Page 11 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
Granddad Walter once held that job, as Luce’s most enthusiastic supporter. Until he died almost two years back, the untimely result of a third stroke. Skye glanced at his old study.Pristine with his chair, wall-to-wall bookcases, and interesting wares she couldn’t touch.
Seriously—Luce had a neighbor build a 24-inch gate at the doorway. No accidental wandering there.
“See you this evening,” Skye huffed, carting this haul out the door.
Luce met her in the foyer to pass a second foiled sandwich. “Thalia’s in today, yes? Give her this one. No cheese, no salt, no flavor. Her usual.”
Skye snorted, unsnapping her bag for Luce to bundle it in. “Thanks. I’ll be back right after work.”
“Hold on, now. I have a life.” Luce made a show of crossing her arms, lifting nonexistent eyebrows. “I’ll be playing cards with the girls at Janetta’s house. If you insist on getting home that soon—” She waved into the house. “Carl from the courier service brought a new shipment of a couple thousand tesserae. Sort them by color.”
Between keeping up with the shop and her grandma’s endless tasks, especially post-Granddad, Skye was in for an evening of multicolored monotony. “I’ll get on that.”
Luce patted Skye’s shoulder, then shuffled back to her table while the forensics expert discussed a dead stockbroker on the flatscreen.
Skye hefted the boxes into the back of the SUV, shaking her head at Luce’s suspicions about a dating life. Amused and a smidge gloomy, she shoved the dolly in afterwards and shut the trunk. “I have a date with two thousand ceramic pieces,” Skye murmured, backing out of their driveway.
She chose a different route, slightly off her usual path, only to pass Celene’s house again. Car still there; Skye hadn’t dreamt it up.
Skye went on to work, her mind on tiny purple flowers in dark hair.
4
On the top floor of Yielding’s three-story artisan collective, Yield for Art, Luce’s Mosaic Wonderland stocked multihued creations corner to corner, all born of Luce Florentine’s mind and hands. From the monochrome hope chests to faux table settings and entire fruit bowls to wind chimes adding soft, rhythmic tinkling with the Havana Jazz playlist.
Skye exited the building’s freight elevator, keying into the backroom. Damn, if Luce knew these same keys had been lost near the woods, she’d never let it go.
“I’ll get it!” Thalia raced from behind the checkout counter, clomping her Darcy booties to the top box on the dolly. Removing it, she dug a retractable knife from the apron protecting a patchwork skirt as flamboyant as the rest of the store. “Red X. Sale or backup?”
Whimpering, Skye eased the second box to the floor, not a fan of all this physicality. Luce’s mind went so many directions that everyone in the store followed her lead, even when it came to color coding. “Backup. Today, the purple X means it goes out front.”
“Up front?” Behind her vintage panto glasses, Thalia fully revolved to observe their overpacked arrangements at the entrance.
Without flat-ironing as she’d done yesterday, Skye’s springy hair stopped just above her shoulders, framing her jawline. She whipped it from her face as she put on her own apron. “A huge order came in after your shift ended yesterday. An interior designer’s assistant came in, bought Luce’s entire tropical bird collection, two dozen smaller knick-knacks, and”—she pointed to a gem and amethyst-encrusted peacock they’d affectionately named—“Amie. They want Amie.”
“NotAmie.” Thalia’s deep, offended gasp was one hundred percent legitimate. A true feeler. “Eduardo will be lonely.”
Skye stepped forward, holding out her hand. When Thalia hesitantly stranded their fingers together, Skye said, “Eduardo will not be lonely. Because they’re taking him, too.”
“You’re breaking my fucking heart.”
The three-foot peacocks’ price points scared off tourists looking for deals to say they bought from a “real artist.” For those patrons, Luce’s carried affordable items in gift bag-suitable sizes. Of course, the bigger or more time-consuming, the more expensive. Never fail, an art enthusiast or luxury home stager eventually called dibs without a glance at the tags.
Despite dressing herself like Ms. Frizzle fromThe Magic School Bus, Thalia turned twenty-four only a week ago. Luce swore the soul of Thalia’s great-grandmother, a hobbyist expressionist painter, inhabited Thalia. She’d died three days before Thalia was born.
If only the sales associate had been the right age to buddy up with Skye as children. She’d catch herself forgetting her friend wasn’t older than her.
Thalia jingled her copious rungs of jewelry, swooping her arms in an esoteric manner to calm down. Letting her cope, Skyequietly counted the new inventory, pulling away hand towels Luce stuffed between the fragile items.
Skye recorded the supply numbers in the office. Granddad had painted the modest room crimson on all sides except the floor. At first, the staff hated it, but hate gradually turned into sarcastic—then genuine—affection. They nicknamed it the Candy Red Office and glued various candy wrappers onto the walls, arranging them into chevrons and abstract shapes. Thalia leaned on the door jamb, flicking at a Dubble Bubble wrapper. “Are we sending them off today? Will I get to say goodbye?”
“Yeah, someone’s coming by this afternoon to pick everything up, so we’ll pack them safely for delivery. Amie and Eduardo will miss it here, but they’re off to new horizons.”
“In a millionaire’s big, echoey mansion. I’m already bored for them.”
Skye’s mind drifted from her Excel sheet to those celebrity homes resembling a cross between a brutalist museum and a granite tomb. Peacocks would be cold there. Maybe she’d include sweaters for them. Grinning to herself at the thought, she undid her messenger bag and held out Thalia’s sandwich. “Luce made you breakfast. No salt, no cheese, no veggies.”
Thalia leapt for something others would see as punishment, hugging it to her chest. “It’s still warm.”
