Lucy had taken to rereading English literature and watching classic films so she wouldn’t be completely lost every time the hat lady changed personas.
“Please. Sit down.” Lucy gestured her to the tiny table for two in front of the bow window, which she’d reserved especially for the hat lady. Yellow and purple crocuses bloomed in the windowbox outside. Her shopping cart, neatly packed, was parked on the sidewalk where she could see it. That was why Lucy always saved the window seat for her. “Would you care for tea?”
“Please.”
She gazed with seeming delight and no boredom out the window until Lucy returned with a teapot, loose tea steeping inside. One did not offer the hat lady tea improperly made.
From the menu she chose only soup and a scone. Lucy had tried persuading her to have a hearty meal when she was here, but had never succeeded.
“Won’t you join me?” she did ask, with vague surprise as if unaware there was a busy restaurant around them, and that Lucy was in charge.
“I might sit down with you for a moment a little later,” she promised. Her friend had aged noticeably these past few months, Lucy noted with dismay. Her spine was as straight as ever, her pinkie finger extended as she sipped tea, but she must have lost weight. She seemed frail today. If only she could be persuaded to settle into a rented room! Hiding her worry, Lucy asked, “How are you?”
She tilted her face up. Her blue eyes, fading like her hair, seemed unusually perceptive all of a sudden, as if she saw the doubts and unhappiness Lucy scarcely acknowledged even to herself. In a voice too low for anyone at neighboring tables to hear, she said, “I might ask you the same.”
Lucy’s mouth opened and closed.
After a moment, the cornflower-blue eyes softened, looked inward, and she murmured, “Did you know the sorrow comes with the years?”
“I…” Something seemed to clog Lucy’s throat. “Yes. Yes, I did.”
This smile seemed to forgive her. “Grief may be joy misunderstood.”
Oh! That line she’d heard. Somewhere, sometime. It had to have been written, or said, by a Beth, or Liza, Lizbet, or Elizabeth…Yes! Lucy thought in triumph. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Of course. The hat lady was very fond of her poetry. Only, the first couple of things she said had seemed so sensible, if also profound, Lucy hadn’t recognized them as poetry.
“Miss Browning,” she said, “I’m so glad you could join me today.”
She meant to get back to the hat lady and sit with her, as promised. She did. But the kitchen ran out of spinach, and she had to race to Safeway for more, then Aunt Marian expressed her opinion at some length on the very peculiar soup—which was delicious, but she did miss the split pea Lucy used to offer. And then Samantha, Lucy’s youngest and most compatible sister, who had recently opened a bed-and-breakfast inn, suggested they join together to put on a murder mystery weekend, with the guests staying at Doveport B and B and Lucy catering the meals. Samantha had scarcely left than Lucy’s niece Bridget came in to apply to be a waitress, her air of defiance suggesting to Lucy that Bridget’s mother hadn’t liked the idea of her working. Bridget was resisting the idea of staying close to home after graduation and doing her first two years at the community college in Port Angeles rather than going away. Was she trying to earn enough to pay a significant part of her own expenses? If so, there was no doubt whose side Lucy was on.
Still, she wished every decision she made didn’t have family repercussions. The tiniest stone spread ripples of gossip, hurt feelings, righteous indignation. That was the problem with having such a large family who all lived so close by. Making a face, Lucy thought wistfully, Why can’t one side or the other live in Minneapolis or Houston instead? Anywhere but here?
Dad’s family, by preference. His sister, her Aunt Lynn, was a particular trial. Come to think of it, Lucy didn’t like most of her cousins on Dad’s side, either.
The trouble was, Dad had a sister and a brother, who had kids, all of whom had already started families of their own. Mom had two sisters, and they had kids, and…Aagh! There was a reason Lucy had yearned to leave Middleton for most of her life.
She ran the cash register as the full restaurant gradually emptied, and by the time she thought to look at the small table in the bow window, it was empty. Erin, another employee, was starting to clear it, and Lucy was disappointed to see that the soup bowl was half-full, and Miss Browning hadn’t even finished her scone.
Oh, dear, she thought. If only the hat lady would fill up when she was here. Or take leftovers in a doggie bag. She accepted invitations to dine, but wouldn’t come more than a couple of times a week. Lucy knew that she did get food elsewhere. George, down at Safeway, saw to it that expired canned goods and slightly wilted produce got set outside the back door when the hat lady’s route took her that way. And Winona Carlson, who ran the Pancake Haus out by the highway, fed her breakfast at least another couple of days a week. Still…When Lucy thought about the hat lady—gentle, whimsical, yet somehow sad—she worried.
Today, though, she was too busy to do more than shake her head and feel slightly guilty that she hadn’t made time to sit down, if only for a minute or two. Then she went back to work in the kitchen, prepping for dinner.
Hands busy, she let her mind wander. That one achingly perceptive look from the hat lady set her to analyzing why she’d felt so down lately.
Of course, she knew in part: this wasn’t the life she’d dreamed of having. Like her niece Bridget, she’d been sure she would leave Middleton behind and never be back except for visits. But after college she’d let herself get enveloped again by family. First a job at the café, the chance to be creative in the kitchen and the pleasure of seeing how her food was received. Wan lettuce and all-American comfort foods were gradually replaced by wraps, spinach andromaine salads and her signature soups. When the opportunity to buy the café came up, she’d still told herself this didn’t have to be permanent. She’d improve business and make a profit when she sold the café in turn. Perhaps she could start a restaurant in Seattle or San Francisco, or get a job as an executive chef.
Her hands went still as her chest filled with something very like panic. All of a sudden she had a terrible urge to turn the sign on the door to Closed, scrap preparation for dinner and just…run away.
Lucy grimaced. She was far too responsible to do any such thing. Okay, then; why not put the café up for sale and use the proceeds to travel for a couple of years? Give in to all the yearnings that made her so restless. Spend a year traveling between hostels in…Romania. Or Swaziland. Or…
The hat lady’s face popped into her mind, and a smile curved her mouth. England. How silly of me! Of course it has to be the British Isles. Images of thatched roofs and hedgerows, church spires and castle towers rose before her mind’s eye. Perhaps she would bike between villages, staying as long as she chose in each. She’d have to start over financially when she came home, if she ever came home, but she was young. At least she’d have lived a little before she settled into being a small-town businesswoman.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning would certainly approve.
Only a pair of tourists sat in front eating pie in the late afternoon when the front door opened so precipitously, the bell rattled and banged against the glass. Startled, Lucy let the dough she’d been kneading drop and peered over the divider between the kitchen and dining room.
It was George who’d rushed in, expression distraught. George, fifty-five and counting the years until retirement, who Lucy had believed had only one speed: measured, deliberate. George, who now let the door slam behind him with a bang.
“Lucy! Did you hear?”
Hands covered with flour, she used her shoulder to push the swinging door open and go into the dining room. She was vaguely aware that both the tourists and gray-haired Mabel, who was wiping down tables, had turned to stare. “Hear? Hear what?”
“The