LITMIR.BIZ

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      “And I appreciate it. Really. But we have guests.” Charlotte grinned and then made her way over to one of her regulars, a retired teacher named Edith Mosley. “How’s that tea?”

      Edith’s iron gray eyes softened a little. “Hits the spot on a nippy spring morning, but you can’t keep giving me free pots of fancy tea. You’ll come to ruin if you’re not careful.”

      “Whatever you say.” Charlotte let the comment wash over her. Eliza knew the routine. She’d slip the money back into Edith’s purse later, since she needed the money for her electric bill. “How’s your daughter?”

      Edith’s fingers tightened around the handle of the china cup like knotted roots.

      Charlotte could always tell a person’s frame of mind by the way he or she held the teacup.

      “Mmm. My daughter’s the same . . . fit as a fiddleback and just as poisonous.” Edith chuckled.

      “Oh?” Charlotte hoped Edith wouldn’t rehash the list of her daughter’s insufficiencies. She had them memorized.

      “My daughter and I strain for love like two asthmatics trying to take in air.” Her laughter turned into a rattling cough. “I guess we need one of those refresh buttons. Isn’t that what you young people call it? Something we can push so we can wipe away the past. Start over.” Edith took a long swig of her tea. “Oh, that apricot ginger tea is good today.”

      “Thanks,” Charlotte said. “We all need a refresh button, Edith.” She reached into her apron pocket to feel the river stone, something she’d kept from her past. It was a reminder of the smooth things in life that brought delight and in the hard things—those potentially sanctifying moments that tumbled off the rough edges and turned humans into real people. Poor Edith was being tumbled.

      “Go on now. Get.” Edith shooed her with both hands. “You’ve got paying customers to tend to. And don’t forget to eat one of those Darcy Scones for me. You’re looking thin-ish.”

      “First time I’ve ever heard that a size 10 was thin-ish.” Charlotte poured the older woman another cup of tea from the little pot. Then she busied herself with chores here and there as her thoughts wandered back to the man Eliza had seen on the street. Could it be Sam and would he stop by the tearoom? Every time the bell jingled on the front door, she jumped and then looked. She would need to keep her wits about her, so she deliberately calmed herself and strolled over to one of the high schoolers who frequented her tearoom. “Hey, Mindy. How’s it going?”

      Mindy—who was a real drama queen if there ever was one—handed Charlotte a note. Her fingers trembled as if the piece of paper were a newly discovered fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. “This guy I like,” Mindy said, “named Brenner, well, he’s been texting me a lot, but this is an e-mail he sent me today. I want you to tell me if you think Brenner is like, you know, enraptured.”

      Charlotte unfolded the note and read Brenner’s e-mail.

      Saw you across a crowded cafeteria yesterday. As your new lab partner, I thought you should hear the truth. Your clothes, well, they look like rejects from a secondhand store. And what’s up with your hair? It looks scared like it’s seen a slasher movie. You’re welcome to thank me for my candidness by bringing me some of your homemade cookies. Brenner.

      Charlotte wanted to throttle Brenner. Who did he think he was? “Mindy, why do you care about this guy?” She handed the note back. “It’s obvious he’s nothing but a royal—”

      “But didn’t Shakespeare say ‘methinks you protest too much’?” Mindy jerked on her jacket zipper, making it ride up and down. “I mean, Brenner is going to so much trouble to be mean, well, maybe he really likes me.”

      Charlotte sat down across from Mindy. “Look, Brenner doesn’t need your attention. He’s needs detention.”

      Mindy tugged on her long braid. “That’s clever, Char.”

      “Well, you asked my opinion. Brenner is infantile and rude.”

      “But he makes me laugh and forget that sometimes life can be like this total chasm of misery. Nobody else can do it. And Brenner does know how to be all that genteel stuff when he wants to be.” For a moment, Mindy traded her cocky expression for a more vulnerable one. “You really don’t see any covert signals of interest?”

      “No, I don’t. But listen, someone in the tearoom asked about you the other day.”

      “Oh, yeah? Who? No. Come on. Please don’t tell me it was Raymond ‘the sniffer’ Kolowsky.” Mindy rolled her eyes. “He sniffs everything. He tries to hide it, but he’s got some kind of OCD thing about odors.”

      “Well, I told him I’d pass his greetings on to you.”

      “Great. Now he’ll think he’s got some kind of cosmic connection to me, so I’ll have this pet following me around everywhere.” Mindy tossed the last bite of the strawberry cake in her mouth and said through chews, “Actually, Raymond is worse than a pet. He’s kind of a brain-freak. You know, all grey matter and no social skills. He can’t stop talking about star clusters and celestial dust.”

      “Well, that sounds romantic . . . if you looked at it from a certain vantage point.”

      “Yeah, all the way from the moon.”

      Charlotte laughed. “But you should keep an open mind. Didn’t you say a lot of the guys at school were mimes who just copy what everybody else is doing?”

      “Yeah, I said that.” Mindy licked her fingers one by one, flicking each one in the air as if she could make them fly. “Best frosting goo ever, Char. It’s like sweet pink lava.” She wiped her palms off on her raggedy jeans, slipped her shoes back on, and grimaced.

      Charlotte rose from the table and looked at Mindy’s feet. “Shoes too tight?”

      “They’re the coolest stilettos ever, and I can’t stop wearing them, but they’re like smooshing and molding my feet into these angry little gargoyles.”

      Charlotte chuckled. “Guess it’s hard to let go, even when something or someone is pinching the life out of us.”

      Mindy stroked her peacock-feathered earrings as she stared at her. “I get it. You thirty-something women love coming up with those double entendres.”

      “Yeah, it’s what we old ladies live for.” Charlotte gave Mindy’s sleeve a tug and then tidied the shelves of stuffed animals that she kept around for the wee ones.

      She glanced around her world, and once again, felt a wave of gratitude. The old Riley house really had become a good place to create a tea cottage. It had been marvelous fun decorating each room with murals, depicting all the faraway lands she hoped to visit one day. And just like all the countless times when she played tea growing up, running The Rose Hill Cottage Tearoom was all she imagined it to be. It was a sanctuary for her and for all of Middlebury. She just wished her parents had been alive to see it.

      Charlotte smiled, thinking of her various customers. They reminded her of the teacups they drank from—precious finds in spite of an occasional chip or two. She couldn’t imagine changing her life, except to have someone to share her joy with. As that thought rolled itself around like a silver tea ball on the counter, she let her fingers rest on the pearl necklace Sam had given her before he left, before their world fell apart.

      Some new arrivals caught Charlotte’s attention, and then the bell jangled again. When she glanced over to the door, this time the man Eliza had seen was standing in the entry. It was Sam Wilder—her Sam. She would have recognized him anywhere. In that moment the years distilled into pure memory. That Wilder boy—oh, how he had wrapped her in his love, and how he had melted his heart to hers like they were two chocolates left out in a warm sun. It was so long ago, and yet it felt as if no time had passed.

      Charlotte tightened her fingers around her necklace—enough to burst the strand apart. Pearls spilled from her

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