She gave her a quick hug, even though she’d seen her last night. But for the last few weeks, she’d been so busy with the renovations, she’d hardly left the house except for the grocery store. She pulled up a chair to sit down. “You look relaxed,auntie.”
“Meditation and twenty-five Sun Salutations will do that for you,” Cherry replied with asmile.
“Well, have you seen the ghost yet?” asked Orbra van Hest unceremoniously as she approached. She’d appeared from the back room just as Leslie came in, and was carrying a tray with a full tea service on it: two delicate china pots, two cups and saucers, a small plate with paper-thin lemon slices, a sugar bowl, and a tiny creamer pitcher. “You’ve been living there almost amonth.”
Cherry grinned back at Leslie as the six-foot-plus Dutch woman loomed expectantly over their table. The proprietor of Orbra’s Tea House didn’t seem to be in any hurry to set down the tray for her customers—at least until she got a response to herquestion.
“No,” Leslie replied. “Not a sign. No slamming doors, no footsteps in the night, no fluttering curtains over a closed window…not even an inexplicable chill wafting through theair.”
“You can put the tray down, Orbra,” Cherry said, gesturing to the lace-covered table. Beneath the large doily was a blue floral cloth of cotton, and each place setting boasted a small hand-painted china plate, flatware of real silver, and a lace-trimmed cloth napkin. “I told you Leslie is too practical for the metaphysical to speak to her.” She said this with a wink at her favorite niece—her sister’s daughter—who shook her head in mock disgust as the tray clinked into place in front ofher.
“If there’s really a ghost at Shenstone House,” Leslie said as Orbra poured vanilla oolong into her cup, “then why didn’t Alice ver Stahl see him? Or her. Does anyone know whether this so-called ghost is supposed to be a man orwoman?”
“Alice ver Stahl was half-deaf and had cataracts. She never went anywhere in that house but the kitchen and the bathroom before they brought her to the nursing home. What was it, five years ago? She wouldn’t have seen or heard a ghost if it pulled out a chair for her at the table.” Orbra turned to pouring a fragrant floral tea of a much lighter color into Cherry’scup.
“She was half-deaf and had cataracts and lived alone?” Leslie washorrified.
“Orbra’s exaggerating, my dear. Mrs. ver Stahl had a perfectly fine hearing aid, and her cataracts had been removed years earlier,” Cherry said, and sipped her jasmine green tea. She smiled, curling her fingers around the cup as if to warm them. “Mm. This is still my favorite, even though the caffeine wreaks havoc on mymeditations.”
“The way you drink it, brewed hardly more than a minute, there can’t be much caffeine in there to speak of,” Orbra replied. She stood with her hands on her hips, clearly unwilling to move on until she got more information from her best friend’sniece.
Unlike other tea shops with a Victorian flair, Orbra’s wasn’t decorated in pink, cabbage flower prints, or with too much lace. There was some lace, but it was restricted to covering the dark blue tablecloths, and an occasional doily. The rest of the decor was mostly cornflower blue, yellow, and white. Though there were tiny flowers printed on the wallpaper and fresh Gerbera daisies, sweet peas, and alstroemeria stuck in vases on each table, the florals weren’toverwhelming.
“I don’t like to make the men feel uncomfortable. You know a lot of them won’t come into a place that feels too much like a woman’s bedroom—unless itisa woman’s bedroom,” Orbra had told Leslie with a grin. “So I try to keep it feminine without going overboard. Regina Underwhite helped me find some of the antiques, along with that silver tea service in the front window. But I did the rest of it myself. And business is all I can handle, believe youme.”
However, today Leslie and Cherry were the only customers in the tea shop. As it was early October, summer was over and school was back in session, and it was just past the high season of fall colors. Thus, Wicks Hollow was devoid of the tourists that kept it buzzing and humming from late May through the end of September. This meant Orbra had plenty of time to sit and pepper Leslie withquestions.
“Bethy,” the proprietress shouted toward the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, “bring out those scones, will you, hon? I’m going to pull up a chairmyself.”
But just as she was wrangling a heavy Victorian side chair to their table, the door opened and three elderly ladies burst in on a swirl of leaves and chilly autumnair.
“Itoldyou it was a word,” said the one who was clearly the oldest, and, it seemed, the loudest as well. “All you had to do was trust me, and you would have won.” She had dark skin so smooth it appeared polished, thick iron-gray hair and a sturdy build, and was practically shouting at one of her companions as she led them through the door. She was carrying a walking stick, but didn’t actually appear to need it forlocomotion.
“Mornin’ Orbry,” the woman crowed as soon as she saw the proprietress, but she stopped just inside the threshold to direct one of her companions. “Now, Juanita, you watch here so you don’t trip on that little step—you know you’re blind as abat.”
With a little sigh of exasperation, Orbra muttered, “As if they haven’t come here five times a week for twenty years. Which is five times too many, some days,” she added in an undertone. Then she lifted her brows at Leslie. “You’d better move. You’re in Maxine’sseat.”
“Yes,” said Cherry around a chuckle as Leslie moved over. “She likes to sit there so she can see the streetanddirect the happenings in the entire tea house. Nosy old bag.” Then she projected across the cafe, “Welcome back, ladies! How wasChicago?”
Leaving her two companions behind, Maxine was barreling her way across the hardwood floor, her cane thumping with alacrity. For a woman who had just turned eighty—as she announced to anyone who would listen—she was remarkably agile and nearly stomped Leslie’s toe with her heavy wooden cane as she plopped onto herchair.
Ignoring Cherry’s greeting, she speared Leslie with her sharp eyes. “You’re Cherry’s niece. Ain’t seen you since you were in saggy diapers,” she said as if she were accusing her of some derelict ofduty.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Took,” Leslie replied with a smile, even though she’d never been in Wicks Hollow in saggy diapers. That she knewof.
“It’sMaxine. And it was nevermissusnothing,” she replied, then jabbed up at Orbra with a curling, arthritic finger. “You got cinnamon sconestoday?”
“Fresh ones, because I knew you were going to be back,” Orbra replied dryly. Cherry looked at Leslie and they both smotheredgrins.
“I want three. And bring me some of that Earl Grey with the vanilla in it. And some milk. Real milk, not that nut stuff you tried to kill me with lastweek.”
“Leslie, I don’t know if you remember Juanita Alecita and Iva Bergstrom,” Cherry said as the other two ladies sat down. “They’re part of our Tuesday Ladies group as well. The three of them just got back from a trip toChicago.”
“Used to be six of us till Jean Fickler died last summer,” Maxine said in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. “She didn’t even make it to my eightieth birthday party. That was a hell of a bash,” she added, giving Leslie (who’d known nothing about it because she’d still been in Philadelphia) an accusing look for daring to beabsent.
“I’ve heard all about the Tuesday Ladies,” Leslie said, knowing that the name was a misnomer, for the older women didn’t limit their socializing to Tuesdays—and hadn’t done so for years. “I’m sorry it took this long for us to finally meet again—I’ve been so busy gettingsettled.”
“Don’t you worry about that, honey.” Juanita Alecita smiled as she placed a napkin on her broadlap.
