“I’d adore that.”
“I usually watch it with my best friend, Penny. But she’s been busy lately.” The girl’s eyes wandered and Veronica suspected this wasn’t the whole truth.
“The Whittemore girl? I heard what happened at the fair. How dreadful.”
“She’s sick.” Maddie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Cancer. In her brain.” She laughed, but as quickly as her giggle escaped, her hand clapped over her mouth.
“Oh God,” she said. “I shouldn’t laugh. It’s just that everyone always whispers the word. Like cancer’s a curse word. And now I’m doing it.”
Veronica wanted to confess right there and then. Tell the girl she too had found the whispering absurd. From her primary-care doctor who’d felt the first lump to the specialist who’d diagnosed her, and all the well-meaning hushed voices in between—oncology nurses and med students and the pushy postsurgery social worker who’d insisted she consider a breast prosthesis. Imagine that, fake ninnies at eighty!
It wouldn’t be right to burden the girl with news of death and disease. Maddie was special—Veronica could see that plain as day. Yes, the girl was a bundle of nerves, her nails chewed to the quick. But she wore an elusive composure like a second skin, the very thing Veronica had struggled to mimic in her study of the ladies of East Avalon when she’d first moved to the island so many decades back as the Colonel’s young and mysterious bride. Perhaps (wishful thinking, she feared), Maddie could be their heir. If, by the time she and Bob made their exit, there was anything left to inherit.
“I regret not getting to know you better before we left for Florida. Things are, you see…”
What to say? Your grandfather has lost his mind. The factory is being bought out. The island is sinking. I’m dying.
“Oh, God. Don’t worry,” Maddie said. “I know you have a lot of important things to do. Mom’s told me all about your charity work. How you helped get those poor kids on the west side money for their chemo. That’s so awesome.”
“Did she?” Veronica had feared Ginny resented her too much for praise. “I’m not sure about me being awesome. I was only the secretary on the charity board. Minnie Charlston was the president, and—”
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” Her granddaughter spoke with that same earnest expression—eyes closed, chin up. Then she broke into a tinkling laugh. “That’s Oprah too. She has endless sayings that help when you’re feeling…”
“Under the weather?”
“Totally!”
“I will totally do my best to be courageous.” Veronica pumped a fist in the air. She’d seen audiences do that on the few TV talk shows she’d peeked at. Shows spotlighting people talking about their feelings until they cried in front of God knows how many American viewers.
“Yeah, that’s it!” Maddie cheered. “It really helps if you repeat the sayings a few times a day. She calls them affirmations.”
“She? Oprah?”
Maddie nodded. “We can recite them together if you like.”
“First, why don’t we have some tea,” Veronica said. She couldn’t chant priestess Oprah’s creed without a nibble of cake first. She felt her blood sugar dropping. “You do like cake, I hope.”
“Does anybody not like cake?”
“You are my kind of gal.”
Veronica rang the tiny sterling bell, newly polished so it gleamed just as it had on her and Bob’s wedding day—a present from Admiral Hieronymus (Harry) Marshall himself, Bob’s predecessor at Grudder Aviation and the father of that Leslie Day.
“My girl Rosalita did a marvelous job on our tea. With my suggestions, of course.” She winked. Then imagined all the winks Maddie must’ve received in her short lifetime on Avalon from lecherous old men. “Did I just wink? It’s like an infectious disease here on the island.”
The girl’s laugh reminded her of chimes in the wind.
Rosalita stepped into the sunroom carrying the heavy platter with the sterling teapot set some ancient Pencott great-aunt had gifted Veronica on her wedding day. And didn’t Rosalita look fine? In her starched black-and-white maid’s uniform and shiny patent-leather heels as she stepped across the polished floor and into the light spilling through the apricot shantung curtains. Rosalita had balked when she’d asked her to wear the uniform, and Veronica had almost rescinded her request, then Rosalita had said, “I do this for you, Mrs. Pencott. Because I know you want to make special teatime for your granddaughter.”
Tears had pushed from behind Veronica’s eyes when this woman, possibly her only friend, had known what Veronica needed before she knew herself. To make Maddie like her. It was true. She saw that now. The day before, if someone had asked her why on earth was she taking such care for a tea party with a girl—her swollen fingers fumbling with the garden shears as she clipped yellow roses and snowy hydrangeas from the garden for the center of the table—she’d have struggled for an answer. She had even asked Rosalita to unpack the good silver so the house would smell, pleasingly, of polish.
“Oh, Rosalita! What a marvelous job you’ve done.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pencott.” Veronica heard the wink-wink in her voice.
“A-may-zing!” Maddie said. “Do you have tea like this every day?”
“No, sweetheart.” She patted her granddaughter’s naked knee. “This is all for you.”
The girl’s face changed. Confusion. A hint of fear. As if, Veronica thought, Maddie assumed there were strings attached. That, with the good, came the bad. She saw how neglected her granddaughter was. How dire her daughter’s addiction. Her son-in-law’s philandering.
Veronica waved toward the tray of cakes and steaming pot of tea.
“I had your grandfather’s man Ray go all the way to a specialty shop on the mainland to procure us the finest tea. Harrods oolong. And our cake has arrived.” She pointed to the plate of pastel petit fours decorated with iced flowers. “Please, dear, serve yourself.”
Maddie studied the cakes with intense focus, and with delicate fingers picked what Veronica had decided was the prettiest—a robin’s-egg-blue cake topped with a coral poppy. She took a tiny bite (so ladylike) and her brows lifted in pleasure. Veronica couldn’t stop smiling. So much so that her top dentures were chafing her gums. She hadn’t anticipated enjoying witnessing her granddaughter’s pleasure.
“Good choice. That was my favorite too.”
“Oh,” Maddie said. “I’m sorry. I would’ve given it to you.”
“No, no! And aren’t you a sweet thing? I only meant I’m delighted we share the same good taste. Kindred spirits we are.” Veronica sighed. “I’ve been eating sweets all day lately. Spent so many years watching what I ate. Denying myself. And now, I can’t keep the weight on.”
“Let us eat cake then,” Maddie said.
Veronica added, “Every day.”