Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  “Sure,” she answered, taking a sip of her own drink and leaning on her elbows again.

  “Keeping my dad’s house. Because now that my life’s falling apart, I have someplace to go.” He lifted his glass and gestured at me with it in a sort of toast. “That, Oregon, has kept me from falling into the abyss.” Squinting his eyes, he gazed at me for a long moment. “Wait a minute. Are you the columnist for the paper here? I recognize you now from your byline photo.”

  I nodded, still too stunned and shy to speak.

  At that moment, Frank called to Doris from the back. She made her apologies and promised to return in a moment. I barely noticed her departure.

  Patrick Waters turned his full attention on me like I was a painting in a museum. “Scrutinized” was the word floating around in my head. “I enjoy your column. You’ve got chops.”

  “Chops?”

  “You can write.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “Thank you,” I managed.

  “First time I read it, I thought, wait a minute now, where did John find this girl?”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “There’s substance to it, which is unexpected. And heart. Can’t fake that.” He lifted his glass, gesturing at me with it once again. “What’re you doing here? You should be working at one of the big papers. Maybe afford something to eat instead of living on Doris’s crackers and coffee.”

  “I do fine.” I moved my hand over the plastic saltine cracker wrapper.

  “Come on now. A waist the size of the span of my hands, a face so thin you could rest a golf ball under your cheekbones. When was the last time you felt full?”

  I stared at him. How did he know all this? “Not often. My mother was a terrible cook. And now, whenever Doris takes pity on me and gives me a free burger.”

  He smacked the counter with his empty hand. “There you go. You’re hungry. And ambitious, I can see that. So what the hell are you doing here?”

  “I can think here. I find cities to be counter to clear thought. Plus, it gives me time to do other things.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  I smiled. “Never mind that.”

  He smiled back at me. “Let me guess. You’ve a novel in a drawer?”

  I flushed, feeling ridiculous. “Yes, actually. And two others not yet ready for the drawer.”

  “Three? Jesus, do you do anything else but write? You can’t be more than twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-four.” I lifted my chin. Damn him for making me feel stupid. “And I have no intention of hitting you up for anything, if that’s what you think.” I flushed deeper, feeling the perspiration start under my armpits.

  “You going to write about me in your column?”

  I looked at him, surprised. “Why would I do that?”

  “New York editor drunk at 4:30 in the afternoon, confessing to the utter despair of his life.”

  “No, sir, I usually just write about happy things in my column.” I put down my pen, which I had only just realized I’d been holding tight in my left hand for the entire time he’d been in the diner. “Or, simple things, anyway. Nothing about you appears simple.”

  He shook his head, taking another sip of his drink. “That’s where you’re wrong, Oregon. I’m as simple as they come. That’s the trouble. I’m an uncomplicated man in a complicated life.”

  “That’s interesting.” I felt myself softening toward him, felt something like compassion, or was it familiarity?

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’m a complicated woman in an uncomplicated life.”

  “Well, that’s a good combination. Do you know that?”

  I turned toward him. “I do, actually. It makes you a writer.”

  He toasted me and finished the rest of his whiskey. “Amen, to that, Oregon.” Setting his now empty glass on the counter, he gestured at the door. “Come on, let me buy you a decent meal. You can pitch me your novels.” He stood. “Suddenly I don’t feel like getting drunk after all.”

  I asked myself all the questions one might imagine in this situation. What are you doing, accepting dinner from a married man? An unhappily married man, no less? It was all so trite and ripe with nothing but disaster. There was no way for it to end well. But there was something about Patrick Waters I couldn’t say no to. I’ve questioned it, again and again, all these years later. Was it just that I wanted to pitch my books to him? And the answer is no. In that moment, as I walked out of Doris’s diner, catching a whiff of his spicy aftershave and leather jacket, I barely remembered the manuscript gathering dust in the drawer of my rickety desk in my stark room above the barn.

  I thought of nothing but him. From that moment on, it was always just Patrick.

  ***

  He took me to the nicest restaurant in Greeley, a little bistro at the end of town that had recently changed ownership. I’d written a column about the young couple from Boston who had saved their pennies for ten years to make a down payment on this small-town restaurant. As we walked in, I glanced up at Patrick. “I forgot. I was last full here. I wrote a piece on the new owners and they thanked me with a meal.”

  “Ah, so you’re a local celebrity. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  I laughed. We stood by the hostess platform, waiting to be seated. It was a Friday night but the restaurant was only half full. “Not exactly. Plus, practically this whole town knows who you are, according to Doris.”

  “Did you?”

  I shook my head. “No. John told me he was going to ask you to take a look at my manuscript. He was appalled I didn’t know who you are.”

  He chuckled as Becky, one of the owners, came toward us, holding menus. “So I knew who you were and you had no idea who I was. I like it,” he said.

  Becky greeted me warmly. To Patrick, she said, “Welcome back. Where’s your lovely wife tonight?”

  “New York.” He said it flat, matter-of-fact.

  Becky’s gaze darted to me and I swear there was a friendly warning from her clear brown eyes. She took us to a table in the back. Several people nodded to us as we came through. Others stared at us like we were some kind of oddity.

  Patrick held my chair until I was settled and asked Becky to bring us a bottle of Bordeaux.

  “I thought you weren’t getting drunk tonight?” I asked it lightly but already I felt protective of him.

  He smiled, leaning back in his chair, his green eyes glittering under the soft lights of the restaurant. “I’ll sip slowly.”

  “I’m more a beer girl.” Something about him made me want to argue.

  “No. You’re a red wine drinker. All the complicated, smart girls are.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m a beer girl. I’m from Oregon.”

  “They don’t have wine in Oregon?”

  “Well, no, not really.” Now I was flustered. “Well, they do, I guess, but where I’m from no one drinks it. Only beer and whiskey.”

  “Tonight’s the beginning of your wine-drinking days.”

  I smirked at him, pretending to be scandalized when really I wanted to laugh. “You’re extremely bossy.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  He looked up as Becky approached with the wine. We were silent as she opened it and poured a small amount in Patrick’s glass. He swirled and sniffed with his nose deep in the glass before taking a bit in his mouth. “Great.” He pointed at the menu, his voice soft, indulgent. “Order anything you want. I mean it.”

  “Steak dinner,” I said, my mouth watering.

  “Make that two,” he said to Becky. “I like mine rare, practically mooing.”

  “Medium for me, please.”

  After asking us if we wanted baked or mashed potatoes, and what kind of dressing on our dinner salads, Becky finally left us alone. Patrick turned his gaze back to me.

  “This is turning out to be an odd day,” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I just wouldn’t have predicted meeting you and having dinner with y
ou and, well, you know, talking like this.”

  “Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt like you knew them better than is actually possible? There’s something both mysterious and familiar between you, as if you’d known one another in a previous life or another dimension? Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes.” I looked at my placemat, embarrassed and feeling completely exposed.

  “Tell me you feel it too.” He chuckled and lifted his glass. “Otherwise I look like a fool.”

  I laughed, suddenly comfortable again. “I feel it too.”

  “Thank you. I’m better now. And thank you for coming to dinner with me. I promise to be a perfect gentleman.” He picked up his glass and gestured for me to do the same. “A toast to you. Thank you for saving me from a terrible hangover tomorrow.”

  “You’re welcome.” I took a sip of my wine. It was wonderful. Later, I would learn to describe it as dry and full-bodied—just one of the many things Patrick taught me.

  Over the salad, he asked, “What do you want for your career?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll laugh and I can’t bear for you to think I’m ridiculous.”

  “I won’t laugh.” He put his hand over his heart. “I promise.”

  “I want to be a bestselling novelist.”

  Without a hint of mockery, he asked, “Why would I think that’s ridiculous?”

  I flushed. Flushing appeared to be a hazard when I was with Patrick. “Well, you must hear it a thousand times a day. I mean, in your profession.”

  “Not a thousand. But some. Although, in general, I believe people, not just writers but those in all professions, aim too low, making excuses or apologies about their talent or the validity of their dream. The truth is someone has to be a bestselling novelist. Why shouldn’t it be you? And the most important thing is to know what you want and declare it without fear or embarrassment. One can accomplish the impossible. It happens every day. But you must know what the impossible is first. You, Oregon, appear to know this already. That fact will make all the difference.”

  I ducked my head as my eyes filled with stinging tears. I was a cactus in those days, needing little water to survive. I’d grown up with a mother stingy with compliments and affection and my father was so reserved I’d learned to expect little encouragement from outside sources. I was a self-sustaining force but to hear actual encouragement felt emotionally overwhelming.

  The most important thing is to know what you want. These words echoed in my mind for the next thirty years. I taught them to Sutton. I lived them. They changed my life. In the months to come I learned that one of Patrick’s many gifts was condensing what seemed impossibly complex into something exquisitely simple.

  But tonight I did not know how those words would affect all the decisions, all the lucky blessings that befell me later. No, tonight I knew only Patrick and his glittering eyes and how much I wished I could take him home and make him mine.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and met his gaze across the table. The candlelight flickered between us, making shadows on the wall. Outside, the evening had grown dark. “It’s all I want. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since the moment I first read with a flashlight in my bed after everyone was asleep. Never a boy or an entrance to a club. Not even a friend. Nothing more than this. To write something that matters to someone else, that makes their journey in this messed up world a little easier. What could be better? The house with the white picket fence my mother wants for me? Absolutely not.”

  “What about love?” He pushed aside his now empty salad plate and tilted his head, resting his chin on his thumb. His long fingers were twined in his hair and I could think only of my own hand being there. What was the texture of his hair? What would his skin feel like beneath my fingers?

  “Romantic love, you mean?”

  “Yes. Romantic love. Why don’t you want to get married?”

  “Because happy marriages are only for a lucky few. Most of us marry the wrong person and live unhappily for most of our lives.”

  He grimaced. “You’re so cynical for being so young.”

  “You’re unhappy. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” He looked behind me, as if there were answers in the patterns of the wallpaper. “But I’m done. I’ve ended things. I stayed too long.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Yes. My father-in-law fired me when he found out I left his daughter.”

  “Will you find another publisher to work for? Surely you’re well known enough for that.”

  “My father-in-law will ensure that never happens.” He paused, shaking his head. “Sometimes I think all I want is to open a pie shop.”

  “A pie shop?”

  “I love pie.”

  “Everyone loves pie.” I smiled and touched his arm briefly. Our eyes locked. “I’m sorry, Patrick.”

  “Thank you.” He moved his finger over the flame of the candle, his eyes blank. “I’m a bit lost at the moment.” Withdrawing his hand from the flame, he picked up his water glass and shook it back and forth. The ice made a clanking sound. “Starting over is harder than it looks.”

  “But not impossible.”

  “Not impossible. It’s hard to imagine what other work I could do, really. But I couldn’t salvage any part of who I once was and stay in the marriage.”

  Our steaks came and we were both quiet for a few minutes as we cut into the juicy meat. I made an audible sound of pleasure at the first bite.

  “Aha. I knew you were starving,” he said, nodding his approval at the way I attacked the next piece.

  I looked up from my food, wiping the corners of my mouth with the cloth napkin. “I’m a little worried about the winter.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Feeling sheepish, I gave him a half-smile. “I’m getting around on a bicycle and this place I live in, well, let’s just say it’s not well-insulated. I’m afraid I won’t be able to type because my hands will be so cold. I do my best work in the early morning.”

  He laughed—a big laugh from deep in his chest.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Most girls would be concerned about freezing their asses off, not about whether or not they can type.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m worried about freezing too, although my mother knitted me the most God-awful, ugly sweater and hat from thick wool.”

  We talked of less emotional topics than his dead marriage through the rest of the main course. He told me of some of the famous authors he’d worked with, making me laugh with details of their antics and demands. “Writers are crazy for the most part, Oregon,” he said as I squealed with laugher about one of his romance authors, who wrote from her basement surrounded by her three cats (her children) and insisted he say hello to each of them before discussing edits. “Imagine her holding the damn phone next to some cat’s ear while I talk to them in my best baby talk voice. It’s completely ridiculous but the woman can crank out a bestselling romance between litter box changes every single time.”

  During dessert, he asked me to tell him about my manuscript.

  I took my time with the answer, knowing this might be the only chance I had to describe it to someone of his position and also wanting to be honest about what it truly was. “It’s commercial, a love story about real people, not one bit literary. John called it a ‘Girl Book,’ which I found mildly offensive, but it’s true.” I smiled, using my fork to spear a piece of baked potato. I held the fork in the air and then waved it at him like a wand. “I tried to write something about a girl like me living with her controlling mother who wants her to become a housewife and become as shabby and gray as the houses that line the street I grew up on. But, my God, it was all so bleak and depressing and I kept coming back to this—what do I love to read? Not that. It was Anne of Green Gables and Jo Marsh I loved, not Madame Bovary. Isn’t that awful?”

  He didn’t respond excep
t with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “So I set out to write a book like that, about family and love and all wrapped up in a happy bow at the end. Oh, you can’t imagine how I was mocked in writing group at college the first time I read one of my chapters out loud to them.”

  He grimaced. “Writing groups—the birth of many inner critics. That, and your parents’ voices.”

  I stared at him, amazed he understood. “Exactly.” I looked around the room, noticing suddenly that we were the only patrons left. Glancing at my watch, I was surprised to see it was almost eleven.

  Becky brought the bill shortly thereafter and thanked us for coming in for dinner. She didn’t make eye contact with either of us and there was a tight little pucker of disapproval to her mouth I’d never seen before. When she was out of earshot, Patrick moved to get his wallet from his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, counted out four twenties and left them next to the bill. “What did we do to piss her off?”

  “She disapproves of me having dinner with a married man.”

  He looked at me with surprise. I shrugged as we walked toward the front, the bell making a sound as we exited. “Small towns. Everybody knows your business,” I said, as if he hadn’t grown up here.

  The main street was empty, with only the tavern’s light still on. “Let me take you home?” he asked.

  “I have my bicycle outside Doris’s.”

  “No way I’m letting you ride home in the dark. It’s dangerous. We can pick your bike up on the way home.” He tucked my arm under his. “Come on, Oregon. I need to pick up your manuscript anyway.”

  I stopped, staring up at him. “You mean it?”

  “Yep.” He tugged my arm again and we walked to Doris’s, where there was a beat-up looking blue truck in the parking lot, circa 1970. A lot of the folks back home had the same kind of truck. It looked like Oregon. “This is me.” He slipped my arm from his and pointed at the truck as he shifted away from me. I immediately felt the chill of the night and shivered. He pointed to the sky. “Look at the color of the sky there.” I did. It was almost purple and the sky was alive with a billion lights. The same stars I gazed upon all my life and tagged my dreams to. They were here too. And yet, they’d never looked like these; they’d never been gazed upon with Patrick.