Tea and Primroses

by Tess Thompson

  “Oregon.” He ran his hand through his somewhat disheveled hair.

  “Everything all right?” My voice sounded shaky, like it was rattling around an empty, drafty room. Dammit.

  “Sure, yeah. I had to go to New York for a couple of days and just got back a few hours ago. You don’t have a phone so I couldn’t call first, but I wanted to see you.” He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and glanced at the sky. “To check on you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You have enough to eat the last couple of days?”

  “Sure.” I’d eaten the two pork chops at the beginning of the week but there was still enough spaghetti left for another night.

  The sound of Mr. Williams’s truck coming down the road caused us both to turn. When the old farmer’s truck passed by, Patrick waved, pulling slightly on the collar of his shirt. There were two angry looking gashes on Patrick’s neck that looked like claw marks. I gasped. “Did a cat get you?”

  He turned to me, his eyes startled. “What?”

  “Your neck. What happened?”

  “Oh, this.” He pulled his collar up over the marks. “Yeah, it was a cat.” But I knew he was lying. I shivered.

  “You cold?”

  “A little.”

  “The heater working?” His eyes darted upward to the window of my room.

  I smiled. “Yeah, it’s good.” I stared at his boots, unable to meet his gaze.

  “You remembering to check both the doors before bed?”

  “Yes.” I put my hand over my heart, meeting his gaze. “I swear.”

  He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets again. “Don’t make it so I have to drive by every night to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Mr. Williams isn’t far if I need him.”

  “But you have no phone.” He looked as if he wanted to say more but stopped. He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “We can talk about that later.”

  “I missed you.” I flushed. “Not that you have to come by every day or anything.”

  His face softened. “I missed you too.”

  “You want to come up for some tea?” This was said so quietly I wondered if I’d really said it.

  He looked at his truck, as if there were someone sitting inside he needed permission from, and then back at me. “My grandmother was British.”

  “Does that mean you like tea?”

  He grinned and raised his eyebrows teasingly. “Yeah, that’s what it means, Oregon.”

  “Come on then.” I turned and went inside, indicating for him to follow me up the stairs. At the top, I opened the door to the studio and stepped aside for him. “Welcome to my humble home.”

  His keen eyes roamed the room, seeming to take everything in at once. There was a snap of impatience on his face. “Nothing like suffering for your art, huh, Oregon?”

  “Simple’s good.”

  “This place is only a step above camping. Or a monastery.”

  “I like it bare. I write better this way.” Glancing about the room, I noticed the unmade bed. The quilt was crumpled and both pillows were somewhere in the middle of the bed, along with several face-open books, one with my reading glasses on top. I often read two books at once. On the floor next to the desk were dozens of crumpled papers, along with scattered pages from the previous draft, with my messy writing in the margins from the time I’d spent with Patrick.

  “Do you ever think of anything but writing?” The question was asked without a hint of judgment, but he scrutinized me with an expression I can only describe as intense curiosity.

  “Not really.” I waved toward the desk chair, which was the one and only chair. “Have a seat. I’ll fix you a cup of tea.”

  “First I need to inspect your refrigerator.” Before I could stop him, he was across the room with the door to my small icebox wide open. He shook his head, apparently appalled by the contents: one mustard bottle, a cube of butter, a half-jar of spaghetti sauce, and a carton of eggs. There were only two eggs left in the carton and I didn’t get paid for another two days. Hopefully he wouldn’t investigate this further. But no such luck. With a flick of his hand he opened the carton, then let out a long sigh. “How the hell do you live?”

  “I’m fine.” I figured with the spaghetti and another loaf of day old bread I might make it.

  “We’re going shopping later.”

  I think he expected me to argue but instead I just glared at him, which he seemed to find amusing. I had a deep impulse to make an obscene gesture with my middle finger but I didn’t. He was about to read my revised manuscript, for one thing. And the other? The thought of actually having food in my refrigerator to control the hunger pains I experienced in the middle of every night made me almost giddy.

  He moved over to the desk, fingering a corner of a piece of paper in the typewriter. “May I?”

  “I’m about to type up the last paragraph of Chapter Two.” This came out apologetic. “Chapter One’s there, on the left.” Ten pages were piled haphazardly on the desk.

  He picked up the stack and tapped them on the desk until they were perfectly lined up. “Good. I’ll read Chapter One while you finish Chapter Two.” He grinned; it lit up his whole face and he was so handsome I felt my legs go weak. “What’s the matter, Oregon? You look kind of pale.”

  I tugged on my hair. “No, I’m fine.” The kettle whistled. I took two bags from my box of Lipton black tea and placed one inside the clean cup and one inside my already used cup and filled them both with hot water. I handed his tea to him.

  “Did you eat today?”

  “Toast.”

  “I’ll read first and feed you second.” He set his cup down and grabbed the pages of Chapter One, gesturing toward the bed with them. “I’ll take this to the sitting room.”

  “Very funny.”

  Taking off his boots, he sat on the bed, resting his back against the headboard, holding the pages in his hands. His socks were dark blue, thick cotton from the looks of them. Did he hate wool? Did it make him itch?

  He looked over at me. “You should make your bed, Oregon.”

  I sat at the desk. “Why? I’m just going to get back in it.”

  He stared at me, his eyes serious. “Oh, Oregon. Don’t talk about you and bed in the same sentence.”

  A hot flash of desire went through me. My nipples went instantly hard. I moved my arms to cover my chest, as if he could see them under the bulky sweater. “Maybe you shouldn’t be on my bed.” I sounded breathless. I put my hand over my mouth, hoping further thoughts would not tumble out of my mouth. But it didn’t help. The image of climbing into bed with him right that instant played like a movie behind my eyes.

  “Where else am I supposed to sit?”

  I looked around the bare room. “The floor?”

  Chuckling, he waved his hand toward the desk. “Get to work, Oregon. I have someplace I want to take you when we’re done.”

  I began typing up the last paragraph, which I’d handwritten on my yellow pad. I typed fast, even on the manual typewriter. Patrick said, “You know they make electric typewriters?”

  “I do in fact know that, Mr. Waters. But this is what was available to me from my mother’s attic.” I turned to look at him. “She’d saved it for me from her secretarial school days.” I crossed my ankles, holding onto the seat of the chair with both hands and lifting myself an inch or so in the air to resettle myself. “That’s what she wanted me to do. You know, filler, just until I could find a man to marry me and then I would stay home and become a housewife and mother.”

  “Does she know you at all?”

  “Not really.” I turned back to the typewriter. “This old typewriter’s been a good friend to me.” I began to type again. The bed creaked. Paper rustled. And then I was lost in my work.

  When I finished the last sentence, I turned once again to Patrick. He didn’t look up. Without a word, I rose from my desk and set Chapter Two next to him on the bed.

  I paced back and forth across my small
studio for several minutes. I straightened the sparse items on the counter next to the sink: a sponge, a roll of paper towels, the toaster. Leaning against the counter, I noticed my forgotten tea. It was cold but I sipped it anyway, holding it in two hands, watching Patrick’s eyes move across the pages of my work.

  After several minutes, he looked up. “Oregon, you’re making me nervous. Isn’t there something you could be doing right now?”

  I looked around the room. “I don’t really know what to do if I’m not writing.”

  “You could read.”

  “I can’t focus.”

  He smiled gently. “You could make me another cup of tea.” He pointed to his teacup, still on my desk. “Hotter this time?”

  “Hotter?” I said this with my eyebrows raised, hoping it sounded as sarcastic as I meant it to.

  But my tone appeared lost on him. “Yes, please.” He looked back to the paper in his hand.

  Hotter? I smacked the kettle onto the burner. How dare he criticize my tea? Not hot enough? I turned the burner to high. I’d scald him this time, that’s what I’d do. I couldn’t read his mind, for Heaven’s sake. The tea I made was perfectly fine. It was the way I did it. No reason to burn a person’s tongue. There was no pleasing him. He’d probably hate the rewrites too. Why did I even bother? I’d rewritten the first two chapters with his one big note close to mind. Where can this story start that has the biggest impact on the reader? How can you start the action and pull the reader in immediately? You did that, I assured myself. At least yesterday I thought I had. But now, well, maybe I hadn’t. Maybe he’d have the same infuriating note. Oh, God, what if he hates it? What if I started it at the wrong place again? Something close to despair crept down my spine and settled in my gut—my empty, hollow, pained gut.

  Behind me, pages rustled once again. He chuckled. I turned to look at him, furious. Was he laughing at me? But he appeared not to remember I was even in the room. He nodded his head and pulled slightly on his earlobe, his long legs still spread out long on the bed. The kettle whistled. I took it from the burner instead of letting it come to a boil. No reason to scald him, after all. I fetched his cup from the desk and poured out the old tea, took a fresh bag from the box and filled the cup with hot water. Steam rose onto my face. Holding the cup, I turned around to look at him, leaning against the stove to stop the trembling in my legs.

  He set down the last page of Chapter Two. The entire pile of papers was perfectly stacked together now. He tapped the top page with his finger, his gaze downward, as if thinking.

  I held my breath, the steam from the teacup warm under my chin. “Well?” It came out sounding defensive. I resisted the desire to put my hands on my hips.

  He looked up with an expression on his handsome face I hadn’t yet seen. “Well done, Oregon. This is it exactly.”

  My legs stopped shaking and went weak instead. I held out the tea, like a present. “This is for you.” Suddenly, I smelled something burning. I moved away from the stove, looking to see if a bit of toast had fallen under the coils of the burner. It was red hot; in my angst I’d forgotten to turn it off. I moved to shut it off but I never got the chance. Behind me, Patrick yelled. “Jesus, you’re on fire!” Before I could respond, he tossed me to the floor, pushing me onto my stomach and patting the back of my sweater with a pillow. Then he covered my body with his much larger one, pushing me hard into the floor. “Your sweater was on fire. What’s the matter with you?”

  He came up on his arms, turning me over. Still perched over me, he pinned my arms up above my head. His legs pressed against mine as his gaze moved to my mouth. “You have to pay attention to what you’re doing.” His voice was gruff but quiet.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I was distracted.”

  “There’s more to life than writing. I don’t think you know that. You have to take care of yourself. The way you walk around in a daze all the time, forgetting to eat or lock your damn door worries the hell out of me. You know that?” My heart pounded when he leaned closer, brushing my hair away from my neck. Then, in a brisk movement, he moved both his hands under my hips and lifted me several inches off the floor. “Get this thing off. It’s ugly as hell anyway. I’ll take you to town and buy you a new one, one pretty enough for you.” His breathing was heavy like he’d run up a set of stairs.

  I couldn’t think what he meant at first, I was so utterly bewitched by the feel of his hands under my hips. “Take what off?” My voice sounded like it was coming from someplace in the distance. I couldn’t take my eyes off the set of his jawline and his mouth and the place on his neck where his pulse flashed.

  “Your sweater. Take it off. Now.” He removed his hands from under my hips. “Lift up.” I did, lifting several inches from the floor as he slipped it up, slowly, over my stomach and breasts and finally over my head. He tossed the charred sweater aside. It smelled of burnt wool. He was still perched over me, his hands on either side of my face, so close I could imagine his fingers in my hair. My nipples were hard, stretched against the fabric of my tight T-shirt. I closed my eyes, trying to think of something besides wanting his fingertips to brush against them.

  “My God, you’re beautiful.”

  I opened my eyes, surprised. “I am?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Patrick,” I whispered.

  “Yeah, Oregon?” His voice was husky. His eyes traveled from my face to my chest and back again. The vein in his forehead bulged against flushed skin.

  “I do think of other things besides writing.”

  “It that right?” His mouth twitched. He took in a deep breath.

  “Sometimes, yeah. Especially when I can’t sleep.”

  “Insomnia must be contagious because I’ve had it ever since I met you.” He moved off me and plopped onto the floor. Sitting back on one hand, he raked his hair with the other. “Will you come out with me? I have someplace I want to take you and I can’t think straight when I’m this close to you.”

  “Do I get to ride in your truck again?” My voice cracked. I’d wanted it to sound light-hearted but instead I sounded bereft. I shuddered; it was cold in the room without my sweater and I ached with wanting Patrick to reach out and hold me in his arms. I remained on the floor, hugging myself, my hair spread out about me. A tear slipped out of my left eye. I brushed it aside, hoping he hadn’t seen.

  “Hey now, what’s the matter?” His voice was gentle.

  “I’m cold.” My lips trembled. More of the betraying tears spilled down my cheeks. “And hungry.”

  “Stop. Please, don’t cry.” He pulled his sweater up and over his head. “Here, take mine. Wear this until I can get you another sweater. And I’ll take you to get something to eat.” He wore a long sleeve cotton T-shirt the color of spring grass that matched his eyes. He was slender but muscular, his shoulders wide above a tapered waist. What would it feel like to touch his skin under the shirt?

  I sat up and slipped his sweater down over my head. It smelled woodsy, mixed with a spicy aftershave. It smelled like Patrick. I wanted to bury my face in it. I sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to get myself together. I’d never felt more like weeping inconsolably than I did at that moment. What was it about this man that made my emotions run so deep and wide and up and down?

  “Oregon, you wear yourself out, that’s what these tears are about, right?” His voice was soft and tender and so kind it made me feel worse.

  “I don’t know,” I said, tears spilling down my cheeks.

  The expression on his face had changed to something between panic and concern. He scooted closer to me and took my hands in his. “Oregon, don’t cry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It’s just you scare me.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “What is it, then?”

  I tried to think of an answer but the truth was impossible to explain. I want you. I’m falling in love with you. “It’s nothing. You’re right. I’m just tired and hungry.” We locked eyes, a silent agreement between us that we c
ould not say just then what we felt or thought. After a moment, he stood and held out his hand. When I took it, he lifted me to my feet. “Come with me, Oregon. You can’t work all the time.”

  He picked up the charred sweater, tossed it into the garbage, and turned the stove off.

  I escaped into the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet lid, taking in deep breaths until I felt calmer. The wicked tears were banished for the time being. I ran a brush through my hair and wiped under my eyes, where my makeup had smeared, before reapplying both mascara and blush.

  When I went back into the room, he was by the door, wearing his leather jacket and holding my coat. He held it out as I moved toward him. “Wear this and a hat, Oregon. It’s colder than it looks today and we’re going to walk a bit.”

  I turned around and he guided my arms into the thick wool coat. “Do you ever tire of telling me what to do?”

  “Someone needs to save you from fires and cold and starvation.”

  Despite my confusion and emotion, I smiled. I stretched the blue knit hat my mother had made over my head, using the small mirror hanging near the door as I arranged my hair. I reached into the pocket of my jacket and found a lipstick, a soft pink my mother gave to me before I left home, and ran it across my mouth.

  When I turned to Patrick, he was perfectly still, his arms limp by his sides, staring at me. “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged, his face unreadable. “Nothing.”

  I followed him downstairs and allowed him to help me into his truck. It smelled less of gasoline today, or was it just that all I could smell was Patrick? We turned right at the road instead of the left that would have taken us into town. We traveled several miles, winding around a curving country road. We passed a long white fence with several large barns behind it, painted in the traditional red in contrast to nature’s greenery. The cab of the truck warmed; I yanked off my hat. My hair fell about my shoulders and I fluffed it with my fingers.