bell over the door rang. Lucy’s head turned as her guest slipped in, her carriage confident, her gaze shy. The hat lady.
Last time Lucy had seen her, the day before yesterday, she’d carried herself decorously and yet with regal authority. The pillbox hat had said it all. She was often Queen Elizabeth—the second, she always emphasized. She didn’t actually look much like Queen Elizabeth II, being slender rather than matronly in build, with hair that had been blond when she first appeared in Middleton, perhaps ten years ago. Now her hair was primarily white, as wispy and flyaway as the woman whose head it crowned.
But today, she wore a flower-printed dress and a broad-brimmed hat festooned with flowers. Her face was softer, her carriage more youthful, her gaze vaguer.
This was always the awkward moment. Lucy had to pretend she knew who Middleton’s one and only homeless person was. Calling her by the wrong name seemed so insulting.
Talk in the café hadn’t dimmed at all. Everyone knew the hat lady was a project of Lucy’s. Lucy’s Aunt Marian called, “Your majesty,” and resumed her one-sided conversation with Uncle Sidney, who almost never said a word, and failed entirely to notice the hat lady’s astonished stare.
Lucy went to her and said in a gentle voice, “I’m so glad you could come to lunch today. Your table’s right here, by the window. Did you see the crocus are blooming?”
The hat lady smiled at her, her face crinkling with pleasure. “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.”
Okay. It was a clue. She still had a British accent, which was mostly a given, although not long ago she’d been Elizabeth Taylor, the accent wholly American. She had an astonishing gift for accents; a few months ago, she’d done a splendid Eliza Doolittle, starting with a nearly indecipherable Cockney accent skillfully revised over several weeks until she spoke with a pure, somewhat stilted upper-crust accent worthy of the most carefully tutored student.
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.
