The Grim Steeper Page 5

  Sophie was sure sports journalism students wouldn’t appreciate Kimmy’s assessment of their brains. “I’m naturally concerned for Jason. I don’t get the whole grading thing. Jason says he didn’t give Mac an A, but who else could have changed his grade in the computer?”

  “Me, for one,” she said.

  Sophie laughed out loud, more because she was startled by the other woman’s candor, than that she thought it was funny.

  Kimmy halted her with a hand on her arm before they joined the others, and drew her away to a shadowy area between sconce lights along the curved brick internal wall. “You’re worried for Jason. I know him, but not well. He doesn’t seem the type who would cave to pressure. But if you’re interested, I’ll tell you; there is a finite number of people who could have done this.”

  “Like who?”

  Kimmy cocked her head to one side. “You’re not going to let it go, are you?” She shook her head, her spiral curls trembling. “Jason is the most likely, but Julia also could have done it. I could as well, because I have access to official grading programs. Vince, the registrar, and even Brenda the assistant registrar, I imagine. We all can access the CMS.”

  “CMS?

  “Content management system. I don’t know what internal safeguards Vince has in place, all I know is it’s password protected, but passwords are easy to figure out. There’s even software you can use.”

  “Anyone else?”

  She shrugged. “The dean?”

  “Could Mac or the coach have done it?”

  “Mac, no way. Students can’t get into the program.” Her expression turned doubtful. “I don’t think Heck could have done it. He wouldn’t know how and wouldn’t have access to the software. If both Julia and Jason are telling the truth, then the grade was changed after Jason entered it, but before Julia reviewed it.”

  That was a telling point, one that she was sure had already occurred to both Julia and Jason. “I’ve heard of this stuff happening at a few other schools. How was it managed there?”

  “Grade fixing? You’re probably thinking of the big scandal at UNC a few years back. That was different. There had been years—decades, even—of what are called paper courses, set up with few requirements and little oversight. Students barely had to hand in course work, and there were no actual classes. They got automatic As or Bs, or the coach told the instructor or professor what mark was needed to boost the student athlete’s overall average.”

  “That didn’t happen here.”

  “No.” Kimmy hesitated, but then said, “Okay, I can tell you’re worried about this, but Jason will weather the storm. If he didn’t do it, then the investigation will uncover who did, or at least a likely culprit. Don’t worry about your man; he’s going to be fine.”

  Sophie smiled. “Thanks. You’re good at cheering a person up.” She could see why Kimmy would make a good adviser; she was intuitive and empathetic, not minimizing the source of worry, but not overstating the case, either. However, Julia had expressed concern, and she was closer to the problem. As they started back across the lobby toward the group, she asked, “Are you joining in on the Fall Fling Townwide Tea Party?”

  “I am,” she said. “My book group is doing the tour. We just read the English translation of The Tea Lords, by Hella S. Haasse, about the Dutch tea trade. Do you read?”

  “Not much. I’m more of an action person, you know? I like cookbooks, and I do read magazines.”

  “That’s okay,” Kimmy said, patting her shoulder. “Not everyone likes the same things, right?”

  Sophie was sure she didn’t mean it, but she could hear the pity in the other woman’s voice, much as there would be in her own toward someone who didn’t like to cook. They reached the group and joined up. Jason smiled down at her. “Now you look more like yourself,” he said, putting one arm around her shoulders. “Come on; let’s go have a coffee and I’ll fill you in on all the drama.”

  * * *

  The next morning, bright and early, Sophie was in the tearoom kitchen finishing up some dough, one for scones, another for cheese biscuits to go with the soup, and yet another cookie dough, which she was rolling into logs to be refrigerated and sliced as needed for fresh-baked cookies. On the big six-burner professional stove were two pots of stock, one for the cream soup of the day, a vegetable chowder, and another for the clear soup, her own take on a minestrone.

  Laverne let herself in the back door and set her tote bag down on one of the chairs by the small table close to the window. As she unwound a hand-knit variegated scarf from around her neck, she said, “You’ve been busy. Everything smells so good!”

  Sophie hugged her carefully, keeping her wet hands away from her godmother’s tidy outfit, a dark skirt and maroon blouse. “I’m enjoying this so much. It’s like I have time to think and innovate while I cook. I didn’t have that luxury at either In Fashion or Bartleby’s.”

  As Laverne got a cup of tea and sat down for a morning tea biscuit, Sophie told her about what was going on at the university, and how it impacted Jason. She and Jason went to a café and had a long talk after the game. He admitted he hadn’t told her what was going on because he knew how upset she was about her grandmother’s health scare. “He’s been dealing with it all on his own; he hasn’t even told his folks yet!”

  “That poor boy,” Laverne said. “You know, Eli’s younger sister works at Cruikshank in the admissions office.”

  That wasn’t a huge surprise. Laverne had so many nieces and nephews, she always said it was a good thing she didn’t have children herself, what with so many other children who needed a maiden auntie to knit and crochet for them. “Admissions,” Sophie mused. “Would she know about this grading thing?”

  “She might. Why? Are you snooping again?”

  Sophie shrugged and wiped her hands on a towel, then flung it over her shoulder as she sat down opposite Laverne. “I’m worried for Jason. Julia Dandridge said the dean and him have clashed before, and that’s why Dean Asquith might not protect him and could try to pin the blame on him, to get the scandal over with and move on. But if Jason gets fired, he could damage his reputation and have a hard time getting another job at a university in the US.”

  Laverne patted her hand across the table, “Now, honey, don’t go borrowing trouble.”

  “Borrowing what trouble?”

  Nana was at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in one of her favorite jewel-toned velour tracksuits, this time in a sapphire that made her blue eyes twinkle. Sophie jumped up and went to hug her. “Doctor’s visit this morning, right? Laverne’s going to drive you?”

  Nana eyed her. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, deflecting attention. Yes, Laverne is going to take me to see my handsome young doctor, then I am going to come back, have lunch, and work for a sensibly short period in the tearoom, which means I’m going to sit by the cash desk for most of the day like Thelma and watch you both work your tailbones off. But before then, you are going to tell me what it is you’re not supposed to borrow trouble over.”

  Sophie stifled a chuckle. Nana was back in rare form. She sat her grandmother down, brought her a cup of tea and a biscuit with homemade seedless raspberry jam, and talked as she worked on the soup, telling her grandmother what she had told Laverne. After discussing it at length, she said, “Oh, and Nana, Julia Dandridge is going to come around to pick our brains about SereniTea and the Fall Fling. I said you might be able to give her some info.”

  Laverne and her exchanged a look. “So when did you decide Julia wasn’t a devil woman set to steal young Jason away from you?” Laverne asked.

  Sophie shrugged. “I know, I’m an idiot. They’re just friends.” She hesitated, then added, “She and her husband are having a baby, but don’t tell anyone.”

  “Who would I tell?” Nana asked. “The doctor?”

  The phone shrilled in the peaceful kitchen, and S
ophie hopped over to get it. “Hello?” Nothing but heavy breathing. “Mrs. Earnshaw, you’ve dialed out again!”

  No answer, then a click.

  * * *

  Thelma Mae Earnshaw sat and stared down at the screen of the tiny thing in her hand, not much bigger than a credit card. Just then Gilda, her only steady employee at Belle Époque, came back from doing the shopping, laden with about ten plastic bags from the bargain store and the dollar store.

  “This thing is broken!” Thelma groused, banging it on the table surface.

  Gilda struggled through the door, lugged the bags through to the kitchen and plopped them down on the floor near the fridge, panting and moaning about her sore shoulders and aching feet.

  “Get me a cup of tea while you’re there,” Thelma hollered, staring down at the screen and poking at it halfheartedly. How could a million kids get this so easily and not her? It had to be defective, that’s all there was to it. “Cissy got me a lemon,” she said about her granddaughter, Cissy Peterson, who ran Peterson Books ’n Stuff, the “stuff” being note pads and stationery, candles and crystals, and all manner of New Agey crap, as Thelma thought of it. Still not as bad as that new tearoom down the street in the old Sinclair house. What the heck did they call it? Sireny Tea? Sore End It Tea? Something like that. Yogurt and tea; whoever heard of such a foolish notion?

  “Gilda, you coming with that tea? I asked a half hour ago.”

  Gilda thumped a mug down in front of her. “I haven’t been home ten minutes, and you didn’t ask, you demanded!”

  Thelma glared up at her frizzy-haired factotum, then chuckled. “You look like one of them fuzzy-headed chickens that squawk around the barnyard in a fluster. Don’t go getting your knickers in a knot,” she said affably. “Sit down and have a cup with me, and thaw a couple of those pumpkin spice muffins Sophie sent over while you’re at it.”

  Minutes later, soothed by the buttered muffins and tea, Gilda said, “You’ll never guess what I heard at the market.”

  “No, I couldn’t guess,” Thelma said, still glaring at the cell phone on the table. “Why don’t you just tell me without a whole bunch of roundaboutation?”

  She couldn’t avoid the hesitations and meandering, but Gilda eventually told Thelma a tale about Cruickshank College, which Thelma didn’t care about one way or the other, and some kind of scandal attached to Sophie’s young fellow, Jason Murphy. But then it appeared that that wasn’t at all what she meant when she had challenged Thelma to guess what she overheard.

  “And you know that professor woman who owns the new tearoom? Girl at the bargain store, her sister cleans at that new tea shop, and says the professor told her this morning that she’s going to be ganging up with Rose next door to take over the Fall Fling tea walk thing and leave you out of it. We’ll be left in the dust!” Gilda said, her eyes bugging from her head. “Going to squeeze us right out!”

  Thelma straightened to attention. “What did you say?” she said.

  Gilda repeated herself.

  “And she told her cleaning lady all this?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Gilda said, and goggled slightly, her protuberant eyes wide. “I think . . . I suppose the cleaning lady overheard it when the professor woman was telling it to that scrawny manager girl I’ve seen jogging around the neighborhood.”

  Didn’t matter who she said it to, she supposed; Thelma saw red. No one was going to sideline her, not a soul. She’d do whatever it took, and if that meant dirty tricks even though she and Rose Freemont had made a kind of truce, then so be it.

  “Fall Fling, my great aunt’s patootie,” she muttered, as she heaved herself to her feet. “I’ll fall fling ’em right to kingdom come.”

  Chapter 5

  A clean bill of health and the okay to work a few hours every day had put a spring in Nana’s step and a twinkle in her eyes. She behaved herself, and only spent a few hours working in the tearoom each afternoon. But Friday had been especially busy, so Sophie sent her grandmother upstairs to rest and Laverne home to look after her nonagenarian father. She shared leftover soup with her grandmother for dinner, then nipped back downstairs to set up the tearoom for the last Silver Spouts meeting—the Spouts was Nana’s teapot collecting group—before the Fall Fling tea stroll on Sunday.

  The tearoom was kept mostly spotless by Laverne and Sophie, with a little heavy-duty cleaning help once every couple of weeks from a local woman, for a reasonable fee. But to Sophie, the tearoom was showing its age. The carpeting was worn in spots, and even the rose toile wallpaper, above white wainscoting, looked tired. The tiny shop off the tearoom proper was still fine; it held all the wares that Auntie Rose’s sold, from Fitz and Floyd teapots to Grace’s Teaware’s pretty teacups and saucers, as well as books on tea, tea-scented candles, children’s tea sets, “tea” shirts with tea-themed sayings, and last but not least, Auntie Rose’s Tea-riffic Tea, blended for them by Galway Fine Teas in Butterhill. Rhiannon, her friend and the proprietor, was going to have a booth in Barchester Hall at Cruickshank for the first night of the Fall Fling. Sophie had already texted her to bring a box of their tea with her.

  Sophie moved tables aside and made a ring of ten or so chairs facing the tea-servery area that looked out onto the kitchen. Once she had arranged the seating, she looked around at the room again. One thing that was very right about Auntie Rose’s was Nana’s amazing collection of teapots. Antique sideboards and buffet hutches filled with teapots of all kinds lined the walls. An ornate Eastlake buffet held floral teapots, while a heavy Victorian held chintz designs. On floating shelves in between there were animal shapes, people, royal family tributes, red hat society teapots and too many more to name.

  But on a separate shelf, right near the door where everyone would see it, was her Nana’s favorite . . . a shelf entirely devoted to Old Country Roses teapots and teaware. Sophie crossed the dimly lit tearoom and examined the shelf of teapots. OCR, as it was known by enthusiasts, was a classic Royal Albert design featuring red and gold roses with gold trim on a white background. It continued to be so popular the company was always coming up with lovely new designs, so Nana was still collecting. There were OCR teapots in different shapes, as well as the novelty teapots: a set featuring bunny teapots with the OCR pattern on them, another one with a raised pierced rim that was highly sought after, and a whole array of figural ones shaped like a table with OCR teapots and teacups atop them!

  “You’re so quick, my Sophie!” Nana said.

  Sophie whirled and eyed her grandmother. Nana stood in the doorway to the tearoom and appeared rested and fresh in a pale blue tunic over rose-colored pants. “It would have taken Laverne and me a while to do all of this.”

  “It’s nothing, Nana. I told you I was good to do it on my own.”

  “You always were the little girl who said that,” Nana said with a fond smile. “I can do it on my own!”

  “Are you expecting the whole group tonight?”

  “I think so. We may need more chairs, if everyone makes it.” She gazed at the semicircle of chairs and counted, then said, “Yes, another five, if all show up. Gilda has taken to coming over with Thelma, now that she lives upstairs at Belle Époque. And Laverne is bringing her niece Cindy; you remember Cindy.”

  “I do.” Cindy, the youngest of Laverne’s many nieces and nephews, was tall for her age, an exceptionally pretty girl with a demure demeanor and green lovely eyes. “Does that mean Josh will be here, too? I hope so; I haven’t seen him since I got back.”

  Josh Sinclair was the youngest official member of the Silver Spouts, having just turned seventeen. He had a crush on Cindy, but Cindy’s parents thought she was too young to date, so the two teens had merely been friends.

  “Oh, I do think he’ll be here,” Nana said with a slight smile. “Cindy turned fifteen a few weeks ago. I have a feeling Josh is going to ask if she can go out with him now.”

  They worked
in silence for a few minutes, with Nana mostly focused on the teapots she intended to talk about, and some notes on the Fall Fling Townwide Tea Party, or “tea stroll,” as she called it, since folks would be walking from tearoom to tearoom. Sophie pulled up more chairs, spaced them and made sure everyone would be comfortable.

  “I like that Julia,” Nana said, finally sitting down in one of the chairs.

  The new tearoom owner had indeed dropped in and picked Nana’s brain about running SereniTea, three doors up the street from Auntie Rose’s. The house had been Josh’s grandmother’s home before Julia and her husband bought it. They had done a quick makeover in a modified Japanese style, with shoji doors and screens, a space for meditation, a Zen garden in back and a large room for yoga classes. It was so completely different from Auntie Rose’s and Belle Époque that it didn’t count as competition. Nana was able to advise her on some of the nuts and bolts of running a tearoom. Julia had a manager, a young woman who was also the yoga instructor, but neither had retail experience, and both were struggling.

  “I do, too,” Sophie said. “She’s trying to help Jason get past this grading thing. I hope they figure out what happened.”

  Nana reached out and took her granddaughter’s hand. “It’ll all work out, sweetheart. I believe in Jason.”

  “I do, too, but that isn’t always enough.”

  * * *

  Rose watched as her granddaughter leaped up to work some more, dashing into the kitchen to prepare snacks and set up trays for the Silver Spouts. Sophie had been hurt deeply by the death of her restaurant, but had been recovering nicely over the spring and summer in Gracious Grove. Then Rose’s daughter Rosalind showed up, tempting her daughter with the offer to go back to her career as a chef in a fashionable restaurant in the Hamptons. The mother and daughter’s relationship had never been smooth, since their ideas of what would make Sophie happy were many miles apart. Sophie had hoped that going to the Hamptons to work and be near her mother would help their fragile relationship, but what she saw as her mother’s betrayal had hurt her deeply.