The Little House of Paints

Chapter 16

"Wait a minute," she holds up her hands and stops her pacing, "so you're telling me that Miller, who has supposedly liked you since high school, seems to be dating or somehow involved with Sandra, a random business woman, who may or may not be dating/seeing your dad?"

"Allegedly a business woman, I never found out where she really works." I say unhelpfully, while continuing to play with Jericho's ears. Why I feel the need to add this in, I don't know. I guess by adding the simple trivial fact, I might distract myself from whatever is going on here.

"That's really what you want to focus on right now?" She asks me, sounding a little exasperated. Her pacing continues, "I thought coming to visit you would be slightly boring, you know the whole small town and all, but I guess you can't judge a book by its cover."

"Yeah, wait till I tell you about Mr. Halbeck and his string of mail order brides." I try to joke, but Teagan can clearly detect the upset in my voice. "Do my dad and I have 'pick on me' signs tapped to our backs or something? What are the chances that they both know each other? There are more than enough people in this town that our potential romance partners should have no kind of entanglements with one another." I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes. It's not like I haven't had any male attention ever in my life. I've dated since high school, but rehashing those feelings I had for Miller only to find out that he might be playing around with me sucks.

"Shush, no Ken, don't cry." This time when she stops her pacing, she sits on the bed, hugging me to her side.

We are quiet for a few minutes. How can she give me advice or try and console me on a matter that she hasn't gone through herself. That is something that Teagan and I have always understood about one another, sometimes the best thing that either one of us can do is to just hold them in silence. I could never relate to her home issues and she could never relate to mine. We come from too different backgrounds. We sympathize with the other pains, but we never have pretended to completely understand how it feels.

After a couple of minutes she stands up, "You know what? You said that this guy is a private investigator, right?" I nod at her. "Well, how about we beat him at his own game?" She wiggles her eyebrows at me.

"You want us to play detective?" I sit up a little straighter in my spot. I'm intrigued.

"I was thinking more along the lines of spies, but detectives work too." She runs over to my bean bag, which I had thrown my coat and shrugs it on. She also goes over to my closet, grabbing a fedora looking hat. Coming over to me, she imitates the voice of an actor from a black and white detective show, "So pretty lady, where were you on the night of January the 18th?"

I slide the blanket that is currently wrapped around my shoulders a little bit down, hoping that it looks a little bit like an expensive fur coat. "Officer, I was at home. The cat can be my witness. Just ask him." I say in my best 'woah is me' voice while pointing over to Jericho, aka my witness.

"So you mean to tell me that you didn't know that if your husband died, you would be the sole benefactor of his will?" She continues on the act, her voice quivering from her effort to not laugh. Being the best friend that I am, I know exactly what to say that will make sure she breaks.

"Of course not, I loved Tony." I lift my left hand up, showing it to her, "Now on to a more important question, do you think an emerald or a diamond ring would look better?" With that she snorts, which leads to me laughing at her horrified expression. This is not the first time I have heard her snort while laughing, we both do it plenty, but everytime she is shocked to have admitted such a sound. Eventually after a few minutes of laughter, we are both able to compose ourselves.