Deleted Scene - Meet Me in Paris
Tea With Bitter Lemons
Shel Salomon’s house was easy to spot. In a sedate, tree-lined part of ritzy Belmont, it stuck out among the older, more genteel buildings. Shel’s love for huge amounts of glass sheeting wasn’t limited to his aerie of an office. The massive two-storey façade resembled Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. Fortunately for the Salomons, and for their neighbors, the glass was treated with a one-way coating that let the occupants see out, but spared the casual onlooker the spectacle of the Salomons ambling around the interior in their underwear.
The hedge was trimmed into the shapes of mythical beasts, and the trees that hadn’t been chain-sawed into shapes against their nature were festooned with crystal suncatchers and wind chimes. In the bright daylight the whole yard glittered like a showcase at Tiffany’s. Kendra stood out front for several minutes, much as she’d done outside Trey’s yard that first morning. She’d half hoped Shel wouldn’t be home, but his copper-colored Lincoln Continental sat in the driveway. She rolled her neck to get the kinks out, crossed the road and walked up to the house. The doorbell made a chirping sound, like a cage full of songbirds.
Almost immediately, the door opened, and Shel’s wife, Ada, appeared. She was a small, pale-skinned, freckled woman whose hair was dyed a coppery red and squeezed into an elaborate beehive. In high heels, she would have just scraped past five feet tall. She wasn’t wearing high heels. Ada was all smiles. “Hello there,” she said in a voice straight out of Munchkinland. “Hello there, sweetie.” She pursed her fuchsia-painted lips in deep thought. “Don’t tell me. Miss Forrest, right? Kendra?”
“That’s right.”
Tiny, freckled pink hands reached out to clasp hers. “So nice to see you again, Kendra. Shel was always talking about you. Said you were one of his treasures.”
An opinion she didn’t deserve. She tried to answer, but didn’t know how.
Realizing that Kendra wasn’t going to say anything, Mrs. Salomon filled the gap. “So, how’re things at the agency. . . .what’s it called now?”
“Wanderlust.”
“Wanderlust. Right. You young people, with your fancy names. In my day, you weren’t ashamed to name a company after yourself. What was wrong with Salomon’s Travel and Tours? Can you tell me?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Lust. What a word! In my day, we didn’t even say that word out loud. And it certainly didn’t apply to low-budget junkets to Atlantic City!” She laughed.
Kendra smiled in response, but it was like responding to gallows humor when your number was up next. She tried not to peep past Ada’s shoulder into the house.
“So, how’s it going over there?” Ada asked again.
“I’m, uh, no longer working there.”
Ada’s arched, penciled-in brows touched at the center. “Really? What happened? Is business bad? Are they downsizing? I hope that young man knows what he’s doing. I’d hate to see him run that business into the ground, not after my husband spent forty years of his life building it up!”
Kendra was quick to reassure her. “Oh, no, no! The business is doing well. Trey. . . Mr. Hammond is a good businessman. The company’s in good hands.”
“And still, you left them?” Then understanding made her beam. “Ah, I know. You’re getting married. Congratulations!” The fine, bird-like hands grasped Kendra by the shoulders. Ada rose on tip-toe, and made to kiss her cheek.
Kendra denied it hastily. “No! I mean, no, Ma’am. I’m not getting married.”
Ada settled back down into her slippers. “But you’re in love. I can tell.” She peered at her curiously, discerningly, like she was examining a puppy at a pet shop. “Only one thing can put a glow like that on a woman’s face.” She pinched her hard on the cheek four times, punctuating the letters as she spelled them out: “L-o-v-e!”
Instinctively, Kendra put her hands to her cheeks, trying to hide the heated flush that rose in response to the truth. She wasn’t ready to share how she felt with anyone, not even someone as sweet as Ada.
Fortunately, Ada seemed used to carrying on one-sided conversations. She went on blithely. “So you’re not getting married, but you are in love. And you left the job. Weren’t you happy there?”
She hung her head. “It’s complicated.”
Ada looked hurt. “Okay, okay, young lady. You don’t have to tell me.” When Kendra fidgeted, she stated the obvious. “I suppose you’ve come to see Shel?”
“Yes, thank you, Ma’am.”
She curled her finger to beckon Kendra. “Right this way. Excuse the mess. We’re packing up. We’re leaving for the Bahamas in two weeks.”
“I know.”
“Have you been?”
“The Bahamas?”
“Yes.”
“No, I haven’t had the opportunity—”
“It’s beautiful. Warm and sunny all year ‘round. Not wet and cold like it is here. I’m positively freezing. Aren’t you freezing?”
Outside, it was a lovely, bright spring day, up in the high sixties. But to be polite, she murmured in agreement.
There were boxes everywhere, things rolled up in bubble wrap and brown paper. Their stuff was as extravagant and showy as Shel himself. Scrollwork on the wooden furniture. Fake flowers and heavy drapes. Brass, bronze and chrome clashing everywhere. Ada led Kendra to the library, where they found him packing books into crates. Instantly, she had a memory of the day she spent unpacking Trey’s books. The day this huge thing between them had begun. Life had a funny way of moving in cycles. One man moving in, another moving out.
He spotted her, and called out in delight, “Kendra! What a delightful surprise!” He held out his arms. “Come over here. Come give a tired old man a kiss.”
For a second or two, apprehension held her back. It wasn’t too late to find an excuse and leave. Maybe she could pretend she’d only come to wish him farewell, and then hightail it out of there. But that wouldn’t be right. So she stepped forward and let him kiss her, bending down to meet him, as he was only a few hairs taller than his wife. He was wearing a velveteen track suit that had time-warped out of the seventies, and his fingers were laden with rings. He flashed his gap-toothed smile. “Oh, my girl, you look lovely. Your face is positively lit up. Lit up, I’m telling ya. She’s glowing, isn’t she, Ada?”
“She certainly is,” Ada agreed.
“You’ve been on vacation?”
Kendra began to answer, but Ada cut her off. “She’s in love.” She said as proudly, as indulgently, as if she’d engineered the match herself.
“Is she? Did she tell you that?”
“What, did she tell me that? She doesn’t have to. I’m a woman. I know.”
Shel snorted like a pony. “My wife, she thinks she knows everything. So, you’re in love, eh? Have you come to invite me to your wedding?”
Talk about getting swept away by an avalanche of misconception! Kendra was going to have to stop this before they opened up a gift register in her name. “Oh, no, Shel, I’m not getting—”
“I hope it’s in the next two weeks, because after that, whoosh. . . .” He made a gesture with his hands, a plane taking off. “The Bahamas, muffin. Did I tell you?”
She smiled, full of affection for the old man. “You told me.”
“Warm weather. Can’t take a walk in any direction without stumbling over a golf course. And I hear the Bahamian girlies are something to look at.” He winked at his wife. “They’ve got more pretty ones there than they got golf courses, and that’s saying something.”
Ada huffed in good-natured dismissal. “Huh. Like those little Bahamian girlies haven’t got better things to do than bother with a silly old man like you. Can’t even remember to put your hat on when you go out in the rain. . . .”
Shel ignored her, still buoyed by the delights of his new home. “And the sun. . . Oh, it’s warm all the time. All the time. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”
“No, unfortunately. But you two are making me want to make a visit.” She wished he wasn’t being so nice to her. A cooler reception would have made what she had to do so much easier. “Shel. . . .”.
“Thirsty? You’re thirsty, aren’t you. Ada!” He yelled for his wife as though she wasn’t in the room. “Bring us some tea, will you? And some of those little tiny ginger cookies. You have some of those little cookies left, don’t you? The ones I like?”
Ada propped her hands on her hips as if the mere suggestion that she could run out of anything in her kitchen was an insult. “Have some left? I buy them by the case, you eat so many. You, who should be watching your diabetes.” She turned to go.
He yelled behind her, “And don’t forget the lemon for the tea. You always forget the lemon for the tea.”
“I never forget the lemon for the tea, old man,” she responded and disappeared.
Shel stood before her, beaming. “So, my dear, what are you doing away from the office at this hour? Is it your day off?” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Did you pull a sickie? I won’t tell.”
“No, it’s not my day off. And I didn’t call in sick.”
“Vacation?”
“Shel—”
“How’s Hammond settling in? Things are going well, aren’t they? He’s a good man. Smart. I know I can trust him with my business. Took me forty years to build it up.” He looked proud.
“I know.”
“And that Hammond, he’ll take it places. I could tell. Well brought up. You can’t put a price on that, when it comes to the measure of a man. What a man’s parents put into him is half of what he is, you know? I could have sold my business to three other bidders, let me tell ya, but I chose him. Even though I got a little less for it. Why? Because I knew I was entrusting it to a good man.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “Yes, he’s a very good man.”
“Does he cook for you guys? Like I used to? Remember those days?” He misted over for a while.
“I remember,” she said warmly. “I don’t think he’s started doing that yet, but I’m sure he’ll get into it as soon as he’s settled down.”
“The employees will expect it, you know. You tell him I said so.”
“I will.”
Having run out of steam, Shel looked expectant. Waiting for her to divulge the true purpose for her visit.
There it was. The crunch. “Shel. . . .”
“Yes?”
“I came here to tell you something. Something you won’t like.”
He could read the sobriety on her face, and his own face mirrored hers. “You wanna sit down, muffin?”
“I think I’d better”
He cleared some small cardboard boxes away from a couch and let her sit. He sat next to her, his hands on his velveteen knees, face serious. “Go ahead.”
“I don’t work for Wanderlust anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Trey Hammond fired me.”
Shel leaped up. “He did what? Is he crazy? You’re one of my best agents. I told him that, when he bought the place. Told him there were people he could always count on, and that you were one of them.” He hurried over and picked up the phone. “You want me to talk to him, right? You want your job back? You got it.” He began to dial numbers, fat fingers poking at the buttons. “Same number, right? Same extension?”
She was horrified. “No, Shel. Don’t! That’s not what I’m here for.”
He looked authoritative. “Don’t worry. I’ll fix this. Insolent young—”
She rushed to him, hand out. Prepared to cut the call off, if it came to that. “No, Shel, please, listen to me. I need you to listen.”
Doubtful, he put the phone down and sat again. She sat next to him. “Trey was right to fire me. I deserved it.”
Shel was instantly outraged. “How can you say that? You’re one of my best—”
It came out in a rush, harsher, balder, more explicit than she’d planned. “I was stealing from you, Shel. I was taking money from the company.” There. She’d said it.
He gaped, unable to find words to fill his slack, open mouth. Then he found his voice. “What?”
She pleaded for understanding, speaking fast before the shock in his eyes hardened to something else. “I was desperate. I was going to be evicted if I didn’t come up with some money soon. So I filled out a voucher to cash.”
She hated the hurt and bewilderment she saw in him, but she’d dug her grave. It was time to stretch full out on the bottom of it and wait for the first clod of earth to hit. “I did it more than once. I was planning to pay it back, honest. I just never got the chance to. I sank deeper and deeper and each time, I took a little money.”
“How much?”
“About nine thousand.”
He blew out through his lips. “That’s a lot of money, girlie.”
“I know.”
Ada fluttered cheerily in with the tray, her kazoo of a voice preceding her. “Here we go. Tea with ginger cookies and lemons.” The emphasis was for her husband. She set it down on the elaborate coffee table, which already had its legs wrapped in corrugated cardboard. “Only two for you, Shel. You and your diabetes. The rest are for Kendra. You hear me?” Only then did she realize something was wrong. It was there in the air, and she felt it. “Oh.”
“Leave it there, Ada. Thank you.” Shel waved her away with his ringed fingers.
Ada looked puzzled, and frankly curious, but she did as she was told and left.
“I’m so sorry, Shel.”
“It’s not me you should be apologizing to. It’s young Trey Hammond. He bought the company, he bought the liabilities.”
“I’ve said I’m sorry. I even. . . we made an arrangement for me to pay it back.”
“At least there’s that.” Silence. His face was a closed book. She had no way of telling if he was angry, sad, disappointed, or a miserable cocktail of all three.
When he finally spoke, his puzzlement was fathomless. “I wish I could understand. . . .”
She wished her head didn’t hurt so much. “I was stupid and selfish. I made an awful, awful mistake.”
“Why come here? Why come and tell me?”
“Because I need you to forgive me. I can’t go on with this burning away at my heart. I need to get it out. I can’t be the person I want to be if I don’t tell you the truth.”
His head jerked toward her. “You throw this on me, out of the blue, and you want me to forgive you?”
“Yes.”
The tea was sitting there, a welcoming gesture that had become a mockery of itself. “You want your tea now?”
“No, Shel. Thank you. I can’t.” To break bread with him at this time would be unbearably awkward. And if forgiveness wasn’t forthcoming, maybe she should leave. She got up.
He got up, too, and cut her off before she could leave the room. He was more serious than she’d ever seen him. “We all do terrible things sometimes.”
She stared at her feet.
“We have our demons. We make our mistakes.”
“I promise you, Shel, I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never, ever—”
“Don’t say anything, girlie.” He linked arms with her and led her out toward the front. “God knows what you were feeling at the time, and what made you do what you did. He knows you’re sorry. I know you’re sorry. And if you’ve paid off your debt to Hammond, well, then it’s over and done with. It takes a big man, a big woman, to say they’re sorry, and you didn’t have to come here, but you did. I appreciate that.”
“Thank you.”
“So why don’t you let it rest now. Okay?” At the doorway, he kissed her gently on both cheeks. And looked at her. “My wife was right.”
“About what?”
“You do look like you’re in love.”
She could feel the heat spreading upward from her throat.
“I wish you every happiness.” The old Shel light was back in his eyes. “I’ll send you a card from the Bahamas.”
“I’d like that, Shel. Very much.”
END OF CHAPTER
