Badly Done, Emma Lee

by Leah Marie Brown

  I know! I will go to that cute little tea shop on High Street. A brisk walk in the rain. A chance to shake off the jet lag and test out my new wellies. The perfect opportunity to mix and mingle with my neighbors, meet my future besties.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, I am standing in a long line outside Call Me Darjeeling. A popular tour bus company stops in Northam-on-the-Water for their midday break, and the teahouse is at the top of their must-visit list. I chat with the tour guide while waiting for my table, and she tells me the best place in the Cotswolds to get a trim and highlights (Llewelyn James in Cheltenham), who makes the tastiest curry takeout (Goopta Goopta in Moreton-on-Marsh), and where to spot celebs (the Swan in Southrop, a posh country pub that serves locally sourced delicacies like potted pheasant and mutton leg with Jerusalem artichokes).

  Jamie Dornan lives in Charlford, near Stroud. Princess Anne and her daughter, Prince Harry’s fab and fashionable cousin, Zara Phillips, live in Tetbury.

  “I didn’t realize the Cotswolds attracted celebrities.”

  “Loads of them,” she says. “Liz Hurley. Richard E. Grant. Patrick Stewart. Hugh Grant. Kate Moss. Kate Winslet.”

  “Kate Winslet? Shut up!”

  “Serious.”

  “The same Kate Winslet who played Rose DeWitt Bukater in Titanic? The same Kate Winslet who is BFFs with Leo DiCaprio? That Kate Winslet?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Dying. Dy-ing.” I wave my hand in front of my flushed cheeks. “If you say Queen Kate lives in Northam-on-the-Water, I am going to keel over. Dead. Just step over my body on your way to your table.”

  She laughs.

  “Close,” she says, laughing. “Her home is just up the road, in Church Westcote, but I’ve seen her here, in the sweet shop on High Street.”

  “Kate Winslet eats candy.” I look over at the sweet shop. “Stars. They’re just like us!”

  I demolish a pot of Earl Grey and a cheddar and tomato chutney sandwich before heading over to Victoria’s Candy Emporium. The teahouse was too busy for mixing with the locals, but I am confident I am going to meet my future BFF in the sweet shop. Maybe Kate Winslet will be there, arms loaded with candy. She will drop a bag of Lemon Sherbets. I will pick it up. She will thank me. She will notice my American accent and we will get to talking, you know, about the challenges of living a bicoastal life. She will invite me to her house for tea. We will hit it off, and the next thing you know, I will be chilling in Saint-Tropez with her and her bestie, Leo.

  A woman with two rainbow-colored candy canes protruding from her messy topknot greets me as I walk through the door. She’s wearing black-framed hipster eyeglasses, a short A-line skirt, a button-down blouse, and thick, dark tights embroidered with lollipops. Definitely not Kate Winslet.

  “Welcome to Victoria’s Candy Emporium.” She smiles, and her glasses slide down her nose. “The queen of all candy stores, from the Cotswolds to Calcutta.”

  Knightley wasn’t exaggerating when he described the owner of the sweet shop as irreverent and quirky.

  “You must be Deidre,” I say, smiling.

  “Guilty.”

  “I’m Emma Lee Maxwell and I just moved into—”

  She runs across the store and throws her arms around my shoulders.

  “Emma Lee Maxwell! I cannot believe it! You are here. You are in Northam!” She stops hugging me, pushes her glasses up her nose, and grins. “We were supposed to meet tonight, at Welldon Abbey, but I think this is a more marvelous way to meet, don’t you? Serendipitous encounters are the best, aren’t they? So, what brings you into my shop? Of all the sweet shops in all the towns in all the world, you walk into mine. What are the odds?”

  I don’t bother pointing out Victoria’s Candy Emporium is the only sweet shop in the village, and Northam-on-the-Water is the only village within walking distance from Wood House, because it would be like sticking a big old pin in her shiny happy balloon. Instead, I grab her hand and give it a squeeze.

  “I had a feeling I was going to meet a forever friend today, and it looks as if I was right. I am so glad to meet you, Deidre.”

  “Do you mean it?” She looks at me through her glasses, wide-eyed and unblinking. “Do you really?”

  I am a very good judge of character, and I judge Deidre Waites’s character to be good, very good. She has a sweetness that rivals any of the treats in her shop.

  “I mean it.” I smile. “Now, what do you say you hook a sister up with a bag of Lemon Sherbets, the same Lemon Sherbets you sell to Kate Winslet.”

  I pay for the Lemon Sherbets and then Deidre and I chat. Actually, Deidre chats and I listen, and listen and listen. I learn she attended Cambridge with hopes of becoming a history professor but had to return to Northam-on-the-Water to run the candy shop after her father died of a sudden heart attack and her mother was diagnosed with macular degeneration. She has a complex love/hate relationship with Queen Victoria, is a walking encyclopedia on all things Victoriana, and has vehement opinions about the barbarism of colonialism. She enjoys music, gardening, and birdwatching, but taking care of the shop and her nearly blind mother leaves her little time to indulge those passions. She loves to read and is a member of Isabella’s All Austen Book Club. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, but “rather fancies a certain gentleman.” She refuses to tell me his name.

  I am sucking on a Lemon Sherbet and walking back to Wood House when it hits me: Serendipity didn’t lead me to the sweet shop so I could buy a bag of overpriced lemon candy or claim Deidre Waites as my new BFF. Serendipity led me to Victoria’s Candy Emporium so I could find Deidre Waites a man. A man who shares her passion for learning. Someone creative and colorful. Someone selfless.

  I stick my hand in my coat pocket and feel a small, folded piece of paper.

  Johnny Amor! Johnny Amor, the Oxford dropout who spends his days helping his best friend launch an indie book business, the would-be musician who spends his nights singing in pubs.

  I unfold the paper, look at William Amor’s tight, neat scrawl, and try not to squeal with giddy, triumphant delight. I pull my iPhone out of my pocket and dial Johnny Amor’s number. It goes directly to voice mail. Should I leave a message? What do I say? Hey there, Johnny! I met your granddaddy at JFK while waiting for a flight to London and he gave me your number. Give me a call so I can introduce you to your future wife. For reals.

  I hang up without leaving a message. Mental note: Call Johnny Amor as soon as possible. Johnny Amor, would-be musician, doesn’t know it yet, but I am about to rock his world.

  Chapter Ten

  Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:

  Single ladies shouldn’t look for a prince; they should look for the man who thinks they’re a princess.

  Knightley Nickerson arrives at the cottage as I am brushing a fifth shade of red lipstick onto my lips. Beauty bloggers often credit Kim Kardashian with developing the technique for contouring lips, but the bloggers are wrong. Kim K. did not invent lip contouring; Marilyn Monroe did. The blonde bombshell made her lips look fuller by using several shades of lipstick and gloss, applying darker shades on the outer corners and lighter shades in the middle. I finish dabbing MAC Lipglass in Ruby Woo on my bottom lip before answering Knightley’s knock.

  I open the door and have to clutch the doorknob to keep from sinking to the ground in a flushed, flustered heap. Knightley is standing on the stoop, hands clasped behind his back, the amber light of the flickering gas lamp reflected off his black hair. He looks so solemn, so formal in his starched shirt and dark suit. So gallant!

  Gallant?

  Five chapters of Emma and my vernacular is sprinkled with words like solemn and gallant. When I returned from the sweet shop, I curled up on the couch with my iPad, intent on reading the first chapter of Emma. Would you believe I made it to chapter five before jet lag knocked me out? Jane Austen is good, y’all. I love Emma Woodhouse! Love! She is witty and clever. Now Knightley, Emma’s Mr. Knightley, what an old fuddy-duddy. Always c
orrecting Emma. He’s throwing down some serious sexual chemistry with Emma, which is actually kind of pervy because he is thirty-eight and she is only twenty-one.

  “Hey there, Knightley.”

  “Hello, Emma Lee.” His gaze moves down my Draper James fit and flare LBD to my red-soled Louboutins and his lips curve in a smile. “Don’t you look amazing.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, flipping my hair off my shoulder. “Do I?”

  He chuckles, and I realize my response came off as confident, even coquettish, but I am not feeling confident or coquettish. I am feeling as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers. Knightley makes me feel all jumpy inside. Maybe that’s why I am nervous about making a good impression tonight.

  “You do.”

  “Thank you.”

  Now what do I do? Shake his hand? Pat him on the back? Slug his shoulder? Kiss his cheeks? Give him a big old squeeze? I just feel gawky and gangly and all out of sorts.

  “Right, then,” he says, clearing his throat. “If you’re ready? We should be going.”

  I grab my purse and a pashmina from the foyer table. Knightley lifts my Burberry from the hook behind the door and holds it out for me to slide my arms in the sleeves. It’s such a gentlemanly thing to do, such a gallant thing to do.

  I lock the front door and we walk side by side down the path. The night air is cold and damp. Knightley opens the passenger door and I climb inside, shivering at the lingering warmth, the ghostly scent of his woodsy cologne. He climbs into the driver’s seat and we are off, speeding down a dark, twisty country road.

  “I should warn you,” Knightley says, looking over at me. “Tonight might be something of a crush.”

  I look into his eyes and my heart skips a beat.

  “A crush?”

  “My mother has been talking about you for weeks. She invited most of the village, and they are all eager to meet the clever young American matchmaker. I expect it will be a rather taxing evening for you.”

  “Taxing is good.”

  “It is?”

  “Sure,” I say, smiling. “It’s always better to have a full dance card than an empty one.”

  “I don’t believe Emma Lee Maxwell has ever had an empty dance card.”

  My body feels warm all over, like Knightley turned all the vents toward me and dialed the car heater up to full blast. It’s a girlish response, I know, but I can’t help it. Knightley isn’t a silly boy, hanging out his window, catcalling as I walk by his fraternity. He’s a man.

  “You flatter me.”

  “Flattery, I am afraid, is not my forte.” He looks at me briefly before returning his gaze to the road. “I meant it sincerely. There’s something about you, Emma Lee, something charming and magnetic, something beyond your obvious physical beauty, that makes people want to be around you.”

  “Oh, pshaw.”

  He chuckles. “Pshaw?”

  “You just met me. How can you possibly know that?”

  We arrive at a crossroads and Knightley pulls to a stop.

  “Because,” he says, looking over at me. “I want to be around you and there aren’t many people I want to be around.”

  “Well, thank you,” I say, laughing. “That’s quite an endorsement.”

  “I’m curious,” he says, shifting the car into gear. “Have you always found it difficult to take a compliment?”

  “My daddy used to say, Never let a compliment go to your head or a criticism go to your heart.”

  “Sound advice, that.”

  An awkward silence stretches between us, and I regret not being more gracious, more receptive to Knightley’s compliment. I wish I could be more like Manderley. Nothing flusters my big sister. Manderley is cool, calm, and collected, like the actresses in those old movies she loves. She is like the sophisticated heroine in that Grace Kelly-Cary Grant movie, the one set in the French Riviera about the notorious jewel thief.

  The thing is, flirting is my forte. I am really good at it. Emma Lee Maxwell, you’re such a flirt! You can’t grow up in the South without learning how to bat your eyelashes and coo at a compliment. It’s easy to flirt with someone when you’re not interested in them—it’s just being ex-trafriendly to someone you find mildly attractive. Not that I find Knightley attractive.

  I mean, he is attractive, but I am not interested in him.

  Not in that way.

  Not in a flirty, eyelash-batting, compliment-cooing kinda way. Totally not interested in him in that way.

  Okay, so maybe I am a little interested in Knightley Nickerson. Why shouldn’t I be? His momma appointed herself my honorary surrogate mother, which means he is practically my brother. He probably sees me as a kid sister, too. A kid sister who needs to be picked up from school and shuttled to ballet practice.

  Then there is our age difference. Knightley is thirty-five years old. I turn twenty-five in November. I doubt Knightley Nickerson, the Oxford grad, the Saville-Row-suit-wearing, bigwig publisher would be interested in a recent Clemson grad who spent more time memorizing cheers than classic lit.

  What is wrong with me? If Maddie uttered such a pitiful self-assessment, I would say, You best hush your mouth and stop talking ugly about my friend. I would tell her she was beautiful and precious, and any man would be lucky to score a girl like her.

  Maybe I don’t want Knightley to be interested in me because I don’t want to be interested in him. I am nearly twenty-five, practically on the brink of spinsterhood, and I have never been in love. Not even once. By choice. I decided years ago that love was not for me. Not honor-and-obey, forsaking-all-others, till-death-do-us-part, forever-and-ever, amen love. I know what losing a love like that can do to a body. I grew up watching my daddy mourn the loss of his forever-and-ever, amen love. I don’t know what my daddy was like before he lost my momma, but I know what he was like after he lost her. Sad. A little broken, with jagged edges that never smoothed out, never repaired. Aching for something he could never have. Daddy loved life, but I sensed a sadness, a longing in him, even when he was laughing.

  I don’t ever want to feel that kind of sadness, that sort of longing. No, thank you. Even if that means I will not know the joy that comes with a deep, abiding, forever-and-ever, amen kinda love. I believe in hearts-and-flowers, deep-sigh love; I just don’t believe it is for me. That’s the dichotomy of Emma Lee. I see cupids fluttering over everyone’s head, but not my own.

  I suddenly realize I have been zoning out, staring at a place somewhere on the dark, distant horizon. I realize I have forgotten my good Southern manners.

  “It must be exciting to live and work in London,” I say, picking up the lost thread of conversation. “Do you miss it when you are here, in the Cotswolds?”

  “I would rather stay home, at Welldon Abbey, where it is quiet and cozy.” He turns off the road onto a gravel drive. “Here we are.”

  There are many adjectives one might use to describe Welldon Abbey, but cozy is not one of them. Lavish. Stately. Grand. These are the adjectives I would use to describe the early Georgian manor house at the end of the drive. With expansive parkland surrounding it, and the skeletal remains of a medieval abbey perched on a hill behind it, Welldon Abbey could have been a filming location for Pride and Prejudice.

  “This is your home?”

  Knightley smiles.

  “Welcome to Welldon Abbey, Emma Lee.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Emma Lee Maxwell’s Facebook Update:

  Did you know a low serotonin level is a symptom of OCD? When you fall in love with someone, your serotonin level drops. Guess that explains why you obsessively doodled a certain guy’s name on your notebooks freshman year, Madison Van Doren. It was the low serotonin levels!

  “You look particularly pretty tonight, Emma Lee,” Deidre says, turning to an elderly woman standing beside her. “I said Emma Lee looks particularly pretty tonight, Mother. Don’t you agree?”

  Mrs. Waites squints at me.

  “Particularly?” she snaps. �
�How would I know if she looks particularly pretty tonight? As we have only just met, I have nothing to compare.”

  Deidre’s face turns red, and I feel an immediate and overwhelming desire to say something to blunt her mother’s sharp retort.

  A tall, gangly man joins us. He has hollow cheeks and dark, deep-set eyes my literary sister would describe as penetrative.

  “Ah, but here is William,” Deidre says, smiling at the man hovering on the fringes of our conversation. “It’s William Curtis, Mother.” Deidre looks at me. “William is the proprietor of Curtis and Sons Apothecary, Emma Lee. If you get to feeling a bit peaky, he will sort you out. He’s also your neighbor.”

  “Hello, Mr. Curtis,” I say, holding out my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  He stares at my hand, his lips pressing together in a thin, firm line, and I remember Isabella telling me about his fear of germs. I pull my hand back and pretend to smooth my hair.

  “I was just saying Emma Lee looks pretty,” Deidre repeats. “Don’t you agree, William?”

  He fixes his dark gaze on my face.

  “You look lovely, Miss Maxwell, though I am worried about your rather liberal use of lipstick.”

  Mrs. Waites giggles.

  Knightley clears his throat.

  My cheeks flame with heat.

  “William!” Deidre gasps. “That was rude.”

  “Was it?” William’s brow furrows. “Forgive me, Miss Maxwell. My observation on your lipstick was meant as a caution, not a censure.”

  I wonder what danger the germophobe imagines exists in a tube of NARS Dragon Girl? Arsenic? Lead?

  “Caution?”

  “Carmine.”

  “Who is Carmine?”

  “Carmine, an ingredient found in most lipsticks, is a red dye extracted from female insects found in Central America.” William stares at my lips as he speaks. “Beetles, to be precise.”

  “Is carmine toxic?”