Page 22 of Frosty Felicity
“China and I are getting married.” Dad held his chin high and proud. “I haven’t told anyone, it was going to be a surprise, but…” He paused, his expression now serious, “I figure you should know since you’re the only one who has said you’re not coming by for Christmas when I questioned you about it yesterday on the phone. The engagement party will take place here, during the Christmas feast.”
“And… will China be here?”
Dad’s lips twisted, lowering at the corners. “Where else would she be, Felicity? Of course she’d be here! She’s going to be my bride. It wouldn’t be an engagement party without her present.”
“But that can’t be!” Felicity cried in a melodramatic British accent, her expression dipped in ersatz sadness and concern. “Because if you two are having an engagement party on Christmas, and China will be here at your home, that means her constituents will be unattended! What will all the unbought toys at the toy store do without their royal bobblehead leader?! She is the queen of the lollipop bodies! The big-headed misfits! THOU ART FORSAKEN THEE! They need her powerful one-brain-celled leadership! Oh, my Lord! Whatever shall we do?!” Felicity stood on her feet, the back of her hand against her forehead as if she were about to faint, then burst out laughing.
“I want nothing to do with her. I mean it, Robert! This is it!” China yelled before racing out of the room.
Felicity grabbed her coat and purse and made her way to the front door.
“Felicity! China and I have had it with the way you treat her. She’s been nothing but nice to you.”
The woman rushed back to the room like a bat out of hell, tears in her eyes. She pointed a finger in her direction, her pink pom-pom hair shaking with each jerky move she made.
“You should be happy that your father has a nice woman in his life! Someone to appreciate and love!”
“Dad has a nice woman in his life?! Oh, my goodness! Where is she? I want to meet her. Lead me to her at once, Queen Bobble!” She looked around as if waiting for someone else to appear, then cackled as she slipped a mint into her mouth.
“That was disrespectful!” Dad barked, now red in the face. “You’re acting juvenile! Now please, Felicity, I am asking you to just—”
“You’re making a big mistake. I won’t be here on Christmas.” She reached for the doorknob, her temperature rising so high, she thought she’d explode, and yet, she refused to give them the satisfaction of her breaking down or being anything less than cutting and snarky. The news had hit her like a ton of bricks. She knew her father was making unsavory choices as of late, but surely, he had more sense than this.
As the man came towards her, spouting some nonsense, she quickly closed the door behind her, headed down the cobblestone path, and got in her car. The old man opened the door, and she caught a glimpse of him. The sadness in his face made her heart ache deep inside. Putting the car in reverse, she headed out. Fading like a slowly dimming light, she drove and drove, double gripping the steering wheel to the tune of, ‘At Your Best (You Are Love)’ by Aaliyah.
Tim slithered inlike a starving, heat-seeking snake. His long neck compressed as he swallowed a mouthful of the white bread wrapped around a glob of peanut butter, in a sandwich of sorts he’d made in their father’s kitchen. Dad was in the bathroom with a magazine whistling some old song—that meant it would be a while. Still clad in his police uniform, Brett had stopped by after work to put a bookshelf together for his dad. He was half finished putting the stand together and refreshing with a cold Coke. Tim looked rather surprised to see him there.
“So, what do you know about that Ryan Vermont case?” his brother asked around a mouthful, his sleepy blue eyes on him as he smacked his lips.
Brett watched the food going around and around the bastard’s mouth. He hated the way Tim sounded when he ate. It was one of the most annoying noises known to man, or perhaps he hated it more because it was Tim that was doing the chewing.
“That’s not my case. I don’t know much about it.” He shrugged and glanced out the kitchen window. Dad’s neighbor’s dog was taking a shit, squatting down in the garden.
“Yeah, but you know the cop involved. Officer Shuttle.”
“Southfield. How do you figure that I know him, though? He doesn’t work at my precinct. I didn’t go to the academy with him. I barely know the guy. I’ve never mentioned him to you.”
“I thought you all knew each other?”
“You do realize there are like a little over a thousand sworn officers in the city, man, and about two or three hundred unsworn, so how in the hell would I know every single one of them?”
“I dunno. All you had to say was that you didn’t know him.”
“I did.”
Tim pushed the matter aside, clearly no longer interested in his own line of questioning, then took another bite of the sandwich. He stood there chewing a few times, looking dopey, before speaking again. “Anyway, like, what do you think about it? I mean, his bodycam showed he shot that guy in the back. If the guy is walking away, why shoot him?”
“I can’t speak on that stuff. I know about as much as you. It’s not my case, not my department. I’ll let them sort it out.”
“Don’t you care? If one of you guys does somethin’, then every police officer is looked at, ya know? The police are already dogged out and bad-mouthed, and it’s not fair. The same people talking about defunding the police call them the most. Then ya have a bad apple like this, and it makes it shitty for all of you.”
“Yeah, it does, but I didn’t say I didn’t care. These things have to be fact driven, Tim.”
“What do ya mean, fact driven?” He tossed up his hands and laughed mirthlessly. “We saw the tape! Everyone saw the bodycam video!”
“But ya didn’t see the before, what led up to it, and you didn’t see right afterwards! People believe what they wanna believe, but only that officer, and the man he shot, who isn’t here to tell his side of it, know exactly what happened. If someone, say, steals a piece of fruit from a grocery store, and I videotape them stealing the fruit, but not two minutes earlier when they were saying they were starving and would pay for it later, then it has a totally different context. It doesn’t mean what they did was right, but it proves they had good intentions, and made it clear that they were taking the fruit, letting the employees know of the crime before it happened, which puts more layers to the story—and makes it less cut and dry.”
“Yeah, but from your example, it’s still a crime, and if I shoot someone for stealin’ a fuckin’ apple, shoot ’em in the back, then it doesn’t matter. None of what you said matters. Cops always stick up for cops though, right? No matter what.”
