White Peach Blossom

            by Annie Rigney

 

The roses always bloom twice as long on the porch of 1234 Peralta Avenue. Their petals are always twice as vibrant, and more radiantly red, holding the fragrance of a field of flowers in each tiny bud. The curtains are snowy white, the paint fresh and new, and the mailbox glistens like a beacon for lost post.

Velta took great pride in her house. She had lived in it for almost fifty years and cared for it like she would a child--with tender affection and care.

It was a Tuesday--the first day of Fall--and as the sun began to rise over the eastern hills, before the birds had awakened, and before the grass had lost its dew, Velta dragged her old and tired feet from the bed. Her life was pleasant. She was content. Velta found comfort in the consistency of her morning routine. Ever since her children had left home and her husband had passed away, it was this morning routine that added meaning to her life, that allowed her to open her eyes each morning and greet the new day.

The cold wooden floor sent a shiver up Velta’s spine and she reached for her pale lavender bathrobe. She shuffled into the neat and tidy kitchen,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          humming an old ragtime tune, then lifted the broom and dustpan off their hook on the wall and proceeded to the front door. Her gardening clogs were placed neatly before the threshold, and she leaned against the door frame as she slipped her cold feet into the rubber shoes. As Velta opened the door the crisp morning air stung her cheeks, turning the tip of her nose a rosy pink.  Feeling rejuvenated and alive, she swept her front lawn. Although the block was almost completely devoid of trees, (the Oak-root fungus had one by one destroyed the vegetation) stray leaves would occasionally find themselves on the pristinely green lawn of Ms. Velta  Belin and being the conscientious house-keeper she was, she would immediately sweep them away.

The streets were deserted save for the infrequent joggers trying desperately to get in shape before their tedious day at the office.  An abnormally lanky woman ran past, lifting tiny weights above bony shoulders and breathing heavily. The woman reminded Velta of a spider she had once seen and she noted how quickly the times changed. It seemed almost yesterday that, as a child, she had had to wear a girdle and stockings. And even more recently, that her bustling city had been a sleepy little town. Over the past decade, the neighborhood buildings had changed ownership, changed business, changed management at least a dozen times. All the storefront windows had seen six new coats of paint. All except two, that is. The Westbrae Wash ‘n’ Dry still remained and the Chinese tea shop hadn’t aged a day. It was this consistency that kept Velta coming back every other morning. The Wash ‘n’ Dry always washed her whites, her stockings, her bathrobes, and the quaint little tea shop always offered her a soothing glass of aromatic comfort.

This morning was no different from the rest. After tidying up around the house, Velta, wrapped in a multi-colored scarf and carrying a basket full of clothes, walked down the street to the laundromat. Velta knew the man at the Westbrae Wash ‘n’ Dry quite well. She knew his hands, cracked and dry from too much laundry detergent, knew his eyes, so dark there was no distinction between iris and pupil, and knew the familiar smirk that seemed to play around his lips when he thought no one was looking. His name was Phil and he been the caretaker there for over thirty years. Every other day he offered Velta a courteous “hello” or “good afternoon”, then smiled affectionately at the elderly woman. She would hand him her four shiny quarters, and he would print out her Wash ‘n’ Dry receipt.

“Would you like any fabric softener Ms. Belin?” Phil would ask.

“No zank you,” Velta would say, her Latvian accent still lingering on her tongue, though much softer now than when she’d first arrived in America, “You know me, I alvays bring my own.”

Velta filled machine number seven with her faded clothing, poured half a cup of Cheers laundry detergent into the deep basin, then began her washing cycle. The clothes spun and the long aisles of washing machines tirelessly cleaned and rhythmically rocked back and forth. Once her laundry had begun, she would have twenty-six minutes exactly to walk two doors down the avenue and relax with a hot cup of tea.

The little chimes jingled merrily as Velta entered the old Chinese tea shop. The walls were sparingly decorated with vintage Chinese paintings, and a poster hanging from a tack read: “There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.” While there were long shelves lining three of the four walls inside, they were for the most part empty, and only a handful of teas filled the shop. Velta made it her business to try and order a new kind of tea every week.  She had been practicing this for months now and finally had come to the last exotic tea on the shelf: White Peach Blossom. It was by far the most expensive box on the shelf, but the ornate patterning on the box and beautiful name intrigued her.

“I’ll take a quarter pound of the White Peach Blossom, sir,” Velta said to the tall man standing behind the cash register.

“I am sorry ma’am, but we are all out of White Peach Blossom tea at the moment,” the man said with a smile that seemed to be hiding a look of fearful vacancy behind his glasses.

“All out? But the box is sitting right there on the shelf.”

“I’m afraid it is empty ma’am. Why don’t you try something else for today?” Velta, feeling disgruntled but not wanting to cause trouble, surrendered and ordered a cup of the Rose Tea. The clock ticked steadily by as she sipped the hot liquid and finally, her twenty six minutes were up.

 The lines of dryers were a whirl of color, twisting and turning the fabric and providing that ever-present humming noise from the rocking to and fro. One dryer was different, however. Velta noticed how though this dryer was whirling in unison with the others, (it was lacking any clothing whatsoever inside) there were no clothes inside..

“Vat a peculiar sing,” she thought, “who vould pay for zee use of a dryer eef only to let it run empty?” Velta took the machine next to the empty dryer and put her clothes inside it, then began a forty-five minute cycle and sat down on a bench in the corner to wait. Across the room she saw a middle-aged man sitting quietly with a hat atop his head, reading the newspaper. His lips were thin and parched like dried apricots and his eyebrows twitched every time the washing machine made a loud noise.   Every so often, he would lower the newspaper, scan the room, then resume his reading.

Velta was shuffling her feet on the linoleum floor to pass the time when a young man, no older than twenty-five, entered the Westbrae Laundromat in full stride. He was carrying a small pile of clothing under his arm, and as he crossed the room, a red sock fell to the floor. The lanky man showed no sign of having noticed that he had dropped the red sock and so Velta scurried to the door and picked it up for him.

“Excuse me,” she said, “You seem to have lost something.” The man turned to look at the squat old lady standing at his feet, and holding out his red sock. His eyes never left hers. He snatched the sock from her fingertips then mumbled something under his breath that she hoped was a thank you but she knew was most likely not. The rude awakening from his dazedly determined state had obviously flustered the man some. He set his meager pile of clothing on the countertop then went to the back where he received his laundry receipt from Phil. The man with the top hat peered over the edge of his newspaper to watch the transaction then retreated back to his editorials and crossword puzzles.

Velta was naïve. Fifty-three years of living in Berkeley, a land of post-modern skepticism and bitter hippies, had not yet taught her that some people did not want her help, or anyone else’s for that matter.  Sometimes, good intentions and a glass half-full of optimism were not enough to lift the weight of the world off most people’s shoulders. It was Velta’s naïveté, however, that often was the source of her genius. How else would she have dared to ask the captain of the U.S.S. Sequoia for a free boarding pass to the United States? How else would she have cut her skirts short, discovered that she had nice legs, and landed herself a brief modeling job at Sears? And had it not been for her naïve heart, would she have ever dared to fall in love?

The lanky man who owned the red socks hurriedly took the receipt from the caretaker and, with desperate urgency and shaking hands, left the Wash ‘n’ Dry. A moment later Velta realized that the poor young man had forgotten his laundry on the counter-top.

“Vait!” she shouted after him, “Vait, you forgot your…,”

“Fuck off lady!” the man yelled over his shoulder as he disappeared from her sight.

 

Velta returned to the peace and serenity of her tidy house that afternoon feeling as though she had stumbled upon something out of the ordinary. For such an ordinary woman with such an ordinary routine, any disruption of her schedule, or uncomfortable situations often caught her suspicion, but this time she just couldn’t put her finger on what was bothering her. Perhaps she thought, it was the tea. Velta had been trying new teas every week now for what seemed like an eternity, and now, the pattern was broken.  It wasn’t so much that she didn’t like the teas she had been drinking previously; it was that Velta loved order and regularity and without it, the world seemed cold and chaotic.

The next morning Velta could not wait any longer. She wrapped herself in her lavender bathrobe and, although it was not her wash day, went down the street to see if a new shipment of that highly prized White Peach Blossom tea had arrived. Upon entering the shop, Velta noticed that a customer already sat in the back corner of the room. He was twiddling his thumbs nervously and every few seconds he would scan the room with eyes that were sharp, and quick, and dark. Velta approached the front counter where, this time, the shop owner’s wife was helping customers.

“I’ll take half a pound of the White Peach Blossom tea, please,” said Velta confidently. The woman behind the counter first smiled to herself, pleased to help out an elderly woman in the morning. But then, a look of wonder spread over her face turning quickly to confusion and, for a brief second, Velta thought she saw the telltale signs of fear.

“I’m afraid we are all out today ma’am.”

“Are you quite…”

“Yes.” The woman’s voice was different now, less bubbly than before and it seemed to have a hard, chill emptiness to it. Velta was shocked. She needed some air desperately and she needed her schedule back, her life back. Hoping to find comfort in her favorite Laundromat caretaker, Velta walked to the Westbrae Wash ‘n’ Dry. Everything was perfect. Exactly what she needed, the same twisting and tumbling noise, the same clean detergent smell, and the same little sheets of fabric softener scattered about the floor as there were every other day when she came here.  Everything, that is, except Phil. Phil was not in the room and, though she looked about the shop, she could not seem to find him anywhere. After waiting amongst the clean clothes for some time, Velta decided that it was time to head home. She was much perturbed by the missing caretaker, not so much because she was worried for him but because his absence had ruined her perfectly ordinary experience at the Laundromat. She headed down the street toward home and as she passed the Chinese tea shop, she thought she saw the back of Phil’s head. A man with short, wavy, gray hair was fiddling with some boxes in the hallway that extended behind the main room, and yes, yes, this was Phil. But what was he doing at the tea shop? Velta wondered. He didn’t even like tea. She decided to ask him herself. The morning sun was shining into the quaint shop and making a glare on the glass door so that Velta could no longer see inside the shop. As she pulled open the door to enter, a customer from within, pushed back from the inside of the door and within an instant, they had both collided. Velta’s small handbag and its contents went flying, the man’s brown paper bag tore as well, and his newly bought tea lay strewn on the ground.

“Oh, goodness me. I am so very sorry, sir,” said Velta lowering herself to the ground to help and clean up the mess. She quickly gathered her own belongings then began to help the man pick up his tea. It was the kind of tea that comes in individual tea bags, each one slip-covered in its own paper wrapping and each one bearing the name, White Peach Blossom. Her fingers went rigid for a moment as a thousand thoughts raced through her brain. “What reason could the store owner and his wife have for selling their most prized tea to one customer and not to me?” Without thinking, Velta quickly shoved one of the packets into her purse and then, with another apology, helped herself up from the ground and scurried off home.

Five minutes later, Velta entered her tidy house once more, her nerves still a-twitter from the morning’s events. Eager to try the delightful tea she had been denied for several days, Velta set the tea pot to boil on the stove. She opened her handbag to find the one packet of White Peach Blossom still where she had stuffed it.  She peeled back the paper wrapping, and saw a small, clear plastic bag. Inside the bag was a fine white powder. Now Velta was naïve and did not know a lot about the darker side of the world, but she did know that this was not tea at all. Her quivering fingers immediately surrendered the packet to the floor and Velta stumbled to a chair. Fear was soon overcome by curiosity, and she began to ponder how it was that the tea shop owners knew who was there to purchase this drug, and who was just a lost old lady seeking a cup of aromatic comfort. What sign, what signal, what code, did the man at the front counter have with the man she had run into? And what, if any, connection was there between Westbrae Wash ‘n’ Dry, its friendly caretaker, Phil, and the sinister tea shop? She needed answers and she needed them immediately. Velta began to re-organize her purse, a habit she had had ever since she was a child, and that she often reverted to when she was agitated. She continued to go over the events of the last two days in her head. She took out her pink compact and remembered how friendly Phil had always seemed. She collected loose change from the bottom of her bag and was reminded of the empty dryer that had run yesterday with no clothes inside. She removed her nail file from the purse and remembered the red sock, the rushing and quivering man, and how he had forgotten to do his laundry after paying a whole dollar for machine number nine, and as she sorted her wallet, she found the receipt to her laundry the previous day. “$1.00, machine number seven. Thank you for choosing Westbrae Wash ‘n’ Dry.”

Velta swept the lawn, cleaned the house, planted flowers, and then went to bed early. She was exhausted still when she woke up the next morning but she headed down to the Laundromat nevertheless with her bushel full of whites, and stockings, and other miscellaneous clothing.

“Good morning, Phil,” she exclaimed as she walked in the door.

“Good morning, Ms. Belin,” he replied. She gave him her four, shiny quarters, took her receipt, declined his offer of fabric softener, then without looking back, she left the shop. Velta walked briskly down the block to the tea shop. She entered with a smile, walked up to the front desk and to the shop owner and said,

“May I please have half a pound of White Peach Blossom tea?”

“I am sorry Ms. but I have already told you that we are all out of stock. Look, maybe we will have some next week but for now, how about some Rose lovely tea. It’s very good for your heart,” he said with a congenial expression spreading across his face.

“You’re all out?” Velta asked innocently as she unfolded her hand and placed the Wash ‘n’ Dry receipt upon the stark white counter. The man saw the slip of paper, his face contorted into fearful recognition, and their eyes met. Velta held her ground, the man, stuttering, was doing his very best to hide his rage and confusion. He swallowed his disgusted expression like sour milk, then, not wanting to make a scene in his own shop, he reached for the White Peach Blossom tea. He weighed out half of a pound then tossed it in a bag.

“Oh, and von more sing,” said Velta with ease, “ I’d also like a quarter pound of the Cranberry Ginger as well,”  she knew that this savory tea would taste just lovely as she was making the call to the police. The man’s expression did not change, and he kept his eyes low as he measured out the desired amount. Velta paid with exact change, thanked the man, and then, wearing a proud smile, she left the Chinese tea shop for the last time.

She did not see the owner put his head in his hands, she did not notice his wife flip the sign in the window to the ‘Sorry, We’re Closed” side, and she did not see Phil stealthily slip from his Laundromat and begin to follow her footsteps.