The Tea Series

by Sheila Horgan

  By the time our preordained lunchtime rolled around, Suzi had a crib and a whole lot of decorating ideas. She’d made notes and taken pictures. She’s getting more excited about life. She’s starting to see good things in the future.

  Teagan and Sinead were already at the restaurant when we walked in, heads almost together and deep in conversation.

  Once we were all seated at a round table near the center of the place, and Suzi had passed her hand sanitizer — her new obsession — the server showed up and took our orders, and we all started to chat.

  Sinead looked adorable. She’s one of those people who can mix and match clothes from every style and time period, and it comes off looking cute, not overthought or contrived.

  Teagan looked a little tired and a little unhappy. She explained that Jessie has been out of town a lot, but that while he has been out of town, she has been spending time with her mother-in-law-to-be. My words. Teagan just calls her “Jessie’s Mom.”

  Suzi pulled out her phone and showed pictures of the baby’s crib. Everyone made all the appropriate oohs and ahs.

  Carolyn shared a little bit about the next adventure she and the girls are planning. They have decided to go to a park. A national park. Their first trip will be without Jordan. They want to check it out and make sure they are comfortable with it before they bring along a child. I tried to explain that there are very nice hotels where they would be comfortable, but they’re insisting that they want to camp and make it a real adventure for Jordan. I’m still shooting for a compromise. A little cabin to quasi-camp in, instead of a tent out where a big bear can eat you. Anna, a friend of Carolyn and Adeline, accused me of ageism. I maintain that being care-filled about your elders is not ageism; it’s respect. We are in negotiations.

  Nothing new from my world, so I didn’t have much to say.

  The group of us got kind of quiet and uncomfortable.

  Considering there were three O’Flynns there and the inherent ability every O’Flynn has for jibber jabber, silence is downright uncomfortable for us.

  I couldn’t just say nothing.

  I’m the common denominator in this group. I know all of them. I should be able to come up with something to talk about.

  I searched my brain. That didn’t take long.

  I shared all the information from an email I’d gotten from Mom and Daddy this morning.

  Mom said that things were going pretty much as planned. She shared that she and Daddy had already spent some time doing touristy things in Ireland. That they had been using our cousin’s house as their base camp and then doing day trips all over the place.

  One of the day trips didn’t turn out as well as they had planned. They typed an address into their GPS and started out just after sunrise. Being American, when you see something on a map that appears to be close, you expect to get there quickly, but Mom swears it takes three and a half hours to get from one place in Ireland to another place in Ireland, no matter where that place is. She points out that it could have something to do with my father’s need to stop for soft-serve ice cream every time he sees a big plastic cone on the side of the road, but Daddy is quick to point out that they are on vacation and that the undaunted pursuit of ice cream is pretty much what vacation is for.

  Anyway, on that particular day trip Mom and Daddy followed the voice emanating from their GPS, a new voice Mom found when playing around with the mileage selections. She had to switch to kilometers soon after getting there, one of the few details she didn’t think of before she left.

  So they followed the dulcet sounds of the GPS all the way to Kilbarry and ended up in what looked like a mostly residential area. They saw a big structure on a corner, where the GPS told them that they were going to turn in, but there was no place to turn in. No turning lane or anything, which you would expect for one of the most beloved places in Ireland, at least on my mother’s most-beloved-places list.

  Yes, there is such a thing.

  Anyway, they were forced to turn into a residential-looking area, which is always scary in Ireland. You could end up on a street so narrow that you can’t get yourself turned around again. My father is all but convinced that when only Irish people are around, leprechauns do the heavy lifting and turn the car around for the natives, but Daddy has had to have Mom get out of the car and guide him as they do a three-hundred-and-twenty-seven-point turn. In a standard — renting a car with automatic transmission is difficult and expensive in Ireland — on the wrong side of the car.

  They got all turned around again and found a little pull-in with a sad white gate, the kind you see at used car dealerships, across the opening. When they looked past the gate all they saw was a huge empty building. All the glass that had once sparkled in the sunshine now looked dank, not easy for a modern glass building, but the facility achieved it, which about broke Mom’s heart. There were castles that had been abandoned hundreds of years ago that didn’t look anywhere near as depressing.

  Weeds were growing up around the building and in the parking lot.

  It was only then Mom remembered all the stuff she’d read about them closing down the Waterford Crystal plant.

  And people wonder where I get it. I do that, and everyone is convinced I’ve lost my mind. I can misplace entire blocks of information every once in a while. It’s not like I lose stuff in real life, not very often anyway; it’s more like I file the information away in my brain for safekeeping, and when I go to retrieve it, it’s just gone. Then sometime later it pops back up. I’m convinced that is why I am so organized. It just makes it easier.

  Mom has a ton of Waterford Crystal. The real stuff. Made in Ireland. If you ever wanted to buy something for my mother from the time she got married until right about the second they pulled into that little pull-in and saw the sad building, you could count on anything Waterford Crystal or Belleek.

  According to the email, Mom is now more focused on what all those workers are doing with themselves. They say it takes years and years to learn the art and craft of creating something like that. The place is closed. What do you do once the platform for your art is swept out from under your feet?

  I’m not sure that Mom can actually do anything about it. It has been years, and the people probably all have other stuff going on in their lives, but Mom was adamant about the need to do something.

  I looked it up online. The Waterford Crystal factory had been in Kilbarry from 1783 to 2009. Can you imagine? Turns out that Waterford Crystal, one of the most Irish things I’m aware of, is mostly created outside of Ireland now. They have plants in Slovenia, Czech Republic, and even Germany, but according to what somebody told them when they drove all the way back across the country, they also have a local place that Mom and Daddy completely missed. They drove right past it, thinking it was a store that sold the stuff made in other countries instead of a factory. Mom can’t decide if she’s going back or not. That will be in the next email.

  The conversation wiggled around from subject to subject until it came back to the most important subject of the day.

  Babies.

  It kind of surprised me that Teagan was so effusive about all things baby. She was talking about furniture and baby clothes and how to do all things baby on a budget. She’d obviously been looking online, because she had information about all the latest and greatest gadgets and trends.

  Sinead even made a few comments.

  Turns out there are a couple of pregnant girls in Sinead’s group at school.

  One girl joined the military and then decided she hated being deployed and got pregnant. The military wasn’t amused. Her husband wasn’t amused either. She came home, and her husband is still deployed. The husband is a close friend of Howard, Sinead’s beau, and as a result Sinead and Howard are on baby watch.

  Teagan was talking about one of the women at work and her trials and tribulations with a breast pump that they couldn’t figure out. One woman thought the machine was malfunctioning. The other woman thought it was bad technique.

>   The conversation started to slow down again.

  As a disclaimer I would like to point out that as anyone who has met me more than once can tell you, I have always enjoyed complete impunity when it comes to any and all comments directed at Teagan. She has the same freedom with me. It’s just one of the things we have always done.

  I’m as sure of that as I am that I will never, ever get my left foot behind my head.

  I can usually make smartass comments to Teagan to lighten up a mood or keep a conversation going. It’s one of the benefits of having cooked a gazillion dinners and supplied tons of junk food for her all these years. I should point out that I also didn’t tell my parents when she decided that smoking was cool and smoked a cigarette in the fifth grade and when she said that she’d cut her left leg on a rock when actually she’d tried shaving her legs before my mother gave her permission.

  So, it’s understandable that I didn’t really give it a lot of thought.

  Just blurted it out, really.

  I looked her straight in the eye and said, “All this talk about babies, you trying to tell us something, Teagan?”

  “Oh. My. God. I can’t believe you told her. Great, now I’ll have the family martyr offering unwanted advice and unneeded hints on how to be the perfect little O’Flynn. Like everyone even wants to be the kind of O’Flynn she has visions of in that warped little mind of hers. What the hell? Thanks a lot, Teagan.”

  And with that, Sinead stood up and stormed toward the exit, or maybe the bathroom was her destination, since they’re both on the same wall.

  I was stunned silent.

  How often does that happen?

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Teagan. I was talking to you, not Sinead.”

  “Not my news to tell. I’m going to go check on her.”

  “Let me.” Suzi started to stand up. “One preggo to another.” She smiled and walked off.

  Gran was grace-filled as always, and reached over and touched my hand and asked, “Would you girls like some privacy?”

  Teagan didn’t seem the least upset. “Not necessary. There’s no longer a secret, so there’s no need for privacy.”

  “When did you find out, Teagan?”

  “A couple days after Mom and Dad left.”

  “That seems to be the trend.”

  “Trend?”

  “Oh, nothing, another O’Flynn told me something I can’t talk about until Mom and Daddy get back.”

  “You mean the thing with Morgan and Liam?”

  “What thing with Morgan and Liam?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What’s with all the secrets lately? O’Flynns don’t do that.”

  “Sure we do. We always have. You just choose to not recognize it, ignore it, or do this weird thing you do that allows you to participate in something without ever acknowledging that it’s going on.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Cara. Think back as far as you know how to think. There have always been secrets. There has always been what Mom and Dad refer to as family business. We weren’t allowed to tell anybody outside the immediate family.”

  “There’s a difference between family business and secrets.”

  “A secret is a secret no matter how pretty a bow you choose to put on it.”

  “I don’t agree, but I’m not going to argue about it right now.”

  “That’s exactly what you do, Cara. Now, in your brain, we can both be right. Being right is very important to you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what? I don’t want to do this right now. We have bigger issues than your delusions about being an O’Flynn and what that means.”

  Teagan seemed to be getting more annoyed, which really wasn’t fair since I’m the injured party here. I tried to point that out. “Wow, first I’m the family martyr, and now I suffer with delusions.”

  “That’s just the thing. You don’t suffer at all. You’re perfectly content with your delusions.”

  Although I’d never say it out loud, this stuff is definitely going on the list for the counselor I haven’t told anyone that I’m going to see in a couple of days. A secret. Hadn’t thought about it that way before.

  Maybe Teagan is more right than I thought.

  I hate it when that happens.

  The server came by and refilled our drinks just as Suzi and Sinead came back to the table.

  I stood up and gave Sinead a hug. “Sorry, but I have to go all Cara on your ass. I couldn’t be happier for you. And for the record, I thought I was teasing Teagan, not talking to you. I had no idea. Teagan didn’t tell me.”

  “Thanks for being happy for me. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “No problem.”

  The rest of lunch was a little quiet. A little strained. Suzi, Carolyn, and Teagan tried valiantly to keep the mood light and positive, but it didn’t work. I have to give them credit; Sinead and I didn’t even try.

  After lunch we decided to go our separate ways. Teagan and Sinead left. Suzi, Gran, and I headed for furniture row.

  Maybe it was the shock of the day. Maybe it’s because Adeline pays me pretty well and I’m more secure in my job than I thought I was. But by the end of the day, I’d bought more furniture than Suzi had.

  I think maybe it’s because I’m at a different point in my life than I was just a few months ago. I feel different. Like life is changing and it’s happening really fast.

  I guess I’m changing, and part of that change is that I’m tired of living on other people’s hand-me-downs with mismatched everything that goes together more in a jumble than a style.

  Also, I’m working at home all the time now, so instead of a guest room we use once in a while, I decided on the spur of the moment without any input from A.J. that I’d turn the guest room into an office.

  In one of the little boutique-type furniture stores that cater to people with very small living spaces, I found a modern Murphy bed. When it’s closed up, the bed looks like any other wall unit. It has a few shelves that you can put books and knickknacks on. It even has several little niches that are cut into the edges, making it look like a normal wall unit. When it’s time to turn it into a bed, you just pull down on one of the shelves. The shelves all stay parallel to the floor, and your stuff doesn’t fall off — very impressive — and down comes the bed. It’s already made up with sheets, blankets, and pillows, so turning the room from office to guestroom literally takes ten seconds.

  I’m going to put the bed wall unit on the wall furthest from the door. For the wall with the windows, I found a great desk. It’s exactly the right length, and it has built-in cord organization, which is good because I hate seeing cords hanging around. Everybody makes fun of me because I buy shower-curtain-rod covers online and then wrap them around my cords. I do it that way because you can find the covers in so many different colors that they blend in with the background really well.

  While shopping with Suzi and Gran I found some other cord covers for other areas of the house too. I love that.

  I gave my old desk to Suzi. I love that desk, and I’m glad it will have a good home. I also gave the bed from the guestroom to Suzi. I kept my office chair. I got it on sale years ago. It’s a really nice, ergonomically correct chair with adjustable lumbar support. I think that it was about four hundred and fifty dollars, and I got the floor model for fifty.

  For the wall closest to the door I got a really unique storage unit. It has tons of storage — which would be the whole idea for a storage unit, I get that — I’m going to use for office products. The unique part is that it has these weird shelves on a track. You can pull out and down, and the top shelf becomes the bottom shelf. That way you can have useful shelves all the way to the ceiling. I’m blessed to have really high ceilings in the apartment. Being tall, I’ve always used storage as tall as I can get it, but these moving shelves will allow me to put heavier stuff higher. Like all the extra stuff that I have to work on for Adeline.

&nb
sp; I am totally thrilled with my purchases. I got everything on sale except for the cord covers. They were expensive but not scary expensive.

  The guy who was helping us told me about a container store down the street that had every kind of storage gadget you can imagine and several that you would never have thought of.

  After walking up and down every single aisle with Suzi, my big purchase was a couple of metal strips and super-strong magnets.

  I’ll put one set on the side of my fridge. I didn’t find anything reasonable that the super strong magnets wouldn’t hold up, and, believe me, I tried. While Suzi and Gran were busy looking at closet organizers, I went from one section of the store to the next, snapping the magnets on everything that was metal and either hanging something from them or putting paper and even cardboard between the metal and the magnet. So now, all the junk that was on the front of the fridge is going to be on the side of the fridge, which I can see easily because of the light from the kitchen window, but no one else sees when they walk into my house. I love that.

  Then I got another, bigger metal strip and bigger, stronger magnets, and I’ll use double-sided removable tape strips, and I’ll put the metal up in my bathroom and put a bunch of the magnets on the metal. I’ll hang up all my necklaces and earrings on the magnets or in these little cup things I bought that stick on the strip with their own magnets. I’ll hang the metal strip behind the bathroom door. That way you won’t even see it unless the door is closed, but it’s really convenient and looks nice.

  I also found this long, skinny glass container, and in the flower shop next door I got a bunch of four-millimeter glass balls.

  My plan is to steal the idea from a makeup store that Teagan always bullies me into visiting. I’ll pour the glass balls into the container and sit it between the two sinks in the bathroom. Then I’ll put all my new makeup brushes in the glass balls, and they’ll stand up perfectly and look great just like they do in the store.

  After all the looking around at new apartments, when we finally decided to stay where we are, I was kind of disappointed. I’ve been looking at the same everything for a while, and my apartment just didn’t seem to be working for me anymore.