Carpe Bead'em

Carpe Bead ‘Em

a novel

Tonya Kappes

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part
of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, without the permission in writing from the
author or publisher.

Edition: May
2011

Copyright © 2011
by Tonya Kappes

All rights
reserved.

Cover art
designed by Laura Morrigan

Also by Tonya
Kappes

Something Spooky
This Way Comes

Believe
Christmas Anthology

The Tricked-Out
Toolbox~Promotional and Marketing Tools Every Writer Needs

For my Eddy.

The man who
always has my back, and my heart.

Acknowledgments

Even though writing is a journey writers
take alone, there are people along the way that make it

an enjoyable one.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank
the three reasons I get up in the morning—my boys, Jack, Austin, and Brady.
They encourage me with their strength, positive attitude, and unconditional
love.

Much gratitude to my writing buddies who
help me brainstorm, help me through my growing pains as a writer, and
encourages me to keep going: Cathy Liggett, Heather Webber, Hilda Lindner
Knepp, Shelley Shepard Gray, and Renee Vincent.

To my dear friends at The Naked Hero
grog, Dee Dee Scott, Lee Lopez, Heather Webber, and Misa Ramirez for hanging
out with me each week. Keeping this career real.

Jane Porter, thank you for being a great
role model and strength of inspiration.

Without my family, Linda and John Lowry,
Tracy, David, Ben and Maddie Darlington, Ann and Don Bedson, I wouldn’t be the person
I am today with the drive I have.

This book wouldn’t have gotten completed
if it weren’t for Doctor Alyssa Wood, who took special care of my sick pup,
Charlie, and fixing him. I have to have Scooter and Charlie at my feet during
the writing process.

Lisa Mediate Dare, my dearest friend who
has been with me through thick and thin. I love you, girl.

Also a big shout out to Cincinnati news
anchor, Sheila Gray, for letting me use her cool jewelry for inspiration.

Finally, to my dear Aunt Grace, who made
my life full of amusement and special memories. I hope everyone has an Aunt
Grace in their family.

Week One

Families are
like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts.

Author Unknown

Chapter One

Groaning, I squeeze the pillow over my
ears.
Please
…even that doesn’t muffle the ringing phone. Blinking into
the darkness, I heave the pillow across the room and grab my clock.

What the hell?

I shake it to make sure I’m seeing the
real time.

Two-fifteen. In the morning.

Are you kidding me?

The ringing stops for a few seconds and
I think, pray, that it's over.  But then it starts again.

Argh…no.
I squint trying
to focus on the Caller ID without messing up my cocoon of blankets.

Aunt Grace.

Enough said.

I reach for the phone, but stop.
Does
she really need me this time?
My fingers stretch closer.
What if it is
an emergency?
My fingers retract. No.
What…what if it’s just like every
other time? All the times she called to shoot the breeze in the middle of the
night?

One more ring and the answering machine
picks up. I can’t do it. I can’t ignore her call. I close my eyes, pick up and
press on.

“Hello, Aunt Grace.” Three words in, and
I am already exhausted with this conversation.

“You are psychic just like your mother.
I swear you even sound like her.” Aunt Grace said.

Well, Great Aunt Grace, really.
Ninety-two years old. I swear she’s going to outlive all her
relatives—if
I don’t kill her first. Not that there are many of us left. After my parents
died it was just me and her. I guess I owe her.

“I wanted to tell you about this fine
young man I think you’ll like.” She acts like it’s three in the afternoon.
Doesn’t
she realize it is in the middle of the night?
I can tell where this is
going.

“Aunt Grace, can’t this wait until the
morning? Better yet, why don’t I come visit?” I plead.

I try to see her every six or eight
weeks. It’s the least I can do. Well, the least I can do for myself. I live
almost five hours from Cincinnati, in Chicago, and she still continues to call
in the middle of the night. Distance and time are irrelevant when it strikes
her fancy to call me. At least I can control my trips back to Cincinnati.

“It can’t wait until tomorrow, and I
don’t want you to drive here this time of the night.”

“That’s good. At least you know what
time it is. I’ll call you tomorrow about this guy.” I’m afraid her mind isn’t
as sharp as it used to be. Not that it was ever that sharp.

“Of course I know the time. I just
finished playing cards with the girls down the hall.”

“Down the hall?” Aunt Grace owns an
apartment building in one of the seedier areas of downtown Cincinnati.

“You know. The girls who rent from me.
Besides aren’t you in Chicago?”

A calm but eerie feeling comes over me.
Thank God she remembers where I live. Some nights she calls and thinks I’m
dodging her when I try to explain how I can’t just pop over to visit.

“Besides, aren’t you in Chicago?” She
repeats.

“Yes, Aunt Grace. I still live in
Chicago. I have a long run in the morning. I need all the sleep I can get.”  Across
the room, the door knob turns. My eyes bulge. With the phone cradled between my
shoulder and ear, I clap my hands.

Nothing better than The Clapper for
someone who is scared of the dark.  Someone like me. If someone is going to rob
me or kill me, I want to see them or at least be able to say, “Here Mr. Robber
Killer, take whatever you want. I don’t need it.”

Aunt Grace is rambling on about Inas
winning the first round of gin rummy. I hardly register it.

“Who’s there?” I hiss towards my bedroom
door.

“Hallie,” she says to me, “we live on
the fifty-first floor. Who do you think it is?”

I practically faint from relief. The intruder
happens to be Lucy, my roommate and best friend. She claps after she opens the
door, turning the lights off.

I groan. Lucy still looks good in the
middle of the night with her ash blonde hair pulled back. Her turquoise eyes
stand out even more without make-up on.

“Getting robbed is virtually impossible
unless someone freaks out in our building.” Lucy snickers.

“Clap them back on!” I scream into the
dark.

I don’t give a shit that it’s Lucy and
not Freddy Freaking Nightmare On Elm Street. If I lived in Fort Knox, I would
still be afraid of the dark. Lucy and I continue to clap my lights on and off
until the room feels like a disco.

Finally, her long lean legs carry her
five foot nine frame out my bedroom, ending the clapping feud.

“What’s going on, Hallie?” Aunt Grace
croons through the phone.

My head spins in confusion. Aunt Grace
is humming a tune from the musical
Chicago
.

Another one of her quirks. She just
breaks out in tune. Not song, but tune.

“If Aunt Grace wakes
me
up with
her calls, then I want to make sure
you
stay up.” Lucy continues to
clap.

“Hallie? What’s going on? Do I need to
kick some…?”

“No, no, Aunt Grace.” I have to
interrupt her because if she starts cursing, she doesn’t stop. “It’s only Lucy.”

I put my pillow over my head.

“That crazy superstitious girl you met
in college?”

“Yes, Aunt Grace. The same Lucy that was
my college roommate and is still my roommate.”

My patience is running thin.
“Goodnight.”

“Hallie, wait. I still haven’t told you
about the young man.” There is pride in her voice. “He’s Italian.”

Here we go.
I roll my eyes
as she talks. She is always doing this to me. I admit that being single at
twenty-eight isn’t in my plan, but I don’t need Aunt Grace playing Cupid.

“He lives in Chicago, and I gave him
your number to look you up.”

My heart pounds a mile a minute. I hate
when she does this. I can just imagine it’s one of her loony friend’s cuckoo
relative who’s probably a loon like all the others.

“You what?” I sat straight up in bed.
“Aunt Grace you can’t do that in today’s age. What if he’s crazy and tries to
track me down and kill me?”

Thank God I live in a building with a
doorman that has to buzz up any visitors. And double Thank God I have The
Clapper.

“Good Italian family,” she says,
ignoring me.

Here we go again.

“Don’t you know most people my age are
waiting well into their thirties to get married?” I inform her.

“Just keep an open mind. In my day if
you weren’t married by twenty, you were considered an old maid.”

“Lucky for us we aren’t in your day.”

“Good Italian family,” she repeats
before she hangs up. Aunt Grace always gets the last word.

Needless to say, my nerves are shot, and
it takes me over an hour to calm down. I must’ve turned my alarm off because I
didn’t wake up for my run.

Chapter Two

My alarm! Not the physical alarm, but my
internal alarm clock, propels me out of bed. I lunge for my real clock and
shake the life out of it.

The damn thing.

I need to invest in a new clock because
this happens several times a week. And Shaken Clock Syndrome has just about
done the thing in. I own up to the fact it could be operator rather than
mechanical error.

My hair hangs in front of my eyes like a
dark waterfall. I try to blow it out of the way, but it’s too heavy to move.
Instinctively I take the rubber band from my wrist and pull my hair up in a
high pony.

The entire apartment is extremely quiet.
Obviously Lucy isn’t awake, and I’m not about to flick her lights on and off to
wake her up, like she did last night. Granted, she didn’t wake me up—Aunt Grace
did—but I could’ve lain there while Aunt Grace talked and slept through most of
it. Lucy had to make drama out of it, just as she does with everything.

Seven o’clock.

I have two options. One, I can throw on
some clothes and meet my running group, even if I’m late, as I do every morning.
Or two, I can chuck training all together and stay in my comfortable bed.

But if I stay in bed I won’t be able to
see
him
. And seeing
him
is worth getting out of bed.

I throw on my light gray Adidas shirt
and my light blue Nike running shorts, then lace up my kickers. And make sure
my pony is staying put.

I have always wanted to cut my hair
short to see if I would like it. If I didn’t like it, the hair fairy could put
it all back for me.

Everyone tells me how beautiful my long
black hair is. “Silk,” they say. My bold dark facial features scream “Italian”
while my skinny five foot eight inch body screams something far different. My
family always told me if I stand sideways with my tongue sticking out, I would
look like a zipper. Somehow, changing my hair feels like it would change me, so
I never summon the courage to actually do it.