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Tea for Three

  Having a Ball with Kick Assitude

  by

  Rhoda Baxter and Trish Jackson

  Tea for Three

  Having a Ball with Kick Assitude

  RhodaBaxter & Trish Jackson

  Copyright © 2013 by Rhoda Baxter and Trish Jackson

  Twila Taunton, a self-professed redneck from a small country town in Alabama in the United States, has had to travel to London in search of evidence for an investigation she is working on in her capacity as a private investigator.

  Her client, British born Pam Taylor was in a heap of trouble. She had given Twila a distant cousin, Evelyn's phone number and told her to try and hook up. Evelyn lived in Oxford, in what looked like an old mansion.

  The woman who opened the door was small and neat and, if the silver hair was anything to go by, old. There was something about her expression that reminded Twila of Aunt Essie. Perhaps it was the grey hair and the shrewd eyes. There the similarity ended. Twila couldn’t imagine this old lady in her fancy ironed pants and pearls even approaching a Harley, let alone riding one.

  “Yes?” said the woman. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Evelyn Blackwood. I’m Twila Thornton. From Quisby, Alabama.”

  “Oh yes, Pam’s friend. Come in, come in.” Evelyn ushered her in. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow. Do come through to the library. We’re having a meeting about a ball we’re organizing. Don’t worry you’re not interrupting. We were just about to sample the food we wanted to make. You can help. It’s always good to have an extra pair of hands. Or an extra mouth, in this case.”

  Evelyn spoke without pausing, moving Twila through a large, open hallway. Everything looked a little gloomy after the sunshine back home. And old. Real old.

  A ball, Twila thought, like the ones the Quisby's used to have at Cyder Hill before they all went nuts and died and went back to haunt it.

  “Through here,” said Evelyn, pushing open a door. She was a good deal shorter than Twila. It was like being herded by a very chatty sparrow.

  The room inside was covered in books, from floor to ceiling. No wonder they called it the library. There were two other people sitting in mismatched armchairs arranged around a low table, a young woman with long brown hair and a skinny teenager with headphones and an iPod attached to her. They were sitting around a table, looking at sheets of paper.

  Evelyn introduced them. The young woman was Stevie, the event planner. The teenager was Alice, Evelyn’s granddaughter. Stevie stood and offered Twila a hand to shake. Alice merely waved.

  “You’re just in time,” said Evelyn. “We were about to sample some snacks that Priya sent along. We’re catering for this event ourselves, you know. Priya, she’s a friend of mine, has done us some Sri Lankan snacks to test out. Then we’re going to see if we can make a batch ourselves.”

  Stevie gathered the papers together. “How about I go heat those up? You don’t mind helping us, do you Twila?”

  “Er.. sure.”

  “Can you make us some tea while you’re out there?” said Evelyn. “We’ve got some scones and jam too. Oh, use the nice china. We could make a proper high tea of it.”

  “Actually, could I use the restroom?" It had been a long journey out there and Twila had felt totally weird driving the rental car on the wrong side of the road. Pam had told her to take a train, but she figured she would probably board the wrong one and get lost. At least with a car she could use a GPS.

  Stevie smiled. “I’ll show you.”

  “You can go make the tea, can’t you Alice? There’s a good girl,” said Evelyn.

  Alice rolled her eyes and sighed. “Fine.” She stamped off across the hall.

  “There’s cream in fridge,” Evelyn shouted after her.

  Twila followed Stevie’s skinny little butt down a long corridor. There were more bookshelves on the side of the corridor. The other side had some sort of wooden paneling.

  “This place is kinda old, huh?” said Twila, more to make conversation than anything else.

  “Yeah. Evelyn’s done a great job renovating it, by the sound of things.”

  “Does she always talk like that?” said Twila. “I’ve met women who talk fast, but that lady is something else.”

  Stevie laughed. “You get used to it after a while.” She opened a door, which led, rather pointlessly, to another door. “That’s the loo.”

  “The what?”

  “The toilet.”

  “Oh, you mean the restroom?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Will you able to find your way back to the library? It’s just down the corridor and left. I can wait for you if you want.”

  “No thanks. I’ll be fine.”

  * * *

  Stevie returned to the library to find Evelyn frowning over her calculations. “Everything alright?”

  “Are you sure we can do this within this budget?” said Evelyn.

  Stevie put a hand over Evelyn’s soft old one. “We can try.” She needed this job to succeed. Otherwise she’s have to go back to stuffing envelopes for minimum wage. And Marsh would be insufferably smug at her failure. Besides, she liked Evelyn and this ball seemed important to her. “We’ll give it our best shot.”

  “I suppose,” said Evelyn. She looked down at Stevie’s hand.

  Stevie removed her hand and swallowed the urge to apologise. She sat down. “So, Twila seems nice.”

  “She’s a private investigator,” said Evelyn. “Sounds ever so glamorous. Mind you, she looks quite normal. Not at all Remington Steele.”

  Stevie laughed. “I’m sure most PIs look normal. It’s probably an asset in that sort of job.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Evelyn. “You’re right. I wonder if she’s scoping us out as we speak. Wonder what she wants.”

  “I think right now, she just wants a wee and cup of tea,” said Stevie. She stuffed the documents into her bag. “I’ll go and get those sample snacks.”

  As she left, she saw Twila returning. She rather liked Twila. There was something refreshingly no nonsense about her. Or perhaps it was just the broad Southern accent. She hadn’t heard that in real life before.

  She gave the woman a wave and hurried off to get Priya’s snacks.

  * * *

  "So Twila," Evelyn said, "Pam's in some sort of trouble is she?"

  "You can say that again. She's been accused of murdering some dude. It's total bullshit, but she really needs my help because she picked the dumbest lawyer in our town to represent her. I told her to ditch him, but she says it wouldn't be fair."

  "I can't imagine Pam killing anything. You must be here on a fact-finding mission, then."

  "Yep. I hope I can find what I'm looking for."

  Alice returned, stuck a tea tray on the table, and disappeared again, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she went. Evelyn didn’t comment on Alice leaving. She said, “Shall I be mother?”

  “Huh?”

  Evelyn had already got up to pour the tea. It looked pretty fancy, with little flowery tea cups and they even had saucers under them. Twila watched her turn the pot around in circles.

  "What are you doing?" she asked, wondering if this was some fancy ju-ju ritual.

  "I'm just making sure the tea has drawn." She picked up a small jug and held it above one of the cups. "Milk?" she asked.

  "Huh? Milk? No thanks." Twila watched Evelyn pour a little milk into one of the cups, followed by tea.

  "Oh, I guess you guys drink hot tea. I was kind of expecting Southern sweet tea." Evelyn stared at her with a puzzled look on her face. "You know, with lots of sugar and ice in it in a tall glass."

  Evelyn looked confused, but seemed to think it wasn’t as important as carrying on with her weird tea
ritual. "How do you like your scones? Cream and jam only? Or Butter first. "

  Twila stood up and went over to the table. "You mean, you also call those scones? I thought Pam had just gotten her words mixed up." She picked one up and examined it, shrugged, and bit into it. Through a mouthful she said, "This is a biscuit. You're supposed to eat them with gravy, and sausage."

  Evelyn stared at her with a horrified look on her face. "If that's a biscuit, then what are those?" she pointed to a plate filled with cookies.

  Twila swallowed. "Cookies. What do you call them?"

  "Those are biscuits and these are scones." She held out the plate and Twila took two of them. Just then Stevie returned with a plate of fried stuff. Evelyn told her about the strange names Twila was giving to the eats. Stevie pointed to the dainty three-cornered pastries she’d just brought in. "What would you call these, then?" she asked with a grin.

  Twila took one and bit into it. "Wow! She exclaimed. "It's hot, like chili." She peered into the inside of the pastry shell.

  "Yes, I believe it does have chillies in it," Evelyn said. “And a range of other spices.”

  "No, I mean, this is chili – you know – ground up beef with hot stuff in it. We eat it on its own. We don't put this pastry stuff around it. We put it in a bowl and throw some chopped onion and grated cheese on it."

  By the look on Evelyn’s face, Twila thought they probably didn't know.

  “She means like Chili con carne,” said Stevie, her mouth twitching as though she were trying not to laugh.

  “Well why didn’t she say so,” said Evelyn. “Anyway, this isn’t like Chili. Chili has coriander leaves in it.” She took a dainty bite and chewed thoughtfully.

  “Coriander?” said Twila. Phew, this stuff was really spicy. Nice enough, but spicy. And tiny. What the heck was it with these Brits and their tiny bite-sized meals? She stuffed the rest of it into her mouth.

  “Americans call it something else,” said Stevie, swallowing her first mouthful. The heat didn’t seem to bother her at all. Evelyn on the other hand, was breaking into a sweat. “I think you call it, cilantro,” Stevie continued.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Evelyn. “Water, I need water.”

  Stevie picked up a biscuit, scone, whatever the hell it was called, put a big splat of cream on it and thrust it towards Evelyn. “Here. Eat this. It’ll cool you down.”

  While Evelyn frantically ate, Stevie wrote something down. “So, that’s too spicy, by the looks of it.”

  “I thought it was great,” said Twila. “I could eat a bunch of them, in fact.”

  Stevie looked at her thoughtfully. “I liked it too. Looks like we need food with two different levels of heat in it.”

  “How come you like this?” said Twila. “I thought Brits were all about tea and food with no spice in it?”

  “Not anymore, we’re not,” said Stevie. “I spent most of my student years eating takeaway Indian food.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep. Student life pretty much revolves around beer and curry.”

  “Beer,” said Twila. “Now that I can relate to. Not that dark stuff though.”

  “That’s better.” Evelyn fanned herself with her hand. “Goodness, that was hot. I don’t know what Priya was thinking.”

  “I’m sure she can make a blander version,” said Stevie. “We’ll have one thing, clearly marked, that’s very hot and keep the rest mild, so that we don’t give anyone a heart attack.”

  This idea made Twila laugh. “You need to serve beer alongside.”

  “Oh no,” said Evelyn. “I can just see Lady Beryl’s face. No. We must have wine.”

  Stevie caught Twila’s eye and shrugged.

  * * *

  “Actually,” said Evelyn, dabbing her face with a man’s handkerchief she’d dug out of her pocket. “Stevie, I was thinking that perhaps you could take Twila to the pub. Show her a bit of local colour.”

  Stevie frowned. Why would she want to take Twila to the pub? She didn’t imagine there was much local colour around here. It would be mostly students. Over Twila’s shoulder, she raised her eyebrows.

  “I’ve got a meeting in a bit,” said Evelyn. “With Lady Beryl.” There was emphasis on ‘Lady Beryl’.

  Stevie looked at Twila, who was eyeing the empty plate as though she blamed it for being empty. Evelyn wanted the big loud American out of the way before Lady Beryl came in and was rude to her. Lady Beryl would not take kindly to someone like Twila.

  Oh, but Lady Beryl’s face would be priceless. “Wouldn’t Lady Beryl like to meet Twila, d’you think?” she said, innocently.

  Evelyn looked like she was about to choke. “No. Beryl’s not very good with new people,” she said. “I’m sorry Twila. I don’t want to upset her.”

  “I get it,” said Twila. “She’s uppity.” She stood up. “Actually, this pub sounds like a good idea to me. Do they serve food?”

  “Yes. And beer.” Stevie grinned. She would bet good money that no one had ever described Lady Beryl as 'uppity' before.

  “What are we waiting for?” Twila was heading for the door almost before Stevie had finished speaking. As she followed her out, Stevie took a last glance back into the library. Evelyn was watching them, frowning. Again, Stevie was struck by how small Evelyn looked when she wasn’t bustling around. She paused. “Are you okay Evelyn?”

  Evelyn blinked and the frail old lady was gone. In her stead there was the same old energy filled, super capable Evelyn that had greeted her on day one. “Fine, fine. You have a nice time in the pub. I hope Alice left a few scones aside for Beryl. I’d best go check.”

  By the time Stevie grabbed her coat and followed Twila out, Evelyn had already disappeared into the maze that was the rest of the house.

  * * *

  “You mean you always walk?” Twila seemed to have trouble understanding why people didn’t just drive to the pub.

  “Oxford’s not exactly car friendly,” said Stevie, eyeing the traffic. On foot, they easily outpaced the cars on the snarled up road. “Most people seem to have bikes. I don’t, so I walk.”

  “You're not kidding about the traffic. Where do you keep your car?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Twila stared at her. “No bike. No car?” She seemed to consider this for a moment. “You mean, you have no vehicle at all.”

  “No.” Why was this so hard to believe? Stevie watched Twila shrug, her expression giving every indication that she’d just filed that information under ‘these Brits are crazy’.

  It was still early when they reached the pub. Small clusters of students sat around tables, talking loudly. Give it a couple of hours and they would be louder. Stevie got pints for them both and they sat outside in the beer garden. A couple of American accents drifted across from another table. Visiting students probably.

  “Fellow Americans,” Stevie commented, nodding towards them.

  Twila sniffed. “Smartass Yankee kids.”

  Okay. So that wasn’t a conversation starter then. “So, how does your friend know Evelyn?”

  “Distant relative, I think.” Twila took a big sip of beer. “This beer's warm."

  Stevie nodded.

  “You people are seriously strange.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Stevie. She didn’t seem to be doing a great job of putting Twila at ease. What would Marsh have done? Thinking of her big brother reminded her about the argument. She felt her shoulders knotting at the thought of it. Twila looked like a likely drinking buddy. Perhaps they should just get wasted together. Marsh would have told her that her problems would still be there in the morning. The very thought of that made Stevie take a swig out of her drink.

  “How about you?” said Twila, fiddling with the table marker they’d been given when they placed the food order. “What’s your link to Evelyn?”

  “Nothing exciting, I’m afraid. I just work for her.”

  The conversation sagged again. Stevie wondered what to say next. Was she m
eant to ask questions about the case Twila was working on? Or was it all ‘if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you’? There must be something else she could talk to Twila about. She let her gaze rove the room. One of the American students walked past and smiled at her. He was so busy looking at her that he nearly fell down the steps leading back to the bar, which made his friends hoot with laughter.

  Twila gave Stevie a smile. “I think you’ve got him if you want him.”

  Stevie laughed it off. “I don’t.”

  “Ah. Too bad for him then.” She turned to look at the spot where he’d been. “He was kinda cute.”

  Cute, yes. But not really her type. Stevie wondered what her type was, exactly. An image of Tom arose, unbidden, into her mind. No. She couldn’t think about him. That was just asking for trouble. Not Tom.

  “What about you?” she said to Twila. “Is there a man in your life?”

  Now Twila looked uncomfortable. “Yeah. Harland and me are kind of together. He's hot, but I wish he didn't live so far away. Another dude in our town, Tanner Ferrano, has been trying to get into my pants for a while, now.” She stuck a hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She scrolled for a while before passing it to Stevie. “That’s Harland, there. I took it when he visited me last time. That's my dog, Scratch with him.”

  The man in the photo was tall and handsome, like a model cowboy. Nice. Stevie handed the phone back.

  “How about you?” Twila stuffed the phone back into her pocket.

  “No. No man in my life at the moment.” Wasn’t that the truth. Again, Tom popped into her head. “I’m concentrating on building my business at the moment. I don’t really have time for men right now.”

  The look Twila gave her spoke volumes. Stevie sighed. ‘Concentrating on growing my business’? Who was she kidding. This whole thing was never going to work. Never.

  The End

  Rhoda and Trish have never met and never worked together until they decided to write a couple of scenes in character. It was only meant to be a few hundred words, but it was too much fun to stop. We hope you enjoyed the vignette. Now why not check out the real thing.

  Both books are available in Kindle and all other eReader friendly formats from www.Uncialpress.com and other retailers from the 15th of March 2013.