Fine Dining and Entertainment in the Greenhouse
We collect a picnic basket from the kitchen, and the three of us head back to the clearing.
The sun is beating down outside, so the fresh, cool air that rushes out, when we open the greenhouse door, feels wonderful. Tommy zips inside and around the corner.
“Slow down, Tommy!” I call. I am making a better effort not to let him out of my sight.
“Oh my! What happened here?” Mrs. H. exclaims.
I peek around her, and see the beautiful birdcage lying on its side. It’s been smushed.
My jaw drops open, and I remember the tiny birdcage, probably still in the pocket of the shorts I wore yesterday. I am speechless. There are not even any words stuck in my throat. I think my brain is broken.
Mrs. H. recovers herself. “It must have been knocked over by my nephew,” she says.
This is the first time she has mentioned her nephew to me, but I know it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t simply knocked over. It was smushed. And I’m pretty sure I’m the one who did it. In the guest’s quarters. Where I had no business being. I keep quiet.
Mrs. Hallovich is looking down at me. I’m looking up at her.
“I’ll just have to ask my nephew if he can fix it. He may not even realize he knocked it over.”
I nod my head in agreement. Is that the same as lying?
Before I have too much time to think about it, Mrs. H. is hustling me across the bridge, and around to the small seating area, where Tommy has perched himself on the small sofa, like a perfect gentleman.
Mrs. H. sets the picnic basket down. “Hubert!” She calls.
Hubert shows up in seconds, and lands on her shoulder.
This is the first time I’ve seen Hubert up close, and he’s gorgeous! His back and wings are the color of spring ferns. His throat is white, his belly is yellow, his little face is framed in red and black and his tail feathers are blue.
“How’s my little boy, today?” she coos to him. “Momma brought you something.”
Hubert is tweeting, and I think for a moment that he really is explaining to her how he’s doing today. That would be the icing on the cake wouldn’t it? I’m not sure how I would handle that. Then, I figure he’s just tweeting randomly, and she’s just mothering him like mothers do. Mrs. H. pulls small treats from her sweater pocket, and he eats straight from her fingers.
“Would you like to give him a treat?” She asks me.
I nod my head, and she hands me a couple small, tan-colored nuggets. Hubert hops over to my shoulder. I’ve never had a bird on my shoulder before. This is awesome! As long as he doesn’t poop.
“Just hold the treat up to him. He won’t bite.” Then, she adds, “and he most likely won’t poop.”
My eyes dart to her face and she winks. Then, I do as she says and Hubert takes each nugget gently from my fingers. The cracking sound right next to my head as he chews is pretty cool, until I start worrying my ears might look appetizing.
Tommy reaches up to me. He wants a chance to pet Hubert too.
“Sit down carefully on the couch beside Tommy”, Mrs. H says to me. “It’ll be fine. Hubert loves children.”
Again, I do as she says, and Hubert stays on my shoulder the whole time. He lets Tommy give him a few strokes, and I’m so proud of how gentle my baby brother is. After a minute Hubert flies off, and Mrs. Hallovich begins to unpack our food onto the small coffee table.
We eat our lunch in silence. I’m thinking about Hubert and how I can’t wait to tell Daleni the way he sat right on my shoulder and ate right out of my fingers! Mrs. H. is quiet, thinking her own thoughts, and Tommy is quiet too. I wonder what the heck he thinks about?
When we finish our meal, Mrs. Hallovich pulls Tommy’s favorite toy, the train engine, along with some wooden blocks, from the bottom of the picnic basket, and sits down with him on a red and white checkered blanket she has spread out on the floor. I grab Treasure Island and I’m a couple chapters into it when I hear her ask, “are you ready to hear about Lep’s return?”
Am I ever! How could I have forgotten? There are just so many things going on here!
“That would be great!” I whisper as loudly as I can, because Tommy is sound asleep on the blanket.
I offer to scoot over on the couch but Mrs. H. says, “don’t move. You’re already comfortable.” She sits in the chair beside me, puts her feet up on the coffee table, and begins.
About a year after Lep’s departure, William inherited the apothecary and a nice sum of money from the owner, who had no children of his own. He had been keeping up a friendly correspondence with Lep, and the two of them had worked out an agreement for William to purchase the small parcel of land with the weeping willow tree. William then built a magnificent house next to the small one Lep had constructed.
The two men continued to stay in touch. Lep had left the gypsy caravan after a couple of years, and rather than settle down as his friend had expected, he seemed to be drawn to mysterious and exotic places. Lep sent postcards from all over the world. He wrote of people and cultures entirely different from William’s experiences.
William wrote back, sharing the bits and pieces of his own life, and always making it clear that Lep would have a home available to him if he ever chose to return.
Twenty years passed.
William was seated in his study one spring evening, scratching at the gray hairs of his beard as he poured over his accounts, when someone tapped at the door.
“Come in,” he called.
His wife entered with a nervous, somewhat fearful, look in her eyes.
“You have a visitor, Dear.”
William frowned in concern. Harriet was such a friendly woman. She usually looked forward to having visitors. He stood and started around the desk, when a man stepped out from behind her.
William gasped. “Lep! My dear friend!” he shouted.
He grabbed Lep in a hug and pulled back.
“It’s so good to see you!” Lep responded.
As William gazed at his friend, he began to understand the look of concern on his wife’s face. Lep did not look one day older than when he had left twenty years earlier. No gray hairs peppered the temples of his thick, dark hair. There was no fine feathering of wrinkles on his skin. He looked exactly as he had all those years ago when he left.
Lep gazed back at him. He knew what William was thinking.
William stuttered. “You’re . . . uh . . . looking . . . healthy. Life has been good to you.”
“Yes, it has,” Lep agreed.
“Well, that’s just . . . wonderful. Just wonderful.”
“You are a sight for sore eyes as well, William. I can’t begin to tell you how much our correspondence has meant to me over the years.”
“And I have enjoyed learning about the world through your postcards. The girls and I have hung them here in the study.” William gestured to the wall behind Lep.
Lep turned. Sure enough, there hung a large pinboard covered with letters and postcards from nearly all of the places he had traveled over the last twenty years. Lep stepped closer to have a better look. He laughed. “This is wonderful!” he said.
William had walked up beside him. Lep reached out and placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “It sure is good to see you,” he repeated.
“Likewise, Lep. Let’s have a seat in the parlor.” He turned to his wife who still hovered near the doorway. “Harriet, Dear, would you bring us a couple glasses of your wonderful lemonade?”
“Of course.” Harriet hurried to the kitchen, and Lep followed William across the hall.
Once seated, William asked, “to what do we owe such a pleasant surprise?”
“My travels have simply brought me back this way, and the closer I got, the more I thought of you and craved spending time with people whom I consider family.”
“We feel the same about you,” William agreed.
Harriet stepped back into the room with the drinks.
Lep addressed them both. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I stayed here for a while, and rested.”
Harriet responded kindly. “There’s a guest room upstairs. It’s a lovely place for a nap. I’ll fix it up for you right away.”
Lep looked back and forth from one to the other. “I was hoping I could stay a little longer. Maybe for the summer, if it’s not too much to ask.”
William and Harriet looked at each other. It was Harriet who turned to Lep before things became too awkward. “Of course you can,” she said.
Lep let out a breath he had been holding.
“You can stay in the apartment above the carriage house,” she added.
“Marvelous idea, Darling! Lep, that’s the room we built above your original structure. It will be just like home to you.”
So, it was agreed that Lep would stay for the summer. The men jumped right back into their old friendship. William was still unsettled by Lep’s youthful appearance, but he noticed an intensity in his eyes, a firm set to his jaw, and a confidence that had not been there twenty years ago. Lep also seemed melancholy. Life had been kind to Lep’s features but maybe not to his soul.
He still had his green thumb, however, and began applying it right away to the house grounds. He kept up the lawn, planted flowering shrubbery, and, as a gift to his friends for their hospitality, and with their permission of course, began designing a magnificent greenhouse in the far back yard. A replica of one he had seen during his travels, but with a more personal touch: the addition of a beautiful chandelier in the entrance to match the one in the main house, structured like the branches of a weeping willow.
My head is spinning. How didn’t I see that coming? Mrs. H. has been telling me the history of this house! She can see the questions tripping over themselves to get out of my mouth, but she holds her finger up to keep me silent a moment more.
One evening, late in the summer, Lep knocked on the door of William’s study.
“Would you take a short walk with me, William? I’d like to have a word with you.”
The two stepped out into the twilight. They walked around the fountain that William had built for his wife several years before. They continued out to the clearing, where the newly constructed greenhouse reflected the darkening sky, and sparkled with the evening’s first stars. The pond behind lent an absolutely stunning backdrop.
“The workers are done here,” Lep began. “I have a few finishing touches to add, but there’s one more thing I’d like to do for you before I go.”
“You’re leaving?” William asked.
“I told you I’d be here for the summer only, and the season’s end is just a short week away.”
Though William had never grown completely at ease again around Lep, he had still enjoyed his company, and was truly sad to hear he’d be departing soon.
“What did you have in mind?” he asked. “You’ve already done so much, I feel I can never repay you.”
“Your friendship is all I could ever ask,” said Lep. “But I have something in mind for the pond. The willow sapling near the house that I planted all those years ago has done well, and I thank you for its care. But, there’s nothing like willows around a pond. They are good for the banks surrounding it, and give such grace to the view. Will you allow me to plant more before I go?”
“Lep, you amaze me.” William laughed. “Of course you can plant more willows. That’s a lovely idea and I’m disappointed I didn’t think of it myself.”
Lep smiled. “Thank you! I’ll get started tomorrow.”
“Let’s go back to the house and enjoy a drink,” William said.
“You go on ahead. I’ll be along shortly.”
“See you in a few minutes?”
Lep nodded and watched his friend walk back to the house. Yorg and William were the only close friends he had ever had. He would do anything for them. The gift he was planning to leave was greater than anything William would ever be able to imagine. He looked out across the pond and his eyes glowed with an unnatural reddish light. Most likely just a reflection of the warm rays of the sun sinking into the horizon.
His plan was to plant the trees over the course of the week and then leave, returning to his world travels. But, life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, and something happened that Lep hadn’t planned on.
Mrs. H. stops here.
“What?! What happened when he was busy making plans? What, what, what?!”
“Oh, Ella! Patience.”
“I know. I know. It will give us something to look forward to tomorrow.” I roll my eyes.
“That it will.” She nods. Then, “I have something for you.”
She pulls four creamy colored envelopes from the pocket of her sweater. Each has a name written in fancy letters - Melanie, Mandy, Daleni, and Ella. I open mine. Inside is an invitation to a tea party a week from Saturday.
My first thought is how awesome this is going to be, quickly followed by a feeling that I might throw up. I manage to keep that second thought off my face. Or at least I think I do. Mrs. H. knows something is up but she doesn’t ask.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll give them to the girls right away.”
Mrs. H. looks so happy.
What am I going to do?
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