You look like Sheol,” Tovah said after a quick assessment. “Sit down here, and I’ll bring you something.” Tovah pushed Sienna into the tufted leather chair and bustled out of the office, leaving the door open.
Sienna closed her grainy eyes and rubbed them till they stung a little less. The night had been horrible. She had left Peter sleeping, but she was too tense and anxious to sleep much herself. If Jonquil had not broken the rules and joined her in bed in the wee hours, Sienna may not have slept at all. She leaned forward and pressed her too-sensitive face against the cool of the wooden desk. Gradually, snippets of conversation reached her from the tearoom.
“So I decided to write a romance novel!” Liz’s voice bubbled above the general murmur. “I figured it was about time to make money off history. Lord knows I am not going to make anything through scholarship.”
Deborah answered in a lower voice. Sienna was not quite sure what she said, but the tone sounded amused. Tovah returned then, pushing the office door closed behind her.
“Drink this.” She set a huge mug in front of her. It was filled with fragrant Keemun sweetened with honey and cream. The bouquet suggested that it was the top shelf variety. Sienna sipped, unable to resist the treat. “And then you need to eat this. The berries are good for your brain, even if half of them are technically out of season now.” Tovah’s mouth quirked as she placed a large slice of mixed blueberry and blackberry tart in front of Sienna, the fork sticking out at a jaunty angle. The blueberries were out of season locally, of course, but the blackberries were perfectly ripe and very much in season. One of the early jokes of their friendship was the superstition of blackberries, which were meant to have been kissed by witches after Michaelmas. They had speculated long into the evening about the effects of witch-kissed berries.
“And speaking of Michaelmas,” Tovah said, in perfect sync with her memories, “I think we should press forward with the grand opening that weekend.” She watched Sienna gulp her tea, saw the conflicted feelings pass over her face. “You should feel free to do whatever you need to do for Peter,” Tovah said, cutting off Sienna’s guilty expression. “We can handle it. I’ve been training Jessie on stationery, so she can cover if I’m needed for tea. Lettye is gold, as you know, and Nina is really showing her mettle. She’s becoming a bit of a fixture around here.”
There was a knock on the door. Sienna forced down an extra bite of tart in case she were needed.
“Come in,” Tovah called.
Lettye smiled as she leaned in through a crack in the door. Her eyes were sparkling with amusement. “Excuse me, you all. Sienna, I think you are wanted by the professors. Apparently, the big climax to an important story is waiting for you.”
“Thanks, Lettye,” Sienna said. She couldn’t help but smile in return. “I’ll be right out.” Lettye grinned and pulled the door shut. Chin down, Sienna nodded to Tovah. “Thank you, Tovah.” She pressed her lips together in a contrite smile. Tovah did not like carrying on, so Sienna left it at that. “I’d better go see what’s up with the professors.” She picked up her mug and walked out into the teashop.
“Sienna!” Liz called, waving her perfectly-manicured hand. Her fingernails were deep bronze and caught the light, giving the impression of a summons light. Sienna walked quickly to the table and sat between Deborah and Liz.
“Liz has decided to write romances,” Deborah said by way of greeting, “and she has apparently inspired herself.”
“You mean you have a romance of your own?” Sienna raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Besides unsuitable men?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far.” Liz smiled. She leaned in conspiratorially, but did not drop her voice. “You remember Harold? From the party?”
“Of course. Matcha,” Sienna nodded and sipped.
“Yes.” Liz paused and turned to Deborah. “Sienna did his tea while he was here.” She drew herself up and went on, addressing them in a voice meant to carry in a hall. “Well, I told Harold about my romance idea. Why shouldn’t I put all that research to good use and acquire some funds? Women love historical romances. They eat them up.” Liz sipped her tea, waiting for Sienna to agree.
Sienna nodded. “And what did Harold say?”
“Harold doesn’t say much. He’s a man of action,” Deborah interpolated, waggling her brows.
“Shush, you. Don’t ruin my story!” Liz chided.
“Of course,” Deborah muttered into her teacup. Her eyes danced with amusement. However much Liz might have protested that she was waiting to tell the story to Sienna, it was clear that Deborah had read between the lines.
“Well, I got to telling Harold my idea. When I got to the part about my heroine leaning up to kiss the hero at long last, I realized that I had no idea how to describe a kiss to an actual tall man. So I asked Harold how tall he was, and he said six, one. And he asked me how tall I am, and I said five, four. Which are about the same heights as the hero and heroine, you see. So I asked him, if just for research, I might put my arms around his neck, just to see how to describe it.” Liz looked intently at the wall, a besotted grin slipping onto her face.
“And?” Deborah prompted.
“Hmm?” Liz asked, coming back to them. “Oh. Then he kissed me.” She beamed and picked up her teacup. Then, into the cup, she murmured, “And now we’re engaged.”
Deborah choked on her tea and sputtered, “What?!” Then, recovering, “Way to bury the lead!” She smiled and squeezed Liz’s hand.
“That’s wonderful!” Sienna said. “It’s one of the most romantic engagement stories I’ve ever heard.”
“It is, isn’t it? I should write it down, put it in a book,” Liz grinned. Over her shoulder, Cleotis Reed caught Sienna’s eye. He raised his cup in salute to the good news.
Sienna smiled at him.
Liz, interpreting her smile as wistfulness, seemed suddenly inspired. “Sienna, what is your engagement story?”
The smile faded from her face as she thought of Peter sleeping fitfully in the hospital. She looked down to conceal a sudden rush of tears and tried to cover her emotion by taking a draught of tea. The professors were unconvinced, and she felt them both skootch close and hug her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing hard. “I’m very happy for you, Liz. It’s just that my husband is very sick right now.”
“Oh, Sugar, I’m so sorry,” Liz soothed, rubbing her back. Deborah placed a quiet hand on her shoulder. Sienna sniffed and looked at her tea, unable to face talking about how fragile Peter had become. After a few moments, she looked up at Deborah. She was struck with the sudden awareness that Deborah was praying for her. She swallowed again, feeling calmer.
“There, now,” Deborah said. “You’ve had a very difficult time of it lately, but now you’re here. There’s tea and chess, and we’re here.”
Sienna was grateful, but conflicted. “I feel awkward burdening my customers like this.”
“Oh, come, now, Sienna!” Liz chastised, pulling herself upright. “You know better than anyone that tea is not like that. You joined us at the tea table, so we’re your friends.”
That drew a real grin to Sienna’s face. “I hadn’t thought about it like that, but I think you’re right.” A rush of warm memories filled her chest, all of the stories she had shared over and about tea swirling golden brown and hot into the hollow of her sadness. “Tea and sympathy.”
“Tea and friendship,” Deborah amended.
“Tea and friendship,” Sienna repeated. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nina waiting to talk with her. “Liz, I wish you all the best,” she said with as much happiness as she could muster. “Now, if you Lady Professors will excuse me.” She rose to go to Nina, while behind her Liz exclaimed about her love of the “lady professors” moniker.
“Miss,” Nina said when they had ducked into the kitchen, “I have a little problem. I’m going to need a ride home this afternoon.” She seemed uneasy, and Sienna wondered what trouble had arisen that the girl was concealing. She would not press the confidence, but she sent out a quick prayer for Nina and her family. Whatever had caused the proud girl to ask for help must have been serious.
“Of course, Nina. What time will you be off?”
“I’m on till 4:00 today, unless it’s busy. Jessie and I are overlapping the afternoon tea time.” Sienna noted that Tovah had scheduled the staff to cover things in her absence and breathed a little sigh of gratitude.
“Right. Well, I plan to stick around till then myself. I would be glad to take you home.”
“Thanks, Miss. I wouldn’t ask, but the bus doesn’t go near where we live, and…” she trailed off, embarrassed.
“It’s no trouble at all, Nina. Really.” Sienna cast around for a change of subject. Sensing that Nina was most at ease when she was useful, an idea struck her. “Now, Nina, I have a favor to ask. But first, I need to know if you bake.”
“Bake, Miss?” Nina’s eyes lit up. “Actually, yes. I make tortillas, pan dulces, churros, and cupcakes.” She stopped and reddened. “But maybe you mean like French breads. I don’t do those.”
“Actually, it sounds as though you have a hidden talent. I’m glad it finally occurred to me to ask.”
Nina brightened a little. “I cook, too, for my brothers and sisters and my other family. My mom has to work late sometimes. I love showing other people how to cook, too.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sienna nodded. “But the reason I asked today is because I need to pass on my gluten-free scone recipe to someone. You know that my husband is in the hospital?”
“Yes, Miss. We have a novena for him right now.” She looked down, embarrassed as the intimacy of the gesture hit her.
“Thank you,” Sienna said quietly, touched. “Peter can use all the prayers he can get.” She cleared her throat to keep from crying again. “So I may have to be out unexpectedly. I may need you to make the gluten-free scones if I can’t be here. Lettye tells me a few customers have come to rely on them.”
“Great, Miss. I’ll get an apron and wash my hands.”
Later, after the warm scones had been transferred to a tray, Sienna made her rounds of the tables. A.C. and Cleotis had paused in their game to talk. Their low tones warmed the corner of the shop.
“Well, howdy, Sienna!” A.C. greeted her. “May I just tell you that for a tea person, you make some right fine coffee?”
“Why, thank you, A.C.” She smiled, mirroring the bright grin on A.C.’s face.
“Yep,” he nodded, “I find it right interesting the way people can be good at things they don’t prefer.”
“I guess that’s true.” Sienna sounded doubtful, as though she was thinking out the possibility.
“Happens in church all the time,” Cleotis interjected.
“That’s for certain. I remember a fella in my congregation who taught Sunday school for fifteen years. Everyone thought he was so good at it, it took that long before anyone asked him what he thought of teaching.” A.C. took a large drink of his coffee then examined the chess board closely.
“And what did he think of it?” Sienna asked after A.C. slid his bishop over a couple of spaces.
“He wanted to lead the hymns. Turned out, singing hymns was what really charged him up spiritually, not teaching. He had fallen into Sunday school teaching one week when the previous teacher was out, and what do you think he chose to talk about?”
“Hymns?” Sienna smiled.
“That’s right.” A.C. grinned and took another sip of his coffee. “Fact is, today there are hardly any bodies who would stick around a place fifteen years, so’s they could figure out what they loved and what fed them spiritually.”
“You mean, the way people church shop willy-nilly, or the way they just drift away?” Sienna fidgeted uncomfortably after she asked, thinking of how she had not been to her home church since Peter got sick.
“Maybe,” A.C. considered, “May be.”
“Sienna here has been interested in Orthodoxy lately, A.C.” Cleotis said, not looking up from his consideration of the chessboard.
“That so?” A.C. lifted his eyebrows. “Did you grow up Orthodox?”
“No, but I find it comforting. I like the icons and the chanting.” Sienna felt the lack of a teacup in her hands as she fidgeted. She finally settled on twirling one of the hard-won pawns from A.C.’s captures.
Cleotis lifted his queen and quietly replaced her on the board. “Check.”
“Well, now,” A.C. answered Sienna, as if he were not in dire danger of losing the match. “Sounds to me as though that’s just God trying to get your attention where He can.”
“What do you mean?” Sienna asked, her brow creased. She hoped he was not going to call her experience into question. The sweetness from the prayer service was so real and rich in her memory.
“Well, the Lord is in all parts of his body, whether we acknowledge one another or not. The way I figure it, is that sometimes we grow familiar and stop paying attention. So He catches us, right where He thinks we’ll notice.” He paused to move his bishop again. “Check.”
“I’ll be,” Cleotis muttered through a smile. He moved a rook, but remained silent, a grin gradually overtaking his face.
“So, maybe I have just stopped paying attention to God at my church, you mean? That’s fair, I guess. I’ve been telling myself I was too busy to go, since my husband got cancer, but I used to be there twice a week.”
A.C. glanced at Cleotis, exchanging the rapid communication of lifelong friends. He leaned back in his chair for a moment, considering Sienna. Then he picked up his coffee cup and sighed. “Ms. Sienna,” he began, reverting to the Southern familiar formal address, “I’ve been on this earth for over four-score years, and I have seen a little of God and the ways He loves us in that time, I’m glad to say. What I figure is this: That when we live through a lot of hurts in a place, we start to go numb for a spell. We stop noticing the sweetness in the harmonies or the brightness of the flowers or the way the regulars dress and laugh. While we’re bleeding, the color bleeds right out of the places we love. But by and by, if we stay there, we start to come back alive. We start to love the people and the prayers and the music and the place again, newer and deeper. And God catches our attention right where we’ve always been.”
“But is it better, really, to stay there, even if He’s caught our attention elsewhere?” Sienna swallowed a lump in her throat.
“That’s just the thing, Sienna. God catches our attention after the sorrow because we realize later that he was always there right with us, in it.” There was a silence as A.C. reached toward the board. “Checkmate.”
“Yes, it is!” Cleotis beamed. He stood to shake A.C.’s hand. A.C. rose as well, and the men hugged across the table. Sienna, still seated, noted that only two tall persons could have hugged that way.
“Well, gentlemen, that calls for a round on the house!” Sienna smiled. She hurriedly gathered the empty teapot and carafe and walked toward the back. Her heart pounded against joy and pain as she replayed A.C.’s words in her mind. God right with her in the sorrow? The thought would have comforted her if it were not so frightening.
Notes from Sienna’s tea files
Tasting Notes: India Palace house blend spiced tea (loose leaf black tea, orange peel, star anise, cinnamon, white pepper, dried ginger chunks, cloves, nutmeg).
Provenance: Black tea is Assam; spices imported; orange peel house made from Florida oranges; ginger from local growers.
Liquor: Warm brown like cherry stain.
Astringency: Clean bite; bracing, not overbearing.
Body: Surprisingly round; the orange and chunked ginger fills out the middle with unexpected brightness.
Fragrance: Rich, comforting.
