Sisterchicks Go Brit! Read online

  “Close the door behind—” Rose said.

  “To keep the heat in,” Opal finished. “Tea?”

  “No, thank you,” I answered for both of us. “We need to be on our way to the hotel.”

  Rose and Opal looked surprised. “But it’s nearly four,” Rose said. “I have some sandwiches prepared. Nothing fancy—”

  “Minced ham is fancy enough,” Opal added.

  “Yes, of course. Minced ham. Opal’s favorite. And the scones are nearly ready from the oven.”

  Kellie looked as if the chance to pause for tea was a great idea. I reminded myself about our agreement to let the days come at their own pace and to stop for a proper spot of tea.

  I smiled and took the seat offered to me. London and my beloved Big Ben would still be there two hours from now. We could see a play tomorrow night or the next night or both nights if we wanted. Kellie and I were being invited to “take tea” in a cozy cottage in an English village with two engaging women. Why wouldn’t we stay for such an opportunity?

  As Kellie lowered herself into the chair next to Opal, I also lowered my expectations of what Kellie and I needed to accomplish that day. When Charles Dickens lived in this fine country he wrote about “great expectations.” I was preparing to write the first chapter of Kellie’s and my British story and entitle it “Realistic, Reduced, Willing-to-Get-Sidetracked, Yet Nonetheless Delightful Expectations.”

  With that adjustment in place, I found it much easier to agree with Kellie when she commented on the beautiful tablecloth. It was a quality linen fabric with a pattern in bright blues and yellows. The teakettle was an electric one with a fat cord attached to the wall by a large, round plug. The teacups waiting for us were in the Spode blue Italian pattern, the same china Opal used to serve us at her apartment in Florida. I no longer felt a little silly, as if we were sitting down to a little-girl tea party. I felt very grown-up and honored to be at this table.

  Kellie began the conversation by commenting on the rug as well as other design features she admired in Rose’s charming cottage.

  Rose seemed impressed with Kellie’s familiarity with Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. She said the rug had been in the family for as long as they could remember. Opal said it had always been a favorite of hers too.

  “Do either of you know of a museum where we might see some of Morris’s designs?” I asked.

  Rose and Opal spoke at once, overlapping each other.

  “Kelmscott Manor, of course,” Rose said. “Although I don’t know if they offer tours every day, and it’s not in London.”

  “Neither is the Red House,” Opal added.

  “Well, the V and A, of course,” Rose concluded.

  Opal nodded and sipped her tea.

  “And that’s a museum?” The name wasn’t ringing a bell. The British Museum showed up in all the lists of recommended tourist sights, as did the Tate Britain Gallery, Madame Tussauds Museum of Waxworks, and, of course, the National Portrait Gallery. I hated asking what the V and A was, but after all, I was a tourist. I still had my passport in a pouch tucked under my clothing to prove it.

  “Why, the Victoria and Albert,” Rose said.

  I made a note and decided I would gather more information from our hotel concierge on the subject.

  Within the first five minutes of sitting at Rose’s table in that warm and cheery breakfast room, I felt my feet thaw, along with the rest of me. The tea served was more than just a beverage; it was a defroster. An elixir that brought me into the present.

  I lifted the china teacup to my lips, and my smile curled around the smooth rim. For a decaf-grande-triple-nonfat-latte-in-a-to-go-cup sort of woman, I was curiously finding myself being won over to the wonder of tea. Or perhaps it was the ceremony of sitting down and “taking tea.” Here we were, on the other side of the world, yet it didn’t seem unusual or out of place for the four of us women to be together like this, sipping tea and chatting. Was this elemental camaraderie true of women the world over? Around such a table, how could we not be of one heart?

  Rose pushed away from the table with some difficulty and exited through a swinging door that led, I assumed, into the kitchen. I leaned toward Opal and said, “What happened to Virgil?”

  “No one seems to know. He’s been that way ever since his wife passed on some years ago.”

  “No, I mean, where did he go?”

  “Oh. Home, no doubt. He’ll be back. He always comes back.”

  Rose returned to the sunroom just then with a plate of the warm scones. “You really must try these with some of the lemon curd.” She pointed to a small bowl, which contained pale yellow jam.

  Kellie and I both tried the lemon curd and said, “Delicious!” at the same time. We gave each other “twin” looks and tried not to tumble into a fit of laughter.

  Rose seemed pleased with our assessment and settled back into polite conversation, discussing our flight and the traffic we’d encountered leaving Heathrow.

  The thin sunlight through the high windows was waning. In the twilight that now hushed the breakfast room, the pull of slumber became overpowering. I wondered if Kellie was feeling the same draw. A short nap sounded so good right then.

  When the teapot was emptied, Kellie glanced at me, and I knew it was time for us to be on our way.

  Just as Tolkien had invented an elfin language in his Lord of the Rings novels, Kellie and I had developed an entire code of facial movements. Over the years we found we could communicate with each other when no one else knew what our pursed lips or tilted head meant.

  I gave Kellie a “yes, let’s get going” dip of the chin and tried to think of how to insert the “we must be on our way” line into the conversation. I started with, “Would you like us to carry your luggage to your room, Opal?”

  “She’s staying downstairs with me,” Rose said. “The guest room upstairs is ready for the two of you.”

  “Oh, we’re not staying,” I said. “Did Opal not tell you? We’re going on to London this evening. We have hotel reservations.”

  Rose shook her head with clear disapproval. “Hotels are so expensive, don’t you think? I was just reading in the paper the other day that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world for hotel accommodations. Hong Kong was on the list as well. Can you imagine that?”

  “We have a very good, discounted rate,” Kellie said. “My husband is employed by a major hotel chain.”

  “Nevertheless, you might want to reconsider staying here with us.”

  “If only for this first night,” Opal added. “You must be weary.”

  Of course we were weary. But we had a lot of plans for the week, and none of them included lingering in Olney.

  “You certainly won’t be able to see much of London by the time you get there this evening,” Rose said.

  I knew I was too tired to be responsible for any decisions at that point. Kellie looked like she was succumbing to Rose’s and Opal’s mesmerizing words as well.

  “You’ve gone to all the trouble of bringing in your bags already,” Opal said.

  “And you’ve come on such a long journey …”

  Kellie and I gave each other a look that said, “Well?”

  “I suppose we could call the hotel and cancel for one night.” Kellie glanced around the room for a clock. “I have to call before six o’clock, and we would be leaving here first thing in the morning.”

  “I’ll bring the phone to you.” Rose pushed away from the table and got up stiffly.

  The reservation adjustment took only a few minutes. The next order of business was to move the suitcases to the bedrooms. I already was dreaming about stretching out on a bed with the covers pulled up to my chin. Oh, the thought of being luxuriously reclined and toasty warm!

  As Rose cleared the table, I followed Opal and Kellie back through the sitting room to the entryway and found the suitcases right where we had left them. We wrestled Opal’s luggage down to Rose’s room at the end of the hall.


  Kellie stopped in front of the closed bedroom door while Opal turned the knob and entered cautiously. “Oh, me,” she said under her breath.

  Kellie and I turned to each other and made our “yikes!” faces.

  Everything in the room was pink with lots and lots of roses. The wallpaper, bedspread, curtains, and even the cloth lampshades on the two end tables beside the double bed were plastered with large, pink roses. Four framed paintings of pink roses covered the wall above the dresser. I had never seen anything so pink and so rose strewn.

  Just then Rose joined us. “What do you think, Opal? You haven’t seen my room since the renovation.”

  “It suits you well.”

  “Yes, I think it does. Now, shall we show our guests their room?”

  The upstairs room was simple and sparse without a single rose to be found. This had been Rose and Opal’s childhood bedroom. The lace-doily-covered dresser still displayed a few of their small trinkets, including a music box in the shape of a Swiss chalet and a yellowed baby’s hairbrush accompanied by a nearly toothless comb.

  The narrow twin beds sloped in the middle but were sturdy enough for us. The angled roof rose above a padded window seat where one square window with thick glass provided the only view of the outside world. It was a distorted view of neighboring cottages interspersed with an occasional modern home.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea that we stayed?” Kellie asked after the twins left us to settle in.

  “I don’t know. I think so.”

  “It’s kind of quaint, isn’t it?”

  “Very quaint. This room is how I always pictured the Darling children’s nursery.”

  “What nursery?”

  “In Peter Pan. Did you ever read the book?”

  “No. Liz, you keep popping out with all these literature comparisons.”

  “British literature,” I corrected her.

  “I love it. I didn’t know you had so much British literature stored away in your memory. When did you read all those books?”

  “In high school.”

  “The only novel I remember reading in high school was The Great Gatsby. Oh, and The Grapes of Wrath, I think.” Kellie pulled her cosmetic bag out of her suitcase and looked up at me. “Why did you read so much British literature in high school?”

  I smiled at the memory before giving Kellie information I had never told her. “I had a tutor when I was fifteen.”

  “You did?”

  “Her name was Mrs. Roberts, and she had a fabulous British accent.”

  “Why did you have a tutor?”

  I sat on the edge of the sloping twin bed. “I was very sick, and I thought I was going to die.”

  Kellie chuckled.

  I didn’t.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Lizzie, you’re serious. What happened?”

  I realized that when you’ve been the closest of friends for decades, it’s natural to think you know everything about the other person. Kellie knew my brothers by name. She knew what size shoe I wore before my two daughters were born and what size I wore now. She knew that I had a cat in first grade called Inky Boo and that my eyelids swell whenever I inadvertently eat salsa laced with jalapeños. But Kellie didn’t know this story tucked deep in my history.

  “My sophomore year of high school I had to stay in bed from October to February, and my parents hired a tutor.”

  “What illness did you have?”

  “Mononucleosis.”

  “You had mono?” She grinned. “Who did you kiss?”

  I cringed as if I were fifteen again and answered with the same indignation I had back then. “No one.”

  “I’m just kidding.” Kellie obviously had caught the edge in my voice.

  “That’s what everyone said.”

  It really wasn’t my intention to come across so strong or indignant to Kellie. She had no way of knowing that this ancient history still carried a sting. My reputation throughout high school had been tainted by rumors that I had “gone too far” with some guy over the summer and that’s how I got the kissing disease.

  “I didn’t kiss anyone,” I said more calmly. “I got strep throat, and it developed into mononucleosis. The mono went after my liver, and I developed jaundice. By the second month of the illness I tested positive for hepatitis.”

  “Oh, Lizzie, you were sick.”

  “My skin turned a nauseating shade of yellow, and so did the whites of my eyes. It was awful. I really thought I was going to die. Then Mrs. Roberts came with her basket of books. All the British classic novels. She read to me for hours, and after she left, I kept reading.”

  “That’s why you and your girls are such great readers. You passed that love of literature on to them.”

  “It wasn’t just the literature I loved. Mrs. Roberts also brought travel brochures of England. She said they were our geography lessons. I would open those glossy, accordion-folded brochures, and she would tell me all about the sights in each picture. I memorized the pictures: the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, and, of course, the red phone booths.”

  “I can’t believe I never knew this.”

  “I almost told you a few years ago when you asked why I didn’t want to go with you to the blood drive. Do you remember that?”

  Kellie nodded. “My nephew was in the hospital. You said you couldn’t donate blood. I thought you just meant you couldn’t make it to the hospital that day.”

  “No, I can’t donate blood. My medical records show that I had hepatitis, and that means I’m not qualified to be a donor.”

  Kellie sat on the edge of her twin bed looking at me compassionately. “Your sophomore year was when you made your birthday wish to go to England, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded. “When my fifteenth birthday came that December, I wished I could go to London one day.”

  “And then you never got to. Until now.”

  “This might sound odd, but a trip to England wasn’t my real wish back then. I just wanted to be well enough to go to London if the opportunity ever presented itself. I guess my wish was really about getting healthy.”

  “Then I would say a double wish has come true for you today, sweet friend. You’ve been healthy enough to come for forty years. And now you’re here.”

  “I know.” My face warmed as a childlike sense of delight came over me. “We’re here, aren’t we? We’re in England.”

  “And tomorrow morning we’ll be in London.”

  However, the next morning we were still in Olney. Like Ben Gunn who was marooned on Treasure Island, it appeared we might never get away from the well-meaning twins. At least I wanted to believe they were well meaning.

  The good news about our night at the Olney cottage was that we slept well. The layers of blankets on top of the twin beds in the upstairs dormer were wondrously heavy. They pressed us into deep sleep the way a leaded apron presses a patient into the dentist’s chair when x-rays are taken.

  Kellie and I stayed in bed as long as we could the next morning, whispering back and forth about our plans for the day. We decided that as soon as we were up and about, we would call a cab to take us to the train station. We would go straight to London, and even if we weren’t able to check into our hotel right away, we would leave our luggage there and start taking in the sights.

  Kellie was the first to slip out of bed. She tiptoed downstairs to the “loo,” as Opal had called the bathroom the night before. It was impossible to wash and flush without the sound of running water echoing throughout the house.

  Moments later I could hear Rose and Opal tottering down the hall, each telling the other to keep her voice low but issuing the instructions loud enough to stir the neighbors. I tried to picture the two of them sharing the rose-strewn double bed the night before. My imagination contrived a cartoon image of their round faces smiling, both positioned exactly the same way, with their billowy white hair on the pink pillows, and both of them holding the top fold of the cov
ers with just their fingers showing, like kitten paws.

  Kellie slipped back into the room with a grin on her face. “Wait till you see this. They’re wearing matching bathrobes and matching hair scarves. I’m not kidding. It’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  “How did they manage to come up with matching robes?”

  “Who knows? They certainly seem happy to be together, though. Oh, and Rose said she would have tea for us in the breakfast room ‘shortly.’ I’m not sure what shortly means, but I told her we were almost ready to leave.”

  “I wish they hadn’t gotten up. I didn’t want to wake them.”

  “I know,” Kellie said. “But it’s impossible to do anything quietly in this house.”

  We quickly finished getting ready and zipped up our suitcases. Kellie and I entered the breakfast room and discovered that Rose intended to serve us more than just tea. She had prepared soft-boiled eggs, and each of us had one waiting at our place, balanced pertly in a china eggcup. In the center of the table was a small, upright metal rack. In between the rounded wire separators, Rose slid pieces of toasted white bread. She did it with such efficiency it almost looked as if she were “filing” the slices for us, the way file folders are placed alphabetically in a filing cabinet. Jars of marmalade and strawberry preserves were added to the assembly, and the teapot was filled with boiling water from the whistling electric kettle.

  Rose sat next to Opal and asked if we would like to join them in saying the morning grace. Kellie and I bowed our heads. In unison Rose and Opal repeated in a lyrical tone,

  “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest

  and let these gifts to us be blessed.

  Amen.”

  “Amen,” Kellie and I said.

  “I trust you both slept well,” Rose said as I tried to spread jam on my slice of bread without getting the toasted crumbs all over the table.

  “Yes, we did,” I said.

  Kellie nodded. “Very well. And you?”

  “We both slept—”

  “Well enough.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” Kellie said. “It was very kind of you to let us stay.”