Green Door Antique Store
Part II Concludes Today!
Click here for a review post that lists all the Part I Chapters.
Chapter 15: Saturday Lunch in the Café
Chapter 16: A Kitchen Conversation
Chapter 17: Booth Conversations—Part I
Want to get back in the mood for reading? Listen to Green Door, What’s That Secret You’re Keeping? again!
Green Door Antique Store: Part II—The Booths
Chapter Twenty: Preparing for a Saturday Evening Gathering
Dinner was a success and sounded like a gathering of old friends. Thyme smiled at the room full of women and after two attempts at speaking over the chattering voices, she said, “Have you all watched the Netflix show Lessons in Chemistry?”
Several nodded yes.
“Well for those who haven’t, it is a story of a chemist who becomes the host of a cooking show. It is worth watching! She ends every show by saying, ‘Children set the table, your mother needs a moment.’ I have my version of that line, “Ladies, clear the tables and clean the kitchen, Thyme needs a moment. We will all meet upstairs at 7:30.”
Several laughed while others began clearing the dishes from the tables. Thyme walked to the kitchen, hung up her apron, and headed upstairs to spend a few moments organizing her thoughts.
Over the years, it had gotten increasingly difficult to keep all the stories straight, so after a few missteps Thyme had learned to pause after touring the booths and jot down notes. If she had been a therapist, she would have taken notes as they talked, but that seemed inappropriate in this situation.
Thyme was not a therapist and never had been though she did spend a lot of time on couches in her therapist’s office. She learned a lot about herself there. She also learned how to be present for those who were hurting. She was sure she would not be a good therapist because she was far too prone to connect dots for other people instead of allowing them to connect the dots themselves. She only had a week with these women, there just wasn’t time—her goal was that they would seek additional professional help after the week was over.
Sitting down at her desk, Thyme set out ten notecards on which she had already placed stickers to indicate the booth color with the woman’s name next to it. She had learned that if she imagined standing in the booth again, she could remember the conversation. To help her memory, she quickly wrote a short description of the booth under each name. Some were harder to describe than others.
Agytha: (Shooting Star) 50s memorabilia/linens/lunchboxes
Healed secrets, looking for Thyme’s secret
Jayne: (Apple Froth) Spring color explosion
Evades answering questions, skill learned as child, afraid of what people think of her
Kaylynn: (Spring Rain) Flowers
Lonely only child, flowers as friends
Karyn: (Spring Violet) White lace milk glass on blue
Reads the room, didn’t have a good mother example, tries to fix others and their problems
Belynda: (Cat’s Meow) cats
Exuberance—is it a distraction? Says she is an open book, no secrets
Bettilynn: (Tangy Orange) CA ocean, water, sunset
Young adult in CA, time of healing, many secrets, protected daughter, avoided questions?
Lynda: (St. Patrick) Religious memorabilia/pew
Faith important, prayed for help, hypervigilant, looking for exits, leaves jobs, marriages, etc., has nightmares
Evelynn: (Cactus Flower) White, angels, cactus
Estranged from daughter 5 years—afraid of what others thought of her daughter and poked at her— identified herself as prickly cactus, hopeful to reconcile
Katelynn: (Poolside) Miniatures
House fire as child, lost everything, beloved cat died, daughter only knows there was a fire, never allowed daughter to have a cat
Crystal: (Plum Perfect) Bohemian/eclectic
Felt she lost who she was as a young adult—reclaim in booth, did not offer any insights about secrets
Thyme finished the last card and wondered why on earth she had thought it would be clever to invite all those with “Y” names this week. She could not remember who had two “n”s and who did not. And some names were just too much alike. She sighed deeply at her tendency to make things far more complicated than they needed to be, set her alarm just in case she fell asleep, and leaned back in the chair to rest a moment. She really did need a moment.
Sure enough, she fell asleep and when her alarm woke her, she could hear the women gathering outside her door. Someone had started playing the song, Green Door, What’s That Secret You’re Keeping? Maybe they were calling her this time! She did have a secret, and it was likely that Agytha would figure it out.
To be continued next week . . .
Helpful Information:
Ahhhh! A little bit of an unexpected turn. I love it!
On tippy toes!