Marriage Seasons 01 - It Happens Every Spring by Gary Chapman, Catherine Palmer Read Free Book Online

had become one of the most profitable parts of her business.
    The whole thing had started off with only a hot pot and a few tea
bags. She didn't charge, even though it meant doing a whole dishwasher load of mugs every night. Pretty soon, Patsy had noticed
women carrying chairs into the glass-windowed alcove so they
could hear each other over the hair dryers. She'd bought a little
table and some pretty chairs for the sunroom. Then another table,
and another. She hunted in antiques shops for china teacups and
saucers. And then she got the idea to paint the walls between the
windows a soft shade of lavender.

    Before she knew it, women were arriving before their hair
appointments and staying afterward to chat over cups of tea.
Finally, Patsy had purchased a large stainless-steel urn that kept the
water just at the edge of boiling. She started asking twenty-five
cents for tea bags. Then she began baking goodies at home and selling them from an antique glass counter case she bought at an auction. Now she oversaw a regular cottage industry of local women
who baked for the tearoom. They brought in banana bread, blueberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, you name it. Patsy charged a small
commission and gave the women the rest of the money.
    These days, the little Just As I Am tearoom was famous all over
the lake area, and Patsy sold china cups, teapots, tablecloths, stationery, candles, and tea-themed gifts. She had raised her prices
enough that she had been sure people would gripe, but they didn't.
If she ever lost her salon, Patsy thought she might be able to keep
the tearoom open as a stand-alone business. But the two went
together so perfectly, and the ladies loved it. Even some of her male
customers had been known to drop an English Breakfast tea bag
into a cup of hot water and sit around chewing the fat for a while
after they'd gotten their haircuts.
    As Patsy put away the broom, it occurred to her that over the
years, the salon had become her own little garden-and the
women were the flowers and trees and growing things she nurtured there. Ashley Hanes was a rose in bloom, a ripe strawberry, a
bluebird's song. Everything about that girl said springtimeexcitement, joy, hope, trust, anticipation, and most of all, love.
Ashley fairly glowed with awakening.
    Esther Moore, seated across from Ashley and talking the poor
girl's ear off, radiated contentment. She was a golden sunflower, a
soft sweet peach, a chirping robin redbreast. When she walked into
a room, it felt like summer had arrived. Patsy knew it was because
Esther and Charlie were so comfortable together, so relaxed. While
Ashley and Brad were so crazy in love they were just about to burst,
Esther and Charlie had settled into a calm, unflappable unity.

    Patsy loved her garden of women. Over in the far corner sat Kim
Finley with her twins, Lydia and Luke. A dental hygienist, Kim
sometimes got off work early enough to meet the school bus when
it stopped at the strip mall in Tranquility. She and the kids would
walk over to the salon for teatime before she drove them to their
tidy gray house in Deepwater Cove to start on homework.
    At a young age, Kim had weathered a rough divorce from the
twins' father, Joe Lockwood, and she had spent several years as a
single mom. When Derek, a State Water Patrolman, entered her
life three years ago, Kim had fallen deeply in love and married
quickly. Patsy knew from cutting Kim's hair so often through the
years that Kim and Derek had experienced a few rocky patches too.
    Kim wore a soft resignation on her face. She made Patsy think of
autumn-beautiful, but a little tired. Kim was a windblown shock
of wheat, a ripe apple hanging heavy on the tree, a mourning dove
that gathered her little ones close about her and cooed in the wind.
    The young women, the children, the widows, the jovial men ...
Patsy treasured them all. As she crossed to the desk to check that
her stylists were caught up on all their