Tea and Crumples

by Kinard, Summer;

  “Have a peanut butter pastry.” Tovah slid a plate in front of Lettye and turned to pour out tea when a small timer dinged on the counter behind her. “And your tea, ma’am.”

  “Well now, what are we going to do about these cancellations?” Lettye asked. She draped her cashmere sweater over the back of the pink barstool and slipped into the seat. “I’ve been able to convince my college sorority, my Bible study group, and Granny’s prayer group to continue to engage us. But those reviews are hurting us. Whether they meant to or not, the ladies who wrote them echoed some of the same language a lot of church folks use to indicate indirect prejudice.”

  “Oy ve. I, too, have been able to bring in a few bookings from people both loyal to me and skeptical of the Internet.”

  “But we don’t have enough, do we?” Sienna asked. Her rhetorical question was met with silence as they each tasted their tea and pastry.

  “I contacted Ms. Xenia Maris.” Tovah consulted a notepad. “She can come next week for a visit. Nina can start her Mexican sweets cooking classes next month. What else can we do?”

  “Deborah mentioned a wedding shower,” Sienna said. “Has Liz booked it yet? If not, I’ll remind her.”

  “What about our regular customers?” Lettye asked. “How can we expand our services that tap into what they already love?”

  “Like what? A paper touching party instead of just a tea tasting?” Tovah asked.

  “Actually, yes.” Lettye shook her head for emphasis. “Have you seen the paper lovers? We could ask some of the local letterpress artisans to use some of our papers to demonstrate their art. Or we could make special orders from them, with our logo. Have a featured artist once a quarter, set up orders of custom stationery from Durham artisans as well as the big three catalogs we already have on offer.”

  Sienna and Tovah, both paper lovers, gasped eagerly.

  “That’s a great idea going forward,” Tovah said. “Let’s put it in our business plan and try to get the first paper party going before the holiday season.”

  “Is there a way we could get things moving sooner?” Sienna asked. “Michael the postcard pilgrim guy comes to mind. Could we have a write-in special? Maybe a few of them in October? Fall into writing, or something?”

  “What do you have in mind? Tea discount? Paper swap?”

  “Oooo, paper swap!” Lettye said. “That’s a great idea. Bring your remnant stationery for a paper swap, write a letter, drink some tea, get a free first class stamp?”

  “Well, that would be less expensive than free tea,” Sienna said. “I like it. Stationery swap with a free stamp for participants. We should pick a date soon and spread the word among graduate students and Jane Austen fans.”

  “How about we have two of them over the weeks for the universities’ fall breaks?” Lettye asked.

  “Yes. Great idea,” Tovah said, scribbling down the plan.

  “What about chess, Miss?” Nina, unobserved while the others were absorbed in brainstorming, leaned forward next to Tovah. “Mr. Cleotis Reed would probably be willing to get something going for us.”

  Tovah glanced toward the front of the store where the chess table held pride of place in the window. “Let’s ask him.” She smiled as she spotted Cleotis’ warm smile at the door.

  Dogs can smell joy. They licked Sienna’s face in relief when she picked them up. Pogo leapt and even Jonquil squealed when she saw the relaxed set of Sienna’s shoulders. They sniffed around her neck where Peter’s touch had been. Jonquil licked her ear.

  “Okay, you two. Yes, Daddy’s coming home today,” Sienna smiled and rubbed the dogs’ ears. She stood up to go to the door, but Pogo was too, too happy to stop the celebration. He wiggled through the air a few more times, until Jonathan the dog handler quietly extended a hand to his side, bringing the lab to heel. “Thanks, Jonanthan.”

  “I’m glad to see them happy again. Please tell Mr. Bannock we’re glad he’s home.” The large young man spoke calmly, but his eyes smiled sincerely when he glanced up at her. Sienna saved him the embarrassment of unwonted eye contact by shifting her gaze around the room.

  “You know, if it hadn’t been for this place, we might not have caught the cancer.” The thought overwhelmed her, and she breathed a sigh of gratitude. Jon let her struggle a moment to contain herself, then laid his large hand on her shoulder. She couldn’t help but notice the similarity to the gesture he used to heel Pogo.

  She thanked Jon again, gathered the leads, and took the dogs to the car. The day was cool, so she let the back windows down a little. She caught a glimpse of Jonquil’s fur ruffling as the dog turned her face into the wind. Sienna approached the turn off to their house and passed it. The dogs were at the beginning of Peter’s medical emergency; they should be there at its end.

  Peter met them at the hospital door. His wheelchair attendant wished him luck and praised God before rolling the ugly cart back into the building. Peter, a little slow from the broken leg and the time off his feet, met Sienna at the passenger door. She kissed him and held the door while he worked his way in. Her hand shadowed his back as he leaned into the car with the heavy cast. The cancer was gone, but the bone still had some weeks to heal. It was a grace, Sienna thought, to have an injury she could help with.

  They drove home in giddy silence broken only by the dogs’ frantic alternation between window joy and licking Peter’s neck over the back seat. Sienna had brought home Peter’s blanket and the other household items from his hospital room the night before. She had washed the afghan in cedar wool soap and left it on a clothesline by the lavender to dry all day. When they got in the house, Peter sat in his favorite chair to rest. The dogs curled around his feet. Sienna ran outside to get the blanket, stopped on the way in to make up a tea tray, and brought the lot briskly to the living room.

  She tucked Peter in, poured out his tea, lit three beeswax candles, and popped outside to gather a few herbs with old blossoms on them. These she brought in a small vase to sit beside her husband, who dozed briefly under the dual administrations of his wife and the dogs. He woke up when Sienna handed him a mug of tea.

  “Thanks.” Peter inhaled deeply, looked from the tea to the candles, the afghan to the herbs, and he chuckled. “Trying to put the smells back in the right place?”

  “Yes.” Sienna picked up her cup and sipped. Peter drew several larger gulps from his mug, then leaned forward and set it on the edge of the table.

  “You’ve forgotten something,” he said, letting his eyes rove over her face and catch at her eyes. “There’s no me without you.” He held out his arms, and she came to him. With a little delicacy regarding his broken leg, she managed to sit comfortably on his lap. Peter pressed his face into her hair and breathed deeply. “Better,” he said. She kissed him. “Much better.”

  “Do you think you can make it upstairs? Or shall I make up our bed down here?”

  Peter answered her with a more urgent kiss. At length, he whispered, “Down here.” The dogs sensed the change in mood and took their opportunity to play in the backyard while the sun was out.

  Much later, Sienna woke up on the couch, pressed against Peter’s side. The afghan, redolent with cedar and tea and kisses, tickled her nose where it had come to rest after their frenzied reunion. She lifted her head and smiled into Peter’s amused face.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t know you would be so enthusiastic about making me feel at home. But I guess it makes up for the lack of detail on bed making.”

  “I’ll get you more bedding later.”

  “Promise?” He pulled her closer and nuzzled her. She answered in kind. “I like your answer.” Peter mumbled between kisses. “But,” he kissed her chin, “I think,” he kissed her décolletage, “we should eat first.”

  Sienna pulled away reluctantly, taking the afghan with her. She wrapped it around her middle and let it fall off her shoulders. She paused at the doorway and smiled over her right shoulder at Peter, who grinned back at her, covered in only his ca
st and a few throw pillows. A few minutes later, she gave him back his blanket.

  “I’m afraid we only have leftover Indian food and yesterday’s leftover pastries from the teashop,” Sienna adopted an air of solicitude as she laid out plates of naan sandwiches stuffed with spinach and curried chicken alongside a china serving dish piled high with chocolately rustic tarts. “What will you have?” She smiled, indicating the abundant table. Peter was not looking at the table.

  “Come here, please.” She went to him. “Wait. Bring one of those chocolate tarts.” She did. “Perfect.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So, how was Peter’s homecoming?” Bethel Bailey sipped hurriedly on her tea. Sienna blushed a little at the memory of the previous evening, which had extended late into the night.

  “Um, it was good.” She tried to hide her discomposure by fiddling with a tea basket.

  “Oh, I know you don’t have time to talk me through it. I’m only on break. I’ll come back at lunch, and you can tell me more then. What I am really asking is, how did the dogs take it?”

  “They were very happy.”

  “Good.” Bethel nodded once and leaned her head to the side. “What did Peter think of Father Max? Did he say?”

  “He liked him.” Sienna heard the shortness of her replies, but she couldn’t think of what else to say. She was still too overwhelmed by the miracle of Peter’s recovery to talk coherently about it. Bethel had inadvertently hit on the one time she had come close to expressing her joy, but of course she couldn’t really talk about experiences so integral to marital intimacy. She could scarcely speak of Father Max with more clarity, since his words were the ones that came to mind over and over again the night before. “God is great and loves mankind,” she said quietly.

  “Well, yes.” Bethel beamed. “He is, and he does.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “God is great, and He loves mankind,” Bethel repeated.

  “Oh! I didn’t realize I’d said that aloud.” Sienna swallowed and hoped her other memories had not slipped out unawares. “Forgive me, Bethel. I’m distracted and not conversing well.”

  “Well, it’s understandable. You know how after Jesus heals people up from the dead, sometimes he tells them not to tell anyone. Well, I reckon that’s to let them off the hook as much as anything. Because how can you talk about things that are so full of love they make words give out?”

  Sienna wanted to hug Bethel. “Yes, exactly.” She added another raspberry cookie to Bethel’s saucer in lieu of trying to hug her across the counter. “Thank you, Bethel.”

  Bethel grinned and ate the cookie in two quick bites. She drained her tea in one last gulp. “I’ll be back at lunch. See if you can talk about it then. If not, I have something to tell you.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Sienna waved her off and gathered up the used tea things from the counter.

  “Looking forward to what?” Liz’s voice was a paradox of loud volume and conspiratorial tone.

  “Liz! It’s so good to see you. I missed you the past few days.” Sienna walked around the counter and gave Liz a hug.

  “Well, I’m here, and I tell you what, it was not easy to lose my tail to get here alone.”

  “Your tail?”

  “Deborah. She can positively scent an intention for taking tea. And it’s not like I have an excuse for putting her off. I only got here without her today because her friend who’s making her wedding dress has a baby that won’t nap through loudmouths. She’s at a dress fitting for now, but she’ll join me here in a few minutes.” Liz produced a folded half sheet of linen parchment and slid it across the counter to Sienna. “Which is why I wrote it down.”

  Sienna looked over the list. “Deborah’s bridal shower? But I thought she knew about it already.”

  “Just because she’s too picky to let us surprise her about the place doesn’t mean she can’t be surprised about the details.” Liz turned her head sharply at the jangle of the doorbell. “Darn. And here she is already. You think you can manage all this? My number’s on there if you need to check in.”

  “It shouldn’t be a problem.” Sienna smiled and tucked the paper into her apron pocket. “Let me get you a tray going. Your usual?”

  “Oh, surprise me!”

  “Me, too,” Deborah added as she joined Liz at the counter. “I love surprises.”

  Sienna didn’t trust herself not to give anything away if she spoke, so she smiled and nodded. Liz and Deborah took their usual table near the stationery section and set to talking and laughing. Sienna watched them for a few minutes, then decided to take them in a new direction with their tea tray. She assembled two pots, a chocolate flavored black tea with nibs of toasted rice and a lemony vanilla-scented green tea, both blends she had concocted. To go with the teas, she chose a plate of arugula, goat cheese, and pickled melon sandwiches alongside nutty maple pastries. She grinned as she approached the friends’ table.

  “And I have not read a lick of fiction in a week!” Liz lamented. “Oh, what’s this? It smells divine. Here, let me pour. Oh, it’s green. You take that one, Deborah. I’ll try the bulletproof stuff. Oh my gawd! This is amazing. I’m going to have to taste everything. The only problem is what to put in my face first. Do you have a minute to sit with us?”

  “Oh, please do join us,” Deborah added. “And tell me what’s in this tea! This one, too. No, Liz, you can’t hog it. I’m sure I smell rice, and I never pass on tea you can eat.”

  “Good guess,” Sienna chuckled. “The black tea has crushed chocolate nibs and toasted brown rice, plus cocoa extract to round out the flavor. I want you to guess what’s in the green tea. You’ve proven you have a nose for it.”

  “Vanilla.”

  “Yes.”

  “And lemon?” Deborah sipped again. “No, it’s the tea itself, isn’t it? It’s just a citrusy leaf. How did you find it, and can I take it home to bathe in it?”

  “I told you the stronger tea was wasted on her. Now, Sienna, tell me about this stationery swap meeting. Am I going to show up and have somebody try to pass off her returned-to-sender wedding invitations as postcards?”

  “Well, no—” Sienna began.

  “But that would be a great use for them!” Deborah smiled. “I hate throwing out the two that came back to us. I think if we resend them as postcards, at least our judgmental relatives will have to keep them. No return address and all that.” Her face was bright, but her voice strained when she mentioned the relatives.

  “Deborah! I’m so sorry to bring it up like that. My big mouth. There’s a cost to being intuitive, you know. Here I was picking the most random problem I could, so I thought, and I accidentally landed on your sore spot.”

  “Insight is a double-edged sword, isn’t it?” Deborah sniffled a little and sipped her tea to recover. “Even when everything goes well, at the very least, one finds oneself dropping intuition bombs on one’s friends when they are most vulnerable.”

  “Gaw, I know! Don’t ever take me shopping. I have made seven out of ten shopping partners cry by noticing her avoidance of a flattering color that reminded her of her beloved granny or telling a little story about her fragrance that brought up all of the self actualized moments of her youth.”

  Deborah stared. “‘Self-actualized moments of her youth?’ You do need to read some fiction. I have the latest Pullitzer winner in my car. I’ll pass it to you when we head out.”

  “You know what I mean. As in, ‘I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I smelled the sea lavender by the light of the new moon’ or what have you. People, correction, women, are always telling me their coming-of age-stories. Mostly when I compliment them on their jewelry.”

  “Or tattoos?” Deborah deadpanned.

  “Exactly. And thanks for the book. I’ll take you up on the offer. Now, Sienna, what’s all this about a miraculous cure, and does it work on wrinkles?”

  “I don’t know how to describe it except to say that Peter was dying and now he’s well. Apparen
tly, half a dozen miracle workers trouped through the hospital room last week and handed over their unused grace.”

  “A hand-me-down cure?” Liz asked. “Deborah, you’ll like that. Cheap as free. Used the once?”

  “Free, maybe, but not cheap.” Deborah smiled. “Hand-me-downs have the advantage of being given by people who got a lot out of them the first time around and know you’ll love them, too.”

  “However it happened, we’re so grateful. I’m so grateful.” Sienna’s eyes crinkled in a huge smile. “I’m happy.”

  “Let me pour you a cup,” Liz said, and did so. “Tea and sympathy.”

  “Sympathy is even better when you are sympathizing with joy,” Deborah added. She sipped her tea and tilted her head to the side as she watched Sienna take up a cup. “Something else has changed. You’re lighter now.” Her eyes flicked to the manuscript table, where Greg usually sat, and back to Sienna. Sienna caught the motion and nodded.

  “Oh. Yes, that’s easier now, too. Greg backed off. He just needed a little perspective.”

  “Perspective?” Liz asked, motioning an upper-cut punch with her free hand.

  “Not like that.” Sienna smiled. “He just needed some context.”

  “Don’t make me invent the reason.”

  “No, please don’t. We don’t want her to start in on the self-actualized moments of your youth, too.”

  “Haha, Deborah. Seriously, what made the difference? Hidden cameras? Restraining order? Threatening a lifetime ban from the shop?”

  “None of that. I just pointed out that I remind him of his mother.”

  “And his natural repugnance of Oedipus did the rest?” Liz asked.

  “Clever,” Deborah said. “And talk about insight. He must have been hurting and ran to the nearest woman who fit his archetype. You, ma’am, are wise. I mean, beyond your wise way with teas. Most people who study psychology and family systems don’t notice the patterns when they see them in their own lives. What put you onto it?”

  “I wish I could say I was just observant. But all I really noticed was my own tendency to sin. I felt tempted by him because I was afraid I would never have the things I wanted in life with Peter—children, companionship, love. He was an easy answer, and I knew he was the wrong one. I guess I figured maybe I was his easy answer, too, but he had a different question.”