Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  I stared at him. “Daddy, how do you know that?”

  “I’ve lived with her for a long time.”

  Just then, Reggie came walking down the street. Reggie worked down at the docks and was my father’s only friend as far as I knew. He was my father’s age, give or take a few years, and wore a patch over his right eye. “Lost it in Vietnam,” my father told me once when I asked about it. There was just a peek of scarred skin not covered by the patch. It hurt me to look at it. I’d loved Reggie all my life.

  “Greetings, Harold.” He called my father Harold, instead of Harry, like everyone else. I don’t know why, but this amused me a great deal. Reggie tipped his hat without actually taking it off. I’d never seen him without his baseball hat. I didn’t even know if he had hair under there or not. “Princess, looking beautiful, as always.”

  “Thanks, Reggie.”

  “I hear you got yourself a new fancy job.”

  I grinned. “I did. Leaving after Louise’s wedding.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue rabbit’s foot. “This here’s my good luck charm. I want you to have it.”

  I held out my hand and he dropped it in my palm. The foot was clean but worn thin on one side. “Thanks, Reggie. But don’t you need it?”

  “Oh, heck, if I get any luckier I won’t know what to do with myself.” He pulled on the straps of his overalls and rocked back on his heels.

  “I’ll cherish it.” I fought back tears.

  “Oh, now, don’t you get all mushy on me, Princess. You know I’m a marshmallow inside and no one wants to see a one-eyed man cry.”

  “You want to stay for dinner, Reg?” My father always asked and Reggie always said no.

  Reggie shoved his hands in his overall pockets, glancing at the door as if my mother might come out at any moment. “Oh, no thanks, now. I wouldn’t want to bother your missus. Anyhow, I eat over at Murphy’s on Thursdays. All you can eat chili. The boys expect me down there, you know.”

  “The boys” were Reggie’s drinking buddies. Most of them worked at the docks with Reggie and my father. Once a year, on his birthday, my father went with him to Murphy’s. Other than that, my mother forbade drinking of any kind, at the bar or at home.

  After Reggie said his goodbyes, my father and I sat in silence for a few minutes. The rain started in earnest, making pitter-patter noises on the porch roof. When I stood to go inside, my father grabbed my hand. “You go make all those dreams come true, Sweets. Don’t give up on those books of yours. And when and if you’re ready to come home, I’ll be here.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.” My eyes filled and, embarrassed, I slipped inside.

  The next week I stood up for Louise as she married Tim Ball. The week after, I moved to Greeley, planning on never looking back, only forward. But I didn’t know then that life is arranged in a circle.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A PAIR OF FEET, suddenly in Sutton’s line of sight, pulled her out of her mother’s story. The feet, in expensive black pumps, were connected to well-developed calves. Gigi. She looked up. Gigi was next to her now, with a look of concern in her eyes. “You ready for wine?” Gigi held an open but full bottle of white wine in one hand and two glasses in the other.

  Sutton glanced over at Declan. He nodded. “Go. We can finish this later.”

  “What is this?” asked Gigi, pointing at the papers.

  “Just something my mother was working on. Her life story as far as we can tell. They think she was murdered, Gigi.”

  “I know, honey. Peter told me.”

  “He asked us to look in her desk for clues. And we found this.” Declan tapped the manuscript. “But so far it’s not telling us much.”

  “Dec, Louise was looking for you earlier,” said Gigi.

  Declan stood. “I’ll go find her. You two should take a walk.” His eyes were soft as he offered his hand to Sutton. She took it as he pulled her to her feet. “It’ll help clear your head a bit.”

  Sutton glanced at the manuscript, wanting only to read further.

  Declan shook his head. “It’ll be there when you get back. We’ll read more tonight. Come on now.”

  “Fine. Can we go to our spot?” Sutton asked Gigi.

  “Is it still the same?” asked Gigi.

  “I never go there anymore.”

  “Why?” asked Declan, his gaze on the floor.

  “Too many memories,” Sutton answered.

  They were all silent for a moment. Gigi put the bottle of wine on the table and reached down and pulled off her pumps, setting them next to the sofa. “Take off your shoes too. It’s warm enough to go barefoot.”

  Sutton slipped out of her sandals, setting them next to Gigi’s, and grabbed one of the beach blankets her mother kept in the chest near the French doors. “Bring the wine.” But she needn’t have bothered; it was already tucked into the crook of Gigi’s arm.

  They walked in silence to their favorite spot, a little alcove behind a large rock no more than an eighth of a mile down the sandy beach. During low tide, like now, it had been the perfect hidden spot during their youth in which to confide their secrets after school or on a lazy weekend afternoon.

  Gigi poured them both a glass of wine and, after handing one to Sutton, leaned against the grassy cliff and put her feet on the rock, stretching out on the sand.

  “I told Roger I needed a little time to think things over.” Sutton held up her bare hand. “I gave him back the ring.”

  “Wow. Really?”

  “I started feeling uncertain in France.”

  Gigi nodded. “I don’t really know him, obviously, but you seem like an odd match. Not like you and Declan.”

  She made a “D” in the sand with her index finger. “I waited so long for Declan to come home and he just never did.”

  “So this isn’t about Declan?”

  “What? No, of course not.” She covered the “D” over with the back of her hand.

  “Well, seriously, Sutton, you need to think long and hard. The most important decision you ever make is who you marry.”

  She glanced up at Gigi. “You’re the second person who’s said that to me today.”

  “Well the guy won’t dance. I don’t think you should marry someone who won’t dance with you. That’s just wrong on so many levels.” Gigi reached up and took out the clip that kept her glossy brown hair tamed into a bun. It fell around her shoulders. Then she slipped out of her suit jacket and pointed her face toward the sun. “I clearly need to move home and get back to incessantly telling you what to do and not do.”

  Sutton smiled. “How long can you stay?”

  “A while, actually. For an extended period, let’s call it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, I was fired, for one thing.”

  “Fired? You? Impossible.”

  Gigi drank the rest of her wine and reached for the bottle. “Drink up, I’m way ahead of you.”

  Sutton obeyed, eyeing her friend over the glass. “Tell me what you did to get fired.”

  “Technically it was a layoff. They gave me a large severance package in exchange for my signature of silence and that I won’t sue them.”

  “Should you sue them?”

  “Someone should but it’s not going to be me,” said Gigi. “I need to go back to Florida at some point and pack up my things but I’ve decided I won’t be going back to live there. It’s terrible. I told you people just disappear and are never heard from again.”

  “You’re exaggerating. You’ve always been a complete embellisher.”

  Gigi laughed. “Maybe so but in this case, it’s the truth.”

  They drank in silence for a moment. A seagull landed ten or so feet away from them and hovered, staring at them with one eye. Another flew slightly above, crying out with a terrible screech. “They think we have crackers,” said Gigi. “Shoot, I’ve missed this place.”

  “But you always wanted to get out. You and Declan. Both of you wanted to travel the world.”


  “Peter too. You were the only one who ever said you wanted to live here the rest of your life. You were always the smartest of all of us.”

  “What are you talking about? I was the only one who ever struggled at all in school. For the rest of you school was like breathing.”

  “School wasn’t your thing. So what? Doesn’t mean you weren’t smart. Your mother knew that.”

  It was true. “I was grateful to my mother for not pushing me to be like everyone else. She didn’t blink when I told her I wanted to drop out of college and go to pastry school instead.” She hesitated, running her finger around the rim of her glass. “I should say, she didn’t blink when I finally confessed I was flunking out of college and wanted to become a pastry chef. It was the hardest thing I ever had to tell her.”

  They sat, drinking in silence for a few moments. After a time, Gigi looked over at her. “You know I couldn’t have gone to college if she hadn’t helped me. Don’t think I’ll ever forget it.” Gigi had received a partial scholarship to several universities, including her first choice, Duke, but she couldn’t have attended without Constance stepping in to pay the difference. “This is why I said yes to Hollywood,” her mother told Sutton as she wrote the first check for tuition. “At least we can spend it on something that matters.”

  “You going to see your mother while you’re here?” asked Sutton quietly.

  “Hell no. I don’t need that kind of misery. I’m barely hanging on as it is.”

  Sutton rested her head on Gigi’s shoulder. “Did you find what you were looking for between now and then? I mean, out there in the world.”

  Gigi took another swig of her wine. “Not really. I tried. I’ve been running hard as I can for twelve years now. First with college, then graduate school, and then at this awful job. I guess I figured if I kept up a pace that didn’t allow me to think, it might help. But turns out I’m as messed up as ever.”

  “Are you in trouble, Gigi?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll explain later. It’s nothing to worry your pretty head over. Suffice it to say, I’m here now for as long as you want me.” She swirled the remaining wine around in the glass. “I’m going to need a place to stay.”

  “Of course. Stay as long as you want. Either here or at my place in town.”

  “I’ll stay at your house. You know, since Declan’s staying here.” Gigi touched the wine bottle with her big toe. “May as well finish it off before we go back.”

  Sutton poured the rest of the bottle into their glasses. “I’m kind of drunk.”

  “You never could hold your liquor.”

  Laughing, Sutton took another sip. “The first time I ever slept with Declan was after some wine, right here in this little cove.” She patted the sand. “Most romantic night of my life.”

  “Do you ever think of him? I mean, after all these years, or was that just a youthful indiscretion?”

  “Who talks like you?” Sutton giggled. “You’re such a show off.”

  “I am a show off. My therapist says it’s to compensate for the lack of affection from my cold mother. And that I was such an ugly kid.”

  Sutton sobered. “You’re not really a show off, Gigi. I was just teasing you. And you were always beautiful to me.”

  “I know. But I am a bit of a show off. It’s because my brain is all I’ve ever had. Remember how the mean girls used to call us beauty and the beast in high school?”

  “I hated them.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Sutton played with sand, scooping it with her empty hand into a mound next to her thigh and then poking a hole in the top. “I think of Declan every day. Every single damn day.” She squashed the mound with the palm of her hand. “I really wish I didn’t, but I do.”

  “Well, it’s never too late.”

  “It’s not meant to be, that’s all.”

  “I hate that bullshit answer. What does that even mean? If you want something you should go get it.”

  “I’m not like you, Gigi. I never was. I’m always uncertain of everything. I question everything, every decision, looking at everything three ways of Sunday, as my mother used to say. I’m always afraid.”

  Gigi tapped the side of Sutton’s head with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, Goose, I should be more like you. I’m too sure of everything all the time, which is obnoxious and counter-intuitive to progress at times. Maybe if I was more like you I wouldn’t have so many problems.”

  “My mother wanted the whole gang to meet later for darts and dancing. She put it in the letter. She was so weird.” She started to cry.

  “That sounds pretty great, actually.” Gigi’s eyes filled. “I’ll miss her, Sutton.”

  They proceeded to drink the rest of the wine, reminiscing over stories of her mother and laughing until tears streamed from their eyes. After the wine was gone and their tongues tired, the two of them, arm in arm, headed back across the sand to the house. Declan was on the patio, sitting on one of the reclining chairs, with a beer resting between his thighs. “Hey girls,” he said. “Everyone’s gone, finally. Except for the caterers. They say they need to see you, Gigi.”

  “All right. I’ll see you in the basement in a few.”

  Sutton plopped into the chair next to him. “I’m a little tipsy.”

  “Gigi was always good at that.”

  “It’s so true. I’m the innocent victim here.”

  “She tell you she’s staying for a while?”

  “Yeah. But she’s evasive about why exactly.”

  “Something bad went down, that’s all I know.”

  Sutton put her left hand on the arm of Declan’s chair. “Roger left.”

  He brushed his index finger against the spot where the ring had been. “You gave the ring back?”

  “I told him I needed some time to think.” She looked around the patio. “Is there any more wine?”

  He rested his cheek in his hand like he so often did, looking at her. That gesture hadn’t changed. “How about some food?”

  She hiccupped. “Yeah, probably would be a good idea. In just a minute.” She put her head on his shoulder. It was wide and strong. She felt his muscle flex slightly under her cheek. “My mother told me not to marry him. It was the last thing she told me, basically, in this weird letter she sent me. I guess she wrote one every year just in case she died.”

  “Well, that’s not so weird. Think about how many people in her life had died unexpectedly.”

  “Yeah, and now her. Do you think I’ll be next, Dec?”

  He slipped his arm around the back of her neck and then down around her shoulders. “Don’t think like that.” Kissing her temple, he squeezed her tighter. “I want you to stay here at the house, though. Just to be safe.”

  “What do you mean? Safe?”

  “Peter suggested it. Just in case. You know.”

  Despite her buzz, the understanding of what he meant came inside her like a dark string of smoke, slow and insidious. “I’m scared, Dec, and pissed off that I have to be scared when all I should be is sad. Does that make sense?”

  “It does. I’ll keep you close until Peter gets this thing figured out.”

  “Close sounds nice.” She hiccupped again. “Gigi says I should go for what I want.”

  “What do you want?” His voice was empty of inflection, as if he were waiting on something important.

  “Nachos.”

  He shifted to look at her. “I’ll make them for you. Or anything you want.”

  “Why are nachos so good?”

  He smiled. “I don’t know.”

  She shifted to look in his eyes. “I saw the color of your eyes when I went to New York with my mother. We spent a week there last December. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I always wonder what you know of my life.”

  “Constance often mentioned you in her letters.”

  “So, a lot.”

  “Yes.�
��

  “Your eyes are the color of the sky in the Starry Night painting. You can’t tell that by just looking at a print. You have to see the real thing. I suppose you’ve seen it?”

  “I have.”

  “You’ve been all over the world, just like you said you would. You were always too big for me.” Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, hot and salty. There was a tissue in her dress pocket but she was too tired to search for it. She closed her eyes.

  Declan moved his arm from her shoulders. It was cold without him. But then he was close again. She smelled his breath, sweet, with a hint of beer. She opened her eyes and ran into the Van Gogh blue watching her. He dabbed with his thumbs at the tears that seemed frozen on her cheeks; his thumbs were absorbent, better than a tissue. He leaned closer and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go inside and get some food in your stomach. I can read you a little more of the manuscript while you eat. Okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay. Then we get to tell the gang about their inheritance. That’s going to be really fun.”

  “Yes, it is.” He offered his hand. She took it.

  A half-hour later, in a now empty house but for the three of them, Sutton ate a small plate of some kind of green chili casserole and drank two large glasses of water, which seemed to rid her of the pesky hiccups, while Declan read.

  GREELEY

  Greeley was a small town, not as small as Legley Bay, and charming and quaint instead of damp and gray, with fruit stands and dairy farms and vibrant trees, which were as spectacular as legend suggests. But the people of Greeley were familiar to me, very much like those in my own hometown. Oregon people were independent and stubborn, some might say eccentric, especially those who were born and raised in the fishing communities of the coast and the timber communities inland. They didn’t like to be told what to do. Strangely, Vermont was very much the same and so I fell into life there with relative ease, knowing immediately the tone and voice that would appeal to the local audience in my newspaper column.