The Tea Series

by Sheila Horgan

  A.J. took some test shots.

  He promised to erase them later.

  A.J.’s always on the hunt to find new locations for family shoots. Lots of families don’t want a normal studio shoot. They want their pictures done at the beach or in a park. That’s great, but some of those shots have been done to death, and A.J. likes to keep it fresh.

  We found an alleyway in Old Town that looks almost like something off Bourbon Street in New Orleans. The bricks are really aged, and there are filigreed window coverings and faux balconies. It would make a great shot for a family or even a wedding. I wrote that one down. We didn’t need any test shots.

  We also found a railroad track with an old, rusted-out caboose. I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to be on that track, but if you’re quick, it would be a great picture, and it is obvious the caboose hasn’t been moved in years and years, so I don’t think there is big danger you might be run over by a train.

  We found another interesting one. An abandoned play lot. You know how some subdivisions add their own little park or play area for kids? This was the same type of thing, but this one looked like it had been there since the fifties or sixties. There was no fence or signs telling us to keep out. I couldn’t figure out the address, so I just hit the coordinates button on my GPS so we could find it later.

  We decided to take a look around a couple of state parks. The first one has a parasailing business. Blue sky, whitecaps in the water, and gorgeous colors of parachutes floating around are always a beautiful background, but only if you do it right. You don’t want to make the picture too busy or lose focus on your subject.

  We were driving down a two-lane road in the middle of nowhere when we noticed a hot-air balloon.

  Actually, we heard the hot-air balloon before we saw it. I know that sounds crazy, but it wouldn’t be a complete exaggeration to say the thing almost landed on our moving car.

  The pilot was in the process of landing and came from behind and to the side of us. He wasn’t all that far off of the ground, and at first it kind of scared me.

  I’ve heard hot air balloons before and knew the sound instantly — well, almost instantly. I recognized the sound right after the initial heart attack and silent prayer that went something like “God, Mom is gonna be really mad if I’m dead when she gets home. I need a little help here.”

  I pulled the cover for the sunroof back, and there it was. Close enough to see the weave in the bottom of the basket.

  When a hot-air balloon is right over your head, it is your duty to take a better look.

  We pulled over to watch.

  He lowered the balloon pretty slowly; then all of the sudden he was on the ground in the middle of a huge field. There were wires to his left that he was keeping clear of. He kind of skidded for a few feet; then he just pretty much hovered there. Hover isn’t the right word. He kept the basket from being dragged on the ground while he still had the balloon full of hot air. Not sure how he did it. You would think that the breeze, although there was none I could feel with all the car windows open, would move him around, but he just kind of sat there.

  It was very otherworldly.

  A very, very short time later a lady in a little station wagon pulling a trailer came zooming up and jumped out of the car with a couple other people, and they ran toward the guy.

  They each took a corner of the basket and shoved it over toward the middle of the field while the guy who landed the thing played with the fire and kept the balloon just skimming the ground. They didn’t seem to be putting a whole lot of effort into guiding the balloon to where they wanted it, which was amazing because those baskets are big and a hot air balloon looks much smaller in the air than it does on the ground. I had no idea they were so big.

  We got out of the car and stood there and watched as the balloon guy played with the fire and the ground people laid out a big tarp. They each grabbed a corner of the basket again and moved the basket around to exactly where they wanted it.

  It seemed like it was just a couple of minutes later that the balloon was completely collapsed on the tarp and they were all packing it up. It was really interesting to watch.

  For the record, I’ve gotta say there is no way that I am ever going to get in a hot-air balloon, but it was beautiful to watch.

  A.J. went over and talked to the guy. Got his business card. Offered to send him some pictures. He, of course, had been clicking away the whole time we were watching the process. That’s why I couldn’t be a real photographer. I get so caught up in what I’m doing that I’d forget to take the shot.

  Yeah, sure, that’s the reason.

  Anyway, I think it was a really good networking move. A.J. is good at networking. He isn’t afraid to do something nice for someone, just because, and it usually works out in his favor.

  Truth is, that’s pretty much how life works, but people have forgotten the most important part of it. They start out doing something nice; then they have to mention it online or tell someone or somehow get acknowledgement about how wonderful they are for doing something nice for someone. The universe is watching, and it isn’t impressed. You don’t win any karma points by making it about you. You might stroke your ego for a few seconds, but that’s all you get out of it. And, really, if you are just in it to get something out of it, then it is still about you anyway. A.J. isn’t like that. He does nice things because it is who he is. The universe rewards that.

  My mother. Even watching the whole process of hot-air-balloon retrieval in the middle of a huge field, all the stuff she always talked about when I was growing up — well, actually, she still talks about it all the time — seeps into my wee little brain and overtakes my thought process.

  I’ve always thought that was a really good thing; now I’m beginning to wonder.

  As we were driving away, three more hot air balloons were headed toward the field. I thought A.J. might turn around and shoot them, but he didn’t.

  “Why didn’t you want to go back and shoot the other balloons?”

  “It’s been done. Besides, I’m really happy with what I already have.”

  If I hadn’t just thought all the stuff I thought about karma points and gotten a little weirded out about my mother living in my head, I’d point out that there are about a dozen life lessons to be learned in that comment. But I’m just not going there.

  We decided to head home a totally new way. We’d probably get lost, but with A.J. in the car we’d find our way home.

  He has a natural sense of direction.

  I can get slightly lost while using a GPS.

  We found a subdivision that had just the streets and streetlights in. It was obvious that someone had just walked away from the project mid-build when the economy went to pieces. Wonder if they are ever going to come back and finish what they started.

  We looked around at the entrance. It’s kind of strange that they didn’t have a fence or any signs telling people to stay out. What about liability and crime and all that stuff that everyone seems to worry about these days?

  You would at least expect to see a sign that says not to trespass. Trespassers will be shot on sight, their picture will be taken, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Something.

  You have to watch for things like that. I would look bad in a picture taken covertly by a security camera I didn’t notice. It’s a given. I’m not like those ridiculously photogenic people you see online. The ones who are running marathons or have a mug shot that should be framed. My doofus picture would find its way to the front page of the paper, in Ireland, where my mother would be distressed.

  Or I would end up in jail. It would be just my luck that the cop who was processing me in would have had a really bad day. Her boyfriend, of six years, who she thought was about to ask for her hand in marriage would be caught with a redheaded woman about my height. Her boyfriend would be a photographer. When they went to delouse me, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  I’ve never been to jail, but I’ve seen h
ow it works on television, and I wouldn’t do jail well.

  Can you even begin to imagine what Teagan would do?

  First she would bail me out, because even if my parents were in town, I’d call Teagan, not my parents. My mom told all of us from the time that we were tiny that if we ever did anything stupid enough to end up in jail, not to call her. She always said that she’d raised us smarter than that. She said she would not save our sorry behinds. So far it’s worked. The only one of us who has been to the jail is the one who is on the right side of the bars. He’s the cop.

  A.J. said he had a couple of ideas for shoots but needed a closer look and to look from different angles, so we drove into the subdivision.

  We drove around the whole place.

  Just as we were making our final turn into a large area that we assumed would have been a community center or maybe a shopping area, since it was a huge parking lot without any buildings, we saw three police cars coming toward us.

  Not good.

  See, this is what happens when you set your mind to tickets and jail.

  Can I manifest a winning lottery ticket? No.

  Can I manifest three police cars? No problem.

  We pulled over so we could get our ticket for trespassing or whatever they do to people who are driving around on property they don’t belong on, even if there was no sign. I can hear my mother now, reminding me that she has told me at least a million times not to take what isn’t mine or go where I’m not invited.

  The current goal is to accept whatever the cops are going to do, gently, without getting shot or Tasered.

  You see it on the news all the time. Cops in my area are known for being a little Taser happy. You don’t do what they want when they want, and you are going to end up on the floor flopping around like a fish. Little kids. Pregnant women. For really minor stuff too. It’s not like the Tasered person was going to kill them.

  I guess it is better than getting shot, but I have no desire to have a gazillion volts of electricity running through my body, making me fall down and get all dirty and convulse all over the place. It would all get caught on their dashcam, and then it would be on the news. Mom would kill me. Dead.

  The police stopped and let their dogs out. That brought me back to reality pretty quickly.

  Police dogs. I’ll bet they bite. A bunch. Yeah, my thoughts are always of superior quality. Of course police dogs bite.

  This situation is going from bad to worse. Quickly.

  We sat.

  We watched.

  We didn’t move.

  The cops were exercising their police dogs.

  They didn’t care about us at all.

  A.J. rolled down the window and started taking pictures.

  That got their attention, and one of the cops walked over to talk to us.

  By the time the two of them were done talking, A.J. promised to send some pictures of the dogs to the cops, the cop wanted to set up an appointment with A.J. to have pictures taken of his wife, who is about to have a baby, and we were all standing outside our cars eating chips and cookies and drinking soda.

  Sometimes things work out better than you think they will.

  THREE

  THE FURNITURE FOR my home office is going to be delivered tomorrow, and my first counseling appointment is tomorrow, and I have no way of knowing if each of those two events will take place on or about the same time.

  Since I haven’t told anyone about my counseling appointment, I can’t really ask someone to stay at the apartment to wait for the delivery because I have no story to tell.

  This is what happens with secrets. You box yourself in.

  I mentioned in passing to A.J. that I was thinking about a counselor, but I didn’t tell him that I had an appointment, and it wouldn’t matter anyway because he has a big meeting about some promotion they’re doing in Old Town and he can’t miss it.

  He’s pretty much taken over everything about the studio.

  Jovana is never there.

  The good news is that he has taken over most of her clients.

  The bad news is that he’s working lots of hours and he doesn’t have the free time he used to have.

  So now I have to make up some stupid story that will eventually be found out, and not only will I not have told the person about the counseling appointment, which is a lie by omission, but I will have lied by telling them whatever excuse I come up with, which will be a lie by commission.

  At least that’s how I remember the nuns telling me it works.

  That’s why you aren’t supposed to keep secrets.

  And although my mother would not be happy to hear it, it really isn’t the lie or the sin or the omissions or commissions that bother me. What bothers me is that you’re supposed to be able to live your life the way you want to live your life without all these stupid games. I’m not in fifth grade anymore. This whole thing is just plain stupid. It’s my life. If I want to go to a counselor, I should just tell the world that I’m going to a counselor. There shouldn’t be any need for secrets about it.

  Mom always says that until you learn a lesson, it just keeps getting harder and worse. This must be one of those lessons, because I went from never thinking about secrets and all that stuff to having it on my mind all the time.

  And this is a secret that I decided to keep myself, unlike the other secrets that were foisted upon me.

  Yes, I said foisted.

  That’s something I need to talk to the counselor about. If you had asked me a couple of weeks ago if I were one of those people who had a life full of deception and secrets, I would have laughed at you. I’m one of the most open people I know. I talk to people about stuff all the time. People I’ve never met. No one has ever accused me of being shy or close-lipped or whatever it is that Grandma used to call it.

  Since I started paying attention, it seems I do have a life full of this stuff. It didn’t happen just because I started paying attention. That’s not how life works. So I’ve had this stuff in my life for a long time, and I just didn’t realize it.

  And if my life is full of this stuff, and I wasn’t even aware of it, then just think about all the secrets Bernie must have kept. She had a whole career people didn’t know about. I’m sure when she was volunteering her time at the church or at the soup kitchen, the fact that she was a pretty prolific erotica writer never came up.

  I wonder if the priests knew.

  I wonder if she felt the need to go to confession. She was old-school Catholic; they used to go every week.

  I wonder if she did all that volunteer work as her way of making up for the erotica stuff.

  I wonder if writing erotica is technically against the rules of the church. Maybe it’s like being gay. You’re allowed to be gay; you just aren’t allowed to act on it in a physical way. Or the whole divorce thing. You’re allowed to divorce; you just aren’t supposed to get married again.

  I really need to brush up on the rules. I’m sure they’ve changed since I was in school, and I’m sure that I’ve messed them up in my memory.

  I’ll have to make a note to ask Mom about it.

  I don’t think I’m ready to call Billy and ask. Even if we have known him since we were kids, he’s officially Father Parker, not Billy, and asking him about erotica would just be weird.

  I guess I’m not as grown up as I keep giving myself credit for.

  The problem is that one lie or secret leads to the next. If I call Suzi and ask her to wait for the furniture delivery, what is my excuse? If I tell her I have to work, and she mentions it to her grandmother, and her grandmother mentions it to Adeline, then I’ve put my job in the middle of it. Although I’m pretty sure that would never happen and that even if it did, nothing would ever come of it, why put your job at risk?

  Isn’t it interesting that I’m doing favors for people all the time, but when I need a favor, I’ve got nobody to ask?

  I was trying to decide if I was going to cry about that when there was a knock on my door.
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br />   Connie, my neighbor with the “big blue balls” welcome mat, asked, “Hey, cutie, could I ask you a big favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you move your car? It would make it a whole lot easier to pack up my rental truck if I could park it where your car is. My car is right next to it. I could park it in the middle and have room.”

  “No problem, let me grab my keys.”

  “When you pull out, kinda hang there so that nobody pulls in. Could you do that?”

  “Sure.”

  Connie took off running.

  By the time I got to my car, he’d pulled his car out and was headed for the rental truck.

  I pulled my car out, he slipped the truck into the spot, backing it in like a pro, and jumped out.

  I found a spot at the end of the row, about six apartments down.

  “Thanks. I’ll have the truck here all day today and all day tomorrow. Buddy of mine owns the rental place. It was easier for both of us to do it this way. Hope that doesn’t screw you up.”

  “Not at all. I have an appointment tomorrow, and I’ve got a furniture delivery coming at some point. I’m sure they can just pull up and put the blinkers on. They don’t have to park any place special. Other than that, I got nothing going on. I can walk down to my car. No big deal.”

  “If you’re going to be out for your appointment, who is waiting on your furniture? Are they gonna need your space?”

  “I don’t have anybody to babysit my apartment. A.J. has to work. I’m just going to hope that I’m home.”

  “I’m gonna be here all day tomorrow. Put a note on your door, and give me the key. I’ll let the furniture people in.”

  “Really? Could you do that for me? That would help a lot.”

  “No problem.”

  “Okay. I’ll put the tip for the delivery guys on my counter in an envelope. That way if I’m home, I’ve got it, and if I leave, it’s there for you to give it to them.”