The Little Teashop on Main Read online

  He had the nerve to look disappointed. This too-tall, too-thin, too-bothersome guy, who she swore had followed her all her life, was also impossible to stay mad at. He reminded her of a stray puppy no one loved, but that she’d probably feel sorry for when someone finally ran over him.

  “I just wanted to know if you need a ride home over the Thanksgiving break. I’m driving back, and if you come along, you could study or sleep in the back seat. I won’t even talk to you until you hit me in the back of the head and demand a potty stop.”

  “I’d planned to stay here and work on my term papers. When are you leaving?” She’d been so busy she hadn’t thought about Thanksgiving. Two days driving, two days home didn’t seem a good use of time. Plus, her dad had flown in and picked up her car a week after she got to school. Some rule about freshmen not having cars.

  Jack broke into her thoughts. “Early Wednesday morning. If we leave by eight, we’ll be home before it gets dark.”

  Shannon considered forgiving him for the study dates. A trip home would be great, even if her dad was tied up in Washington. She could stay at the house alone and spend hours catching up with Emily and Zoe. Knowing her grandmother, she’d cook enough food to last a week and leave it in the fridge if she knew Shannon was coming.

  If she went home, Shannon would have to plan when to tell her grandmother. Early enough for her to cook but not time enough for Grandma to talk Shannon into going with her to see her sisters in Dallas. Shannon had been trapped into that trip last Thanksgiving. One holiday with those three women, all in their eighties, all arguing, was enough. The three sisters had never got along. When they weren’t disagreeing over something, they were telling stories of their fights over a lifetime.

  “You want a ride or not?” Jack asked.

  “I’ll go.” She smiled at him. The drive would be worth it to see her friends.

  Zoe had emailed yesterday that she planned to be home for a week over Thanksgiving. Her mother always invited Shannon and her father over for the big meal she loved to cook, saying two more would be no trouble. If Dad made it home, even for one day, they’d have a grand meal in the little kitchen over the bakery.

  Then she and Zoe would kidnap Emily for a long talk. Emily’s house had never been welcoming, even though the girls used to have a playdate there now and then. Emily’s mother always orchestrated their playtime, and Shannon had a feeling she usually stood just outside the door to listen in on their talks.

  Jack held open the door to the mess hall. “My folks said Emily is back for good from that church school back East. She didn’t last the first semester.”

  “What?” It always freaked her out a bit when Jack seemed to crawl into her mind. But they were from the same small town, knew the same people, and Jack’s parents did live across the street from Emily’s parents.

  “Mom writes me weekly letters, like I’m off to the war and not at school. In her log of the town happenings, she said that Emily Waters came home a week ago, but she hasn’t stepped out of her house. She and her mother didn’t even come with the family to church on Sunday.”

  “Strange. Em’s mother thinks having your butt in the Waterses’ pew at the First Baptist Church is the eleventh commandment.”

  “I agree.” Jack pulled his slicker off and tried to get his badly barbered hair to stand up, or lie down, or whatever it was supposed to do. “Something’s wrong, Shannon, and you’ve got to go home and find out what it is so you can tell me. Then I can stop worrying about poor little Emily. I was born to worry about that girl. I was in high school before I realized her full name didn’t have Poor Little attached to it.”

  “Shut up,” she snapped again, even though she knew he was right. Emily’s whole family always smothered her. Strangers frightened Em with just a frown, but Shannon still didn’t like anyone talking about Emily.

  “I guess she couldn’t take that big school so far away.” He shrugged.

  “Sh.”

  “I know. I heard you the first two times. I swear, being around you is like being in Echo Canyon. Are you riding home with me or not?”

  She tried giving him a look that would kill, but it didn’t work. “I’ll go. Pick me up Wednesday.”

  “Will do.”

  She nodded a silent goodbye and turned left. He turned right. In the three months they’d been on campus, they hadn’t eaten a meal together. She guessed he felt the same way she did. They were here to learn, to grow, to make new friends, not hang around people they’d known back home.

  Three days later, a light snow was falling when Shannon climbed into the back of Jack’s old Ford. She’d put a change of clothes into her backpack along with books. All her old clothes would be waiting in her room when she got home and, for once, the only things on her to-do list were eat, sleep and talk.

  “Ready?” Jack grinned.

  “Ready. I’ve decided since Dad’s not home, I’ll spend all my free time studying.” She was lying, but maybe Jack would get the hint and do the same.

  “Me too.” He was almost convincing.

  She didn’t call him out on his lie. Jack never studied. He seemed smart enough to get by and that was fine for him. Shannon didn’t even want to talk to him. She just wanted to unwind for a while and watch the beautiful views as they headed south out of Colorado. The edge of the Rocky Mountains melted into rugged land that would soon shift into plains.

  Within ten minutes, Jack broke the silence. “You know why there’s an Oklahoma Panhandle?”

  “No idea.”

  “’Cause Colorado refused to touch Texas.”

  “You just made that up.”

  “No, my grandfather told me. He said his grandpa, they called him Pepa, was half Apache. Born in Oklahoma when it was still a territory, so he should know.”

  Shannon leaned up between the seats. “You’re a wealth of misinformation, Jack. If we ever did study together it would probably lower my scores.”

  “We’ve got time to test the theory. The way you’re rushing, though, you’ll probably beat me to graduation.”

  She leaned back. “Right. You’ll probably still be a doolie when I’m a zoomie.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep up with you.” He tossed her a candy bar. “If I don’t take summer classes we’ll probably graduate together. Engineering is a five-year program.”

  “A challenge. You’re on. I’d better get to work. You keep driving.”

  An hour later, while he listened to some football game, she used her backpack as a pillow and drifted to sleep.

  The day floated by with the changing landscapes.

  They stopped for gas and more snacks. She drove a few hours while he slept folded into the passenger seat. Now and then, he’d shift and lean over to put his head on her shoulder. She’d push him off toward his window, and he’d wake up enough to complain.

  They argued over switching channels and debated which teacher was the toughest in high school.

  When they finally pulled into Laurel Springs, Shannon swore she could feel her heart slow. She was home.

  Jack stopped at his father’s office to say hello. The Hutchinsons had been builders in Laurel Springs since wagons rolled down Main. Some had been masons, a few architects, but most, like his brothers, Ben and Harry, were contractors. Folks said that Hutchinson took three years to build his home on Travis Street, even hauled trees in before he broke ground, so that by the time the house was finished, the trees were big enough to offer shade. As families moved into town, they wanted him to build a unique house for them on Travis Street. Big or small, Hutchinson built it.

  Shannon dug around in the back seat, looking for her tennis shoes. By the time she got them on, Jack was back.

  “We got to go.” He started the car as he slammed the door closed. “Something has happened to Emily.”

  “What?”

  She got one glance i
n his eyes before he shot out of the lot, headed toward his house. “What’s going on?”

  He gripped the wheel so hard she wasn’t sure he was listening. Then his words came, slowly. “I didn’t take time to get the details. Mom called Dad to say she was going to ride in an ambulance with Emily’s mom. They’re rushing Em to the hospital. Dad told us to hurry if we want to get there in time.”

  “No,” Shannon said. “This will be the third time she’s been in the hospital in three years. Not again.”

  Jack pressed the accelerator and the quiet streets became a blur. “We’ll drive past her house. Maybe we’ll catch up to them?”

  When they got to Jack’s house, the door was wide open. So was Emily’s door across the street. They ran for the Waterses’ place.

  “Em!” Shannon screamed. “Em!” she shouted again as if her friend might appear and explain that it was all a mix-up.

  But no one answered as they entered the Waterses’ house.

  The TV was on. Vegetables sat half-chopped on the counter. Jack whispered as they moved down the hallway, “No blood. That’s a good sign.”

  Shannon wanted to hit him. A dozen reasons Emily would have been rushed to the hospital came to mind and none of them involved blood on the floor.

  She grabbed the phone on the kitchen wall and dialed the bakery. Zoe or her mother might know what was going on. After all, Zoe was already in town.

  “Calm down, Shannon,” Alex O’Flaherty said in her always-Zen tone. “Zoe called me five minutes ago and said Emily was stable now but still having trouble breathing.”

  “What happened? Is Emily hurt?”

  “There will be time to talk. I’m locking up the bakery and headed out now. I’ll meet you at the hospital. I have to go.”

  Shannon hung up the phone, staring at it as if it could somehow hurt her if she glanced away. “We need to be at the hospital.”

  “I agree.”

  Jack drove back down Main Street. Late sunlight blinked across the windows of shops already closed for the evening. Only a few people passed. One waved at Jack, but Jack was concentrating on his driving.

  Neither talked. They knew nothing and guessing what was wrong would only cause more panic. They were home. A place so peaceful nothing bad ever happened. Emily was fine. She had to be.

  Finally, he broke the silence. “I should have asked more questions. How could Emily have gotten hurt? Or maybe she’s sick? Or maybe she tried to...”

  “Don’t even think it,” Shannon whispered. “For as long as I’ve known Emily, she’s felt trapped. If she came home, she must have lost all hope of breaking free. But Em wouldn’t...” Shannon couldn’t even think about Emily hurting herself, but the possibility seemed to hang between them.

  “I don’t want anything to change here, Jack. I want to go away and always know that here everything will be the same. This town. My friends.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Shan.”

  She hit his shoulder. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He didn’t react. He didn’t even look at her as he pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  When he clicked off the engine, he turned to her, his eyes full of tears he wouldn’t let fall. “I can’t promise you things won’t change, Shan. I can’t. But I can promise I’ll stand with you now in what you face and later down the road. Whether it’s good or bad. Whether you’re right or wrong. I’ll stand by your side.”

  She nodded and took his hand as they ran for the emergency doors. For the first time in her life, she saw Jack Hutchinson in a different light.

  Like it or not. Ready or not. Her world was already changing.

  six

  * * *

  Emily

  Shadows danced across the walls of Emily Waters’s hospital room. Almost real, almost part of her ever-shifting dreams. Emily told herself she wasn’t afraid of night’s echoes. Sometimes, in her darkest dreams, the shifting shapes were all that kept her company.

  They were whispering tonight, telling her this was all her fault. Making her hurt deep inside. Making her wonder what was wrong with her.

  There were also whispers from strangers circling around her bed. They tried to be gentle. Tried to help. But how could she tell them where it hurt, when there was no gaping wound, no cuts, not even a bruise.

  She was back home in Laurel Springs. Maybe it would be all right now. Her mother would take care of her.

  Her mind drifted through the past few months. The college up North had echoing hallways, and the winter light never seemed as bright as it did in Texas. The whole world seemed hollow there. She’d known after the first week it wasn’t for her, but she’d stayed, hoping. She’d made it almost to the break before she left.

  “Breathe, Emily,” said one of the strangers. “Just keep breathing and you’re going to be fine.”

  Emily closed her eyes and simply drifted. She wanted to tell the stranger poking a needle into the back of her hand that sometimes it wasn’t worth it to keep breathing.

  But she couldn’t think of a real reason to stop, and someone had told her once that a person has to have a reason to die.

  She slipped into sleep. Maybe she’d think of the reason tomorrow. Tonight, she was just too tired.

  seven

  * * *

  Zoe

  Zoe O’Flaherty pulled her feet up onto the waiting room’s plastic chair, hugged her knees and curled into a ball. “Disappear,” she whispered. “Just vanish and all this will go away.” She liked the parties and bright lights and laughter of the Big Apple. She did not like this hospital waiting room. It smelled of dying and loss and heartache.

  The walls, the floor, even the chairs were stark white, and the room seemed cold and hollow. Sadness and pain lingered. The only sound was the swishing of automatic doors that the wind set off every few minutes. The double doors would open long enough to let a ghost in, or an invisible spirit out, then swish back into place.

  She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the empty waiting room. Her mother had talked Anna Waters, Emily’s mother, into walking down to the break room for coffee, but Zoe couldn’t leave her post. Not even for a moment. Her friend was just beyond the emergency room doors, and somehow she, Zoe, had to stand guard. Emily’s spirit wouldn’t slip out without Zoe knowing. She’d keep death’s shadow from getting past. She’d pull Emily back to happy times.

  A custodian in the corridor behind her was sweeping his broom from side to side. The rhythm of the thuds against the wall almost sounded like heartbeats.

  In her mind, Zoe began to dance to the beat. A slow, lonely ballet of worry.

  Her mother told her once that if she closed her eyes she could go anywhere she liked. All she wanted to do right now was stand beside Emily. Whatever her friend faced beyond those emergency doors, they’d face it together.

  All three could survive if they were together. They’d sit down to a Welcome Home Tea on the balcony above the bakery. Shannon would join them, of course. They’d laugh and tell of their adventures since they’d parted at summer’s end.

  “Everything will be just as it’s always been,” Zoe whispered aloud.

  A few hours ago she’d been boarding the plane, excited to be heading home for Thanksgiving. Thinking of all the stories she’d tell when they were back together again. But trouble had hit in her hometown while Zoe was in the air.

  Part of her wanted to run back to her new life in New York. There, she was among strangers. No one’s problems could touch her. Here, in her hometown, she knew almost everyone. She cared.

  Zoe didn’t know if she could stand to see Emily in the hospital for the third time in three years. Each time, she’d looked thinner. Each time, she’d faded just a bit.

  She wished she could run back to the bright lights. She’d lock herself in her little room in the Village and not think of home
and what was happening beyond the emergency room doors tonight to her dear friend Em.

  Zoe decided she’d only come back to Laurel Spring for the happy times. Weddings. Graduations. Birthdays. And Christmas, of course. Her mom always made Christmas the most superdelicious day of the year.

  But reality kept echoing through her brain. Life didn’t play out in acts of happiness. Emily, her forever friend, had complained of headaches for years. She blamed them on an accident she’d had when she was fifteen. She’d been out walking on a cool March night, when someone, driving way too fast, had hit her. Maybe the driver hadn’t seen her. Moonless night. Back road.

  But Emily had suffered a broken arm, a few deep cuts along her neck and headaches. After the accident, the world frightened Em.

  Her mother pushed medicines on Em like some parents push vitamins. Over-the-counter. Anything a doctor would suggest. Health store cures. “Even late-night commercial claims are worth trying,” Anna Waters would say to Emily. She didn’t want her daughter to suffer, to ache, to be anything less than perfect.

  A year after the accident, Emily had taken too many of the “cures.” The overdose had frightened everyone. An accident. Overmedicating.

  Zoe fought down her anger as she waited for news. Emily wouldn’t have overdosed, not again, not this time. Mrs. Waters was wrong even to whisper it as a possibility. Emily wouldn’t. She had dreams and goals. She wanted to be a missionary and work with children. She told Zoe when they were in grade school that someday she planned to have a dozen kids. Maybe those weren’t her mother’s dreams for her, but Emily had them just the same.

  Somehow, this was Anna’s fault, Zoe decided, as she shifted in the hard chair. Anna Waters loved her daughter, but she held on too tight. She wanted Emily to be and do everything she hadn’t had time, or been brave enough, to do.

  Footsteps ran toward Zoe as wind blew through the open doors again. A moment later, Zoe was hugging Shannon, both girls crying and talking at the same time.