by Nancy Warren
Rock took a step into the room and Elspeth’s collection of Royal Doulton ladies wobbled, their full-skirted china gowns dancing and their pretty porcelain heads seeming to shake in disbelief. Lavinia called them sentimental knickknacks, but since Elspeth did the dusting, she was allowed to keep them. Harriet hoped the statuettes survived the afternoon.
This was Elspeth’s room, as was the kitchen, in the same way the library with its vast collection of first editions was Lavinia’s.
Just as Harriet had the whole basement for her assorted sports equipment, activities and junk.
Rock gulped and some of his confidence seemed to drain as he skirted an antique cabinet crammed with crystal treasures, setting the whole thing tinkling. Harriet often felt large and gangly in this dainty room, but she had nothing on Rock.
Still, he did his best, managing to right himself with the quick agility of an athlete when a footstool tripped him up, before gratefully sinking into the tapestry wing chair that was the largest seat in the room.
By the time he sat, a lot of his cocky sureness had deserted him, she noted with no surprise. The room had that effect on pretty much everyone under seventy.
It was like being in an ancient library or a sacred church. You felt as if you should whisper and keep your knees pressed together.
Then the two aunts, dressed in their Sunday church dresses of starched linen in muted florals, sank daintily to their accustomed seats. Harriet, wishing she were in another state, sat in her usual spot, the wing chair across from the one Rock occupied.
“Would you care for a sherry?” Lavinia asked Rock.
“Sherry, well now, I—” His eyes searched the room frantically and she imagined he was looking for a girl named Sherri. She stifled a nervous giggle.
Poor Rock. This was dreadful and her aunt Lavinia was looking far too much like the spider who’d caught the unsuspecting fly in her web. Harriet did her best to help him out. “We have both dry and sweet sherry. My aunts usually have a glass before tea.”
“Right. Sherry. Yeah, sure.”
He was obviously beyond the dry or sweet distinction, so she took pity on him and poured him a glass of the dry. Lavinia also took dry and Elspeth preferred the sweet. Since Harriet hated sherry, she had nothing.
She handed the aunts their small crystal glasses first, then gave Rock his. The sherry glass almost disappeared in his meaty grip. He glanced up at her like an animal caught in a trap, then tossed back the wine as though it were a shooter down at the sports bar.
She felt a pang of compassion as she thought of all the delicacies to come. Rock was a steak house kind of guy, not an afternoon tea type. She should have worked harder to talk him out of this, she realized as she tried to imagine how he’d make out with the menu.
He’d be all right with the homemade Scottish shortbread, which Aunt Elspeth had prepared in the special mold with the thistle imprint. But he was going to have to face scones, too. With clotted cream and strawberry jam.
After a suitable interval for sherry quaffing, Elspeth disappeared to make the tea. Harriet would normally help her, but she didn’t dare leave Rock alone with Lavinia.
She gave her great-aunt a glance that begged for pity, but Lavinia was too happy to have a fresh Sunday afternoon victim, one she’d never taught, to worry about Harriet’s futile eye daggers.
“Are you a university man, Rock?”
“Why, yes, ma’am. I got a scholarship to Dimmit College in Texas.”
“Really? It’s not a school I’m familiar with. Did you win an academic scholarship?”
He chuckled as though she’d made a joke. “No, ma’am. A football scholarship.”
“A football scholarship.” Aunt Lavinia’s opinion of athletic scholarships was well known. She thought it a poor excuse to waste valuable teaching resources on persons who cared nothing for learning and wanted only to throw a ball around a field for their life’s work.
“That’s right.” He must be recovering his confidence since he was bellowing again.
“And did you actually attend classes at this institute of higher learning?”
“Aunt Lavinia taught history here at the high school for many years,” Harriet threw in, hoping Rock would take the hint.
But, he didn’t.
“I attended enough classes to graduate, sure,” he shouted. “But—” he winked at Harriet “—I usually found a cute girl to help me with my homework.”
“Are you a plagiarist?” Aunt Lavinia asked in a clipped tone.
“No, ma’am. My major was kinesiology. That’s the science of movement.”
Harriet felt helpless to protect Rock, hoping his own thickness would deflect most of her aunt’s verbal arrows. But, in fact, obviously realizing he was prey not worth hunting, Aunt Lavinia seemed to have given up.
“I’ll help Elspeth with the tea,” she said, rising grandly and sending Harriet a glance that clearly said she could do better for male companionship. “Excuse me.”
Normally, Lavinia would never abandon a guest that way, and Harriet stared at her aunt in shock, but the older woman explained softly as she went by, “I’ve got to rescue the Royal Crown Derby.”
Harriet had to agree it was a good idea not to serve Rock with their usual special-guest china. Poor Rock could turn bone china into bone dust faster than he could score a touchdown.
If he’d been a handkerchief kind of man, Harriet imagined Rock would pull one out of his pocket and mop his brow as her aunt left the room.
He smiled weakly at her. “She’s quite a gal.”
“Yes,” Harriet said. “I’m really sorry about this. I tried to warn you.”
“Well, I gotta say, the little Boy Scouts are looking better all the time.”
“If you want to leave, I could tell them you’ve got a headache or something.”
“A headache? What would that do to my reputation? I head-butt two-hundred-pound linebackers all the time. I can’t go around saying I got a headache to a couple old gals. I’ll look like a sissy.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” She had to give him marks for courage.
She heard the aunts on the way down the hall with the tea trolley. In any case it was too late for Rock to escape. Or for her to escape this excruciating afternoon.
“Here we are,” Elspeth said brightly, bringing in the antique tea trolley with the silver tea service, the tiny sandwiches of salmon and watercress, the shortbread and the scones with her homemade strawberry preserves and the clotted cream.
Next to Rock, everything seemed so miniature, from the second-best teacups to the spoons.
“Cool,” said Rock. “Doll-size sandwiches.”
“Please,” said Elspeth, passing him a napkin and the serving plate of sandwiches.
“Thanks, ma’am,” he said, and placed the tray of two dozen tea sandwiches on his lap.
Harriet tried to get his attention but it was too late. He’d already picked up an egg sandwich and shoved it into his mouth and was choosing a salmon sandwich chaser. “You shouldn’t have bothered cutting them up so small. I usually eat about three triple-deckers at a go.” He swallowed and thumped his stomach. “Lot of me to feed.”
Elspeth managed to carry on without a hitch, and Harriet had to admire her aplomb. “How do you like your tea?” she asked him, her hand hovering over the cream jug and sugar bowl.
“Tall glass. Plenty of ice,” he mumbled.
“I’ll get him some iced tea,” Harriet said, jumping up for an excuse to escape. At least the china was safe.
Since she had a feeling that one glass of iced tea wouldn’t be enough, she brought in a whole pitcher and put it on a small tray by his elbow. After that, they mostly just watched Rock eat. He demolished the plate of sandwiches in about two minutes.
Elspeth had offered Lavinia and Harriet the scones and the shortbread, with a silent glance of apology at the lack of sandwiches. They drank their tea hot, in small delicate cups, while Rock glugged iced tea until the gallon pi
tcher was nearly empty.
Then he spied the scones.
His eyes lit up and he turned to Elspeth. Harriet expected him to ask what they were, but instead he said, “Did you make these?”
“Why, yes.”
“For a lady who makes such teensy sandwiches, you sure make a decent-size cookie.” Whereupon he helped himself to one and chomped it as though it were an oatmeal cookie.
And he kept eating the “cookies” until the plate was empty.
“Please,” Elspeth said faintly. “Try my shortbread.”
“I don’t get much fancy stuff like this,” he admitted, taking her up on her offer with alacrity.
“It’s nice to see a man with a good appetite,” she said as he finished off the last shortbread.
“The all-you-can-eat smorgasbord place always puts the Closed sign up when they see me coming,” he boasted as he pressed the last crumbs off the plate with his finger and then licked it clean.
“Really?”
“Ha, ha. No, I’m joking. But they threaten to. I always pay double, but I still don’t figure they make much money off me or the other guys on the team.”
“Well, there’s a lot of you to feed,” said Aunt Elspeth.
“All that bulk and not a single viable brain cell,” Aunt Lavinia murmured into her teacup.
“That’s what I say. There’s a lot of me to feed and a lot of me to love.” He winked broadly at Harriet.
“It was so nice you could come,” she said to him. And, feeling Aunt Lavinia ought to be punished for inflicting this tea on them all, said, “It’s nice for my aunts to have a visit before their Sunday-afternoon nap.”
“Right,” he said, rising. “You ladies have a nice sleep and thanks for the home baking. Great stuff.” He then shook their hands and Harriet walked him to the door. Never had she made the trip more thankfully.
At the door, Rock turned to her. “So. I’ll see you at practice?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
But he didn’t leave. He shifted from foot to foot then said, “Look, Harriet. You’re a real nice girl, but I was sort of going out with Linda Lou before you came along, and—”
Harriet’s eyes bugged open. “You stopped seeing Linda Lou for me?”
Rock’s gaze shifted away and he looked acutely embarrassed. “I guess I should have told you. I don’t want you thinking—”
She was so flattered she felt like kissing him. “Oh, no. I perfectly understand. I’m all wrong for you and Linda Lou’s perfect. I’m just so…” She grinned at him. “Good luck. And thanks.” Then she rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
Getting dumped had never felt so good.
She returned to the parlor and Aunt Lavinia said, “Well, Harriet, I hope our guest next Sunday has a better idea how to behave.”
“Who’s coming next Sunday?” she asked as she helped load the empty dishes back onto the tea trolley.
“A former student of mine, and a friend of yours. Steve Ackerman.”
Harriet almost dropped the empty scone platter. “You invited Steve Ackerman for tea?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Aunt Lavinia, how could you? He’ll think you’re pushing me at him.”
“Nonsense. I invited him because I’ve always thought he was an interesting young man.”
She stared at her great-aunt in dismay. “Other seniors take up clogging or crochet. Why did you have to take up bachelor-baiting?”
14
“STEVE, you can’t come to tea on Sunday.” Harriet roared into his office Monday morning like a plaid steam engine, huffing and red in the face.
“You mean I’m uninvited?”
Oddly enough he felt disappointed. He’d sort of looked forward to seeing Miss MacPherson again. He’d been terrified of her in high school, well, everyone had been. But he’d respected her, too. He had a feeling she’d seen through him as no other teacher had. “What did you tell Miss MacPherson about me?”
Harriet blinked at him as though he were crazy. “No, it’s not that. Of course Aunt Lavinia wants you to come. She needs a new sacrificial lamb, but I only found out about it yesterday. I swear she was keeping the invitation from me deliberately. I can’t let you do it. You don’t know what she’s like.”
Steve thought back to history classes at Pasqualie High. “Oh, yes. I know what she’s like.” But if Miss MacPherson hadn’t entirely cowed him in his teens, she was unlikely to manage it a decade later. At least, he hoped not. Especially in front of Harriet.
“It’s only tea, Harriet. I think I can get through it without making a fool of myself.”
“Ha,” she said darkly, and he wondered what her aunts did to men who showed up for tea.
“Hey, want to catch a movie tonight?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I’ve got cheerleading practice. We’re learning some new routines so it’s every night this week.”
Disappointment smacked him. “How about lunch?”
“I’m working through lunch hours so I can get off early for practice.” He’d think she was avoiding him if he didn’t see the wistful expression in her eyes and the dark circles of tiredness under them.
He rose and walked around the desk until he was close enough to touch her. “You were fantastic in your first game.”
She blushed rosily. “Did you really think so?”
How could she have any doubt? “I was hoping we could get some time together this week so we could celebrate properly.”
Between cheerleading practice, softball practice and the evening events he had to cover, it was a busy time of year for both of them. The only consolation was that if Harriet didn’t have time for dating then Rock must not be seeing her, either.
Steve had been thinking about her all morning since he’d been working on the layout for her spread in the Sunday paper. Somehow, someway they were going to have to find some time to spend together.
“Nothing could keep me away on Sunday. At least I’ll get to see you,” he said.
She blushed adorably, as he’d hoped she would, and began to fiddle with a button on her sweater. “I miss you, too,” she said quietly.
“Well, one way we can spend some time together is working on the two-page weekend feature all about you,” he said, deciding to spring his surprise early.
“Pardon?” she squeaked, as bowled over as he’d imagined she’d be.
“I thought you’d be too shy to boast about your accomplishments so I wrote a feature piece about you and I’ve got some great photos. Come here. Let me show you my surprise.” He’d thought at one point that he’d let her read the feature on Sunday along with everyone else in Pasqualie, but he was too excited. He wanted to see her face when she saw the full spread all about her triumph.
“Surprise?” She looked at him with shy excitement and he wished there weren’t so many people nearby or he’d kiss the breath out of her.
Instead he took her hand and led her around his desk to take a look at the layout.
A gasp escaped her when she looked at what he’d done. “No!” she cried.
He thought at first it was a gasp indicting modesty, but one glance at her face showed him the expression of someone in the middle of a horror movie. “What do you mean, no? What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?” she shrieked. “It’s like a terrible nightmare.” She touched the photo of herself with the baby fat and groaned. “You went to the high school and got these.”
He was proud of how hard he’d worked to show the old Harriet, with the photos culminating in the glamour shot they’d taken of her posing in her new uniform. “Yep. And I interviewed your field hockey coach and a few teachers who remember you. Got some great stuff.”
But she didn’t seem as thrilled as he was. “What are you calling it? ‘Geek To Pinup Girl’?”
“‘Cinderella Keeps Her Eye On The Ball,’” he told her, not without pride. “It took me a while to come up with the perfect headline. Don’t you like it?”
“Like it? It’s the cruelest thing anyone’s ever done to me.” She turned to him, her eyes dark with hurt, and he could see she was fighting tears. “I thought we were friends.”
What was wrong with her? “I hope we’re more than friends. You’re not that girl anymore. Can’t you see that?” He pointed to the glam shot. “This is you now. Girls in high school who aren’t part of the in crowd will look up to you. They’ll believe in dreams again, they’ll believe that if you could achieve this success after being overlooked all your life then they can, too.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide and bright, her face flushed. “This isn’t about me at all. It’s about you.”
“What are you talking about?” A flash of irritation surged through him but he tried to laugh. “News flash. I never wanted to be a cheerleader.”
“No. You wanted to be a quarterback, but you were kept off the field because of your concussions. Instead of being the big man on campus, the team quarterback, you got teased and called four eyes. You’re using this feature about me to vent your own high school grievances.”
“That is about the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he all but spluttered, wondering why a ball of lead seemed to have lodged itself in his chest. “You’re being ultrasensitive.”
“I’ll never be able to live this down. I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” she said, backing out of the room rapidly. Since she looked like a woman fighting tears he didn’t even try to stop her.
“I’m sure when you calm down you’ll see I’m right.”
“You’re an insensitive ass.”
Ouch. That stung.
“Does this mean I’m no longer invited for Sunday tea?”
She paused and turned. He waited for another verbal assault, but she gazed at him, hurt and anger pulsing from her in waves. “Oh, you’re invited for Sunday tea. It’s the best punishment I can think of.”
HARRIET BARELY SLEPT all week thinking about the feature that Steve was putting in the Sunday paper. She was beyond the how-could-he-do-this-to-me stage and had moved to the how-soon-can-I-move-out-of-town stage of embarrassment.
