“My word, Tova!” Mary Ann Minetti lowers a teapot onto her dining table, staring at Tova’s arm. The pot is swaddled in a crocheted yellow cozy, probably a project someone knitted once, back when knitting was something the Knit-Wits actually did at their weekly luncheons. The teapot cozy matches the yellow jeweled barrette at Mary Ann’s temple, the clip holding back tawny curls.
Janice Kim eyes Tova’s arm as she fills her mug. “An allergy, maybe?” A swirl of oolong steam fogs her round spectacles, and she takes them off and wipes them on the hem of her T-shirt, which Tova suspects must belong to Janice’s son, Timothy, because it’s at least three sizes too large and emblazoned with the logo of the Korean shopping center down in Seattle where Timothy invested in a restaurant some years back.
“That mark?” Tova says, tugging the sleeve of her sweater down. “It’s nothing.”
“You should get it checked out.” Barb Vanderhoof plops a third sugar cube into her tea. Her cropped gray hair has been combed into gel-set spikes, which is one of her favored styles lately. When she first debuted this look, she joked that it was only fitting for a Barb to have barbs, which made the Knit-Wits laugh. Not for the first time, Tova imagines poking her finger down on one of the thorns on her friend’s head. Would it prick her, like one of the sea urchins down at the aquarium, or would it crumple under her touch?
“It’s nothing,” Tova repeats. Heat seeps into the tips of her ears.
“Well, let me tell you.” Barb takes a slurp of her tea and goes on. “You know my Andie? She had this rash last year when she came up for Easter. Mind you, I never saw it myself—it was in sort of an indelicate place, if you catch my drift, but not the sort of rash one gets from indecent behavior, mind you. No, it was just a rash. Anyway, I told her she should see my dermatologist. He’s wonderful. But my Andie is beyond stubborn, you know. And that rash kept getting worse, and—”
Janice cuts off Barb. “Tova, do you want Peter to recommend someone?” Janice’s husband, Dr. Peter Kim, is retired but well-connected in the medical community.
“I don’t need a doctor.” Tova forces a weak smile. “It was a minor incident at work.”
“At work!”
“An incident!”
“What happened?”
Tova draws in a breath. She can still feel the tentacle wrapped around her wrist. The spots had faded overnight, but they remained dark enough to see plainly. She tugs her sleeve down again.
Should she tell them?
“A mishap with some of the cleaning equipment,” she finally says.
Around the table, three pairs of eyes narrow at her.
Mary Ann wipes an imaginary spot from the tabletop with one of her tea towels. “That job of yours, Tova. Last time I was down at the aquarium, I nearly lost my lunch from the smell. How do you manage?”
Tova takes a chocolate chip cookie from the platter Mary Ann set out earlier. Mary Ann warms the cookies in the oven before the ladies arrive. One can’t have tea, she always comments, without something homemade to nibble on. The cookies came from a package Mary Ann bought at Shop-Way. All of the Knit-Wits know this.
“That old dump. Of course it smells,” Janice says. “But really, Tova, are you okay? Manual labor, at our age. Why must you work?”
Barb crosses her arms. “I worked down at St. Ann’s for a while after Rick died. To pass the time. They asked me to run the whole office, you know.”
“Filing,” Mary Ann mutters. “You did filing.”
“And you quit because they couldn’t keep it organized the way you liked,” Janice says, her voice dry. “But the point is, you weren’t down on your hands and knees washing floors.”
Mary Ann leans in. “Tova, I hope you realize, if you need help . . .”
“Help?”
“Yes, help. I don’t know how Will arranged your finances.”
Tova stiffens. “Thank you, but I have no such need.”
“But if you did.” Mary Ann’s lips knit together.
“I do not,” Tova replies quietly. And this is true. Tova’s bank account would cover her modest needs several times over. She does not need charity: not from Mary Ann, not from anyone else. And further, what a thing to bring up, and all because of a little set of marks on her arm.
After rising from the table, Tova sets her teacup down and leans on the counter. The window over the kitchen sink overlooks Mary Ann’s garden, where her rhododendron bushes cower under the low gray sky. The tender magenta petals seem to shiver as a breeze ruffles the branches, and Tova wishes she could tuck them back into their buds. The chill in the air is unseasonable for mid-June. Summer is certainly dragging its feet this year.