A Sprig of Blossomed Thorn (3 page)

I found her in Lily. Usually she wore her hair braided, but today she had it loose, caught back from her face in a barrette. She was straightening the place setting on the low table and glanced up as I came in.

“Good morning, Rosa.”

“Morning, Ms. R.,” she said, sounding slightly nervous.

“Ellen, please.” I glanced at the table set for one. “Special customer?”

“My grandmother's coming. I've been telling her about the tearoom and she finally decided to come.”

I smiled and sipped my tea. “That's wonderful! I look forward to meeting her.”

Rosa straightened the spoon beside the teacup. “I was going to put her in Rose, but then I thought she'd like to look out at the garden.”

“Absolutely.”

Rosa bit her lip. “Maybe I should switch her to Rose, though.”

Aha.

“Well,” I said, “This is one of our prettiest views, and the roses are blooming like crazy.”

“Yes. She loves roses,” Rosa said. “They're her big hobby. She's in the Rose Guild. That's why I couldn't decide.”

“Well, Rose doesn't have a window. Would she enjoy the name more, or the view?”

Rosa smiled. “The view. You're right, I'll leave her here. I just want to make sure today is special for her. She hasn't been very well lately.”

“Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.”

“She fell and broke her hip a few months ago. She's just starting to go out a little again.”

“Well, we'll make sure she has a wonderful tea. If you know of anything she'd especially like, tell Julio. He can probably whip it up.”

“She'll love everything.” Rosa smiled brightly. “Thanks, Ms. R.—Ellen. I guess I'm just a little nervous.”

I patted her shoulder. “Don't fret. She'll have a lovely time.”

I had finished my tea. Leaving Rosa to perfect Lily for her grandmother, I went back to the kitchen and set my cup and saucer on the windowsill, out of the way.

“Julio, you know those rose petal jam sandwiches we've been talking about?”

“Mm-hm.” He was still garnishing, and didn't look up.

“Why don't you whip up a couple for your grandmother? I'd like to do something special for her.”

That made him look up. “You know her?”

“No, but if my grandmother was coming to tea, I'd want to give her the royal treatment.”

He tilted his head, thinking. At first the hard line of his jaw made me think he was about to refuse, then his face relaxed. “Yeah, OK. After I get the brioches in the oven.”

“Why don't you let me finish garnishing those sandwiches, so you can get started on the brioches?”

He handed me the sack from which he'd been piping herbed butter. I set it down to wash my hands and put on an apron before working with the food, then covered and put the trays of finished sandwiches in the refrigerator to make room for Julio to work. While he wrapped tidbits of brie in puff pastry, I finished garnishing the sandwiches and got them all into the fridge, ready to be placed on tea trays just before serving.

“Where's the jam?” Julio asked as he slid a tray of brioches into the oven.

“In the pantry. I'll get it.”

I fetched a jar of the rose petal jam I'd made a few days earlier and gave it to Julio, then hurried out to the garden to clip a red rose to use for garnish on the sandwiches. A bush of peace roses caught my notice, the perfume from their blooms filling the morning air. I clipped a handful of them, too, and took them inside.

Rosa passed me in the hall and I stopped her and offered her the peace roses. “Pick a vase and put these in it, then put them in Lily for your grandmother.”

“There's already a vase of roses there!”

“I know, but you can never have too many. Careful—I didn't trim the thorns,” I added as Rosa reached for the roses.

She took them gingerly and held them to her face. “Mmm. They smell wonderful! Thanks, Ellen!”

“You're welcome.”

I took the red rose to the kitchen and washed it, then pulled off the petals and put them in a small bowl. Julio had already mixed some of the rose petal jam with soft butter and spread it on a slice of thin, white bread. He spread more jam on another slice, then put the two together and cut three small rounds out of the sandwich with a cookie cutter. He garnished each with a red rose petal and arranged them on a small plate.

“Bueno?” he asked, glancing up at me.

“Bueno. Thank you, Julio.”

“De nada.”

I put the rose sandwiches in the fridge, then took the rest of the petals to the pantry, adding them to the larger bowl of rose petals the girls were using to decorate the tea trays. Glancing at my watch, I saw that it was almost time to open.

I took off my apron and went up to the gift shop to check the reservations sheet. Party of one in Lily: Maria Garcia. Two other parties were coming in at eleven, when we opened. By noon all the seating areas would be full, even the dining parlor, which was booked for a bridal shower.

I made the rounds, checking to make sure everything was in place. The lights were on in the dining parlor. I hadn't done it, and my first thought was that Captain Dusenberry was at it again.

Or it could have been one of the girls, getting a head start on setting up for the bridal shower. I left the lights on and went to the kitchen to deprive Julio of his salsa music. He took it philosophically, donning a pair of ear buds and switching to the music player in his pocket when I turned on the house stereo.

String quartet music began to play softly throughout the tearoom. In the pantry, the girls were busy brewing tea and setting up the tiered trays of food for the first customers. I took down a teapot to make tea for Kris and myself.

“There are some rose petal sandwiches in the fridge for your grandmother, Rosa.”

Her face lit with a surprised smile. “Thank you! You didn't have to go to all that trouble!”

“It's no trouble. Julio and I have been talking about adding them to the menu, so this will be a test. Let me know how she likes them.”

“I will.”

“Kris was looking for you,” Dee said, glancing up at me.

“Is she downstairs?”

Dee nodded as she set a dish of lemon curd on a tray. “In the front parlor, last I saw.”

“Thank you.”

I set the tea to brew, then hurried to the parlor and found Kris standing in Lily, gazing out the front window. The wisteria vines cast a deep shade on the west-facing
portal
in the morning. Beyond them, the roses glowed in the sunshine.

“Dee said you were looking for me,” I said.

Kris jumped slightly, then turned from the window. “Yeah. Got a call from Johnson's. The cream delivery's going to be short next week.”

“Oh, no! What happened?”

“They had a spoiled batch, had to throw it all out. Two days' worth.”

“Ouch. Are we going to get anything?”

Kris nodded. “Half what we ordered.”

I bit my lip. We used fresh local cream to make our clotted cream, no small feat at over a mile above sea level. Julio had spent weeks perfecting his recipe.

“We'd better call Hooper, then.” Hooper Dairy was all organic and charged accordingly, but they were my best fallback when Johnson's couldn't fill our orders.

Kris nodded. “How much should I ask them for? The full difference?”

“Let me check with Julio.” Movement outside the window caught my eye, a trio of ladies in summery dresses coming up the path to the tearoom. “I'll be upstairs in a few minutes, after we open. Oh, I brewed us some tea.”

We went back to the butler's pantry where I gave her the teapot, then Kris headed up to her office while I went to open the front door and greet the waiting guests. I showed them in and got them seated, then returned to the front door.

As I opened it to greet the ladies, my gaze slid past them and caught an unusual sight. A van from El Vaquero restaurant, one of my many competitors, was parked by my front gate.

 

 

3

T
he van's driver, an Hispanic man of about forty, came around to the passenger side, took an aluminum-framed walker from the back and set it up, then helped a frail-looking, elderly Hispanic woman out of the front seat. This must be Julio and Rosa's grandmother.

Suddenly the van made sense. I remembered from Rosa's employment application that she had previously worked in a New Mexican restaurant, though I had forgotten which one. It appeared she had stronger ties to the place than I'd known.

I hurried out and down the path to open the front gate, smiling at the Hispanic lady. “Good morning! Are you Mrs. Garcia?”

She looked up at me as she leaned on the walker, dark eyes bright and curious, a lopsided smile of amusement on her wrinkled lips. She was dressed in Sunday best, a flowered dress with lace trim at the collar and cuffs, and modest jewelry glinting at her ears and neck. Her hair, black with a peppering of white throughout, was freshly coiffed. Clearly she'd taken pains to look nice for her solitary visit to the tearoom.

“Yes,” she said in a voice rather stronger than I'd expected.

“I'm Ellen Rosings. Welcome to the Wisteria Tearoom.”

“You're Rosa's employer.” Her voice was slightly slurred, making me wonder if she might recently have suffered a stroke. Rosa hadn't mentioned it, if she had. Perhaps it was just general frailty, after her injury.

“That's right,” I said. “We're very glad to have Rosa here. Won't you come inside and make yourself comfortable?”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

I held open the gate while she slowly pushed the walker through it. The Hispanic man who had driven her hovered anxiously in her wake. Something about his jawline—firm, determined—made me think he resembled Mrs. Garcia.

Rosa came running down the path and confirmed my suspicion by giving the driver a hug. “Thank you, Papa!” she said, then turned to Mrs. Garcia. “Thank you for coming, Nana!”

Mrs. Garcia paused to receive a dutiful kiss on the cheek from Rosa. “Gracias, hija. You can go, now, Ricardo. Thank you for bringing me.”

“Have a good time, Mama.” He kissed her on the cheek as well, then watched her continue up the path toward the tearoom under Rosa's escort. “What time should I pick her up?”

“We like to allow our guests plenty of time to relax and enjoy themselves,” I said. “Between twelve-thirty and one would work, but isn't that your lunch rush?”

I nodded toward the restaurant logo painted on the van. He glanced at his wristwatch.

“Yeah. And I've got to get back.”

“You're the owner of El Vaquero, aren't you?”

“Manager. Mama still owns the place.” He stuck out a hand. “Rick Garcia.”

“I'm pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking hands. “I love your rellenos.”

His brows rose a little. “Thanks. So, I'll come back at one.”

“Could Rosa drive her home?” I suggested. “It would save you a trip.”

“No, no, I don't want her skipping work.”

“She can stay a little late to make up for it.”

He paused and gave me a long look. “That's nice of you. Gracias.”

I smiled. “De nada.”

He flashed a brief smile in return and climbed into his van. I hurried back to the tearoom, where Rosa was settling her grandmother in Lily.

The third party scheduled for eleven o'clock arrived shortly thereafter, and I had my hands full for a few minutes. When I finally had a moment to look in on the seated guests, I found Mrs. Garcia sipping tea and gazing out the window.

“Your roses are very lovely,” she said, glancing up at me.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“The leaves are a little yellow on that Grande Dame. You might want to give it some iron chelate.”

“I just gave it some last Sunday, actually. Rosa tells me you're a gardener.”

“I like to grow roses, yes. I have been a member of the Rose Guild for twenty years,” she said proudly, almost defiantly.