Maybe because Rose Mary,
her beloved Mother, was half-English, was that how her appetite and habit ran
also in Anthony's vein.
Anthony was exquisitely
a big fan of teas and every occassion involving it: she loved to invite her
friends and colleagues when she grew up to afternoon tea parties held before
her green house, or held her little birthday parties with tea-themes. By tea
themes means that as much as possible should every element of the party
contained tea: she will dress herself with rose-tea fragrance, and slip some
tea leaves at the back of her ear, and so did her friends in her social group
in high school: Samantha, Carrie, Charlotte, and later on, Miranda(familiar
with their names? Sure, they're typical American names). The served dish would
be tea-flavoured cake, black tea cookies, and the cammomile tea would be the
girls' favourite choice of beverage. Sometimes they would also made
tea-flavored consomme from the recipe Dave, Anthony's brother of whom the other
four really idolized-especially Charlotte, who became madly in love with him
since the first time they met(she said) gave them. The scheme with consomme
usually marked a pyjamas party of the five.
Samantha had Danish and
Spanish blood, Charlotte and Miranda were Germans, and Carrie was half Irish
and French. But they fully grown as American teenagers, and came from rich
white collar families. They were really intrigued by how Anthony and her royal
half Russian and English blood continued their daily noble tradition, starting
from their poise, calm manner to their yules and debutes.
But little that they
knew about Anthony's small fragment of childhood, one that maybe Anthony
herself nearly forgotten now.
It involved her tea-
fanatism as a child, when she was about three or four, playing afternoon tea
party with her favourite toys: Teddy the Bear, Mrs. Norris, Goldstein, and
Bloomsburry, the maid-dolls which she portrayed to have noble bloods. (So funny
that each of them might be Ann's resemblance of her ideal friends, and maybe
that was why in her more grown up lives she tended to choose befriend four
people)
And magically, the toys
spoke back to her.
That was why she always
loved to spend her afternoon alone just by the four of them in the backyard
(that time her family made her live in the villa in Nantucket). The maids were
busy cleaning the house and somehow felt naturally thankful that Ann wasn't
being nosy as the other four-years child might be, so at least for two hours
every day Anthony would be left alone playing by her dolls there.
The habit was observed
heavily by some child kidnapper who wanted to kidnap her to extort her father's
fortune.
One day, Julian, the
name of the kidnapper, who accidentally, always operated alone, sneaked down
the backyard and arrived behind little Anthony who were unsuspicious of his
presence. She merely turned her head a little to see who was coming, and offered
him to join her playing tea.
Yes, Sir, come play with
us...
At the time the dolls
were also inviting him, that was when the actually- superstitious Julian ran
for his life. For God sake! The dolls are talking!
As she grew up, Anthony
eventually forgot to play with her toys. They were now stored, although
properly, in the warehouse.
But sometimes some
childhood memory about the occassion echoed at the back of her head. Sometimes
she felt lonely, and yet she knew that maybe she needed to see her old friends-the
dolls- to kill the feeling.
Anyway, to totally
dismiss a hospitality with something we were once close to, was rather not a
good thing.
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