Chapter 1: A Surprise Party's Surprise Guest

Much as I hate the heat of June, I have always looked forward to June because it was when my birthday occurred. Having been born in northern Europe, June in the United States sucked big, sweaty balls. And in New Jersey, in June, those balls were very sweaty, indeed. But there I was, a couple of days before my birthday and taking it easy now that graduation was over. Not for me but for my students. I am, was, a teacher at a public school that will remain nameless to protect the ignorant and corrupt. Needless to say, the graduation class was much, much smaller than the senior class that started the year. I had been looking around, putting out feelers at better schools for two years hoping to get out of there and a week before school let out for the year I finally got my wish. A private school a friend of mine went to and was still active with as an alumnus called me for an interview. The day after graduation I went to the interview and was offered the job teaching geography and U. S. history. I considered it a birthday present from the gods, at the time. I had finished my last year in the hell hole in which I was working in order to qualify to have my student loans forgiven by the government and now I would be working at a place that churned out Rhodes Scholars and Governors and Congressmen. Not to mention a few All-American athletes in multiple sports and an Olympian now and then.

So the week of my birthday was a good one, in my opinion. I knew my family would plan a not-so-surprising surprise party, probably at my Aunt Jennifer and Uncle James' house. They were pretty well-off and had a nice big house with an in-ground pool in a nice neighborhood in Morristown. The family would gather, probably grill something, have some fun in the pool, and then probably an ice cream cake from Carvel. As innovative thinkers go, my family was made up of people that were a mite predictable. Bright, business-savvy, good at what they did, but you could count on knowing exactly what they had planned, even if you did not know how they would try to spring it on you. It had been a few years since they tried the take-him-fishing ploy, though, and that was what I was looking for and looking forward to, if the truth were known. I had not been fishing since my Uncle John died the year before and his bitch of a widow took a chain saw to his boat rather than allow the executor of the will to give it to me, as my godfather had wished.

So by the night before my birthday I was sure I knew how this was going to go. Imagine my surprise when my brother and sister show up at noon telling me they were taking me out for lunch for my birthday.

I guess this is the point that descriptions would be nice. I am the middle son of four siblings. My sister and I were born four minutes apart, her loving the fact that she is the eldest. I am six feet even and in very good shape due to a heart and lung problem that requires me to exercise regularly or be forced to take about twenty medicines. As it is, I still have to pop about four pills a day, watch my blood pressure daily, and abstain from recreational drugs and alcohol. I have a lean swimmer's body and a cyclist's legs, as those are my chosen forms of exercise. My hair is platinum blonde streaked with red and I am naturally clean shaven (meaning I couldn't grow a beard if I wanted to). I have blue-green eyes and pale skin that is either white or red, nothing in between and so I slather myself with sun block in the summer.

Sis, Caitlin (Cat), has the same coloring but she is only about five-nine and curvier. She takes after Mom's side of the family that churns out blonde, blue-eyed, buxom foxes like an assembly line. Mom is Swedish, as in right off the boat from Sweden, and so Cat looks like the St. Pauli's Girl on the beer bottles but with red-streaked, blonde hair. Cat got a degree in English Lit and became an editor at a publishing house in New York. She lives across the river here in New Jersey though and commutes. She married some loser writer Sheridan, our oldest brother, and I had to run off when he started drinking and smacking her around as his writing career petered out.

Sean, my youngest brother, is three years younger than sis and me. He just finished getting his Master's degree in engineering and works for some company or other that he can't discuss because they do something or other for the feds. His thesis paper was classified top secret before it was even published, so I guess he is pretty good at what he does, but (as he likes to say with a grin) if he told us what that was, he would have to kill us. Given that he takes after Dad's family and barely hits five-eight and couldn't bench press much more than one hundred pounds, I doubt he could pull that off. Dad is straight black Irish and Sean looks it too. Black hair, hazel eyes, pale skin, freckles, and more than a bit stout. In Dad, a former infantryman in the Army and a foreman in a construction crew, that means bulky muscle that some might mistake (but only once, to their regret) for fat. In Sean, a bookworm and geek, that means he is a bit soft around the middle and could use to see the inside of a gym more often.

When they showed up on my doorstep on my birthday, Sis was decked out to impress. She had on a cream silk dress that showed off her figure to perfection and sheer black stockings and black pumps. She had obviously been to her salon and gotten her hair and nails done and her makeup was perfect and understated. She looked, as always, gorgeous.

My brother, never known for dressing sharply, was decked out as well. I don't know where he got the tailored black silk suit, but I was almost positive that my sister picked out the material and supervised the tailoring. Sean actually managed to look handsome instead of slightly geeky.

I stood with the door of my modest three bedroom house open, my mouth gaping, and my eyes wide with surprise. "Come on, little brother, get dressed. Nicely! We are taking you out for lunch for your birthday," Cat ordered imperiously, brushing past me and into the house as if she owned it. Sean grinned and followed. Cat glance over her shoulder and added, "Your interview suit, not one of those cheap, off-the-rack monkey suits you own!"

I closed the door and followed them into my own house, stopping in the living room and watching them make themselves at home. "And where, pray tell, your Majesty, are we going?"

"A friend of mine just defected from the Waldorf and opened his own place near Pier A on Sinatra Drive. He got tired of the Waldorf head chef and sous-chefs slapping him down when he tried to get creative. His ideas were too vanilla or too radical, depending on which boss was rejecting them," Cat explained airily, brushing invisible lint from her dress as she crossed her legs and arms on my cheap couch, glaring. "And you are still standing there gaping instead of getting dressed! Don't worry, even your plebian American palate will find something to eat on the menu. It is a Mediterranean fusion menu. Greek, Italian, Spanish, North African, and Middle Eastern foods and cooking methods. Now go get dressed before we miss our reservation. Guiseppe is kindly reserving a table for me in the middle of the lunch rush because I told him it was your birthday."

Admittedly intrigued and insulted, both at the same time, I stomped back to my room and followed my orders. Cat probably didn't remember, but I had met Giuseppe during the period Sheridan, our older brother, and I were persuading her loser husband to leave the state. Giuseppe von Hildebrandt, if you can believe that last name in an Italian, was one of the few male friends Cat had that stuck with her and helped us. He was a nice kid from northern Italy just starting in the New York restaurant business back then and I kept in touch for a couple of years after but he was worked like a dog when he got the gig at the Waldorf, and when I got my teaching job we were both way too busy. It had been a couple of years since I saw or talked to him last.

I shuffled back out in my dark gray silk suit, light gray silk shirt, and white silk tie with $2000 cuff links and a $500 pair of Italian leather shoes, all bought for me by Cat a year ago when I was interviewing for a position at a New York firm looking for a political analyst for their Middle Eastern division. Cat thought the right suit would cover up the fact that my college degree was not printed on gold embossed parchment from a college whose buildings were covered with ivy. They did have me back for a second interview, but eventually hired some kid from Princeton whose family money pre-dated the United States.

Cat looked up at my entrance and smiled, rising from the couch in my small living room. "You always did look good in that suit, Tiernan," she beamed as she walked over and gave me a hug. Pulling back, she shook her head with a wry grimace. "Sean told me you already know Giuseppe. When was the last time you talked to him?"

I glared at Sean over her head for mentioning it. "About two and a half, three years," I replied sourly. "Give or take."

Cat reached up and patted my cheek fondly. "It is o. k., Tier. Now smile, it's your birthday. Let's go. Giuseppe is waiting for us."

Giuseppe's place was every bit as elegant and delicious as one would expect from someone of his talent and background. He greeted me like the visiting VIP I was dressed as. He and Cat would not even let me order once we were seated. The waiter brought out a whole seven course meal that featured all of Giuseppe's specialties and we swooned appreciatively throughout when he would emerge from the kitchen to see how we were making out. I doubt we got there any earlier than one and it was nearly four when Cat grabbed the bill from the waiter and Sean slipped him a large cash tip on top of whatever Cat gave him when she paid. It was one of the best afternoons I had ever spent with my siblings and we were all laughs and smiles as we headed back to the car after promising to visit Giuseppe soon.

I thought, all dressed up like we were, that Cat would drive me back to my house so I could get out of the expensive monkey suit but she drove west towards where our parents still lived in the house we grew up in. It was a nice upper middle class neighborhood that had not changed much over the decades and many of the families that lived in the neighborhood were the same as when all three of us still lived at home. Mom was still one of the neighborhood mothers and Dad belonged to the local country club and Moose Lodge. Both were active in the Catholic Church near their house and taught catechism on Sundays.

Since we had just finished eating, I was not really sure why we would go to Mom and Dad's. I was a little too old for birthday cake and lunch was a nice enough present from Cat and Sean. Mom and Dad were long past presents, these days. We usually got cards with either a check or a gift card, depending on how our financial situation was that year. Then again, it was my birthday and Mom was always very into at least acknowledging such things occurred and required all and sundry to gather to acknowledge with her, if not full out celebrate.

The drive had been proceeding in silence and I was at my limit for the mystery. "All right, why are we going to Mom and Dad's? We just ate, so dinner is out," I finally demanded.

Cat looked over at me and smiled mysteriously even as Sean reached up from his seat in the back and clapped me on the shoulder, saying, "It won't take that long to get there. You can wait for the surprise that long."

"Besides," Cat added, "it is more a gift for all of us than a birthday surprise for you. Just make sure to thank Mom. She worked really hard to pull this off and drove Dad nearly batty." I grumbled and sat back, mouth shut, as Cat drove out into the hinterlands of Morris County.

In any other county in New Jersey, our parents' house would probably be considered a mansion. Morris County, however, is one of the wealthiest counties in the country and compared to that, Mom and Dad lived in an upper middle class neighborhood with a nice-sized house on a nice piece of property. We got to hear about how nice it was every time the county tax assessor sent the property tax bill and Dad began to go on and on about paying taxes for schools he and his family no longer use. He has accountants who get him around the income taxes and corporate taxes and capital gains taxes, but the Morris County Tax Commissioner loomed large in my Father's pantheon of unhung crooks. He forgets, every year, that he used to give the same speeches when Cat, Sean, Sheridan, and I were still in school.