“Canya’ tell me why you’re shuttin’ me out of this then?” Felicity’s somewhat slurred voice, brimming with a heavy Irish brogue, pierced the darkness as I turned.
I was startled enough to involuntarily flinch at the question and almost drop my keys. I had fully expected to be subject to the wet-nosed greetings and cursory inspections customarily doled out by the dogs. The throaty trilling and prancing rub of one or more of our three cats dancing around my ankles wouldn’t even have surprised me.
What I hadn’t been prepared for at all was my wife curled lazily in a chair, camouflaged by a crocheted afghan of dark, muted blues, still awake and palpably angry. My eyes were fairly well adjusted to the dark, and I could just make out our black cat, Dickens, huddled in her lap, soaking up the attention her fingers were absently paying a spot just behind his ears.
From her slurred speech and the shape on the marble end table that looked suspiciously like a bottle of Bushmills, I had to assume she was somewhat marinated. It was readily apparent that I had arrived just in time for the umbraged portion of her emotional thrill ride. From what I could make out of the tousled look of her auburn locks combined with random sniffling, I suspected I had only recently missed the segments consisting of mild panic and heartfelt sobbing.
Felicity was never able to hide it from me when she had been crying, no matter how much she sought to cover the evidence with makeup or shadows. It was very obvious that she had done her share of it tonight, but right now she was in no condition to try concealing the fact even if she wanted to. I got the impression however, that in this particular case, she didn’t.
“Shutting you out of what?” I asked.
“Aye, you know essactly what I’m talking about,” she parried then swilled down the remains of the whiskey from a hi-ball glass in her dainty hand and set it aside with an uncoordinated motion that attested to her impaired depth perception. Fortunately, the crystal tumbler didn’t break, but the loud clatter of its base against the marble end table sent Dickens flying from her lap to scurry into the shadows. “Surely now, you weren’t thinkin’ ya’woodn’t be missed at the party, then.”
“Of course I knew I would be missed… But it’s not like I snuck out or anything. So just how much have you had to drink?”
“Don’t chainch the zubject.” She mumbled the command through an alcoholic stupor that was creeping up on her much quicker than I think she realized. “You left wiffout me.”
“I didn’t exactly have much choice in the matter, Felicity,” I answered her calmly as I finished shrugging off my coat and tugged open the closet. “You had just started dancing, two detectives were in the lobby of the hotel waiting for me, and it was your family reunion. Just what did you expect me to do?”
“Donchu unnerstan how worried I was?” she demanded as she attempted to wrestle herself from the folds of the afghan. Had the situation been different, her inebriated bumbling would have been almost comical. As she fought to disentangle the fabric, she continued to mutter, “I know what those things you do to…to do…do…Oh, cac! They do you to you do…to… Fek! Oh, you know whad I mean… I feel them too.”
“I know you do, honey,” I soothed as I hung up my coat then pressed the closet door shut. “Austin and Shamus knew I was leaving. They were supposed to let you know what was up.”
I still wasn’t entirely clear on what she was driving at, or just as important, why she was sitting in the dark, bombed out of her gourd. Felicity wasn’t really much of a drinker under normal circumstances. She would have a glass of wine now and then or sometimes a mixed drink at a party, but Irish whiskey straight up? I’d seen her drink it that way but not often. Even considering her heritage, this was something generally unheard of for her. I had only seen her drunk once before in the dozen years I’d known her, and that time she had only qualified as slightly tipsy.
“Thaz nod da’ point,” she mumbled then started and immediately aborted an attempt to stand up. “Aye, don’chu know everyone was watchin’ you then.”
“Excuse me? Watching me what?”
“Well dey have televisions in the hotel, don’chu know.”
The much touted and endlessly replayed film of Ben, Constance, and I on the balcony of Sheryl Keeven’s apartment streamed through my mind in a painfully colorful burst. “So you mean everyone was watching the news?”
“Onna news,” she repeated matter-of-factly and bobbed her head then rocked herself up to her feet where she stood precariously wobbling. “Oh Felicee, your husband is zo brave. Oh Felicimmy,… Oh Felimiccy… FEK! Oh me.” She thumped herself in the chest with a flaccid hand. “Me…I should be so proud of Roman… Rolan…” She staggered a moment. “Of YOU… Aye, bud da’ bartenner was laughin’ an’ then dey took Aussin to jail.”
She swept her arm out in an all-encompassing gesture and on the back swing began to lose her balance. I took a pair of quick strides across the room and hooked my arm around her waist as she began to fall.
“Sweetheart, you aren’t making a lot of sense at the moment. What are you talking about? Who took Austin to jail and for what? Is he okay?”
“Becawsh the bartenner has a brokem nodze,” she giggled.
“A what? A broken nose? Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Austin hit the bartender?”
“Aye, ‘e thrashed ‘im good for you too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Becawsh, ah’m still mad atch’you then. Aye, there I am.”
The alcohol had immediately overtaken her the moment she came upright. Not that she was making much sense before she was standing, but she was only a hair this side of coherent at this point. The look in her eyes was a good indicator that she was now riding a brakeless train toward unconsciousness, and the engineer called whiskey had the throttle open full.
“Felicity, honey, try to stay with me here.” Supporting her almost dead weight, I eased her back down into the chair and knelt in front of her. Cupping one hand beneath her smooth chin and brushing a tangle of fiery red curls from her eyes with the other, I continued. “Why did Austin hit the bartender?”
“Aye, are you listenin’ toomee then? Waz for laughin’ of coarsh.”
“There has to be a better reason than that, sweetheart. Your brother wouldn’t just hit someone for laughing.”
“Aye, buddee wood.” She thrust her chin upward and blindly poked me in the chest with her limp index finger. “If the laughin’ they’re doin’ is at his fammy an’ thiz bashtard was doin’ ‘is laughin’ atchyu, ‘e wuz. Callin’ you the good witsh of the easht an’ such.”
“Felicity,” I sighed. “Why didn’t you just ignore it? You know people are like that sometimes.”
“Oh I did… I did, I did, I did… But Aussin dinnit. No, he dinnit.” She closed her eyes and shook her head animatedly then fluttered them back open wide. “Oooohh, don’ do that. It maygz the schair move, thin.”
She was almost gone. Any moment she was going to pass out right where she sat.
“Okay, okay. Is Austin all right?” I pressed her.
“Wy wunnit ‘e be?”
“The fight, Felicity.”
“Aye, ef coarshee iz. Auzzin won.”
“No, Felicity. Is he in jail right now? Do I need to go bail him out or something?”
“Oh I alrenny…no…allll-reddddy did’dat,” she told me then pitched forward and grasped my collar in her hand. “Aye, Caorthann…” she said, her voice becoming momentarily clear as she used the Gaelic version of my name. “Aussin…Heesh very prowd of you, ya’know…he iz.. Bud I’m shtill man at’chu.”
“Okay, honey, I give up. Why are you mad at me?”
She let go of my collar and fell back in the chair then looked back at me very seriously, widening her eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to remain awake. Her eyelids were already closing, and her body was quickly sinking deeper into the chair. She barely managed to mutter the soft, slurred answer before slipping into the arms of sleep, “Beecawwsh… you were downing an’ you woonen’t lemme help.”