The Teashop Girls

by Laura Schaefer

  “You can say that again.” Louisa was right about the bedroom though.

  “Well, what if it did? What if we always got exactly what we asked for? There would be no mystery, no surprises.”

  “That’d be nice,” I replied. If I got exactly what I asked for, things would be different, let me tell you. Among other things, I’d have straight, silky hair like Zoe’s.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. How’s your tea?”

  “It’s good, Louisa. Thanks.” I actually smiled a little. That’s the thing about my grandmother. You can’t stay depressed around her, even when you try.

  “There will always be tea, dear.” With that, Louisa fetched a piece of carrot cake and two forks. I shared with her, not cured of my mood exactly, but feeling better. She was, of course, right. At least about the tea.

  I walked home and threw my work clothes in the wash. My family was all watching a movie in the living room. I joined them wordlessly. Truman found my lap and snuggled in. After the movie, I went to my desk. If Genna was going to just ditch the Teashop Girls, we were going to have to move on without her.

  Possible Teashop Girl Replacements

  • One of Zoe’s teammates?

  • Smart girl transfer, what’s her name, Katie?

  • Stacy, the seventh grader on AIM all the time?

  Speaking of which, Stacy was on AIM now. I clicked.

  cuppaAnnie: Hi Stacy

  Spaciezz91: Annie! Did you hear what Zach did during lunch?

  cuppaAnnie: No, and I can’t say I want to

  Spaciezz91: Oh

  Spaciezz91: r u sure?

  cuppaAnnie: Yes. So what are you up to this weekend?

  Spaciezz91: prolly beach or mall

  Spaciezz91: dunno

  cuppaAnnie: so what else is new

  Spaciezz91: I’m going out with the new kid, the transfer

  cuppaAnnie: you have a boyfriend, too?!

  Spaciezz91: well I’ve always been mature for my age

  cuppaAnnie: right

  Spaciezz91: don’t worry I could find you a bf

  Spaciezz91:how about Zach?

  Spaciezz91: or that kid with the blond fro

  cuppaAnnie:Ewwww. And I don’t know the blond kid

  Spaciezz91:I could ask him out for you

  cuppaAnnie:NO!

  Spaciezz91: k whatev hey I liked your tea

  cuppaAnnie: thanks

  Spaciezz91: i have this special herbal tea from china that’s sposed to make boys all crazy for you

  cuppaAnnie: you believe that?

  Spaciezz91: sure, why not

  cuppaAnnie: sounds kinda weird

  Spaciezz91: well I do have a bf don’t i?

  cuppaAnnie: yeah

  cuppaAnnie: gotta go

  Spaciezz91: bye

  Well, that was four minutes I’ll never get back, I thought as I shut down the computer. I crossed Stacy off the list. Six times.

  To Do, May 31

  • Plan Steeping Leaf 30th anniversary party

  • Conduct ritual burning of Teashop Girls Rules and Handbook

  • Call Zoe

  • Convince Mom to change my curfew since 10:30 is way gulag

  • Remind reporters about SL anniversary

  • Write ANOTHER essay for Mrs. Peabody

  • Practice crow yoga pose

  Do you know what a tea plant looks like? Well, here you go, a Genna Matthews original sketch of the Camellia sinensis. This is where all the magic starts!

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Afternoon tea should be provided, fresh supplies, with thin bread-and-butter, fancy pastries, cakes etc.; being brought in as other guests arrive.

  —MRS. BEETON, THE BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT

  I had spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to decide if I should just leave the fate of the teashop to the adults and maybe go back to just visiting like I used to, before getting my job. That way I could at least avoid Jonathan and future humiliation. I knew there would be some peace to be found in a “whatever will be, will be” attitude. But it just wasn’t me. I could never be okay with not doing absolutely everything I could think of to save the shop. By the morning, the answer was completely clear. We’d just have to carry on without Genna’s help. I really loved the place and my grandmother, and I would never give up. The work we had done so far was leading to good things; it would be silly to quit, no matter what Gen had said.

  I got ready for school, washing my face while Beth flat-ironed her hair. We were running a little late, which was typical since Beth had no first-period class and senior privileges. She was never in a rush in the morning. I tried not to make it too obvious that she was not exactly my favorite person. After all, that tiny, truthy part of my brain reminded me that she couldn’t help Jonathan’s feelings and she would never date a high school sophomore now that she was practically in college. Duh.

  After second period, Genna ran up to me. She tried to corner me in the bathroom, but I escaped.

  “Forget it, Genna. I don’t want to talk about it.” It’s not that I decided to give her the silent treatment, exactly. She said what she said and I said what I said and as far as I was concerned, there was nothing left to say. At lunch, Zoe sat by me and Genna sat by some of the arty people.

  “You should just talk to her, Annie. This is ridiculous. We’ve been friends forever,” Zoe pestered.

  “Yeah, and now we can not be friends forever. I am burning the Handbook.”

  “Look, she feels really bad about what she said. She does believe we can save the shop. She doesn’t think it’s stupid at all.”

  “She should feel bad,” I replied, digging into my chicken salad.

  “It was just a meaningless fight, Annie.”

  “I guess.” It wasn’t meaningless to me, though. I couldn’t really explain why, I just knew that what Genna had said hurt me more than even the Jonathan-and-Beth debacle. Things were changing in all of our lives, as much as I didn’t want to admit it; we were growing up and, it seemed, growing apart. I couldn’t stand it that there was no more Teashop Girls, not really. I had wished maybe there always would be.

  “Yeah …” Zoe paused for a little while. I chewed unhappily.

  “You heard what she said about the shop. Do you believe in it, Zo? Are you still a Teashop Girl?”

  “Annie, I do believe in it. And I am. But you should know that even if there is a day when there is no teashop, we’ll still be best friends.”

  I sniffed.

  “Think about all the stuff you have that Genna doesn’t. Normal parents, for one. Who actually listen to you and care what you do. This theater camp thing is big for her.”

  “Whatever.” I sighed. Zoe was wearing me down. She had always been so r easonable, even when we were kids. Well, except on the tennis court.

  “Okay, you can mope around for a couple more days and I’ll leave you alone about it. But just promise me you aren’t going to break up the Teashop Girls for good.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Later that night, I flipped the lights on in my room. There were several e-mails from Genna on the computer, but I didn’t open them. After all, I had more important things to think about besides ex-friends. There was a party to plan at the Steeping Leaf (which meant more e-mailing newspapers and putting up fliers and decorating and cajoling classmates and all the neighbors into coming), and Louisa had asked me to do double duty at the shop the next day, looking after the little grandniece of one of her friends near the end of my shift after school. Louisa knew I would make sure little Tameeka would receive the finest education in all things having to do with tea and cookies. I was actually looking forward to it.

  I went out for a paddle with my dad in the evening because I was still feeling guilty about forgetting his birthday and I hadn’t spent much time with non-Louisa family members in so long. We live near a quiet lake called Wingra that borders a nature preserve owned by the university, called the arboretum. It’s a great place
to get the canoe out, and we try to do it a few times per year when the weather is nice. This would be our first time this spring. Sometimes we don’t even talk that much, we just—what’s the word?— synchronize our oars and go. Like Louisa, my dad is good at spotting wildlife when we are on the lake. I think he’s happy I like to go out, because Beth is really prissy about outdoors activities, and the boys are even spazzier than me, if you can believe that. They are too young to just paddle and “appreciate nature.” For a change, my dad was wearing a shirt with no writing on it. I think he didn’t want to disturb the wildlife. Or maybe he forgot to finish the laundry.

  “Come on, I want to steer this time,” I told him, climbing into the back of the canoe. He protested, but I won. I knew I would have to paddle really hard, but it would be fun. I got my feet wet as I pushed us off, but then hopped in like an expert. We were off.

  “Mmm, smell that algael air,” my dad said happily. He grew up on a lake up north and nothing made him happier than the peculiar smell associated with a good bloom of the green stuff. Ew.

  I guess one of the ways we were similar, though, was that it was the simpler things in life that made us smile. A cup of tea for me, a dripping oar for him. I was really glad we decided to go out on the water.

  “Where is that one spring?” I said. “I know it’s around here somewhere.” I shared a terrible sense of direction with my mom, so even though we’d been to the spring before, I had no idea which way to steer us. Fortunately my dad pointed the way. It was beautiful outside. The clear water was a favorite of large birds and long muskie fish. We hugged the edge of the lake, in the shallows thick with vegetation and the lively sounds of insects.

  “Turn right. Slowly, slowly. Careful!” my dad said. Sometimes I forgot to use the good techniques he had shown me and got a little wild. I paddled with all my strength, but we weren’t really getting anywhere. The trouble was I weighed so much less than my dad, so I really shouldn’t have been in the back. I half stood up and almost tipped us over.

  “Annie! Wait.” My dad was paddling us back to shore so we could make the switch safely. I didn’t want to wait, though, so I inched back up again. This time, I slipped a little and ended up sprawled on the bottom of the canoe. I burst into tears.

  “Sweetie, don’t worry. It’s okay. Just stay there.” My dad leaned back a little to give me a pat and paddled calmly. “The muskie are all licking their lips.”

  At that, I laughed a little. I didn’t want to be muskie lunch. My dad looked at me quizzically. After already going through Beth’s teen years, he was pretty understanding about the mystery-tear routine. But I knew I would have to offer some thing in the way of explanation for my sniffling.

  “I’m so sick of waiting around all the time while everything is changing all around me,” I said with a big sigh.

  “Huh? You never sit still for longer than ten minutes.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It’s just that Genna’s so grown-up and Zoe …” I couldn’t really think of anything about Zoe to complain about, so I stopped talking. Then I said, “I mean, Genna won’t even be around this summer to help with the Leaf! Or care,” I added quietly.

  My dad sighed. “I wonder if maybe you’ve taken on too much, honey.”

  I knew he meant my job (er, crusade), so I quickly protested.

  “Don’t be in such a rush to grow up, Annie. When you are a grown-up, trust me, you’ll wish you were a kid again. But maybe not a teenager, I suppose.” He paused, smiling a bit. I realized I should ask him sometime about what it was like when he was about to start high school. “Anyway, it’s not so bad letting your old dad do most of the paddling sometimes, you know. And I promise Louisa will be just fine, no matter what happens. She is one tough cookie, you know.”

  “I know.” It kind of made me smile a little to compare my grandmother in her flowing scarves to some sort of television-detective-tough-cookie type.

  “I’m sorry about the Leaf, honey. I know how much it means to you.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry too.” We were quiet for a moment. I could see it really bothered my dad that he couldn’t fix what was wrong with a Band-Aid and an ice-cream cone like when I was younger. In a strange way, I felt sorry not just for myself at that moment, but also for him. Isn’t getting older weird?

  “Just try not to stand up again. When the fish ask what’s on the menu, I don’t want to say Annie Surprise.”

  “Dad, really.”

  This is an ad for tea made with young leaves, which have more caffeine than older leaves … so, this Tender Leaf tea made its drinkers very “lively.” Today we call tea made from young leaves and buds white tea. Louisa has about six kinds of white tea at the Steeping Leaf. They are very popular. I guess Madison “likes it lively”!

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  One sip of this will bathe the drooping spirits in delight, beyond the bliss of dreams.

  —JOHN MILTON

  At the shop the next afternoon, I went back and forth between manning the register and talking about the thirtieth-anniversary party with Louisa.

  “What kind of food would you like to have, dear?” She flipped through one of her favorite French cookbooks, with a shopping list at her side. Louisa may do yoga every day, but trust me, she isn’t one of those types who eat mostly brown rice and vegetables. Julia Child (with her “lots of butter” philosophy) was her favorite chef, and the scones and other pastries in the shop were all perfected long ago by Louisa, working together with a local baker.

  “I’m not sure, Louisa. What do you think?” Now that I knew how to make tea and espresso, I figured I should really learn to bake. But I didn’t have any ideas.

  “Maybe some classics, like the cucumber sandwiches with no crusts—I know you love those, dear—and something completely new. A cake, perhaps. There’s a recipe I want to try with toffee that should have the whole neighborhood licking their lips.” Usually, Louisa’s new recipes made me smile and excitedly start gathering ingredients, but today I just said, “Sure, that sounds okay.” My perfect level of cheer was nowhere to be found.

  “Are you all right, Annie, love?” Louisa asked in the middle of our planning. She made a note on a shopping list that included things like heavy cream and butter. “You still seem a little blue, dear.”

  “Nah, I’m fine. Just problems with, you know, friends. Boys.”

  “I see. Friends and boys do tend to vex the best of ’em.” Louisa nodded, watching me.

  “They sure do. Stupid vexers. Who needs them?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Most people need friends.” Louisa smiled.

  “Not me,” I said.

  “I suppose you have your blues to keep you company.”

  “I guess I do.” We worked quietly for a little while, with Louisa watching me silently. I tried to seem more upbeat.

  “Annie, I need to tell you something.” She said this very softly.

  “What’s up, Louisa?”

  “I’ve made a decision.” Even more softly. What was this, a library? Why were we whispering?

  “A decision about what?” I whispered back.

  “About the shop. I’m afraid it affects you, dear.”

  “Uh-oh.” This did not sound good. I stood up straighter and smoothed my apron, ready for business. “I promise I’ll be in a better mood. I’m sorry. I’ll—”

  “Annie, Annie, sweetheart, stop. You’ve been fine. Better than fine, amazing. Nevertheless, we’ll both be done with barista-ing soon.”

  “Why?!” I wailed. I couldn’t believe my grandmother would give up already. Not when things were starting to get better.

  “I’m going to close the Steeping Leaf. I’ve really appreciated all that you and the girls have done … the cleaning and the fliers, the Samadhi Spa trip, and now the party planning. I’ve given this decision days and days of careful thought and meditation, dear. But I’m afraid that instead of an anniversary party, what we’re having is a farewell party.”

  “But, but … youn
ger people were coming in … the newspaper stories! The Kopinskis are here every day almost. And Mr. Silverman and little Hieu …” I started to trail off, then added, “It’s only a matter of time before the Leaf is just like it was before.”

  “The Steeping Leaf will never be just like it was before, Annie. Nothing ever is.”

  “But …”

  “I’m sorry, love. I know you’re disappointed.” Louisa hugged me close, just like she had when I was little. It didn’t help this time, though.

  I was more than disappointed. I was crushed. I had certainly not won Jonathan’s heart; I had broken up the Teashop Girls. And I had failed to save the one thing that mattered to me the most. My beloved Steeping Leaf. I was suddenly very afraid that my grandmother really would move away forever. Hadn’t she just been talking to Mr. Silverman the other day about how harsh our last winter had been? Oh no!

  “I realize this isn’t the best spirit with which to plan a party, Annie, but I hope you’ll still help. I can’t do it alone.”

  “Of course, Louisa.” I sniffled. After a few moments of sitting and thinking about it all, of wishing we had tried this or that, I got up. I noticed a familiar face at the door. It was Mr. Anderson, Zach’s dad. He had a pretty blond lady with him, probably Mrs. Anderson. She was petite and wore a demure suit with small jewelry. It was hard to believe she could’ve spawned Zach and his loud mouth. I asked if they would like something to drink, but they told me they just wanted to have a look around. I had to hold back tears as I watched the Condo King and his queen survey the Leaf. It was hard not to jump in and start babbling about all the nooks and crannies of the shop that made it so irreplaceable. From the bird’s nest outside to the height markings on the back door for me and all my siblings, the Leaf was home. All I could do, however, was stare at them unhappily. I remembered Zach’s taunt about the bulldozer and wondered how I’d ever be able to sit in the same classroom with him again.

  Be the river, be the river. I repeated Louisa’s river mantra about flowing peacefully over and around the pebbles of life. Well, if it has to be this way, I said to myself, we may as well throw the best farewell party the town has ever seen. There were so many details to attend to; I was starting to feel overwhelmed. I was relieved when Jonathan arrived to put up the party fliers. For once it wasn’t because I was aching to see him, it was because it was one less thing for me to do. He stopped at the counter and filled up a to-go cup of water.