The Little Teashop on Main Read online

  Shannon felt the chill of an early winter. “Take care of Zoe, Pop. Of the three of us fairies, she’s the one who’ll go wild.”

  “Isn’t she headed for New York soon? And you’re right about her. With a mother who didn’t set down near enough rules, if you ask me, there’s no telling about Zoe. After graduation I asked her what she planned to be, and she answered, ‘A Wood Nymph.’ What in the hell is that?”

  Shannon kissed his cheek. “She was kidding, Dad. She just had fun this summer. There’s lots of time for her to think about goals. She’s broken up with three guys this year, so her heart is pretty beat up, but she’ll get over it when she hits the Big Apple. Take the time to visit with her if she comes home before I do. And stop by and talk to Alex. She’ll be lost without Zoe.”

  “Kind of like me without you. But I got a plan. I’m going to work myself to death.”

  “What else is new?”

  “What about shy little Emily? Should I watch over her too?” Shannon knew he’d changed the subject before she could start lecturing him.

  “No, her mother’s been glued to her side since the doctor cut the cord. Mrs. Waters says Emily can stay home and get a college degree online, but Em really wants to go to some little church school in New England. Last I heard, they were fighting it out. Silent old Howard Waters might side with Em just to have some peace in the house.”

  Shannon kissed her dad one last time and jumped in the car. “Maybe you should watch over both my friends while I’m gone. I guess I’ve always thought that was my job.”

  “I will, and Zoe’s mom too. I swear, that woman should have grown up in the sixties. She would have made a perfect flower child. If she didn’t own the bakery, I’d never speak to her, but those scones of hers are impossible to resist.”

  “Don’t pick on her, Dad.”

  “I’d never dream of it. Rule of survival. Never piss off a woman who can cook.” He laughed. “She’s invited me to drop by the bakery for breakfast any time I’m missing you. I’ll probably be fat as a bear by the time you come home for Christmas.”

  She knew he was keeping it light, making it easy on her, so Shannon played along. “You two will probably run out of anything to talk about long before you get tired of her pastries.”

  “Oh, we only talk about you girls. That and the weather are our only safe topics. Anything else would probably be a land mine.”

  “Love you, Dad.”

  “I know, baby. Now, you’d better get on the road.”

  He stood at attention beside the driveway until she turned the corner and he disappeared from her rearview mirror. Her mother might have vanished years ago with only occasional phone calls and flyby visits, but her dad was solid as a rock. Maybe that was why she wanted to go into the air force. To make him proud. To follow in his footsteps.

  Five minutes later, Shannon ran up the steps of the tiny apartment above the bakery on Main. Three years ago, Zoe’s mother had sold her house and moved. She’d said she was downsizing, but Shannon guessed it was to help pay for tuition at the art school Zoe had always dreamed of attending.

  Today, they’d have tea on the balcony of the apartment.

  Today, they’d say goodbye to each other for a whole semester.

  “We’re waiting!” Zoe yelled from the balcony.

  Shannon felt a lump in her throat. She was the first to leave, the one they’d have to say goodbye to. Emily looked like she’d been crying. Zoe was, as always, dancing around, impatient for the next chapter of their lives to begin.

  “We’re going to make promises today,” Zoe said as Shannon took her seat. “Forever promises that none of us will ever break.”

  “Forever,” Emily said. “I’ll go first.” She lifted her teacup. “We’ll always be best friends.”

  All three sipped their tea.

  “We’ll always be there for each other, no matter the miles between us,” Shannon added.

  Zoe giggled. “And if one of us ever kills anyone, the other two have to promise to bury the body.”

  They laughed as Zoe straightened and lifted her cup. “Seriously, nothing will ever break our bond. Not boyfriends, lovers or husbands.”

  As their cups clinked, Shannon whispered, “I don’t plan to marry, not for a long time, so that’s no problem.”

  Zoe shrugged. “I plan to have a hundred lovers. Famous actresses do, you know. What about you, Em?”

  “I doubt Mom will let me date before I’m forty, so where will I find a lover?”

  Zoe lifted her cup one last time. “To Forever Tea. To us.”

  three

  * * *

  Fuller

  A shadow moved along the sleeping streets of Laurel Springs. He silently crossed through the warehouse district that had been abandoned in the thirties and now loomed, dark and dusty. The barns and workshops seemed to huddle together between threads of winding roads, and had only rodents as tenants.

  Here, unlike Main Street or the rows of homes on the other side of the creek, nothing was brightly painted or trimmed. Trash whirled in the alleys and corroded window fans clicked without rhythm through the night. Progress seemed to have faded away here in the shadows.

  Along the last row of this area of town a long mile of chain-link fence barred the Wilders’ land from the world. Weeds as tall as a tractor’s tire wound their way through the holes in the chain, and near the gate, old tires had been stacked to block any passerby’s view of what was inside.

  The rusty old garage didn’t have a sign, but it had a row of bays blocked by locked overhead doors. Everyone knew if the bay doors were raised, the business was open. On a rotting piece of wood near the gate, someone had carved Wilder’s Fort in letters a foot high.

  People said Old Man Wilder could fix anything with an engine. He’d learned his skill while stationed in army bases all over Europe during WWII. He’d stayed in the army another twenty years, claiming he wasn’t coming home until he had enough money saved to buy land. When he finally showed up, he bought the abandoned garage in the worthless part of town, built a fence and continued working on cars, tractors and motorcycles. Folks claimed he lived in the garage until he’d married and built a house out behind the junkyard on his property.

  The only home at Wilder’s Fort. Only one that would probably ever be there.

  Before the old man died, he’d left everything at Wilder’s Fort—the garage, land and the shack of a house—to his grandson, Fuller Wilder. He’d taught the kid everything about cars, but nothing about life or getting along with people. He’d even bragged that his grandson had driven every teacher he’d had mad. Said he was feral as the coyotes that roamed the property looking for rats in the junkyard.

  Customers complained that something was wrong with the boy; he was too quiet. Didn’t have a friendly bone in his body, they’d say. No one ever saw him around town. He seemed to be little more than a shadow who lived only behind the chain-link fence.

  Once Fuller dropped out of school, people started to hint that he wasn’t right in the head, but no one had any proof, just a feeling when they came to the garage. He never talked more than necessary, but he was a good mechanic who charged fair prices.

  They didn’t know Fuller Wilder’s secret. No one did.

  Almost every night he’d crossed the creek and walked their streets. He was no more than a ghost to the community. He never bothered anyone, but he watched people, studied them like a kid studies an ant bed.

  He moved alone, shifting from one part of town to another in the shadows of the trees. He found peace in the silence. He let a tiny spark of a dream whisper across his thoughts as he walked. Maybe someday, somehow, he’d belong.

  Fuller knew it was impossible. Wilders stayed at the fort; they worked at the garage. He was one of those invisible people.

  If anyone did sense him near, they never investigated. They never guess
ed that Fuller Wilder had a reason. A mission no one would ever know.

  He cared about only one person in Laurel Springs: Emily Waters. And he needed to know she was safe now and then. It helped him sleep even though he’d never said her name aloud.

  four

  * * *

  Zoe

  New York was still in the clutches of late summer, even though the calendar said it was fall. Women wore sleeveless dresses. Perfect weather for sitting on the stoop outside, but Zoe couldn’t sit still long enough to eat her sandwich. She had to explore. She drank the city in like melted peach ice cream.

  For her, adventure, love and happiness were just around the corner, and she couldn’t wait to find them. In the dark night, she’d miss home and her mother, but now, in the light, all she wanted to do was live.

  When the pay phone sounded upstairs, she broke into a run. If she could only afford a mobile phone and not have to use the one hallway phone everyone used, Zoe might be able to have a private conversation now and then.

  But phones cost money, and she was living on a tight budget. Until she was a star, of course.

  “Hello,” she yelled into the old receiver.

  A familiar laughter came through first. “How you doing in New York, slugger?”

  She grinned. “Jack, aren’t you supposed to be at the Air Force Academy?”

  “I’m here, working hard. Man, Zoe, you’re really out of it. Remember Alexander Graham Bell. He invented this thing you’re holding. How about putting in a few bucks and calling me sometime like you said you would the day you left town.”

  “I remember.” Jack always made her laugh. “I know I promised. I’ve just been busy. I’m in my element, taking in New York. It loves me, you know. The whole town loves me, or they will soon. I love my acting classes. I’ll be a star in no time.”

  Jack’s low voice sounded like home. “Of course they’ll love you. The whole town you left loved you. Got a boyfriend yet? I know you—without a guy on your arm you’ll think you look underaccessorized.”

  She giggled. “Well, come over and we’ll run the streets together. We’ll tell everyone we meet that we’re lovers, not just friends.”

  “Can’t, slugger. School, remember? Plus, you told me to keep watch over Shannon. How could I do that if I fly off to see my best friend in New York?”

  Zoe lost her smile as she allowed a bit of honesty in. “Your best friend is a little lonely up here. Folks aren’t like they are at home. People don’t say hello when I pass. They don’t want to visit on the bus. I miss talking to you and Shannon and Emily.”

  “You’ll make new friends, Zoe.”

  “I know. Someday I’ll walk down the street and everyone will know me. I’ll be famous.”

  “I have no doubt, but until then, keep that left hook up. You might run into someone who needs a lesson. I’ve seen you in action, remember.”

  “He was in the third grade,” Zoe reminded Jack. “You were in the second grade and about the skinniest kid I’d ever seen. He was beating on you just because he could and I couldn’t stand for it.”

  Now Jack laughed. “Yeah, but you were in the first grade. That third grader took off when you started pounding on him. I might have been on the ground, but I saw the fear in his eyes. You saved me, slugger.”

  She lowered her voice. “I wish you were here, Jack.”

  “You’ll be fine, Zoe. You know you can always go home if the pace of the city gets too much for you. Give it a few weeks. A few months.”

  “I know, but I’m going to live in double time for a while. I’ll see it all before I come home. I’m going to dance in the streets and wave at the world from the roof.”

  “And I’m going to hear all about it, Zoe. I’ll call you often. While I’m out West marching and studying, I’ll be thinking of you having all the fun.”

  He said he had to go, but even after the phone went dead, she held it to her ear as if somehow she could feel home coming through the wire.

  When she made it back to the stoop, someone had stolen her dinner.

  Zoe raised her fist and yelled what she’d do if she caught them. No one passing even bothered to look at her, but she didn’t care.

  She was in New York and she could hear the heartbeat of the world from here.

  five

  * * *

  Shannon

  Shannon took long strides as she splashed through puddles of rain on her walk from the dorm to the mess hall the cadets called Mitch’s. She’d been on the Air Force Academy campus—eight miles north of Colorado Springs—for three months, and every day, every hour, her home in Laurel Springs seemed farther away.

  In her mind, she was walking Main. Passing A Stitch in Time, where Mrs. Larady had her quilt shop, and Hidden Treasures, which was packed full of gems no one seemed to want. And the bookstore, run by a white-haired man who smelled of pipe tobacco and Old Spice. She even missed the creek that ran through town, a wild spot woven into the buildings that she’d been afraid of when she was small.

  Somehow, walking through her hometown in her mind always grounded her. This month the leaves would be turning in her Texas town. Big oaks and wide willows along Willow Road would offer a gentle rain of color as the season changed. The hundred-year-old houses, each in a different style, always seemed to shine in fall. The road everyone called School Street where three buildings, elementary through high school, stood in a row.

  Shannon missed her silent room in the house her father had bought when she was born. Her grandmother’s place was three doors down. She missed her friends back in Laurel Springs.

  She even missed her dad’s never-ending questions. If she took a stand on anything from politics to movies, he’d make her defend it. He might not agree with many of her ideas, but he listened.

  No question was off-limits for Dad. Except once, when he’d asked if she’d got her period yet. They’d both blushed so badly they’d agreed never to talk of it again. All sex education for her was left to the internet and friends who were as clueless as she was.

  Last summer she and her two best friends laughed about being the three oldest virgins in town. A few in their senior class were pregnant or planning June weddings. But Emily, Zoe and Shannon all wanted to explore the world before they settled down to breed, as Zoe put it.

  They’d planned their escape as carefully as prison lifers with shovels. Zoe would go to New York and become famous. Emily would pick a private church school as far away from her mother as possible and finally be able to breathe. Shannon would attend the academy and learn to fly. Then she’d live all over the world, and her two friends would plan trips to see her.

  High school dreams, Shannon thought now. The academy, though she loved it, was ten times harder than she’d thought it would be. She woke, slipped on sweats and ran four miles, then showered and started her classes with drills and more exercise sliced in between. She ended the day never done with her list.

  She remembered how summer had flown by while she and her friends planned and packed and talked. Then, as the air began to cool, they drank tea in Zoe’s mother’s tiny apartment. The Farewell Tea. The sad tea. All three agreed they’d follow their dreams and come together for their ritual. Their Farewell Teas, like the Hello Teas, would last a lifetime. They would break out of an ordinary life and fly.

  “Someday,” Zoe had promised, “the town will put up a billboard saying that the three of us once lived here. Extraordinary women. Best friends.”

  Right now, Shannon would settle for one cup of tea and talking. She missed them. She missed her town. She missed her dad.

  Funny how you don’t think the little things are important until they disappear. Her friends seemed a million miles away now. Emailing wasn’t the same as talking. Shannon couldn’t help but wonder if Emily and Zoe were both happy or just pretending to be, like she was.

  Out of nowhere, boots
splashed into her line of vision, washing away her melancholy thoughts.

  Glancing up, she saw Jack Hutchinson, wearing a tarp of a raincoat. He looked like his own personal traveling mini circus tent. “Get out of my way.” She started around him. “I don’t want to see you today, or tomorrow, or ever. All you are is scratched-off spots on my calendar, Jack.”

  He twirled, making the poncho fly out from his stick of a body. “Come on, Shan, get over it. I didn’t stand you up. I was just late for our date.”

  She marched on with him falling into step. “Twenty-three hours late, birdbrain, and this was the third time. No wonder you’re having trouble with math. You can’t even tell time.” When he didn’t argue, she added, “And studying isn’t a date. I don’t date, remember?”

  “Then I couldn’t stand you up, could I? Right?”

  “Shut up. Isn’t it bad enough that I had to grow up with you always around? Now you have to follow me to the academy.”

  “I wasn’t following you to school. I came here first. Maybe you...”

  “I don’t want to hear it. To you everything seems more important than studying. I don’t want to be your conscience, trying to make you pass your classes, or your priest when you make up some excuse. Just tell me what you want from me or go away.”

  “All right. What do I want from you, Shannon Morell?” His sandy-colored eyebrows pressed together to give the appearance that he was thinking. “One, I could offer you a wild freshman affair, for starters. Two, I’d take a million bucks if you have it lying around. And, since you’re asking, I wouldn’t mind seeing you naked, for the third wish. I’ve thought about that since the seventh grade.”

  She doubled her fist before she realized he was kidding. “If I were you, I’d bet on the million bucks appearing because there is no way in hell the other two will.”