“Certainly odd mistakes to make for someone claiming a PhD!” Rose said.
“PhD! Hah! Maybe a doctorate in faking it,” Laverne said, with a snort of derision. “She was never actually clear about what discipline the PhD was for, or where it was from.”
“Why don’t you run to replace her next year, Faye Alice?” Jemima asked.
“And have to work with that letch Walter Sommer? I don’t think so.”
“I think we would be safe from him at our age, dear,” Jemima said, suppressing a smile.
Laverne said, “Some men don’t care about a woman’s age. They just can’t help but try to lure the female of the species!”
Rose chuckled. “Speaking of age, is Zunia Pettigrew really thirty-eight?”
“No, you had it right,” Jemima said. “I know for a fact she is fifty-one, the same age as my eldest, Lesley. They were sorority sisters. When my Lesley heard the name Zunia, she knew just who I meant. How many folks have that name, after all? Said Zunia was always spiteful and not too bright. Constantly has plans and plots, but they never work out.”
* * *
While the crowd babbled, Thelma worked her way laboriously around the room, sitting down in a chair every once in a while to rest her feet. She had been sitting with the other Silver Spouts but had tottered away, working herself up into a righteous snit. Rose was doing her usual thing, gathering a group of folks who all hung on her every word and doted all over her. How she did it, Thelma would never know. She wasn’t that fascinating! But Harold Freemont, the best beau at the Gracious Grove Methodist Church picnic, sure thought so sixty-some-odd years ago and didn’t give Thelma another look once he saw Rose Beaudry, as she was then.
However . . . forgive and forget, Thelma repeated to herself like one of those man trees the young folks were always babbling about. Man tiaras. Man-whatevers. She hobbled through the room and listened in on a conversation among the group that called themselves the Tea Totalers. Dumb name. Did they even know what a teetotaler was? Nothing whatever to do with tea. With a low groan for her poor old feet, she sank into a chair near the table.
“Well, I say bravo to Rose Freemont for standing up to Zunia,” a thick-waisted middle-aged woman exclaimed. “If even one of us had the guts to do that last year, we wouldn’t be stuck with her as division president now.”
Thelma made eye contact with the speaker, and winked. “Zunia Pettigrew better watch out, you know,” she said, with a knowing nod. “That Rose Freemont, she’s a dangerous one. I’ve known her for over sixty years. Looks like a fluffy old lady, but tell that to the woman who died at her tearoom!” She clapped her mouth shut. She hadn’t meant to lie, but it was out before she thought twice. In fact, she had promised Cissy she wouldn’t lie anymore—the woman had died in her tearoom in May, not Rose’s, after all—but old habits die hard. She was so used to trying to sink Rose’s business it just slipped out, even though she had vowed to stop.
Six pairs of eyes widened; various painted-on or natural eyebrows rose. The speaker grabbed her sleeve and tugged her to sit closer, pushing out a chair so Thelma could shift over more easily. “Do tell! It sounds simply fascinating. I heard about a murder in a tearoom in Gracious Grove.”
All six women watched her and awaited her next words. She should correct the impression she had given, but, drunk with the interest of so many at once, she couldn’t help but go on. “Oh, I could tell you a thing or two about Rose Freemont,” she said, dropping another wink, like she had a fluttering eye problem. “Still waters run deep, you know!”
* * *
Across the tearoom Rose and Laverne were soon alone at the table; Josh was off talking to one of the young bus staff, SuLinn was still chatting with Rhiannon Galway, and Horace and Malcolm had gone to their room next to the conference room, after which they were going to take a walk—their daily constitutional, as they called it. Laverne yawned. “I am tired!” she said. “You wouldn’t think this would be more wearing than working all day at the tea house, but it is.”
“I suppose you get used to the work, but this is something different.” Rose glanced around, uneasy. “Laverne, I’m getting an odd feeling.”
“Not your heart, is it? Angina? Indigestion?”
“No, nothing like that. I mean, look around. Folks are staring. And whispering. What’s going on?”
Laverne scanned the gathering. “You’re right. Something is going on, and I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
Uneasily they both glanced around the room, alone in a sea of chattering folks.
Some were just plain busy with other mundane things. Orlando Pettigrew was swallowing a couple of tablets while arguing with his daughter, Emma, who had her arms crossed over her chest and her lip jutted out almost as much as her hip. Zunia stormed over to them and began to argue, too, gesticulating and waving her arms around, but Orlando just took out a kerchief and blew his nose. Pastor Frank was now sitting alone with Penelope Daley; he cast anguished glances toward Zunia, while Penelope earnestly talked at him, plucking his shirtsleeve and patting his hand to get his attention.
But the other collector groups were clustered together in one knot, and in the center was Thelma Mae Earnshaw. Rose got a troubled feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Chapter 3
“What do you think Thelma is up to?” Rose asked her friend.
They watched the gazes cast toward them. When the other convention goers saw Rose and Laverne watching, they bent their heads back toward Thelma.
“I can’t imagine,” Laverne said. “That’s the scary part. I just can’t imagine. With Thelma it’s always something unexpected. That time she posted the notice in the Gazette that we were closed for renovations . . . Who would have expected that? Or the time she managed to imply that we had an E. coli scare.”
“Thelma’s problem has always been that she is impulsive. She was that way as a girl, and it never got better. But she’s promised to behave,” Rose said. Should she march over and find out? Rose wondered. That was ridiculous; she knew these people and Thelma didn’t. Surely nothing her irascible old friend said would be taken seriously. She sighed wearily; at any rate, she’d handle it tomorrow.
Over the last two months it hadn’t been easy bringing Thelma into the Silver Spouts, Rose reflected, and there wasn’t consensus when she proposed it. Two of their friends, Helen and Annabelle, were sitting out this year’s convention because Rose had invited Thelma to attend. Annabelle, in particular, found her upsetting; Thelma needled her constantly about her two late husbands, calling her the Black Widow and making insinuating remarks.
It had been too late to uninvite her at that point, and Rose regretted that her two old friends had stayed home. She didn’t quite know how to handle the trouble with Thelma yet, but would soon have to figure out what to do. She wouldn’t let her go on sowing dissension in the Silver Spouts, and she was afraid that might mean pitching her out of the group. “I think I need to go lie down,” Rose said.
“Do you want me to go over there and find out what’s going on?” Laverne asked, her striking face set in an expression of concern mingled with anger. Though they were as different in appearance as any two women could be—Laverne was tall, robust, dark-skinned and still dark-haired while Rose was short, round, pale and white-haired—they were similar in the ways that mattered. Both were hardworking, with a strong moral outlook, loved their families and were as close as the sisters neither of them had.
“No, Laverne, let it go,” Rose said, putting her hand on her friend’s arm. “Whatever it is, we can handle it tomorrow. Patience. Do you have the room key?”
“I do.” Laverne handed it over, a thick brass key on a numbered key tag. No newfangled key cards for the historic Stone and Scone Inn! “You go ahead and take the elevator and I’ll meet you up there. I’m taking the stairs.” Laverne climbed the stairs whenever she could, and claimed it was that same dedic
ation to physical exertion that kept her daddy still relatively hale and hearty well into his centenary decade.
Rose grabbed her handbag, picked up her teapot, and they left the tearoom. The staircase was to the right of the check-in desk. Laverne headed to the stairs while Rose started toward the elevator, which was on the other side of the desk. A door slammed and the inn’s owner charged out from behind the check-in counter and crashed into Rose. Her teapot went flying and hit the floor, bouncing and rolling several feet.
“Oh my gosh, ma’am, I’m so sorry!” Bertie Handler, a short, fussy, fidgety man, raced after the errant teapot. He picked it up and rushed back to Rose. Laverne, who had paused to see if Rose needed help, started up the stairs as Bertie thrust the pot into Rose’s arms. “But it’s dented!” he mourned, touching the dimple with one finger.
“Don’t you worry about that,” Rose said, catching her breath. “It already had that dent in it.” At least she hoped it was the same one. Despite Zunia’s disparaging comments, she was still convinced the teapot was old and worth money; a new dent wouldn’t help its value. Although she had never been one to collect teapots because they were worth a lot, but because she liked them. This one gave her a sense of serenity when she held it, like it had poured a million cups of tea—or holy water—and heard a million prayers.
She put one hand on the inn owner’s arm and examined him with concern. She had known Bertie for a long time, but this year he seemed excessively nervous and looked like he was aging rapidly, his sparse hair changing from the sandy brown it had always been to gray. His pocked face was ashen, like he needed sunshine or iron pills. “You need to slow down, Bertie. Take it easier!”
He shuffled and shook his head. “No, ma’am, Mrs. Freemont, I can’t slow down. This is my best weekend of the year, when the tea convention is in town, and I need to make sure everything’s okay. Some people want to move the convention to Buffalo or Rochester! Or even Syracuse.” He sniffed. “Syracuse! I can’t afford to lose this. It would be that straw . . . you know, the one that broke the camel’s back.”
“Who’s talking about moving the convention?” Rose asked, alarmed, as the elevator dinged. She ignored the opening doors, which closed again as it remained riderless. She was sorry to hear someone was agitating to move the convention. It would certainly not be as convenient for her group to come to the convention if it was moved from Butterhill.
“Who? Well, you know I’ve always been friends with—”
“Mr. Handler, I’m done for the day.” A young woman in jeans and a tank top strode up to him and handed him a key. She shifted a shoulder bag over her body and lifted her long hair, twisting it into a bun and fastening it with a clip. “Brittany was supposed to come in today at three, but she hasn’t shown up yet. Again. Do you still want me early tomorrow?”
“Melissa! Thank goodness,” he cried, clasping the key in his palm. “I’m so glad I caught you before you left. I’ll need you extra-early tomorrow, and if you could get that friend of yours who helped you clean rooms last summer—what was her name?—I’d appreciate it.”
“She doesn’t work anymore. She hurt her back and is on disability. If you want to replace Brittany, I’m on board. I could look around for you, if you like.”
“Oh, I don’t know . . .” He paused, and looked at Rose. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Freemont, I have to talk to Melissa about the schedule.”
Just that moment a rumble of thunder echoed through the old inn, shaking the walls slightly. “Sounds like we’re in for a summer storm,” Rose commented, looking out the front glass doors. The day had gone from sunny to dark.
“I hope not,” he said, his tone fervent. He listened for a moment as thunder rumbled long and low, like cannon fire, his gray eyes wide, his mouth twitching. Trembling, he took the girl’s arm—the chambermaid having handed in her master room key for the night, Rose assumed—and tugged her back past the check-in counter and into the office as he babbled about Brittany, and getting someone new, and what he could do.
Rose, feeling even more weary after noting the inn owner’s tension and jitteriness, headed to the elevator and stepped in as thunder rumbled through the old inn again. She rode up the single floor and stepped off to head to her room. She was getting older, no doubt about it, and the first sign was that she needed a nap before dinner.
* * *
Sophie Freemont Taylor sank into a chair and curled her toes inside her sensible waitress-type shoes. It had been years since she had served tables, and running both the kitchen and taking care of the customers without the aid of Nana and Laverne had been a challenge. Luckily Dana Saunders was helping her out at Auntie Rose’s Victorian Tea House on a day off from working at their friend Cissy’s store, Peterson Books ’n Stuff.
Dana locked up behind the last customer. “Whew!” she said, leaning back, resting her head against the door and looking up at the ceiling. “That was a day! I’ll have to go back to work at the bookstore just for a rest. How does your grandmother do it?”
“You would not believe those two,” Sophie said, with a weary laugh. “She and Laverne are like a well-oiled machine, working in tandem. Couple of workhorses for a seventy- and eighty-year-old.”
Dana, gorgeous as always in turquoise walking shorts and a crisp white blouse, with turquoise-and-silver earrings dangling from her ears, crossed the floor and sank into a chair next to Sophie. She put her white-sandaled feet up on another chair, a no-no in a restaurant, but Sophie didn’t have the heart to correct her after her friend had been so helpful.
“Who all did we have, anyway?” Dana asked. “Among the groups, I mean.”
On her fingers, Sophie counted them off. “Okay, so we had a lot of drop-ins and some smaller groups, like the Gracious Grove Businesswomen’s Association, for late lunch. But not counting them we had, let’s see . . . three bus tours, a Sweet Sixteen tea party and a Little Princess birthday party.”
Dana groaned and shaded her eyes with one hand and flapped the other, languidly. “Don’t remind me. Ten little girls on a sugar high with only two moms to wrangle them!”
Sophie chuckled. “The worst part was when they got the bright idea to storm the gift nook and a couple tried to eat the maple sugar candles!” She sighed. “I worried about Nana’s teapot collection mostly,” she said, eyeing the shelves that lined the walls and the sideboards and bureaus that held a collection of figural, silver, chintz and antique teapots, many valuable.
“The moms were good about keeping the kids from touching them, anyway,” Dana said.
“I guess. After a day like this I wonder, did I do the right thing moving back here? Nana’s come to rely on me, and how will I ever leave and go back to NYC?”
“You worry more than anybody I know. Stop! Give it some time. Just enjoy for a while. Everyone is so pleased with what you’ve done here . . . spiffing up the menu, trying fresh new ideas. And they’re glad your grandmother and Laverne have help. It’s really going well.”
“Except when ten six-year-olds rampage and demand cupcakes. Only cupcakes! Nothing but freaking cupcakes.” She sighed. Vanilla cupcakes were all well and good, but a chef did like a bit more of a challenge.
“Those rug rats sure were cute, though,” Dana said, with a wistful tone. “I liked the littlest one, the brown-haired girl with the fairy wings and a tiara set in her curls.”
“She was a doll. Do you want kids?” Sophie asked, curious about the woman she had barely known when they were in their teens. Dana had admitted being jealous of Sophie’s privileged upbringing back then, and that explained why she had remained aloof, while Dana’s best friend, Cissy Peterson, had gone out of her way to be friends with Sophie. The sad thing was, Sophie would have traded places with Dana in a heartbeat because Gracious Grove, with her grandmother, was more of a home to her than any of the places her mother and father lived, whether it was the New York condo, the Palm Beach condo or the Hamptons “cott
age.” Sophie had wanted to stay with her grandmother and go to high school in town with her friends, but was always dragged back to boarding school.
“Doesn’t everyone want children?” Dana asked, turning to examine Sophie. “Haven’t you ever thought about it?”
“I guess I’ve been too busy.” Culinary school and a double degree in cooking and hospitality management had kept her on the go. Then several jobs at once, catering, cooking, managing, and finally her own restaurant, In Fashion, which had consumed her from then on. She had found investors easily because of her family ties, she supposed, but nonetheless, those fellows had turned tail and run last winter when the going got tough, and by March they were bankrupt and shut down. All the restaurant had needed was some tweaking, shifts in direction, something she was confident she could undertake, but no, they pulled their support and took the loss, preferring to use it as a tax benefit.
“Someday, maybe,” she finally added, trying to imagine Jason Murphy and herself as the parents of a brood. It was weird to think of him in that light, since she was just getting reacquainted with her long-ago teenage boyfriend.
“Well, start thinking. We are none of us getting any younger!”
“I just turned thirty!” Sophie protested.
“And neither you nor your eggs will ever be in their twenties again.”
Sophie chuckled and shook her head, then heaved herself to her feet. “You go on home, Dana; you have to work at the bookstore tomorrow. I’ll clean up here.”
“No way. I told you I’d help and I will. Where do we start?”
They both looked at the wreckage that was once a tidy and pretty tearoom and laughed. “Anywhere!” Sophie said.
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