“I’ll come back with my grandpa if you get the sign-ups for a tea ceremony,” Kumiko whispers, an arm around my slumped shoulder. Jason glances my way as he passes with a lethally large serving of éclairs. What is wrong with me?
There’s work to be done, it never stops; I hug her, flooded with a vision of Kumiko in her late twenties, married, telling a depressed patient in a sea of tears that there are endless reasons to go on. Her office has bronze statues of naked bodies. On the wall is a picture colored by the son I figure she’ll have, a smiling family with a cat, all bigger than their house.
Alex forgets the chutney requested by two grand dames at Table Three for their walnut bread. They declare, in ringing tones, that they did not ask for the jasmine teabags; they want the expensive Tienchi Flower, twelve dollars a cup.
Jason approaches them and says, “Shall I fix that?”
“Someone should!” trumpets one with so much plastic surgery that her nostrils are holes, her head a skull. She seems ready to start throwing the dishes.
“Where is the manager?” asks her friend, wearing an honest-to-God turban with a jewel on it, like the kind favored by fraud magicians who saw people in half.
Am I invisible? Alex stands helpless, a pleading expression trained on Jason for rescue. Much of my tearoom is staring.
“Shall I get their tea?” whispers Kumiko. “Or just kick their asses?”
She does make me smile.
Because she knows what to do without being constantly told, Kumiko sidles into the kitchen, unlocking the cupboard where I store the expensive stuff. I have some Yellow Gold Bud—it sounds like weed—painted edible gold: $120 an ounce.
Turban Lady launches into a tirade about the city falling apart; I gesture at Alex and Jason to attend to the rest of the room, to distract it, as I force myself to coo at the women that we’ll put everything right. Did they know Tienchi Flower—a refined choice!—relieves pain and cure rashes?
They assault me with a barrage of nonsense: Is the water in my Wonderland Tea Shop drawn from the tap, or do I have a proper reverse-osmosis system? Did I bribe some inspector to grant me that “A” grade? Why do so many menu selections start with “M”—mountain mint, marvelous mango, mascarpone, macaroni, moon cakes, and much about melons? Molasses. They suggest I need a haircut. I venture they needn’t be rude. Why is the Duchess on my mural so fatheaded? Why can’t I say what I mean? Why is the clock on the wall five minutes fast? Are the macarons—another “M”—stale? Why are crumbs on their butter knives? Why is my expression blank; why am I trembling?
“Excellent, ladies, here’s your tea,” I murmur as Kumiko brings out a fragrant batch in the teapot painted with Dutch children skating on a pond. I want to gorge on a stack of pressed cheese sandwiches until my body threatens to resign.
After the imperial pair finishes and offers parting complaints and leaves nary a tip for Alex or Kumiko, I notice a mother and daughter tucked in the corner. The girl is black-haired like my Alicia, five or six; I wander closer to see that yes, her eyes are Alicia’s green. She smiles, a tooth missing.
Alex interrupts my reverie with a rare apology; sorry he got that order topsy-turvy. His apron is off; he never stays a second past his shift. His lashes brush the lenses of his hip glasses.
I assure him it’s not the end of the world, not by a long shot.
He’s not accustomed to admitting a failing, to feeling bad. He’s not used to making a slight mistake that someone pounds into the dirt with a sledgehammer.
Kumiko and Jason commandeer the room as I approach the corner table. The mother lights up and whispers at me companionably, conspiratorially, “Gosh, those ladies were something else. How do you stand it?”
“There are worse things,” I say. The child is daintily eating the mozzarella—M!—flatbread, and her teacup, the artful scarlet-rose one, holds the Sweet Dreams & Citrus that shivers when she brings it to her lips.
What else may I do for them; are they having a good time; what else may I bring?
The mother is around my age, nearing forty, though she is much more in the forty-is-the-new-twenty category, olive-skinned, mahogany hair with yellow highlights. Her bracelets jangle out music. The girl has a rhinestone barrette shaped like a spider, and she tells me proudly that her name is Charlotte.
“Did you spin any webs for Wilbur?” I ask; my blood flows as if gates have lifted in my veins. The child beams at me. “Yes!”
We chat about the places where Charlotte’s Web made us cry, and the mother adds that she even gets teary-eyed in public when she recalls certain parts.
I almost say my little girl loves books, too. I wrote and taught poetry, once.
“I’m Betty,” says the mother, “but my friends call me Bird.”
The creature my child saved, brought back to life. Yellow feathers now yellow streaks in hair. Betty praises the butter’s sweetness and the apricot tarts, today’s special. It’s lovely to be here. Her clothing is pressed, high couture. Piercing her ears are diamonds. “Look at us, enjoying high tea,” she says to Charlotte. Because it’s around twelve o’clock.
I explain that high tea is so-called because the tables are high. People at a social gathering wander and graze on food and drink set up for easy access. “High” doesn’t signal the hour. Americans think of high noon. Gunslingers! Time to settle scores.
“That’s amazing!” Betty proclaims. Her daughter nods. They’ve learned something, together. They probably dance at night, Mother making Baby giggle by offering to toss her into the stars. I’m dying to ask what Betty “does,” other than care for this smart, pretty, alert child. My skills in chatting with customers need sharpening.
Charlotte swings her legs and gazes with a devotion at her mother so profound that I glance away, because it’s not meant for me. Well-trained, a city girl, she thanks me for the tea, the cup, the mozzarella and desserts. Kumiko clears tables; Jason shines the coffee urn. My staff knows nothing about Alicia, nothing of my history. Charlotte near-shouts, “Could we have my birthday here, Momma? May I, please?” Her fingernails shine with dots of crimson polish still wet-looking.
Betty wholeheartedly agrees… Certainly! Charlotte’s sixth birthday will be here next week, at the Wonderland Tea Shop! We live only two blocks away! Sorry she must hasten now, she tells me, but she has a deadline. Her aspect clarifies as familiar, from the papers and from my long-ago, long-slumbering days as a poet. It’s Betty Lezardo, the novelist whose successes have been capped recently with a National Book Award.
A soaring career and the most darling child alive; a woman my age accomplished and kind.
When I inquire if she’s Betty Lezardo, she shyly nods and asks for my name.
Dorrie. Doreen Dias.
A hand extended to press against mine. Betty/Bird says, “I have a question about your murals.” She points—artist’s eye—toward the Hatter and March Hare, the crazy duo at their table, in leg irons. That, she avers, is odd enough. “But where is the Dormouse?”
Almost no one catches that omission. That absence.
“The Hatter and Hare pinched the Dormouse several times, in the original story,” I say. “Remember? It didn’t do them any harm. They used it as a cushion. They poured hot tea on its nose, to torment it. I don’t want to stick it anywhere near those two.”
Betty finishes her tea. Basic green, superior for weight-watching and longevity.