Birth of the Black Orchids: A Light-Hearted Christmas Tale of Going home, Starting Over, and Murder—With Cats by M. R. Dimond

Author:M. R. Dimond [Dimond, M. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: SAMPLE

CHAPTER 3

ARRIVALS

It started great. Rosemary, Jia, and Shanice, former denizens of Casa Cortez, our college group house/insane asylum, fell through the front door into our open arms with joyous squealing.

“Rosemary,” said Johnny into the hair (or extension) over her ear, “Come see the special diets table! I thought about you while putting it together.”

Dianne and I shared an eyeroll over Jia’s and Shanice’s heads. Chantal taught us about diabetes; Rosemary, peanut allergies. They taught us what to do for them in emergencies. We never had to call an ambulance, but Johnny still held monthly emergency care drills once a month. I still remember what to do.

Jia and Shanice each waved a diamond-encrusted ring finger and exchanged sugary looks. Dianne and I hugged them harder with more congratulations. They followed Rosemary and Johnny down the hall, where more squeals erupted as Chantal discovered them. “And we’re going to sing for you, and make your cake, and your dinners, maybe even your dresses, if you want.” Dianne’s eyes widened; she’d be on the hook for several of those tasks. Me, I’d just be involved with the music, unless Dianne and Chantal called all hands on deck for bejeweling the dresses.

Johnny, looking pleased at Rosemary’s praise, returned just in time to greet another guest we knew. Mrs. Leigh Brandon was an oil baron’s widow, as elegant as money could make her. She lived across the street in a neat pastel blue house that not only had all its parts (unlike many Beauchamp residences), but had them maintained and scrubbed to a glow. She was accompanied by her two middle-aged daughters, Claire and Melanie, and more grandchildren than I could count in the time it took to introduce ourselves.

Miss Leigh, as we say in the South, placed a decorative box in Johnny’s hands and stage-whispered so that no one beyond three blocks away could hear, “Johnny, I’ve brought you some of Claire’s holiday-decorated treats for today, and I have some bigger boxes for you at home.”

Claire owned a cannabis bakery in Colorado, where such things are legal. Bringing it across state lines, not so much. Her mother swore by Claire’s chocolates as a cure for “nerves,” as we also say in the South. Last weekend she brought Johnny a box after hearing from his grandmother that he was nervous.

That’s one way to describe his never-ending fast and furious educational journey. After all, Johnny always did school brilliantly, right up to when he couldn’t anymore.

I don’t know if he finished off the previous enhanced chocolates—I try to maintain plausible deniability, being an officer of the court—but he smiled his thanks as he accepted the new box. As he left to, I hoped, hide it, Dianne beamed the respectful smile she reserves for elders. I grinned like an idiot who didn’t know what was going on.

Claire accepted our thanks with a lazy smile. Her dress looked like it was made from a crazy quilt, in Christmas colors, of course. Her sister Melanie wore a severe black dress straining at the seams.

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