The Tea Party

July 11^th, 1953, a Saturday and my fifth birthday, was exactly as my grandmother had promised.

“An absolutely glorious day for a tea party!” she’d proclaimed early that morning as she roused me , flinging the bedroom window wide open and watching me rub sleep seeds from my eyes.  “Happy Birthday!  Listen!  Even the dang gulls are singing!”

We’d arrived on the island barely a month before after the long road trip from Boston  to St. John, New Brunswick and after a short sea crossing to Nova Scotia were  happily and comfortably settled into the cheerful and sunny house overlooking the ocean.  There was me, my two younger brothers, my mother, my unflappable, practical grandmother and two dogs - my grandfather having long since passed away - and my daddy not due to arrive until later in the month.   As they did every summer, my Aunt Pearl and and Aunt Vi had descended on the house the week prior to our arrival and spent hours dusting and cleaning, airing it out, stocking the pantry and putting fresh linens on all the beds.  On the afternoon that my mother’s pink and white convertible and Nana’s old Lincoln Continental had finally pulled into the gravel driveway, the house welcomed us with open arms.   Its windows sparkled in the afternoon sun, the grass was freshly cut, the woodshed newly stocked, a massive pot of Aunt Pearl’s sweet cream fish chowder bubbled on the old cast iron stove and homemade biscuits were cooling on the counter.   Aunt Vi was putting the finishing touches on her made-from-scratch strawberry shortcake.  Nobody could make chowder like my Aunt Pearl or shortcake like my Aunt Vi, but I was so excited and happy to be home that it was all I could do to eat.

“Go, child,” Nana finally said in exasperation as she poured iced coffee and luxuriously lit a Kent 100, “You’ve had a long day and I’ll be wanting you in bed early tonight.  Be back by dark.”

But dark was a long way off on that perfect day.  Dark was always a long way off on those perfect summer days.   At precisely eight o’clock, the Peter’s Island lighthouse turned on its red warning beacon and it was not until then that I needed to be home - Nana would be standing on the side porch by that time, scanning the horizon and impatiently tapping one sensible shoe - but not worrying.  There wasn’t much need to worry in those sweet, summer days when every island child was not only watched quietly and discreetly by every adult but was safe with each of them.  On the rare evenings that I was not home on time, my grandmother would simply pick up the party line and ring Elsie at the telephone office up island.  In a matter of minutes, my location would’ve been pinpointed and I’d have been on my way home courtesy of some local fisherman.  We might’ve been surrounded by water  (and nobody ever discounted the hazards it presented) but we were also surrounded by a tightly knit community of family and friends.    Stranger Danger hadn’t been invented then and not a single island door or car was ever locked.

Nana slipped a chocolate chip cookie into my overalls pocket and the dogs and I went flying down the front path, headed for the rocky coast of the icy Atlantic and the first of many summer adventures. 
 

It was later in the month when my grandmother first mentioned my upcoming birthday.

“Pears to me that five is pretty grown up,“ she remarked one morning as she spread softened butter and blackberry jam on toast and tucked a napkin under my chin, “ Reckon you might like a tea party?”

I considered this for a moment, thinking of the  Alice in Wonderland picture book my daddy had ordered all the way from the big Barnes & Noble store in New York City the previous Christmas.   The illustrations were delicate but vividly drawn and the characters had come to life for me the moment  I’d unwrapped  the bright red paper with the Christmas green bow.   It was, I think, my first real treasure and I kept in under my pillow, falling asleep each night and impatiently dreaming of learning to read.

“Like The Hatter and The White Rabbit and The Dormouse?” I asked excitedly

Nana hesitated, sipped her coffee, then smiled cautiously.

“Well, not…..precisely,” she said, “ But……kind of.”

“A tea party?” my mother remarked with a sour, slightly put upon expression, “As if the girl doesn’t already have more imagination than she needs!”

“Ain’t no such thing as too much imagination in a five year old,” Nana replied tartly, “And I don’t recall anyone askin’ you, Jan. “  She paused, reached for her Kent 100’s, looked thoughtful.

“I ‘spect we could even use the company china.” she said mildly and more to herself than my mother.

“And if it rains?” my mother wanted to know with an exaggerated roll of her tired eyes.

But my grandmother dismissed her with an airy wave of one red fingernail’d hand.

“Ain’t gonna.” she said shortly.

“But…..” my mother persisted halfheartedly and Nana gave her a glare.

“I said it ain’t gonna rain and that’s that.”  Her tone, the one she used when she was at the end of her patience, had sharpened considerably.  You didn’t argue with that tone unless you were willing to risk a trip to the woodshed and upon hearing it, my mother gave an indifferent shrug and let it drop.  I had a sneaking suspicion that the part of her that bitterly resented having children might be hoping that it would rain - would come down in buckets, matter of fact, be a real gullywasher like the summer of ’83  that the old timers still liked to talk about- but Nana was having none of it.

 “Your mama got a spiteful streak, child, just like her daddy,” she told me cheerfully, “But you don’t pay her no mind.  She’ll git over it.  Now you go ‘long and let me git to washin’ clothes ‘fore it’s too late for ‘em to dry.”

Two weeks later, on a perfect blue and white summer afternoon, I turned five with Red Foley singing Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy and my mother serving ice cream and chocolate cake  (on Nana’s company china) to a crowd of laughing, singing children and adults.  We played croquet until the sun set behind the horizon and then toasted marshmallows over a makeshift bonfire until the red beacon warning came on in the lighthouse on Peter’s Island.   Nana pretended not to notice for another full hour.