Wildflowers (17 page)

It was Wednesday in the early afternoon, and Genevieve and Alissa, along with Leah, were just leaving Collin Radcliffe’s law offices. The three women had met to sign the legal papers documenting the sale of Brad and Alissa’s office to Genevieve and Leah.

“It was quicker and easier than I thought it would be.” Leah wore a dark skirt and matching blazer, which was the most professional looking outfit Genevieve had seen her in.

Genevieve had also worn one of her classiest outfits for the important meeting. Her short linen skirt and matching top were pale yellow. Around her neck she artfully had tied one of her favorite silk scarves. The light brown background of the scarf was accented with swirls of pale yellows and
blues. That morning Anna had said the scarf’s brown matched Genevieve’s hair and the blue brought out her eyes.

“You have brown-sugar hair,” Anna had commented to her mom. “I think you should highlight it this summer, Mom. It would make you look younger.” Anna also advised Genevieve to use more eyeliner and a darker shade of mascara. “You really are pretty. I think Dad would notice if you would do a few little things to make yourself even prettier for him.”

Genevieve tried her daughter’s suggestion and spent a little more time on her eye makeup before the meeting. She also left her hair down instead of pulling it back in a clip, the way she did every day when she was working. Her thick, brown, natural wavy hair skimmed her shoulders, and when she had arrived at the meeting, both Leah and Alissa commented on how great she looked.

“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Alissa asked Leah and Genevieve.

“I’m open,” Genevieve said. As soon as she said “open” she thought of how long it had been since she had described anything in her life with that term. She felt an uncertainty come over her as she wondered what Alissa wanted.

“How about if the three of us go somewhere for lunch to celebrate this occasion?” Alissa asked. “Since Brad is home with my girls, I’m available. Where should we go?”

“I need to be at Jessica’s by two-thirty,” Leah said. “That doesn’t leave much time for lunch unless it’s someplace close.”

“You know,” Alissa said, “this is exactly why we need to make all the changes to the Wildflower that you suggested,
Gena. There’s no place to eat around here for a special occasion. Your new café is going to revolutionize birthdays for all the women in Glenbrooke.”

Genevieve laughed. “That’s what I’m hoping. We could make a quick lunch at my house. I have a pasta salad already made up.”

“No, we need to go out,” Alissa said. “What about the country club?”

“It’s so far out of the way,” Leah said.

“What are our other options?” Genevieve asked. “Burgers and blizzards at Dairy Queen?”

“We could all go to Jessica’s,” Leah suggested.

“You mean just show up and invite ourselves for lunch?” Genevieve asked. “I don’t think she would appreciate that.”

“Actually, knowing Jessica, she would love it,” Alissa said. “Her front porch is the perfect location for a summer luncheon. Besides, it’s probably the coolest place around town today. It’s really warmed up.”

“Are you sure Jessica wouldn’t mind?” Genevieve said.

“She won’t mind.” Leah punched in some numbers on her cell phone. “Jessica loves having company. Hey, Jess? Hi, it’s Leah. How do you feel about adding three more to your house for lunch? Alissa, Gena, and I were trying to come up with a place we could go for lunch, and your porch is our favorite option.”

Leah listened to Jessica’s answer and nodded at Alissa and Genevieve. “That’s what I told them. Sure. I’ll tell Gena to stop by her house and grab the salad. What’s that? I don’t know. I’ll ask her.”

Leah turned the phone away from her ear. “If your girls aren’t doing anything, Jessica says they’re welcome to come, too.”

“Thanks. I’ll let them know. Tell her this is really kind of her.”

Leah put the phone back to her ear. “Did you hear that? Yes. Well, it’s true. You are the hospitality queen of Glenbrooke, you know. Okay, I’ll tell them. Alissa and I are coming right now. Do you need us to pick up anything at the store?”

Concluding her conversation, Leah closed her folding cell phone. “Jessica said to be prepared because Travis and Teri’s boys have set up a lemonade stand in the driveway, and we’ll be their prime clients.”

Genevieve knew that Travis was Jessica’s son. He would be starting first grade in the fall and was a cute, blond, precocious child who usually was followed around by an equally blond golden retriever. Genevieve didn’t know the names of Teri’s twin boys. She guessed they were close to Travis’s age.

“Maybe I should bring Beth and Ami along,” Alissa said. “Wouldn’t they love to help with a lemonade stand!”

Suddenly, Genevieve didn’t feel like going. The invitation to have a celebratory business lunch at the country club with Alissa and Leah was a far cry from this community picnic on Jessica’s porch, complete with lemonade stand and more toddlers than adults.

When she arrived home, Genevieve considered calling Jessica and saying that something had come up and she
couldn’t make it. But then she remembered that they were depending on her to bring the salad. Genevieve took her potluck role seriously. She had enjoyed the neighborhood gatherings she used to host in her garden on the Fourth of July when they had lived in Pasadena. Alissa had participated in one of those garden parties. Genevieve wasn’t clear what had changed so dramatically in her life that she was now eager to find excuses to avoid groups like this.

Mustering up her courage and collecting her pasta salad, Genevieve called upstairs for the girls. When she explained the invitation, both of them were eager to go.

“We better leave a note for Dad,” Anna suggested.

“Where is he?”

“Playing golf,” Mallory said.

“Golf? I didn’t know he was going to play golf today.”

“Pastor Allistar called him about an hour ago, and they just left before you got home.”

Genevieve stopped in her tracks. “Your father is playing golf with the pastor?”

The girls nodded contentedly.

As they drove to Jessica’s Victorian mansion on the top of Madison Hill, Genevieve tried to think through what it meant for Steven to respond to a social invitation from a pastor.

What if Pastor Allistar also invites Steven to surrender his life to the Lord? Is Steven ready to respond? If he does, what will that mean for us? For our marriage? Will I feel differently about him then? I certainly haven’t been a good example to him of a loving Christian wife. I haven’t even been an example of a loving
wife, let alone a Christian wife. I’m just his polite wife. His partner in raising the girls. Why does Steven stay with me? Is he satisfied with the way things are? He certainly doesn’t complain
.

Genevieve turned up the long, steep driveway to the top of the hill where Jessica and Kyle’s home sat perched like a white crown on top of a princely knoll. At the base of the wraparound front porch, in front of a large hydrangea bush exploding with colorful light blue flowers, was the cutest lemonade stand Genevieve had ever seen.

Anna giggled before getting out of the car. “Do you have any money, Mom? I want to buy a glass of lemonade.”

“Me, too,” Mallory said. “Look at their hats.”

All three boys stood as straight as soldiers behind their folding table lemonade stand. Travis wore a tall but crumpled white chef’s hat. His ears appeared to be the only thing holding up the hat.

“Look at Josiah’s hat,” Mallory said. “He must have brought that with him when they moved here from Hawaii.” The straw hat looked as if it had been woven from palm fronds. Coming out of the side was a long, floppy wire and from the wire hung a small fish also woven from palm fronds that had now turned pale green.

“What’s the other boy’s name?” Genevieve asked.

“You mean Jimmy? He’s the one in the fireman’s hat.”

“Jimmy and Josiah,” Genevieve repeated, trying to remember. If their father thought to call Steven and invite him to go golfing, Genevieve thought she should at least know his children’s names. “Gordon and Teri just have the two boys, right?”

“And the baby,” Mallory said.

“Boy or girl?” Genevieve asked.

“A girl, Mom. You saw her on Sunday. I was holding her after church. Remember Malia? That’s Hawaiian for Mary.”

“Oh, right. I remember.”

Anna was already out of the car and on her way to the lemonade stand. Mallory was right behind her. Genevieve pulled the pasta salad out of the backseat and followed the girls to the front of the house where the three eager attendants were describing their lemonade options.

“This is the regular one made from a can out of the freezer.” Travis’s funny chef’s hat slipped over his eyebrows. “And this one that looks kind of purple is made in the blender with raspberries. It’s the best one, if you like raspberries.”

“How much is it?” Mallory asked.

“This one is twenty-five cents a cup,” Travis began.

“That’s a quarter,” Jimmy added.

“They know.” Josiah turned his head to scold his twin brother, which caused the fish on the wire attached to his hat to dip and wobble.

“But this one with the raspberries is thirty-five cents because it cost-id more,” Travis concluded his sales pitch.

“I’ll have the raspberry one,” Anna said.

“Me, too,” Mallory said.

“You can make that three glasses of raspberry,” Genevieve said.

“They aren’t really glasses.” Travis picked up one of the red, plastic cups. “Cuz my mom said we had to use the plastic ones.”

“That’s fine,” Genevieve said. “We all like red, plastic cups.”

“I like the blue ones,” Jimmy said.

“We don’t have any blue ones,” Josiah corrected, giving him a nudge.

“We used to have blue ones where we used to live,” Jimmy said.

Genevieve thought she had never seen a more adorable trio of young entrepreneurs. Even her three girls hadn’t been as precise and industrious with their early business ventures. She found it especially admirable that these three were set up for business in the driveway of their isolated house where the clientele would be safely monitored, albeit limited. Just because they didn’t live on the corner of a busy street didn’t deter them from setting up shop.

“How many ice cubes would you like?” Travis carefully extracted a cube from a fancy ice bucket with a pair of tongs. The ice cube popped out of his pinch and flew to the ground.

“That’s okay,” Josiah said quickly. “That happens sometimes. That’s why we have more ice. They just melt on the floor, and it’s okay.”

Genevieve suppressed her smile.

“I would like two ice cubes,” Mallory said politely.

“So would I,” Anna agreed.

“Two would be fine for me as well,” Genevieve added.

With great effort, all three hat-wearing businessmen delivered the goods to their thirsty customers. Fortunately, the raspberry lemonade was very good, which made it easier to praise them.

“Here’s two dollars,” Genevieve said. “Keep the change.”

“It doesn’t cost-id two dollars,” Travis said. “It only cost-id …”

“Thirty-five cents,” Josiah said.

“Thirty-five and thirty-five and thirty-five,” Travis declared.

“That would be ninety-five cents,” Mallory said.

“No, it wouldn’t,” Anna corrected her. “It’s one dollar and five cents. But you guys can keep the extra money. It’s a tip.”

The three boys looked at each other.

“I don’t know if we’re allowed to have a tip,” Josiah said.

Anna and Mallory laughed. “I’m sure it’s okay with your moms. A tip means you’re given a little extra for doing a good job.”

The boys beamed.

“Thank you!” they said in a trio of echoes.

“You’re welcome,” Anna said. “Thank you for the delicious lemonade.”

Genevieve thought about Mallory’s observation at dinner on Sunday that what Glenbrooke needed was an old-fashioned ice cream shop. There certainly was some merit to that. She wasn’t sure how that could be incorporated into the Wildflower Café, but the nostalgia of a lemonade stand and an ice cream parlor was appealing. Especially on a warm, sunny day like today.

Maybe it should be a walk-up ice cream window that doubles as an espresso window in the winter. We can’t put in a drive-up window, but maybe people would like a walk-up window
.

Genevieve was mulling over her thoughts as she walked up the steps to the wide front porch. The day immediately felt cooler and more fragrant as she stood beside the hanging planters of large, lavender petunias.

The screen to the front door opened, and Jessica welcomed Genevieve and the girls. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“I appreciate your letting us invade your afternoon like this.”

“You’re not invading at all,” Jessica said. “The others are already here for our Wednesday afternoon Bible study. We planned last week to have a salad luncheon today. So this is perfect. I’ve been hoping for a long time that you could join us.”

Genevieve felt trapped. Had Leah tricked her into coming to the Bible study? Genevieve discounted that just a few weeks ago she had come to this front door on her own, with her Bible under her arm, searching for the support and encouragement that was now being offered to her.

“I, ah … I may need to leave early. I’m not sure if the girls need to get home soon or not.”

“Then stay as long as you can. You know you’re always welcome.”

“Yes,” Genevieve said. “Thank you. I appreciate it, Jessica.”

“Is that Gena and the girls?” Alissa’s voice called from the back of the house.

“Are Beth and Ami here?” Mallory asked.

“Yes,” Jessica said. “They’ll be happy to see the two of you.
Ami was a puddle of tears when they arrived a little while ago. I think she was frightened of the boys because of their funny hats.”

“Ami?” Mallory called out, heading to the back of the house in search of her favorite toddler. “Where’s my Ami girl?”

“Ree! Ree!” came the cry before the sound of bare feet padding on the wood floor. Ami was followed by Jessica’s four-year-old daughter, Emma, who was herding Ami through the dining room, as if she were a little lamb.