where’s the pope? A child killed for no reason should hold our attention better than a bunch of sisters that like to show their butts off to the world.

  I’m pretty sure I was born in the wrong generation.

  I’m not like all Sinead’s friends who think living in the fifties would be cool. They forget the part about only having one car and having to ask your husband for an allowance to run your household. We aren’t even going to get into the part where some husbands actually spanked their wives for not behaving appropriately.

  But still, the way my mother talked about her childhood makes me wonder what we have done to ourselves.

  Or maybe Mom was never a big complainer, and I am.

  I was lost in all those thoughts when the alarm went off.

  Just about scared me to death. The alarm really is earsplittingly loud.

  Seconds later, it stopped, and Suzi yelled, “Sorry, it’s me. I just came to grab something upstairs. I wasn’t thinking. Do we need to call anybody?”

  I was already on it. I told Roland’s people it was a false alarm and gave them the code word to prove it really was a false alarm.

  Roland insists on a code word. He believes there’s a chance someone could force you to make a cancellation call. He even has a code word for the fact you’re being forced to use a code word.

  And he even has a special way of presenting each code word. If everything is fine, I say Mary accidentally tripped the alarm. If we’re all gonna die in the next three seconds, I say code word happy home.

  Roland’s people would notify the police and everyone on the call list that we’d accidentally tripped the alarm. They could do it faster than I could, so I left it to them.

  Personal growth. Right?

  I like the fact Roland is on top of everything, but the redundancies sometimes get a little old.

  After I checked in with Roland and his people, I met Suzi at the stairs.

  She had a garment bag in her hand.

  “What’s up?”

  She put the bag over the banister. “I’ve been working on this in the evenings. I thought maybe we should have a few of them hanging around the studio. Today I might actually get a chance to use it.”

  “What is it?”

  Suzi ran her hand over the garment bag. “It’s a costume for underwater shoots. We’ve had a couple of women call and ask if we did them. We never have. But A.J. finally said yes today. So we’re going
to give it a shot. Sorry. Bad pun.”

  “Suzi, that sounds great.”

  “The woman coming in today is really pregnant. I think this will work. We’re using the pool at the dive shop on Blunnart. The business owner is a friend of A.J.’s. They just had the pool redone.”

  She shrugged. “We aren’t even sure this is going to work. A.J.’s not exactly a master diver, but his friend has all kinds of equipment and thinks they can work together and do some nice stuff. It will be good for both businesses.”

  “And you’re doing all this today? I haven’t heard anything about it.”

  “No, the woman is coming in to talk about it today. We’re going to be really honest with her and tell her we don’t know what we’re doing, yet. Her pictures will be free if she’s willing to be our guinea pig. She was a big-time swimmer, medal winner I think, so we probably won’t drown her.” Suzi laughed. It was good to see.

  “Can I see the outfit you made?”

  “Nope. I’m keeping it a surprise. If it doesn’t work at all, no one will ever know. I gotta go. Sorry to scare you.”

  “No problem. Have you thought about when you’re coming home?”

  “Is Teagan tired of me?” She tried for humor, but it didn’t work. That’s been happening around here a lot lately.

  “Not at all. I just thought you’d be more comfortable here. Roland is one hundred percent sure the whole hacked camera thing is over. We’re being more careful about the alarm and everything.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  It almost sounded like she was thinking about moving away.

  I don’t think it would help anything, but who could blame her?

  Suzi headed for the door.

  “Okay, I’ve kept my mouth shut long enough. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Hello to you, too, Teagan. What are you talking about?”

  “Dingleberry, you aren’t the least bit excited about your wedding. You, the organizer of all time, haven’t done much of anything. You’ve made a few decisions here and there, but mostly you’ve left everything to our discretion. Do you know how weird that is? Do you know how much all of us are completely freaking out? You, the woman that has to micromanage the micromanagement of everything. Do you even know what color the place settings Sinead picked out are?”