Welcome to book fifteen in the Operation Quickline series. Christmas may be Lisa Wycherly’s favorite time of the year, but then Sid’s shocking encounter with an old friend gets them embroiled in one messy case. With Lisa’s nephew spiraling out of control, it’s looking like a not-so-merry holiday. You can read the latest chapter here, and follow the whole series here.
To Breanna, 10/23/00
Today’s Topic: Spending the Holidays Together (cont.)
As for the concept of Then-Somes. It’s part of the larger term for the Whole Fam-Damily, as in the Whole Fam-Damily and Then Some. Darby came up with the term when he was fourteen and thought he was really getting away with something. But then it caught on. The Then-Somes are the people we’re close to who are not part of our actual family and have families of their own to celebrate with, whether it’s Christmas or other holidays or life events.
Kathy Deiner and Jesse White, and their kids are Then-Somes. So are Frank Lonnergan and Esther Nguyen, and Flora. Mom’s poker friends are part of it, including the Sandoval family. Aunt Mae’s friend, Loretta Tsing, is one, and the Thibodeauxs and the Herreras. The Mendozas were, but they’re pretty much family now. Father John Reynolds (have you met him yet?), Tom Freeman and Angelique Carter. Sarah Williams and her daughters.
The Then-Somes party just happened the Christmas before Mom and Dad got married and kind of kept happening, always on the Sunday before Christmas. We do invite other friends, too, and nobody is concerned about who is really a Then-Some and who isn’t.
You and your mom are like the Mendozas, not technically family yet, but getting there.
Because Sunday was Christmas Eve that year, which meant the Then-Somes had other obligations, we decided to have that party on Saturday.
Thanks to Conchetta, Sid and I do not have a lot to do in terms of getting the house ready. It’s always immaculate. The Christmas decorations had been put up at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. That year, I made sure the fourth candle on the Advent wreath was lit, even though technically Christmas Eve was the fourth Sunday of Advent. Conchetta had also made two large pans of enchiladas and a smaller pan of her wonderful chiles rellenos. The enchiladas are a big favorite. The chiles are only for those of us who love eating fire. They are really spicy.
Sid had spent the better part of Friday working around Conchetta to make another two timbalos and a massive mound of cole slaw. Mae brought two huge cheese trays. There’s an Italian deli not far from where they live, and the cheese they have is amazing.
We’d bought a case of Champagne, another case of chardonnay, this time from Napa, and a case of cabernet sauvignon from the Santa Ynez Valley. There were also a couple of bottles of good bourbon that Sid hid in the antique breakfront in the dining room. Most of our friends weren’t going to abuse it, but Sid knew his old high school buddies and didn’t trust them except for Tom.
That Saturday morning, Mama and I shredded another couple heads of lettuce while Sid chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, grated carrots, chopped broccoli, and put sunflower seeds into a bowl. This was our salad bar. Mama had baked dozens of cookies the week before in the evenings so that she didn’t bother Conchetta.
By eleven, everything was ready, and by noon, the house was full. Kathy and Jesse arrived first with Keshon. Several choir members came with their families. Sarah and Dan Williams were there, with Sandra, who was Lissy’s age, and Susannah, who was a year old. All the little ones were put in the rumpus room, and the child gate was spread across the archway inside to hopefully keep them in there. Mama volunteered to stay in the rumpus room. Carl and Erin MacArthur’s youngest landed there, as well, as did anyone four years of age and younger. The school-age kids pretty much ran about at will, some roughhousing. Others just playing.
The Mertons arrived just after the Sandovals did. Stella got up from the couch and gave Wallace a long hug, and introduced him around.
Terri Merton, the fourteen-year-old girl, somehow connected with Janey, and the two spent most of the party in the library playing poker with Daddy. Terri’s younger brother, Tyler, spent the party running around with Justin and Kyle Sandoval, and Mitch and Marty, Motley and Bowser on their heels. Our cats just hid, as they always did during larger gatherings.
Frank and Esther were there. Father John Reynolds, our parish pastor, showed up in his civvies. He and Sid have gotten really close over the past few years. John sat down with Stella in the living room, and the two chatted, which is always slightly amazing given Stella’s antipathy toward the Catholic Church and priests, especially.
My cousin Maggie showed up and introduced her new boyfriend around, then promptly left. That she showed up at all was kind of amazing. She and Mae had never gotten along, which was part of why Maggie hadn’t been at Mae’s open house. The other part is that Maggie can’t stand small children, and even though the twins were nine, that was close enough. She and I had been working on mending our formerly lousy relationship, and it was getting better, which is why she came by to say hello.
One rather notable absence was our good friend Henry James. He’d been our supervisor for the side business until about three years before, when he’d retired from the FBI. In fact, Angelique had part of his previous job as our coordinator for equipment and liaisons with the visible FBI. Sid and I had gotten the job of supervising our line for the courier part of our business. Henry, who had also lost his wife, Lydia, to cancer barely weeks after he officially retired, turned around and went back into undercover work in the field.
Sy tuned his cello as Bob Kinney came in. Bob went right up to Stella and gave her a big hug, then John made room on the couch so that Bob and Wallace could talk with Stella. Tom joined the group shortly afterward. Ange and I sat in the conversation group closest to the front door and watched.
Sid came in with a freshly opened bottle of Chardonnay and poured, then set the bottle on an end table and sat down on the piano bench to talk to his old buddies and Stella.
Screams erupted from the back of the house, and Mae wandered in.
“That was me,” she said apologetically. “Your cat Fritz brought a dead mouse into the sun porch, and startled me, Erin MacArthur, and Leslie.” (Leslie Bowman was my best friend in high school and one of the poker friends.) Mae shuddered. “Nick and Ellen decided they want to dissect it, and Esther wants to watch.”
I sighed. “As long as they want to keep it in the lab, I don’t care.”
“They’re dissecting a mouse?” Tyler Merton said, grinning. “I wanna see that.”
Lottie Merton plopped down next to Ange and me.
“Oh my god, you’ve got a lively crew,” she giggled.
“At least, they’re not blowing anything up,” I said. [Remember the first time Max Beard and Fran Mercer visited? That was some blast, in the literal sense. – SEH]
The doorbell rang, and I got up to get it. Louis Renfrew was at the door. As I admitted him to the living room, silence fell on the group around Stella.
“Well, Mr. Renfrew,” Stella said sternly. “Alive and well, I see.”
“Yeah. I’m afraid so.” He chuckled lightly, then went over and kissed her cheek. “I apologize for any grief I may have caused you.”
“And dragging my boy into trouble again.” Stella shook her head. “I assume you again expect him to save your ass.”
“I don’t expect him to do anything, Stella.” Louis laughed. “It’s really good to see you. In some ways, you were the mom I never had.”
Stella shook her head as Bob and Wallace echoed the sentiment.
Sid, who had gone into the dining room, came out just then with a glass for Louis and another bottle of Chardonnay. I smiled and watched the guys talking to Stella and her smiling at them, then went over to Sid and hugged him.
He laughed quietly and whispered in my ear. “You know, it’s the weirdest thing. Of all our mothers, it turns out mine was the most functional.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” I gave him a quick squeeze. “You’re pretty functional, yourself. It had to come from somewhere.”
“I suppose.”
The guys suddenly roared with laughter.
“So, what was it, Tom?” Bob demanded. “I mean, Liz was Most Likely To dot, dot, dot. That was an easy one to guess.”
[Which said a lot about why Liz wasn’t there. – SEH]
Tom, who had been on the yearbook their senior year, had put Liz Warner and Sid in as Most Likely to… because the class had voted another pair as Most Likely to Succeed. The idea was to fill in the ellipse. It was completely unfair to Liz because, even as loose as she’d been, she was one of the brightest kids at the school. I was kind of sad that she hadn’t made the party, but she does not like being reminded of her high school years.
“I don’t remember what it was supposed to be for either of them,” Tom sighed. “It just sounded funny.”
Wallace guffawed. “I thought Sid’s was Most Likely to Get His Ass Shot by an Angry Father.”
Sid sighed as Ange and I burst into laughter. I couldn’t help it. I squeezed his left cheek and the scar there. Stella saw us and looked at Sid.
“Sid,” she said. “Is that scar on your ass from a bullet hole?”
Sid put on his best grin, but I knew he was a little embarrassed.
“I’m afraid so, and I’m not saying how I got it.” He moved away from me toward the dining room. The guys laughed loudly, and Mae yipped.
Ange tugged the sleeve of my newest Christmas sweater. “He told me it was a jealous husband.”
“None of the above,” I whispered back. “But I can’t tell you how.”
That was because Sid had gotten shot while detaining a suspect.
Esther showed up in the arch between the living room and dining room.
“I heard someone say that hole in Sid’s ass was from a bullet,” she said loudly.
Daddy came in from the library. “I just want to say officially, it was not me.”
He and Sid get along really well. It’s just that they didn’t always, and still joke about it. Daddy didn’t get along for a long time with Neil, either. Daddy always has been very protective of Mae and me.
“You really got a bullet in the ass?” Bob asked, laughing.
“What’s the big deal?” Sid asked. “You want to see it?”
“No!” Mae yelped.
“Come on, Mae,” Esther said. “I think you and your mom and the kids are the only people in this house that haven’t seen Sid naked.”
“Some of the kids, too,” I said. “There was that pool party at the Sandovals’ last summer. And Nick and Darby have.”
Mae gulped. “What about Erin and Leslie?”
“They were at the pool party,” Esther said.
“And there’s Daddy and Neil.”
“Nope,” said Sid. “Remember that hotel in Seattle? We were all sharing changing quarters.”
“John!” Mae all but leaped on him.
John shrugged. “I see his ass all the time at the gym. The guy does not put on a towel to get to the showers.”
“And we’ve all seen it,” said Tom. “Just not recently.”
Sid laughed and held out his hands. “Anytime you want, Mae.”
Mae shuddered. “No!”
“I do not understand all this fear and shame over the human body,” said Stella. “Our natural state is simply our natural state. There is no reason to be embarrassed by it.”
“Tell that to Lety Sandoval,” I said, giggling.
“Tell me what?” Lety asked, coming into the room.
“The pool party last summer.”
Lety gasped, and while it was in Spanish, I’m pretty sure that what came out of her mouth was obscene.
“I will never forgive Frank!”
John laughed.
“What happened?” asked Lottie. “And you have to count me as someone who hasn’t had the chance to see Sid naked.”
Esther laughed. “My husband, Frank, and Lety’s husband, Reuben, last summer were playing some stupid game with Sid, where if you lost a point, you had to take on a dare. So, Sid lost a round and Frank dared him to go skinny dipping, which was really stupid because everybody knew Sid would do it. But then Sid dared Reuben and Frank to do it, too. And they did.”
“And they were sober!” Lety cried. “I have never been so embarrassed!”
“We’re close friends,” said Sid, unabashed. “What can I say?”
Kathy wandered into the room. “What’s going on?”
Mae pounced on her. “Kathy, please tell me you’ve never seen Sid naked.”
“Of course, I have,” Kathy said. “That pool party at the Sandovals’ last summer. Why weren’t you there?”
“We must have been in Nebraska to see Neil’s family.”
“You know,” Kathy thought. “There was also the sunbathing incident a couple years ago in Cancun.”
“I forgot about that,” Esther guffawed.
“So, I don’t believe in tan lines,” said Sid.
“Hey, Sid,” announced Frank, coming into the room holding a guitar and a flute. “It’s time to get that bullet-riddled ass of yours onto the piano bench and get some music going!”
“Thanks be,” Sid muttered, sliding onto the bench.
“I am tuned,” said Sy, settling his cello between his knees. “Perhaps we should start with some Beatles in honor of your old friends? Ah, I know. Eleanor Rigby. Who wants to sing lead?”
“Mae and I can,” I said.
And we did. We did that and Yesterday, which also has a really great cello part, then worked our way through most of the Sergeant Pepper’s album. And it went on from there. Stella and Sy played a sonata for piano and cello, then Sid and Stella played the Brahms Waltzes for Two Pianos that they’d been practicing all month. Nick came in and sang Everybody Wants to Rule the World playing his electric guitar. Darby played guitar, too.
Bob sang surprisingly well. Louis just hung back and watched, something going on behind his smile.
We ate. Wallace almost cried when he tried the chiles rellenos after he saw me wolfing one down without blinking.
Mama came out to eat but hurried back to the rumpus room just in time to catch Lissy and Keshon decorating the one clear wall with some crayons somebody had left behind.
“Another mural,” I told Sid, and he laughed.
And slowly, the house emptied. Mama made sure that everyone knew that Darby would be on the local public TV station the next day with the Youth Orchestra, which didn’t do much for Darby’s nerves. At least, he was still eating.
Sid and I walked out with Wallace and Lottie and the kids as they left, the setting sun turning the driveway orange. The kids ran ahead to their car.
Sid shook Wallace’s hand as Lottie hugged me.
“I had so much fun,” Lottie said.
“You’ve got a good life here, Sid.” Wallace looked bemused. “Terri wants to play poker with me, and Tyler wants to set up a lab at our house.”
Lottie looked fondly at her husband as she took his arm.
“You do that, then,” said Sid. “But I highly recommend two hoses for the lab.”
We laughed and headed back inside. In the library, Bob was getting cleaned out of all his change by my father and Janey. Esther looked at her hand and cursed as she always did, whether she had something or not. Mama came in and kissed Daddy on the head. My father chuckled and squeezed her butt.
“Bill, you are just terrible!” Mama said. But she was laughing as if she’d enjoyed it.
The interesting thing was the way Bob watched my parents.
Louis had disappeared sometime before. Kathy and Mae were already bringing abandoned dishes into the kitchen from around the place. Sid gave me a lazy kiss, then went to help. Stella, Sy, and Tom were having some debate or another while Ange chatted with Esther and Frank.
Keshon and Lissy both shrieked, and I went into the rumpus room to find out what was up. They were the last two little ones left, and both were pretty worn out by the day’s festivities. Thinking about Sarah and Dan got me wondering if they’d seen Sid… Of course, they had. They’d been at the pool party, too. Dan had not been amused.
I called Marty and Mitch in to watch Keshon and Lissy, then went after Nick, Darby, and Ellen to get them to help clean up. Sid nearly tripped on Bowser again, and we almost lost a full tray of dirty wine glasses. Mae and Neil and the kids stayed at the house, as they usually did.
It was an altogether satisfactory day.
Sid’s Voice –
We’d done the Christmas Eve presentation at the Music Center before, so we knew what we were up against. Since the program was free, one generally had to stand in line for the better part of the morning to get tickets. However, Darby had been able to get six tickets for us. We all debated whether it was worth standing in line to see if the rest of us could get in, but then decided that only some of us would go, which meant Mae and Neil, Lisa and me, and Sy and Stella. Mama and Daddy elected to watch it on TV and babysit Darby’s siblings. Nick and Josh decided to stand in line. Darby needed to be at the Music Center hours before things began, so he asked if he could ride with them. He hadn’t brought his car, and Mae and Neil were parked on the street.
Since Mama and Daddy had been staying with us, we’d let them park their rental car in the garage. Given all the sabotage and what Darby had found in his car, the last thing we wanted was for Lisa’s parents to get pulled over and searched for drugs. Nick parked in the driveway, and we let Motley check the car every day. So far, there hadn’t been any trouble.
Christmas Eve morning, though, Motley went nuts, whining and yelping. Lisa got her parents distracted while I searched the Volvo, and, yes, there was a nice, small packet of what we later tested and discovered was cocaine. Motley and I also checked Mae and Neil’s van, and it was clean.
Nick and Darby headed out, but then Nick called around nine from his car. I answered in the office.
“Dad, I got pulled over,” he said, his voice worried. “I didn’t do anything, I swear I didn’t. I was driving the speed limit. They said I made a bad lane change, but I wasn’t even changing lanes. They searched the car, too.”
“Did you get to the Music Center okay?”
“Yeah, and just in time.”
“Did the cops have a warrant?” I glared at my desk.
He gasped. “I forgot to ask. They let us go, but f—, uh, man, they were scary.”
“I’m sure they were,” I growled. “On the way home, why don’t we stay together? Okay?”
If Nick had gotten pulled over under those circumstances, then, based on what Zack Peters had told us the week before, Cobb had probably put an APB out. I called Kathy and Jesse and made sure that they checked their car. Fortunately, it was clean, as was Frank and Esther’s. I called Louis next and had to leave a message.
Janey wandered into the office. “Hey, Uncle Sid.”
She’s got brown hair and Lisa’s big cow eyes, and at thirteen, was getting to be just as pretty as her aunt and was at least as astute.
“You look upset,” she said, plopping onto the couch.
“I’m afraid I am.” I leaned back in my desk chair and still found a way to smile at her.
“Oh. Is it about that friend of yours who swapped out his dog tags in the war, then pretended he was dead for, like, ever?”
I had to laugh. “And who told you about that?”
“That other friend, Mr. Kinney. He told Grandpa about it last night while we were playing poker. He’s a lousy poker player.”
“Janey, compared to you, your aunt, and your grandfather, just about everybody is a lousy poker player.”
“Yeah, but he was really easy to read. And when Grandpa asked him how he knew you, he told Grandpa all about your six friends, and how one had died recently, and then about this guy named Loser.” She made a face. “That’s an awful name.”
“I know.”
“Uncle Sid, do you think about the war much, and being in it?”
I sighed. “I usually try not to. It was pretty terrible.”
“I bet. Mom says you got stuck there an extra year.”
“Two of the worst years of my life. Put me behind on my education. Lost my scholarship to University of San Francisco.”
“But it put you at the same university where Nick’s first mom was at the same time as her. So, you wouldn’t have had Nick if you hadn’t been in the war.”
Okay, that one hit home in a really weird way. But Janey was like that.
“I mean,” she continued. “The war was terrible, but some good stuff came out of it for you.”
“Yeah. I guess it did.”
She came over, gave me a quick hug, then ran off.
She was right again. If it hadn’t been for the war and being blackmailed into intelligence work, I wouldn’t have gotten a lot of what I did. It wasn’t an easy thought to swallow.
Lisa put yet another oversized Christmas sweater on over her tight jeans that day, since it was a casual concert. Even Darby would be wearing a bright green shirt and dark slacks instead of a tuxedo.
We all arrived in good time, found Nick and Josh, and settled in for a couple of hours. Darby was smack in the middle of the hours-long program featuring music and arts groups from all over the county. The Youth Orchestra set up during a dance number from a local folklorico. When the curtain rose, the kids were in their chairs, and Darby stood to the side of the conductor.
It was a nice rendition of the first movement from Winter, by Antonio Vivaldi, part of the Four Seasons suite. I know how well Darby plays. I’d only been working with him since I’d known him. However, there remains a world of difference between knowing how well he plays, even when you hear him practicing on a regular basis, and seeing him in concert mode. It’s mind-boggling. Even Sy got caught up, and he knew better than any of us just how good Darby is. In a way, I didn’t blame Crispin for chasing the boy as hard as he had.
Lisa and Mae had tears in their eyes as the audience leapt to their feet at the end. I wasn’t sure how, but he’d done even better than he had the week before, and Vivaldi is not easy.
We slid out of the row at the Chandler Pavilion and hurried backstage. A couple of reporters were there, taking pictures of Darby and the conductor. He saw us and his eyes lit up.
“Hey, Mom!” he called. “I’m hungry!”
We couldn’t help laughing.
“Don’t worry,” said Mae. “Hurry and get your bag. Uncle Sid put your name on the rest of the timbalo.”
Darby whooped with joy, then stopped. “Mom, can I ride back to Uncle Sid’s with Nick and Josh?”
Mae smiled. “Sure, sweetheart. We’ll see you there.”
I glanced at Nick, and he nodded. We followed the Volvo home. Nick drove right at the speed limit, which about made me nuts, but it was more important to stay with him, and that he didn’t speed. There would be time for that later.
What I hadn’t told Darby was that another treat was ready for him. He shrieked when he saw the platter sitting next to the ice-cold shrimp and crab claws.
“Oysters!”
He fell asleep after sucking down about a dozen of the oysters, finishing off the third of a timbalo, and a quarter of the shrimp and crab claws. Which was fine. The rest of the family decided to settle in for naps, as well. Mama distributed that year’s Christmas pajamas and nightgowns to howls of laughter when the family saw what she’d gotten me. That year, it was bouncing Santa heads on a neon green background. Mama always made a point of getting me the most garish, god-awful pajamas she could find simply because I refused to wear them. Then I went upstairs to our bedroom, where Lisa was waiting for me.
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.