After she retired from 38 years of teaching first grade Miss Mayrose
Mayhern went to tea every Thursday morning at ten o'clock at the White Jasmine
Tea Room. As she neared retirement age Mayrose had thought more and more about
the quiet congeniality of the tearoom. She loved teaching first grade, but
these last few years the children seemed to take more energy from her than she
could renew overnight.
Mrs. Little, who owned the tearoom, soon realized that Mayrose ran her
life with military-like precision. Every Thursday morning Mayrose always
arrived promptly at ten, not a minute before or after, and she was always dressed
up. Her attire consisted of a two- piece wool or linen suit, depending on the
season, her jewelry consisted of a single strand of pearls with matching
earrings, stockings with arrow straight seams to compliment her two inch pumps,
a tasteful hat and of course, sparkling white gloves. When the weather allowed,
she would walk the eight blocks from her home to the tearoom downtown on the
square. If the weather was inclement or the forecast chancy, she would take her
1945 five-year-old mint condition Chevrolet sedan out of the garage and
drive to the tearoom. She was proud that she could drive. Her mother had never
learned to drive and after Mayrose’s father died, she drove her mother wherever
she needed to go. It was then that Mayrose's mother, Margaret, had to admit
that she was glad her husband, Maynard, had taught their daughter how to drive
even though she had been dead set against it at the time. It was one of the few
times that Maynard had gone against Margaret’s wishes; he didn't want his
daughter to be dependent and grasping like Margaret.
It was a freshly washed April morning the first time Mr. Milton Matthews
laid eyes on Mayrose. He looked up from his paper when he heard the bell tinkle
over the door of the tearoom. Mayrose was wearing an oat colored linen
suit with a powder blue blouse and matching powder blue hat with two ivory silk
rosebuds wrapped in a tasteful amount of netting on the brim. Her shoes, of
course, were the same oat color as her suit. And she carried a matching
handbag. Her hat was perched firmly atop her carefully coiffed
silver-blonde hair. Now, Mr. Matthews, being a man, did not notice these
exact details, but he certainly appreciated the overall picture. He stared
unabashedly as Miss Mayrose Mayhern said good morning to Mrs. Little and
several of the other customers on her way to her favorite table in an alcove
near the back. Mayrose did not bring a book or a magazine to read as many
of the other customers did. Nor did she like sitting by the big bay window
where she could observe passersby. She so enjoyed the ritual of the tea service
that she did not want any distractions. And besides, Mayrose believed it was
rude to read in restaurants. Reading was for libraries.
Mr. Matthews was new to Chanceville. His brother and sister-in-law
had retired there because of the excellent golf course and they persuaded
Milton to retire there also. He liked Chanceville, the golf course and the
company of James and Celia, but he soon discovered that he was not totally
ready for retirement. He took a part-time job at Steele’s Hardware just to be
able to interact with people everyday. He had never married and was used
to living alone, but he didn't want to spend all of his time alone. He loved
talking to people and had a knack for teasing their stories out of them. Milton
had the habit of jotting down notes and stuffing them in his pockets. Someday
he would organize his jumble of notes and write a book filled with the rich
stories people had shared with him. He had shoebox after shoebox stuffed
with notes. The boxes were stacked to the ceiling in the closet of his den.
After he finished his tea, he just might stop by Williams Brother's Stationery
and Haberdashery and take a look at their typewriters.
Milton was the only man in the tearoom that April morning, but that
didn't bother him. Milton and James's late mother was English and she
always made tea for her boys. He never had a taste for coffee. They kept a
coffee pot going in the break room for the employees at the hardware store, but
Milton brought his own electric kettle and tea bags.
On his days off he enjoyed the hominess of the tearoom and the cheery
clink of porcelain cups and saucers coming together. Some days he liked to sit
in the back and read his daily paper and other days he sat by the window and
watched people as they walked by and went about their daily lives. Milton
could make up stories about people without ever talking to them. He believed
that what people let you see on the surface most often had little to do with
who they really were. That's why Miss Mayhern so intrigued him. She was
quite particular about how she presented herself to the world. He could
see that at first glance. Milton would just pop in to the tearoom whenever the
fancy struck him and so it took him a while to realize that she was always there
on Thursdays at ten o'clock. As he began observing Mayrose on a regular basis
he would sometimes jot down notes on backs of old receipts or slightly used
napkins; and other times he would wait until he got home to write down his
observations. He noted that Mayrose always took a seat at the same table
in the back of the White Jasmine Tea Room.
