Dreaming in Technicolor

by Laura Jensen Walker

  I can remember a time not too long ago that it was your favorite TV show too. “So aren’t there any other boys in youth group?”

  “At Holy Communion?” Ashley rolled her eyes. “No way. Well, there’s a few, but they all have girlfriends.” She slouched in her seat, the mutinous frown reappearing. “I don’t see why I have to hang out with only Christian guys anyway. I mean, they’re not perfect either.” She stole a glance my way. “Look what happened to you.” Ashley rushed on. “I’m not trying to be mean or anything, Aunt Phoebe. But you met Alex at church, and he’s a Christian and everything. And I thought he really liked you, that eventually you guys would get married.” Her face flushed with anger. “But then he left, and now you’re all alone again. I don’t want to wind up all alone.”

  “Yeah. Like that’s going to happen, Ms. Over the Hill. Ash, you’re only fourteen,” I said gently as we pulled up to my apartment. “I think it’s a little early to be worrying about that.” I grinned. “Besides, I’m not alone. I’ve got you guys. And Grandma. And God. What more does a girl need?”

  “A guy.”

  “Actually, that’s not really a need, except when it comes time to program the VCR.” I sighed. “I’m not going to lie and tell you it didn’t hurt when things with Alex didn’t work out. It did. I liked him a lot.” I thought back to all the fun Alex and I had together and the special movie connection we’d shared. Then I thought back to my trip. “But Ash, I learned—actually, I’m still learning—that the only One who will never leave me or disappoint me is God.”

  She rolled her eyes again. “I know, I know. I hear that all the time at Sunday school and from Mom and Dad.” But she gave me a thoughtful look as we walked up the outdoor staircase.

  Unlocking the door, I turned to her. “No more preaching, I promise.” I grinned. “But I do want to know what happened to the girl who not even six months ago told me she didn’t want to get married until she was at least thirty because she was determined to see the world first.”

  Ashley looked wistful. “Jesse says there’s no need to ever leave the United States.” She stuck out her chin. “Or even California. Everything cool is right here.”

  Including Jesse.

  “So what did he think of your new Notting Hill shirt then?”

  She flushed and dropped her backpack on the living room floor. “He liked it.”

  “Even though it’s from another country?” I raised my eyebrows and then said gently, “Honey, visiting other places opens our eyes to so many things—amazing things, beautiful things.” I smiled and paraphrased Esther. “Genesis says God created the heavens and the earth, not God created California.”

  Thought you said no more preaching? I pulled out the photos from my trip. “Would you like to see my pictures? I just picked them up from the drugstore.”

  She hesitated, conflicting emotions warring across her face.

  I opened the first envelope and started flipping through prints. “Oh, there’s Buckingham Palace.” I laughed. “Mary Jo and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if we were this close to Prince William and Harry?”

  “Ooh, I wanna see.” Ashley sat down beside me, and we spent the next hour oohing and aahing over the English sights together. She especially liked the one of me making goofy faces at a red-coated guard in an effort to make him smile. (I didn’t succeed, although I thought I detected the barest twitch of his stiff upper lip.)

  At last I lay down the sheaf of photos with a wistful sigh. “I can’t wait to go on another trip . . . hey! We should do a girls-only trip to Paris—you, Grandma, and me! Your mom too. Whaddya think?” I expelled a sigh of regret. “There wasn’t time to go to Paris this trip, and I’ve always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower and stroll alongside the Seine munching a croissant.”

  “And have espresso in a sidewalk café on the Champs Élysées and check out some high-end fashion shows.” Ashley got a dreamy look in her eyes. “And practice my French on some hot French guy.”

  My eyebrows did some serious arching.

  “French language, Aunt Phoebe.” She giggled. “I wasn’t even thinking about kissing!”

  Me either.

  But before I went to sleep that night, that’s all I could think about—that, and the stand-in Sunday-school teacher’s exhortations on purity.

  After throwing up a quick prayer, I pounded out a column on lust, lips, and brotherly love. My theme? That if we singles got a little more of the latter within the church, we might find it a little easier to deal with the former.

  The next six weeks or so were a blur of activity as we got our business loan through Karen and Jordy’s credit union, finalized the sale and transfer of ownership, and started putting our own personal stamp on our bookstore.

  We debated long and hard about the name. Armed with notepads, pencils, and caffeine around Mom’s kitchen table one evening, we all offered suggestions.

  I liked the idea of A Cozy Cuppa, and so did Karen, but Mom and Jordy pointed out that it would appeal mostly to women. “Besides, that name makes it sound like it’s just a tearoom,” Jordy said. “And since we don’t want to lose our male customers, our coffee drinkers, or our bookstore customers, I think we need something a little less cute. Why not just keep it Books ’n’ Brew?”

  “I’ve never liked that name.” Mom doodled on the notepad in front of her. “I always thought it sounded like one of those micro-breweries with all different kinds of beer. Besides, we don’t want to confuse people. We want them to know that it’s coffee that’s brewing.”

  “How about A Cup of Joe, then?” Jordy drained his own coffee.

  Squeezing my new addiction, a PG Tips tea bag, against the inside of my cup, I deposited it on the china tea-bag holder I’d brought Mom back from England. “No, ’cause then you’re leaving out the tea.”

  “Books too, honey.” Karen smiled at her husband.

  “What about Coffee, Tea, and a Good Book?” Mom suggested.

  “Too long.” Jordy refilled his cup.

  “That’s fun, but I’m afraid not everyone would get the sixties reference.” I tossed my mother an apologetic glance. After reading Coffee, Tea, or Me as a young woman, my mother had dreamed of being a stewardess, a dream she later set aside in favor of marriage and motherhood.

  “Would they even need to get the reference?” she asked, and I shrugged.

  Ashley sidled into the kitchen. “How about Read a Lot, only spelled L-a-t-t-e?”

  We all turned and stared at her.

  “Read a Latte,” I said slowly, savoring the sound of the name on my tongue. I looked over at my three partners and beamed. “I love it! What do you think?”

  “Me too,” Mom and Karen chorused.

  “Ash, that’s brilliant!” Jordy hugged his eldest. “I think we need to put you in charge of marketing and publicity.”

  Ashley turned pink with pleasure and remained in her father’s arms a moment longer than her teenage coolness had allowed of late.

  Mom held up her coffee mug. “A toast.”

  We all raised our assorted mugs and cups.

  “To Read a Latte, and”—she cast a warm smile at Ashley—“my very clever granddaughter.”

  “To Read a Latte,” we agreed in unison, clinking our cups. “And to Ashley.”

  “This calls for bikkies,” I said, reaching for a tin and setting it on the table.

  “‘Bikkies?’” Jordy looked at me over the rim of his mug.

  “Short for biscuits, which is what the English call their cookies.” I helped myself to a couple. “I picked these up in the bargain basement of Harrod’s. They’re great for dunking in tea. Or even coffee.”

  Karen tried one. “Yum. These are delish. We need to serve some at our monthly teas.”

  “Already way ahead of you.” I grinned and turned to my brother, who was brushing the crumbs off his mouth. “So, Mr. Financial Adviser, what do you think of our selling some English tea and bikkie products at the store?”

  Financially cautiou
s and non-tea-drinking Jordy frowned. “Let’s try a few just as a test, and we’ll see how it goes.”

  While Karen and I were stating our case for having more than just a few, a knock at the back door admitted Gordon, who, upon Mom’s invitation, pulled up a chair and helped himself to coffee.

  “Shall we talk about furniture?” Mom asked.

  “Well, we already have the bookshelves and the table and chairs in the coffee area. But I always like curling up in a nice wingback chair when I’m reading,” Karen said. “And we don’t have nearly enough tables for the monthly tea events.”

  “I love wingback chairs too.” I sighed. “But have you checked the furniture-store ads lately? Chairs are pretty expensive.”

  “We’ll go the garage-sale route then,” Mom said. “I can make new slipcovers that will hide a variety of sins.” She gave Jordy a teasing smile.

  Karen and I snorted in unison and glanced his way. “That’s for sure.”

  “What? I thought my old couch was fine for your apartment just the way it was.”

  “Only if you like brown, gold, orange, and puke-green polyester plaid, Dad.” Ashley rolled her eyes.

  “That’s why the women will handle the decorating, big brother.”

  Gordon cleared his throat. “I know where you can get a couple of nice wingback chairs in good condition for free. I’ve got a couple in my spare room that belonged to Esther.”

  “I thought you had some estate-sale people pack up all her things to sell at their showroom.” Mom gave him a quizzical look.

  “I, uh, planned to.” Gordon fidgeted. “But I just didn’t feel right about selling off her possessions to a bunch of strangers. I’ll bet she’d be glad to have them put to good use in your bookstore, though.”

  “Are you talking about those great tapestry-covered chairs she had in her living room? Those are gorgeous.” I smiled at the memory.

  “That’s where she and I sat together talking about her trip to Europe right before she left.”

  “Then that settles it.” Gordon gave me a warm smile. “I can’t think of any better home for them. Plus, there’s a nice old bookcase with glass doors you might like too.”

  Now it was Mom’s turn to stare. “That beautiful lawyer’s bookcase with the leaded glass? That’s an antique!”

  “Maybe so.” Gordon grinned at her. “But right now it’s just a dust catcher in my spare room, holding some odds and ends from Esther’s trips.”

  Esther’s words about broadening my horizons filled my head. I snapped my fingers. “We could fill the bookcase with travel books—all except the middle shelf, which we’d use to display some of her travel souvenirs.”

  Former schoolteacher Karen caught the vision. “And we could hang a world map on the wall, and put a globe on the top shelf, along with a pretty framed picture of her. We could call it Esther’s Travel Corner,” she said softly.

  The room went quiet until Gordon punctured the stillness by blowing his nose.

  Jordy grabbed his wife and kissed her. “Did I ever tell you how glad I am that I married you?”

  We scoured garage sales and flea markets for inexpensive castoff furniture and were thrilled the day we found two cushy love seats in a hideous mock-patchwork velour. Mom whipped up some pretty slipcovers and bingo, we had comfy, homey-looking reading couches.

  And Gordon learned of a soda fountain in Modesto that was going out of business and selling off all their furniture and equipment for a song, so he and Jordy took the truck and the checkbook and proudly came back with six square gleaming chrome-and-laminate tables for four, three round tables for two, and thirty chrome-and-vinyl chairs.

  “Thirty chairs?” I squealed. “Where are we going to put thirty chairs?”

  Gordon’s face fell. So did my brother’s.

  “You don’t have to put them all out,” Jordy said defensively. “Some can go in the back storeroom. When we saw them, we figured they’d be perfect for your monthly tea thing.”

  Chrome and vinyl for tea? I was thinking more rich wood and upholstery like Brown’s Hotel . . . And they don’t look anything like the tables we already have.

  “They’re perfect, honey,” Karen said, kissing her husband. “Exactly what we need.”

  Mom hugged Gordon. “Thank you so much. You guys did great.”

  Pleased, they swaggered off.

  My head swiveled from Karen to Mom. “Okay, now I know why I’m still single.” I looked at the laminate tabletops again. “But I still don’t see this as looking very English and tealike.”

  They exchanged a smile. “You will.”

  We spray-painted the shiny chrome white, and Mom and Karen sewed floor-length chintz tablecloths, along with delicate cotton and lace skirts for each chair that could be removed when not being used for tea.

  Finally, everything was finished and we were ready for the grand opening.

  We’d agreed we would inaugurate the store with its first literary tea. And in a nod to my recent travels, we had decided to go with an English-author theme.

  Having fallen in love with Jane Eyre on my trip, I really wanted to do the Brontë sisters, but since we were a new business trying to establish ourselves, Karen thought—and Mom and Jordy agreed—that we needed to go for a little more mass appeal. We settled on Jane Austen.

  The tea was a smashing success.

  Karen used her drama-teacher and community-theater connections to find period-style costumes, and Mom, Ashley, Elizabeth, Lexie, and I all dressed up to look like characters from Sense and Sensibility.

  We tried in vain to talk Jordy—who ran the bookstore side with a little help from Redmond that day—into wearing a Hugh Grant pair of breeches, coat, and cravat. But quiet Redmond surprised us all by showing up in full costume, looking for all the world like romantic Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility.

  “My mom sews pretty well,” he told us bashfully, “and I’m kind of interested in that period in literature.”

  All the rest of that afternoon, I noticed Ashley sneaking looks at him. Maybe Jesse has a little competition.

  We served dainty cucumber sandwiches, chicken-and-almond salad on miniature croissants, and small wedges of my mother’s homemade Quiche Lorraine on the bottom level of the three-tiered silver racks at each table.

  On the middle tiers we arranged slices of assorted tea breads alongside our best re-creation of the plump Fat Rascal scones from the Yorkshire Betty’s, with cut-glass bowls of mock Devonshire cream and strawberry jam on the side.

  And the top tiers proudly boasted lemon squares, Amy’s famous shortbread, and plump strawberries dipped in chocolate, all nestled on snowy paper doilies.

  “Mmm, this is scrumptious.” Mary Jo, who had donned her Brown’s tea outfit for the occasion, leaned back at the table she was sharing with Gordon and sighed as she finished her scone. “You’ve all done yourselves proud. I feel like I’m back in England again.”

  “Yeah, the only thing missing is Ian,” I whispered as I refilled her cup.

  “Shh,” she hissed, cheeks flaming.

  Mom and I had talked a reluctant Gordon into attending our tearoom debut. “But tea’s not a guy thing,” the crusty newspaper editor had protested.

  “It is in England.” I’d batted my eyelashes at him.

  We’d assured him that he wouldn’t be the only man.

  And he wasn’t. Our pastor from Holy Communion also showed up with his wife, and Sylvia Ann had also coerced Bruce into escorting her.

  At the end of the day, when we closed the doors and propped up our aching feet, my brother counted out the day’s take—nearly double that of Books ’n’ Brew’s normal daily receipts.

  Jordy grabbed me and whirled me around the store. “Pheebert, you rock!”

  [chapter twenty-one]

  Life in the Man-Free Zone

  istill can’t believe you’re running a coffeehouse!”

  “It’s a bookstore, Lins.” I corrected her. “Read a Latte.”

  “Rig
ht. Sorry. But who’d have ever thought that you’d be a business owner! Little Miss Math-Impaired. In your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine it?”

  “No, not really.” I chuckled. “But things are going great. Jordy’s handling all the financial stuff. And Karen and Jordy are loving the fact that they get to spend more time together—as are the kids. And of course Mom’s totally in her baking element.”

  “But what about you, Pheebs?”

  “I’m great. Hey, I’m thirty-two years old—well, almost—and my own boss, a partner in my own thriving business. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “You don’t have to sell me—I’m hoping to do the same thing someday with my beaded jewelry.” She paused. “But what about your writing?”

  “I’m still writing. I’m doing my monthly online column, which I absolutely love.” Opening the fridge, I pulled out the last can of Diet A&W cream soda and popped it open. “In fact, I just turned one in yesterday about the joys of getting weighed in a doctor’s office. In Cheers everybody may have known your name, but in the doctor’s office, everybody knows your weight.”

  Lindsey guffawed. “I hear ya on that. I just love your column—so do all the Lone Ranger girls, especially since you started writing about single women’s issues. It’s hilarious. In fact, I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever done.”

  “What about my movie reviews?” I bristled.

  “Now, don’t go getting all mad. I loved your movie reviews, but I love this new stuff even more.” She paused, and I could hear her swallowing—her favorite, Diet Dr Pepper, probably. “Not everyone’s into old movies, you know. But every unmarried twenty-, thirty-, even forty-something woman can relate to your column—especially that last one on kissing and lust. Even Susan loved it.”

  “You’re kidding!” I nearly dropped the phone. “Super-WOG Susan? The same Susan who started up Lone Rangers and operates on a higher spiritual plane than the rest of us?”