Tea Cups & Tiger Claws

by Timothy Patrick

  When Abigail and Sarah came back a minute later, they saw Dorthea on the couch, just as when they’d left, with Veronica standing politely by her side.

  “Dear little Veronica has decided that six year olds shouldn’t be throwing temper tantrums. Isn’t that right, Veronica?” said Dorthea.

  “Yes. That’s right.” Then she saw the furry stuffed animal in her cousin’s hands and walked up to her and took it. “Aunt Abbey said I get to keep it.” She hugged the toy and skipped happily from the room, leaving behind a basket full of Barbie dolls.

  By the time the Town Council meeting rolled around on the fourth Tuesday of the month, everyone in town had lined up on one side of Dorthea’s hotel or the other. When she entered the council chambers, however, she saw only friendly faces. People smiled at her and nodded and said hello. A man she’d never met led her down the stairs to a front row seat that had her name on it. The flatlanders had come out in force, upwards of two hundred of them, but not the upper crust flatlanders who lived for the pat on the head from their masters on the hill, or the middling crowd who didn’t mind buttering their bread on both sides if they could get away with it, but the bottom dwellers who liked having a good time more than they liked staying in line. And on that score Dorthea didn’t deceive herself; most of them had come out in favor of the hotel for the simple pleasure of backing the Town Council into a corner and watching them try to wriggle free. They favored the hotel, but most of them would be hard pressed to say why. Heaven help her when they stood up to speak.

  She didn’t see anyone from the hill. No surprise there. That’s not how things worked in Prospect Park. As with all important matters, the hotel had already been decided by a higher authority, and the good people on the hill had no reason to doubt it. And they had no reason to subject themselves to an unfriendly mob, unintelligible speeches, and the usual Town Council droning about garbage hauling contracts and sewer service rates.

  A three foot half wall separated the tiered, amphitheater style public seating from the ground level business side of the room. Dorthea saw the dais where the councilmen, who had not yet entered the chamber, sat in high back leather chairs behind an intricately carved giant curved desk. They may have spent their time voting on toilet paper budgets and proper bunting for the fourth of July parade, but they looked like Supreme Court Justices when they did it. Below the councilmen, on both sides of their curved structure, stood ordinary desks where un-exalted clerks were already at work. In the aisle to her immediate left, on the public side of the room, stood a wooden podium, behind which a line of people had begun to form. They mumbled to themselves, sometimes referring to papers rolled up in their hands, sometimes practicing grand speech making gestures. When one of the clerks saw them, he told them to sit down until the proper time.

  At seven-thirty sharp, the councilmen filed in, one of the clerks called roll, and the mayor called the meeting to order. But if the good people thought bare knuckle time had arrived, they were mistaken. First the mayor introduced one of the local ministers who then made a long, flowery prayer. Then the clerk told everybody to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Then the mayor lobbed words back and forth with the clerk and the other councilmen having to do with minutes from the last meeting and whether they should be approved, followed by a unanimous, mumbling vote of “Aye” by the entire council. Next the mayor said something about a last minute amendment to the list of consent items and the clerk stood up and read aloud from a list that contained items such as financial reports, hiring of staff, and a new street sweeper on order from Elgin, Illinois. One of the councilmen made a passionate speech about the item he wanted removed. The other councilmen yawned, blew their noses, and cleaned their glasses. After the certain item got removed from the list, the mayor told the councilmen to vote and they all mumbled “aye.”

  Finally, after almost an hour, the mayor looked out over the crowd and announced that instead of the laundry list of individual items they usually considered, they would, as agreed to in the consent agenda, consider only the zoning variance and building permit for the proposed hotel. The crowd erupted with a cheer, and the mayor reminded them that they weren’t at a football game. The mayor then asked to hear the planning department’s recommendation. A different clerk, across the room from the other one, stood up and recited like a bored eighth grader a list of bad things about the hotel. The people grumbled. When they grumbled too loudly, the mayor tapped his gavel and stared out over the crowd. The grumbling stopped and the clerk finished his inspirational message. Then, after laying down some ground rules, the mayor opened up the meeting to public comment.

  A little, wiry man with greased back hair and a brown weathered face jumped up to the podium. He wore a white dress shirt, dirty brown pants, and old, scuffed shoes. A line quickly formed behind him.

  He cleared his throat a few times and said, “I hereby do requisition this august body of—”

  “Please state your name and who you represent,” said the first clerk.

  “I don’t represent no one,” said the man, looking confused.

  “Name please,” said the clerk.

  “Ned Chambers.”

  “Address?”

  “Number three…uh…Yucatan Downs.”

  The people groaned. Dorthea closed her eyes and hoped this wasn’t the beginning of the end.

  “Proceed,” said the clerk.

  He cleared his throat and started again. “I hereby do requisition this august body of the Town Council of Prospect Park California to accept this official petition signed by me and my wife and my mother-in-law and three different cousins to name the aforementioned hotel ‘The Newfield Excelsior Arms Hotel.’” He took a folded paper from his shirt pocket and eagerly held it out to the clerk. The clerk looked at the paper like it contained the plague.

  “We are not here to name the hotel,” said the mayor sternly. “We are here for public comment about the zoning variance, the building permit, and whether the hotel should be built at all. Next please.”

  “Well it’s got to be named don’t it,” said the man, before the restless crowd told him to sit down and the person next in line pushed to the front.

  Fortunately for Dorthea, the crowd in that auditorium didn’t need a flashy speaker to rile them up. A person needed only to say something good about the hotel and make a little sense when they said it. When one of the first speakers, a stooped lady with white hair and a voice that barely filled a paper bag, said that she’d studied every similar sized town in California, and had found that each one had at least one hotel or motel within a nine mile radius from the town’s center, the people erupted like they’d just heard the Gettysburg Address. That’s when Dorthea got the feeling that the miserable flatlanders might come through after all. Even the ones that froze, and only managed to croak out a few skinny words in favor of the hotel, got cheered. And the ones who’d rehearsed a bit, and those who fancied they had a knack for whisking people around with their words, gloried in the kind of response they’d probably always dreamed about. After each sad story about dashed family reunions due to lack of accommodations, and frail mothers and fathers put up in sleazy Santa Marcela motels and spending half the day riding buses just to visit their children in Prospect Park, the people broke out spontaneously, chanting, “ho-tel, ho-tel, ho-tel,” over and over again. The mayor didn’t take kindly to this, or to the brief swell of unbridled boldness that it inspired. When one man jabbed his finger into the air and called out the snobs on the hill to come down off their high horses and account for their naked discrimination, the mayor beat him back into line with the sound of his pounding gavel. But that didn’t stop the people from clapping and cheering and stomping their feet at every opportunity. Dorthea sat back and soaked it in.

  In the middle of the ruckus, at its very height, Dorthea saw the eyes of the councilmen dart in unison to the top of the public side of the auditorium. Then she heard a gasp and saw turning heads and craning necks. She looked as well and saw Judith on
the top aisle, glaring down on the assembly. The crowd hushed and their fevered emotions quickly turned cold. Their curious eyes followed the queen as she walked purposefully along the upper aisle before turning right to the aisle that led down to the podium. When she got to the line of people waiting to speak, the last person in line, a middle-aged man, pretended not to see her. He fidgeted with his hat and looked at his feet. She stared at him. He stole a quick glance, fidgeted some more, and then left to go to his seat, along with everyone else in line. She stood alone at the podium, and that’s when she saw Dorthea, sitting just to her right. The ladies made eye contact. Judith set her jaw, focused her gaze, and, without saying a word, said many words, unpleasant and easy to understand. For her part, Dorthea smiled and admired her sister’s outfit, a mauve slender column sheath dress with matching opera gloves and a helmet hat covered in small pink flowers. Forty-five years of luxury had taken a toll on her but she looked stylish, as usual.

  “Lady Judith,” said the Mayor, “on behalf of the entire Town Council, we are truly honored by your presence.”

  She ignored him and looked out over the crowd with a wide, sweeping gaze, and then said, “Here we are, the deprived, suffering souls of Prospect Park. You poor, poor things, having to live in beautiful, crime free neighborhoods, in one of the most exclusive towns in the world. It must be more than you can bear. And all because you don’t have a hotel five minutes from your front door. Well, let me tell you this, if you don’t know how good you have it now, you’ll surely know when you don’t have it anymore. When your streets look like Santa Marcela’s, you’ll know it then. Did you ever stop to ask yourselves how Prospect Park became the envy of the state? Of the country? Belligerent mobs storming city hall didn’t do it! Tasteful, cultured people did it! And it took years. You should think about that the next time some malcontent comes whispering in your ears.” Judith didn’t look at Dorthea, but other people did. Then Judith turned to the Town Council.

  “And no one deserves more blame for this fiasco than you! Instead of nipping it in the bud, as it deserved, you’ve conjectured, and entertained notions, and fostered discontent until a little irritation has turned into a flaming red infection. And still you don’t stop! While we trust you with our wellbeing, and pay you handsomely to protect our interest, you turn the people against us, invite them to city hall, and help them stab us in the back!” She stared at the councilmen. They didn’t move a muscle. “Well, it’s over now,” she continued, “You’re going to do your job and put an end to this nonsense.”

  She appeared to be done talking but the councilmen didn’t seem to be sure. They stole inhibited glances at one another.

  “What are you waiting for? Do your little vote. I’m sorry to have to say it, but I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “But mother, what about me? I want to talk too,” said Veronica, who stood at the top of the aisle, standing next to her cousin Sarah.

  “Not now, Veronica.”

  “Father Promised! He said I could talk!”

  “He said no such thing. Sarah, take Veronica to the car.”

  “He did too! He promised me! He promised me!” And, as Sarah tried to take her cousin by the hand, Veronica went into her temper tantrum routine, this one of the standing, stomping variety.

  Judith looked like she might come unglued right then and there, but she didn’t. “Alright. Alright. Stop crying. You can say something. Just stop crying and come down here and say it.”

  Veronica scampered down the aisle. Mother stepped aside and daughter stepped up to the podium, but it was too tall. She looked up at her mother.

  “Everyone can see you, Veronica. Just say what you have to say.”

  “It’s too tall. I need a chair.”

  “There is no chair!”

  Before Veronica had a chance to launch into another fit, the first man who spoke, the one from Yucky D, jumped up and slid the podium over to where he had been sitting in the front row, on the opposite side of the aisle from Dorthea. He then knelt in the aisle, held down the hinged seat, and told her to climb onto it. She climbed right up and grabbed the podium like a pro. She wore a turquoise poodle skirt, a white short-sleeved blouse, and saddle shoes. Dorthea had seen this outfit on plenty of teenagers but not on any six year-olds, but she figured nobody up at the castle had guts enough to tell that to the little princess.

  She unfolded a brownish piece of paper, the kind used by first graders, where she’d written a few sentences with big, tilting letters and an abundance of eraser smudge. In a loud, crisp voice she said, “My father signed this paper and he said if I read it to you, you have to do what it says.” With her limp brown hair and narrow face, she didn’t have the commanding beauty of her mother, but she certainly knew how to take command. “Are you ready?”

  “Uh…yes, Miss Veronica, by all means,” said the mayor.

  “‘To the Prospect Park Town Council, I want you to vote for the hotel.’”

  The people gasped.

  “Veronica, you get down from there this instant! He said no such thing! This is absurd!”

  “Mother! Please! I’m trying to read!”

  Surprised chuckles and hissing whispers passed in a wave across the chamber.

  “‘I want you to vote for the hotel,’” she continued reading. “‘It’s a good hotel and I like it. If you don’t vote for the hotel you will be in big trouble. Signed William Newfield.’ Now you have to do what he says.”

  Wild applause and cheerful shouts rang out. Judith grabbed onto her daughter’s arm and tried to drag her off the seat, but she slipped away and jumped to the floor on the other side of the podium, out of her mother’s reach. The mayor pounded his gavel over and over to quiet the crowd, and then said, “Miss Veronica, may we have a closer look at your paper?”

  “No, you may not!” said Judith.

  “Yes, you may,” said Veronica, as she held it out to them. The clerk rose cautiously from the safety of his desk to retrieve the letter. After handing it to him, Veronica leaned over the half wall partition and turned her head to look down the row at Dorthea. With a big smile she said, “And don’t forget, Aunt Dorthea, we have a deal.”

  “She is not your Aunt!” yelled Judith. The words boomed loudly from her mouth, bounced hard off the walls, and caught everyone by surprise, resulting in a moment of stunned silence, which quickly cracked open into riotous laughter. The flatlanders laughed their asses off, plain and simple, and the little princess from Sunny Slope Manor joined right in. Judith stared in disbelief, then turned around and walked up the aisle to leave the building, cutting through the laughter like a lone pedestrian cutting through fog.

  Besides Judith, another person in that auditorium didn’t join in the laughter: eleven year old Sarah Evans. As Dorthea’s eyes followed Judith on her grand exit up the aisle, they caught sight of Sarah moving in the opposite direction. She looked as sad as a little girl could look without actually crying. She came to the bottom of the aisle and held her hand out to her cousin. Veronica ignored the gesture.

  When the mayor pounded his gavel this time, the people quickly came to order. This most recent endorsement, from a Newfield no less, even a six year old one, had put momentum on their side. Nobody went to the podium when the mayor made the half-hearted offer. They wanted the vote, which they got without further delay.

  Going down the row of councilmen, Mr. Fletcher, on the far right of the Mayor, voted yes, in favor of the hotel. The people cheered, the mayor pounded his gavel. When Mr. Wainwright voted yes as well, they cheered louder, but quickly shushed themselves back into order, lest their bad behavior might somehow invalidate things. They sat up straight and leaned forward, looking for only one more vote to put them over the top. The mayor turned to Mr. Gunther, on his immediate left. Without raising his eyes to look at the people, he voted no. The crowd murmured and quickly locked eyes onto Mr. Jorgensen, who had no such guilty conscience and looked out easily among the people, surely a favorable sign. But with a loud, clear v
oice, he voted no as well. An audible sigh filled the room, and two hundred bodies slumped into their seats. The mayor, the only member of the council who lived on the hill, held the deciding vote. They had lost.

  “And I vote yes,” said the mayor. “The zoning variance and building permit are approved.”

  At first the people stared, and a few laughed, as some always do at a bad joke, but then the mayor banged his gavel, adjourned the meeting, and it hit them. Like beachgoers hit by a surprise wave, they’d staggered in confusion, and now popped up in unison, out of their seats, refreshed, energized, jubilant. The mayor had voted yes. They’d won! They’d picked the long shot, covered the bet, and watched her take it by a nose. With hugs and pumping fists and mindless shouts, they cheered like crazy sports fans.

  And did they know how to cheer. If nothing else, life on the sidelines in Prospect Park had taught them that much. Only this time, instead of playing the lumpy spectator, swilling beer, munching popcorn, and admiring the local heroes as they drove by in limousines and Rolls Royces, they got to run alongside one of their own. They got to cheer one of their own. They got to cheer themselves. Dorthea might’ve appreciated the small part they’d played but that didn’t make the spectacle any less pathetic.

  After taking handshakes, and pats on the back, and hugs from overwrought simpletons, she looked to the left, hoping to catch sight of Veronica, but instead caught Sarah staring at her. And she kept staring, wearing the only frown in a sea of smiles, almost scowling, really.

  What a strange evening, thought Dorthea. First six year old Veronica kicks her mother in the shins and fearlessly leads the charge, then eleven year old Sarah stares down a grown woman and takes her to task for who knows what unpardonable sin. Who knew children could be such bullfighters? Who knew they could be so wonderful?

  And that was the gift Dorthea received that night. Not the hotel. Not the pats on the back. Not the pleasure of poking Judith in the eye. She received the gift of children. If Veronica Newfield had the guts at age six to shove her mother out of the way, just imagine what she’d be capable of at age fifteen or sixteen. Even average teenagers gave their parents hell and Veronica promised to be way above average. Dorthea had wasted half her life trying to enter Prospect Park’s front door when all along the back door had been left wide open. Let the old money dinosaurs have their little club. Their kids belonged to that club too. Let the stodgy guard dogs prowl the gate. Their kids had a key to that gate. Let them uphold their sacred standards. Teenage kids hate sacred standards and have been throwing such things in their parents’ faces since time began. And Veronica Newfield, with Dorthea’s help, would do the same.