Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (28 page)

Jose continued
,
his voice struggled to stay calm and even.
“
S
he
insisted to
climb  that
scaffolding
.
It’s not secure
,
she knows that
. W
e built it
quickly after
the last
safety
inspection.  She
liked to see
over
everything. No one saw what happened, we were in a hurry to get it all finished before the wedding.” 

Cassandra
moaned and her arm released from the blanket, it looked
like a
shark had taken a bite
but
spit it out
because it was
neoprene
flavored
and sharks don’t like neoprene.
 
None
-
the
-
less, the process did not leave a person in very good shape.
  I thought I saw a flash of bone
.
I gulped
,
and held onto the edge of the desk to keep
steady.

Again we heard the sirens.
I hoped the guests
(private, it was supposed to only be open to private parties, one more thing to worry about)
were
partying
too loud to pay much attention.

“How badly is she hurt?” I asked in a low voice.

Jose’s eyes filled with tears.
“One minute she was up
there
calling
from
high up and
telling us to hurry. Everyone was concentrating on
throw
ing the grapes into the crusher. The next thing we heard was her
scream. She must have lost her balance.”  He drew in a ragged breath.  “It took a few seconds to shut off the machine.”

I closed my eyes.

The noise in the tasting room paused,
then
picked up again.
 
T
he EMTs were unfortunately familiar with the layout of
Prophesy
Estates
.  They carefully loaded Cassandra into the back of the van without even removing the canvass or blanket.

A cry of glee came up from the tasting room
. Were
they wine tasting
or feeding
each other beer bongs?

My phone buzzed. It was Chris Conner.  But she was the last person Cassandra needed right now.
I let it go to voice mail and accepted another ride with Jose to the hospital.

Three members of the
hospital
,
dressed in pastel scrubs
,
took one look and without a word to us,
quickly
loaded
Cassandra on a gurney and wheeled her into the emergency room.

Peter Klaussen O’Reilly the Third, still dressed in his suit and tie from work, met me in the lobby.

“I heard,” he said simply. “Ben called, I was closer and came.”
Peter’s eyes followed the gurney.
“I’ll stay with her. 
You go back to the shower.”

I glanced at my watch
, only
about 45 minutes
has passed.  I had so wanted to figure out how to avoid the shower, and I had.
But at what a cost
.
 
“She’ll be okay,
” I
lied.

He nodded but did not meet my gaze.  “Thanks, go.”  He strode
to
the
door marked
Do Not Enter and pushed t
hrough the double doors leaving
Jose and
me standing in the empty
hallway.
I had no choice but
to
ask
Jose to drive me back to the party.  He had to
get back to the winery to
clean up before dark.  

“Let me know if you hear anything.”   Jose let me out
of the truck
and spun away.

I
stood in the cool driveway and
called Ben
.

“What happened?
Jose just said
Cassandra had an accident
, Peter said he’d call once he got to the hospital
.”

I clutched the phone as Jose
’s truck
left
. 
Guests called to each other. Doors slammed.
Cars
passed me. No one waved.

I let myself into Emily’s house through Ben’s
apartment
and
exited directly
onto the patio. I hop
ed
it
would
look like I
had
been supervising in the kitchen all this time.
No such luck,
t
he only guests left were the furious Furies and Carrie
.
I didn’t see Emily.  If she was clever, and she was, she’d be hiding in the
guest bath
room.

“You’ll have to ask
O’Reilly.
I have a bridal party to face.”
  I said quickly to Ben as I slowed my pace.

“
You
make it sound like a
firing
squad.”
  At least he was sympathetic.

“Not too far off the mark.
Call O’Reilly.
Bye
.
”  I pocketed the phone and planted a smile on my face and strode to the precarious pyramid of
pink
paper and shiny gifts.  The sun had
dropped
,
casting most of the patio in the
shade;
it was much chillier than it was two hours ago.

Kathleen glared at me.  “Do you always disappear when the gifts and the cake and toast is ready?”

“It’s
a
shower, not the wedding
,
” I pointed out easily.  That terrible line from
Fargo,
was that your partner in the chipper
, just
popped into my head
.  I did not say it out loud.  A stemmer/ crusher wasn’t as deadly
as a chipper
was it?
I grinned at Carrie
because
I was so relieved it wasn’t she who was in danger.

“So did you get excellent stuff?”  I asked cheerfully.

She smiled wanly. I knew I should have been at her side, gathering up ribbons, counting how many were broken so we knew for sure how many children she and Patrick would produce. I should have stayed by her side
so I could record the
gifts
and the giver for the thank you notes to be
written
no less than a month later, sooner if you were really up on your
etiquette
and response time.

Claire joined her
sister
and just glared at me.
Why didn’t they marry and have children?  That
would
have diffused some of this
free-floating
anxiety and anger I was feeling from them. 
I spied
Emily
at
a
far table
that was
cleared except for sorted piles of silver
cutlery
and cut glass.  I waved to
her;
she waved back but cleverly made no move to join us.

“How’s the kitchen?”  I
called
.

“All clean, thank you
,
”
s
he responded.  Good, then I only had to
finish
up here.

I heard the last of the cars cheerfully honk and crunch down the driveway.

“We were just about to pack all this into our cars
,
”  Claire
enunciated her words slowly,
making it clear that she was holding herself in
check because
otherwise she’d fly at me in pure rage.

I looked at
Claire and Kathleen.
I could say
something;
after all,
I did not have to share interminable holidays with these two
harridans
. Maybe Carrie
could
make up the third witch when they got together for Christmas.  Honestly.
Yet
,
it was
up to me to protect my friend.

I smiled fiercely.  “Well, I hope you had a nice time at the party with all your friends even though I
wasn’t able to
wait on everyone for
,” I glanced at my Rolex, “an hour.
Emily and
I
will be happy to pack you up and see you on your way.
And if you don’t mind, I haven’t eaten yet.
”

Carrie dropped her head in her hand and
peered t
hrough her fingers
at
me.  I stood my ground. I paid for one hundred people, their chef, their food
, food I hadn’t even tasted.
I followed the rules on napkin colors, the
requirements
for the wine and silver.  Emily gave over her house.
And not a word, not a thank you
,
or e
ven kindness.
And I didn’t even
get to enjoy
the most important part of the party: the food.

Neither woman looked concerned, or even chagrined.

It was either the truth or my opinion. I opted for truth.
“There was another accident at the winery, I had to go
help because
Ben is in the City. Cassandra
.” I stopped.  Carrie’s face was white
.
I could keep it light or be honest
. It
wasn’t too late.

It was too late.
  “She fell into the stemmer/crusher, I don’t know how bad it is, she’
s
at the hospital now.”

“Oh my God.”  Carrie was clearly stricken, because she is a good person.

“
But of course keeping track of
these
elaborate and,” I glanced at the
detritus
, and
then at the Furies
,
“
p
ointless gifts
is
far more important. I totally understand
that you’d feel
slighted by my absence and
you are most welcome to enjoy
your self
-
righteous anger
.”

I turned to the s
il
ver: half
of it
belonged to
Emily
,
the other half
belonged to
the
Sullivan
f
amily. I snatched an empty gift bag from the pile of wrappings and
dumped
the flannel wrapped silver into the bag. 

“I need to clean up now
.
Here
.
”
I thrust the heavy bag of silv
er at Claire, turned on my heel
and marched to the kitchen. I was heading towards the broom closet
because
I really did need to sweep and
it
would give me something to do
with
my hands
. I itched to
throttl
e
the spoiled
Sullivan
brats.

“Wait, Allison.”

I
paused but didn’t turn around.
Carrie
remained
on the patio, her
head still
in her hands
.

“Can you at least look at us?”  Claire
demanded
.

“I’ll pack up the left over wine for you to take, was there
any food left?
You’ll need to take that as well.”
I looked over at Emily who had
followed me to the kitchen and was now hovering over piles of aluminum foil wrapped plates of left over food.

“Certainly, you’ll want the left overs.”  Emily picked up a plate in each hand and thrust them at
Kathleen
. 

Carrie moaned. I would have thought
the Sullivan sisters would have
possessed
some common decency to ask about Cassandra, but apparently not
. Like me, Cassandra was just
one of the little people, a servant to make everything smooth and easy for the Sullivan girls.

“No, that’s not what we were going to say.”  Kathleen
set the plate back with the others
.

I waited, hands on my hips.  Sure, I had a wedding to suffer through,
b
ut I
would have
Ben
by
my side for that event.  And they would be busy with, yes, their friends and with hovering over poor Patrick, why
hadn’t
that boy run away from home years ago and join the circus? I would have.

“Thank you.”
Claire said.

I raised an
eyebrow
.
Too little
,
too late.

“You
’re
welcome.” I turned back to the broom closet.

“No, really
,
Allison.” Claire took a step forward, her hands
supplicating
.
“
Thank you. Our friends loved this event, they loved the chef, the food, everything and we’re sorry about Cassandra, really, it’s just we’ve been distracted and, well, here
,
” she
thrust out an envelope. 

“Thank you for thinking of me.” I stepped
in her direction
, but paused before I reached the offered envelope.

“We know you don’t like us.” Kathleen joined her sister. “We, well, we can be difficult, Patrick says
so
all the time.”

“But if you knew,” Kathleen started, but Claire elbowed her.

“Why did you rescue us earlier?”  Claire
asked
over her sister’s protests.

Oh sure, throw my innate decency
back
into my face.
I considered lying, but I was on such a
n
honesty roll, I kept going.
“No one should have to answer personal questions
like that
at a shower,
it’s
part of the
P
irate
C
ode.” 

They nodded as if they understood
the Pirate Code
,
which surprised me, I didn’t take them as women up
on their Pirates of the Caribbean lore. 

“Thank you again
,”
t
hey chorused.
Claire
extended the envelope one more time and
this time
I took it
.
I did not want to be unkind. Well, I did want to be unkind, but I also had to remember,
this
was about Carrie
,
not me.

They quietly consulted with Carrie and helped her ferry all her booty to the car.  I swept up after them, as was the job of
Cinderella
after the Stepsisters. I gathered the
remains;
the gardener would move the tables tomorrow.  I
joined Emily
in the kitchen.
  She clicked off her phone.

“
That was Ben.
He said Peter said that
Cassandra is in critical condition. She lost a lot of blood.”

“Someone
must have rattled the scaffolding, you don’t just fall into something like that, not even someone as spacy as Cassandra.” 

Emily nodded.  We heard the cars start up and drive away.  “Those two are quite the pair. You’d think they’d revel in all this attention and pomp but they seemed ill at ease.”

“They often are.” Carrie walked in
through
the back door.

“What are you doing here?”

“I get to choose who I associate with
.
” She smiled.  “
They aren’
t
used to being lectured like that.” 

“They should get used to it,” I muttered.

Emily pulled out a bottle of
Cline
Sauvignon
B
lanc and
poured a glass for each of us.  She pushed a covered plate to me.

“What did they give you
?
”
Carried asked.

I slit open the envelope with my nail and pulled out a single piece of paper.

“It’s a check.
”
I
studied the numbers, not really believing.
“For the whole party amount.”