“Doris, this is Sandra Eccles. Listen, one of my kids has this soccer thing the same day as the Valentine’s Day Dance, which will put us one chaperone short. I know you did it last time, and the time before, but you don’t have kids, or in-laws breathing down your neck. I’d love a schedule just about me, ha ha! Anyway, if you can—”
Bleep!
“Doris! I’m about to call the hospitals to make sure you aren’t in the emergency room.”
Bleep!
“Doris, Sylvia again. It’s about my daughter. Nicola’s hooked up with yet another loser. As if three failed marriages weren’t enough! You need to talk to her—she only seems to listen to you. If she listens to anybody. Call me first!”
Doris pulled up at her house. The rest of the missed calls were her mother’s, sister’s, and another familiar faculty member’s numbers—someone notorious for slipping out of extra duties due to last minute emergencies—along with two “unknown callers.”
With an immense sense of satisfaction, she deleted the lot.
Bleep! Bleep! Bleep!
She let herself into her quiet house, which wasn’t much to look at, but it was hers. And she was not lonely. No-siree-bob. She should hang a sign out front declaring this space Spinster Paradise. She only had to pick up after herself. She ate when she wanted, and on her days off she could sleep in as long as she liked, wear pajamas all day if she felt like it, then hog the bathroom for a two hour bath by candlelight if she wanted, and no one could complain.
Nothing stirred. She shut the front door with a sense of shutting out the world. The world, and . . .
And there he was, as vivid as if he’d followed her inside: Joey Hu, imprinted on her retinas. Once again a peculiar burst of warmth ignited behind her breastbone. It was . . . unsettling. Yes. That was the word.
“Sixty-two, about to retire. I’m too old for this,” she grumped. She evaded defining exactly what ‘this’ was as she headed to the kitchen to boil water.
She looked at her tea canisters. Tea was civilized. It didn’t take you by surprise and shake everything up. Bird had introduced Doris to good tea, and served as Doris’s main guinea pig for her recipes. That was as much adventure as was appropriate for a spinster on the verge of retirement.
She just wouldn’t think about Joey Hu—
And there she was, thinking.
“Ugh,” she said to the teakettle. “Oh, why am I talking to you?”
The kettle, as if in answer, began whistling.
Doris was reaching for it when her phone rang—not They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Ha, which was her mother’s ringtone, or I Feel Pretty, which was her sister Sylvia’s. Instead, The Ride of the Valkyrie thundered suddenly in her hand. Doris nearly dropped the phone.
“Why did I think that ringtone for Godiva was a good idea?” She picked up, but long experience kept her from putting the phone to her ear.
“Doris!” Godiva’s voice bellowed out, amid much crackling. She always used speakerphone at maximum volume. “What are you doing?”
“Making tea,” Doris said.
“Make enough for three,” Godiva ordered. “Jen and I are outside your house.”
Doris had to laugh. Of course she hadn’t gotten away with her rude retreat from that wedding. But unlike her family, whose drama was always about themselves, this third degree would be about her.
She wasn’t at all certain that was an improvement.
A minute later they were inside her kitchen. Jen was quiet in that distant, slightly sad way that Doris resisted accepting as the new Jen, so unlike the chatty, passionate Jen when Robert was alive. In contrast, Godiva filled the room with her energy. It always amazed Doris how so small a woman could make every space seem scarcely big enough to contain her.
“Pick your cups,” Doris said. “You’re getting Wuyi Oolong.”
Doris’s beautiful antique teacups lined a set of shelves. She had no complete set, just onesies and twosies inherited from sundry grandmothers and great-aunts. For years she’d kept those fragile old teacups carefully packed away. When she’d turned fifty, she thought, why? They were beautiful, and they deserved to be used.
They were hand-painted, probably by the ancestors who had brought them from Eastern Europe when they were chased out by governments in search of scapegoats for their bad economic decisions.
Jen picked the one with the pink roses, and Godiva arrowed straight for the cobalt blue and gold one, carrying it to the table with both hands. She had always valued beautiful things.
Usually Doris went for the dainty Victorian cup with graceful star-shaped flax flowers in cheery yellow. She’d had her kitchen painted to match the cup. But today she found herself reaching to the top shelf for the oldest of the cups.