Read Online The Traveling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones - Free Book Online Page B

then I ask Gracie if her husband taught her to drive. He did.
    “And how did you two meet? If you don’t mind me asking?”
    “Not at all.”
    I settle in for story time.
    “I was seventeen, still living at home but yearning for some independence. My parents were very formal—even breakfast was a fixed sit-down affair—and I took every opportunity I could to get out of the house, just so I could breathe. When I finally persuaded them to let me have a dog, I started to explore our grounds a little more and one day I saw this chap tramping across the bottom of our lawn. I tried to catch up with him but he was walking at quite a clip. I asked the gardener if he’d hired an assistant, but he said no. So who was he and where was he heading? I went back the next day to find out.”
    “By yourself?”
    “With the dog.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    “‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Are you aware that this is private property?’ He hesitated and then he said, ‘I am.’
    “‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.
    “‘To work,’ he said. ‘It saves me a good twenty minutes if I cut through here. Do you mind?’
    “He had the most open face I had ever seen. Everyone I knew was either snooty or sly. He was just so straightforward. I looked at him some more and then I looked at this package in his hand—a little block covered in waxed paper.
    “‘What’s that?’ I asked.
    “‘My lunch,’ he said.
    “And it just seemed such a little lunch for such a big man. So I told him I would see him tomorrow.”
    I laugh. “Just like that?”
    “I wasn’t a very chatty child. I just spent a lot of time being silent around adults until I met Georgie. That was his name.” She looks pleased even to say it.
    “So what happened next?”
    “Well, I decided I would make him a cake to go with his sandwich.”
    I look at Pamela. “Is this where all the baking began?”
    She nods.
    “I thought it should be the heaviest, most filling cake I could muster, so I made a fruit cake. Cut it into four, wrapped his wedge in a cloth napkin and sat in wait . . .” She smiles. “The next day he said it was the best cake he’d ever tasted and that everyone else at the bus depot was jealous. So I made another one and gave him the whole thing so he could share it.”
    “Gosh! I bet you were popular!”
    She smiles. “I didn’t meet the other chaps straightaway. For a couple of months it was just me and Georgie and our morning tea flasks under the oak tree. I wouldn’t see him on the way home because the busses were running by then. But I was always thinking about him, always thinking about what I could make him next for lunch. Scotch eggs were his favorite.”
    “The way to a man’s heart, eh?”
    “Oh, he had such a lovely heart!” She swoons. “No rules. No caution. He didn’t worry what anyone thought of him.”
    “Not even your parents?”
    “Well, I didn’t leave a lot of room for negotiation there. He gave me such confidence—when I presented him it was as my fiancé and that was that. And they grew to love him dearly. As did everyone who ever met him. It’s a wonderful thing, when someone can make you laugh, all other concerns go out of the window.”
    I think how true this is. How disarming laughter can be. You can’t be defensive and guarded while you are laughing. All you are is delighted.
    “Did you ever get to drive his bus?”
    “Oh yes. He taught me everything he knew. Sixty years we were together . . .”
    She looks so proud.
    It must be wonderful to be filled with admiration for your other half. I know Krista feels that way about Jacques. So that’s two role models I have now.
    “Have you ever been married, Laurie?” Gracie asks me.
    “Oh no,” I shudder. “No, no, no.”
    “Is that aversion toward the institution itself or—”
    “Oh, I’ve nothing against marriage as a concept. It’s just the thought of being married to anyone I’ve actually been in a relationship with.”
    “That