Secrets of the Tulip Sisters

*

While Kelly didn’t like fighting with Helen, she enjoyed spending time with her mother even less, so she wasn’t happy to get home after talking with her friend to find Marilee hanging out in the kitchen.

“You look awful,” her mother said as Kelly tried to sneak past her and bolt for her bedroom. “Haven’t you been sleeping?”

Kelly thought about the past two nights. “Not really.” She’d stayed with Griffith the first night only to realize that her tossing and turning kept him up. It seemed kinder to take her crabby self home. Now she surrendered to what seemed to be a case of bad timing and walked into the kitchen.

“I have a lot on my mind,” she admitted as she crossed to the refrigerator and pulled out the pitcher of iced tea. “Work,” she added, not sure why she was lying. Okay, she knew exactly why she was lying. What was she supposed to say? “I’m upset because my best friend is sleeping with my father, your ex-husband. By the way, why are you walking around in his pajama tops every morning?”

A conversation she was in no way prepared to have. As it was, she would gladly pay large sums of money to get the visual permanently erased from her brain.

She put ice in her glass, then poured in the tea. As she took a sip she wondered if maybe her day would be brighter if she started adding vodka to her liquids.

“Is your father seeing anyone?” Marilee asked.

Kelly swore as the glass started to slip from her fingers. She caught it, but at the price of cold tea spilling down the front of her shirt. Worse, it was one of the new ones Olivia had bought for her.

“How would I know?” she demanded as she made her way to the sink. “He’s my father. The thought of him dating anyone is inherently icky.”

“I just wondered.”

“What part of gross wasn’t clear?” Kelly asked as she dabbed at the front of her shirt.

“So you’re not sure? He mentions Helen all the time, but I met her and that’s not happening.”

Kelly turned to her mother. It was one thing for her to be mad at Helen, but quite another for Marilee to say anything. “Why not? Helen’s my best friend. She’s great. Pretty and smart and funny and kind.”

Marilee rolled her eyes. “Please. She’s fat. Jeff would never be interested in her. He’s not that desperate.”

“She’s not fat. She’s curvy. I think she’s fabulous.”

Marilee looked Kelly up and down. “Yes, we should all rely on your sense of what’s attractive.”

Kelly gasped at the insult. “You know what, Mom? You think what you want. Helen’s amazing and Dad would be lucky to have her. Plus, she’s got what, twenty years on you?”

Marilee gasped. Kelly took that as the best she was going to get for the day and bolted for her room.

*

“Hey, Mom,” Griffith said as the call connected.

“Griffith!” His mother’s voice became muffled as she covered the receiver with her hand and yelled, “Mark, it’s Griffith. Pick up the other phone.”

The ritual made Griffith smile. God forbid his parents get a speakerphone, which he’d suggested more than once. But it was too fancy—they were simple people, as they liked to remind him. His father could easily pick up an extension.

“Hello, son,” His father’s voice was familiar. A little gravelly, but full of affection.

“Hey, Dad. How’s it going?”

“We should ask you the same question,” his mother said. “You’re calling us in the middle of the week. Is something wrong?”

The downside of a regularly scheduled Sunday morning call, he thought with a shake of his head. Any variation in routine was cause for alarm. Unfortunately, this time he did have something he needed to talk to them about.

“I need your advice,” he admitted. What he really needed was their blessing, but he didn’t want to say that.

“What’s happened?” his father asked. “You hurt?”

“I’m fine, Dad. Everything is great.”

“Good. We’re glad. You’re so successful and you’re doing what you love. That’s what we wanted for you. For both our boys.”

“Yeah, well, that brings me to the reason for my call. I need to talk about Ryan. He’s fine,” he added hastily. “But I don’t know what to do about him.”

“What is it?” his dad asked.

Griffith braced himself for parental disappointment and disapproval. “Ryan’s still being a problem on the floor.” He detailed how his brother rarely showed up for work on time and was calling in sick a couple of times a week. How even after Griffith told Leo to treat him like everyone else and his brother’s paycheck reflected his actual hours, little had changed.

“If it was just him, I might be able to deal with it,” he continued. “But it’s not. Some of the other guys on his team are picking up bad habits.”

There was a moment of silence. He pictured his parents in their small kitchen exchanging a look and private conversation.

“You know what you have to do,” his father told him. “Ryan’s an adult. He’s had some bad luck and he’s going to have to learn how to adjust. You’ve done the best you could to help him out. He hasn’t appreciated the effort and now he’s dragging you down. You have to cut him loose.”

His mother sighed. “Your father’s right, Griffith. I hate to say it, but it’s time to fire Ryan. He’s a good boy and I can’t help thinking in his heart he knows he’s wrong.”

Griffith thought their tenderhearted mother was giving Ryan too much credit but he wasn’t going to say that to her.

“Thanks for understanding,” he said instead. “I know it’s my decision to make but I wanted your advice. I worry that I’m too close to the situation.”

“He’s your brother, but you’re not wrong,” his mother said. “I’m sorry it turned out like this.”

“Me, too.”

“How are you otherwise?” she asked. “How’s Kelly?”

He thought of the last night they’d spent together and grinned. “Good. She’s doing good.”

“Is that bitch Marilee still around?”

Griffith raised his eyebrows. “Mom, that’s kind of surprising talk from you.”

“I know but I won’t apologize. There isn’t another word to describe her.”

“She’s still here.”

“I hope Jeff is smart enough to avoid her. He’s a good man and deserves someone nice in his life.”

“I think he knows to avoid his ex-wife,” Griffith said, careful not to mention the Jeff-Helen revelation. He knew Kelly was still upset and didn’t think the information had gone public. He loved his mom but if he told her that juicy tidbit, she would be on the phone with every person she knew in Tulpen Crossing and he was pretty sure she knew them all.

“When are you going to marry that girl?” his father asked bluntly.

Griffith nearly dropped the phone. “Dad, I told you. It’s not like that. We’re not interested in taking things that far. This is enough.”

“That’s crap and you know it. Griffith, you’ve always made me proud of you. You’re smart, determined and you’re doing a hell of a job with your company, but when it comes to women, you’re an idiot.”

“Mark!”