Love Me Tender by Susan Fox Page A

quick double-knock on Ms. H’s door, then entered the main part of the house. The welcome aroma of coffee and frying bacon met her. It had become a habit for the two women to have breakfast on Sundays if Cassidy wasn’t working at the Wild Rose.
    â€œMmm, smells good,” she called as she walked down the hall toward the kitchen. Most mornings, Cassidy had yogurt and some kind of Wild Rose leftover. Chef Mitch let staff take unsold goodies at the end of the day: cranberry bran muffins, peach Danish, gooey cinnamon buns, chocolate croissants. Delicious, but not the kind of real meal Ms. Haldenby believed in.
    The woman, now wearing a navy bibbed apron over her blouse and skirt, turned from the stove. “I had some stale bread that needed to be used, so I made French toast.”
    â€œThat’s one of my faves.”
    The woman’s lips curved momentarily, but then she straightened them and said briskly, “The word is ‘favorites’. If you’d been my student, young lady, you’d speak like a civilized human being.”
    â€œCivilization’s highly overrated.” Cassidy noted that the table was already set. Glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice and a milk jug, sugar pot, pitcher of maple syrup. Bone china plates, cream colored with gold rims, and matching cups and saucers. Empty cups. She went to the old-fashioned drip-through coffeemaker on the counter, removed the cone and filter, then poured from the full carafe into the two cups. By the time she’d put the carafe back on the stove element with the heat set to low, Ms. H had dished out French toast and bacon and taken her apron off.
    The two women took their usual spots at the table. Ms. H said a quick grace. She’d told Cassidy that it wasn’t because she was religious—she only went to church at Christmas and Easter—but because it reminded her of her mother.
    And this ritual of turning Sunday breakfast into something special reminded Cassidy of how things had been when she and JJ were little kids and their parents were getting along.
    â€œTell me all about the wedding reception,” her landlady said.
    Cassidy took her time swallowing a delicious bite of maple syrup–slathered French toast and crispy bacon. Then, as the two of them savored breakfast, she described Karen’s dress, everyone else’s clothes, the food, the toasts.
    Over second cups of coffee, Ms. H asked questions and shared snippets of information, including fourth-grade stories about some of the wedding guests. She was an astute observer, had the memory of an elephant, and was often wryly humorous but never cruel.
    Cassidy rose to clear the table and refill their coffee cups. When she sat down, Ms. H said, “Well, I do hope Karen and Jamal will have a long and happy life together.” There was an unaccustomed note in her voice. Envy? Yearning?
    For a moment, Cassidy felt something similar. “Me too,” she said quietly. Maybe the newlyweds would beat the odds and turn out like Dave’s parents rather than her own multidivorced ones. Then, because she and her landlady had hit it off from day one, Cassidy dared to say, “You never married, Ms. H. I can’t believe it’s from lack of opportunity.”
    â€œA nice compliment.” The woman, who wasn’t normally a fidget, toyed with her coffee cup. “Lack of opportunity. In a way, I suppose that’s true.”
    Cassidy let her eyes ask the question.
    â€œThere was someone. A special someone. When I was studying to be a teacher.”
    And she’d carried a torch for almost sixty years? Had she not had sex in that long? The woman was worse than Dave Cousins. Cassidy kept that opinion to herself. “It didn’t work out?”
    Those sky-blue eyes gazed levelly at her. “Her name was Irene. It was the nineteen fifties. We both loved children and wanted to teach them.”
    And the world would have censured them.