Licorice Tea
Shelley J Alongi

 

Grace Anderson stood in her warm, large kitchen stirring the contents of a crock pot when she heard movement behind her. The house had been quiet for a few days with Jason in bed and herself gone to her job as a librarian. Now she looked to see a shadow fall across the kitchen door.

“You’re out of bed,” she said a bit in surprise. She hadn’t heard him come downstairs.
“only for tea,” said the pilot, his voice full of congestion. He came into the kitchen and walked to the cabinet.

“I promise I won’t touch anything,” he croaked, “you don’t want this.”

“Oh Jason,” said the woman who had been a nurse, “I’m not worried. I know how to use a can of disinfecting spray and I’m not so paranoid. Everyone gets sick; you’re no exception.”

She looked at him more closely; he was pale and every movement seemed full of weariness, as if it took him seconds to do things that should only take half that time.

“I’m making chicken soup I thought you might want some later.”

The pilot smiled and sat down heavily with his cup. He looked into it’s shallow brown liquid, truly thankful for her concern.

“I put some spices in it so you could taste it. How are you feeling? You look weary.”

“I’ll be okay,” he said, reserving his energy for drinking his tea. The twenty-nine-year-old flight instructor, already naturally taciturn, seemed even more silent now that his energy was concentrated on getting through each moment.

“Did you just wake up?” asked his landlady solicitously. She put the lid on the pot and decided she wanted to sit down. Her feet ached. She sat down across from him.

“I think so.”

His sudden, brittle cough punctuated the silence. His flushed face beaded with perspiration and he moved a hand to wipe it. Grace wondered if he remembered calling for Rachel in his delirium.

“Can I ask you something?” she said a little hesitantly. He nodded and sniffled, putting his hands to his head. Grace got up and went to the cabinet and brought back a bottle of fever-reducing medicine.

“I don’t know if it will help much with influenza,” she explained, “but you seem like you could use it.”

He took the tablets and smiled again, the movement of his mouth seeming to hurt him. He waited patiently for her to ask him a question. Grace settled herself in her chair and plunged into the dark, not sure if it was any of her business.

“Who is Rachel?”

The name seemed to penetrate Jason’s fever-impaired brain and his eyes brightened a little, and Grace didn’t think the brightness came from his 101 temperature.

“A great lady,” was all he said. “An amazing girl.”

Grace wondered about this pronouncement, knowing that he was currently in a relationship with a quiet, prim and proper receptionist at a doctor’s office.

“A passenger of yours?” she gently inquired.
Jason shook his head. “I shouldn’t ask,” she said, “I know you’re not up for conversation and I suppose it’s really none of my business.”

“Sorry, replied the pilot, “it’s just that I’m not thinking straight; I’m going back to bed.”

Grace watched him get up and walk back to the stairs, but perhaps in her wise way (she had raised four children), she knew that Jason thought Rachel was an amazing woman. Jason made his way sluggishly across the beige carpet into the cool hallway and stopped at the stairs as if climbing them suddenly seemed to be a chore beyond his comprehension. Grace slipped up beside him and put a supporting arm on his waist. He leaned his head against the wall, shivered, and paused, perhaps in thought.

“Did I ask the wrong question?” she asked gently helping him up the stairs. He waited till he stood at the first landing before answering her. He turned his fever-bright eyes to his landlady.

“Grace,” he said as if far away, “I think I’m in love with her.”

Quietly, they ascended the stairs.

“Do you want me to call her?” she asked gently as she helped him into bed and smoothed his now wet hair from his forehead.

“Who?” he choked and coughed, forgetting.

“Rachel,” she said gently, her hand lingering on his shoulder.

“No,” he rasped, “my head hurts.”

“You want me to call Sally?”

“Sally doesn’t want to get sick,” he said weakly. “Rachel wouldn’t care. But…”

“Hush. If you give me her number I’ll call her.”

“There’s no use,” he said surrendering to the fever, “not till I’m better; not till we can,” his eyes seemed to fill with tears, “till we can be together.”

Grace didn’t make it a habit to pry into Jason’s life, but when she had pulled the covers about him and he had fallen asleep, she did a survey of the things in his room and spied a small book sitting on the nightstand. She wondered if it might have Rachel’s number in it. She glanced guiltily at the bed, Jason’s flushed face lay peacefully against the pillows, his body eased against the sheets, his breathing suddenly quieted by medication and his hands quietly resting on the coverlet. Jason slept now, much as he had done for the last four days since calling his boss to inform him of his case of influenza. Grace quietly, swiftly flipped through the pages, almost furtively glancing at the neatly scripted handwriting till she stopped and looked over at him again as if she thought he might be watching. The man turned restlessly and groaned absently, and she refused the impulse to lay cool fingers on his hot brow, lest the merciful touch wake him and he discover Grace’s prying. She quickly jotted a number down and closed the book. Jason’s keys lay sprawled beside the book, the bright shining silver model of an airplane standing watch. She returned to him and now gently stroked his face. He did not seem to notice. She quietly left the room and descended the stairs. She didn’t know what she would do exactly; there was the number of a woman in her hand. She picked up the phone and let it rest in a sweaty hand and then remembering Jason’s sincere anguish she picked it up and dialed. It seemed to ring for a long time; picked up by a gentle, female voice.

“Rachel Jensen?” Grace said quietly and looked around to see if perhaps the sick flight instructor had snuck down the stairs and stood watching at the doorway, as if he knew she were doing what he specifically asked her not to do.

“Hi Rachel my name is Grace and we’ve never met. I’m actually Jason Cross’s landlady.”

“Jason?” came the hesitant voice.

“I am sorry,” Grace now said, banishing the specter of an angry sick man from her mind, “I perhaps should explain myself. Jason Cross is the flight instructor at the airport.”

“Right, said Rachel, and Grace heard water running in the sink.

“Please I don’t know how to say this or even what to say. I’ll just say it. You know Jason Cross.”

“yes, of course I know him. He’s a pilot.”

“Right Okay we’re talking about the same man, then. Well, Jason is very ill; he has influenza he may have told you.”

“Jason called the day of our flight and said he was sick. He sounded sick.”

“Yes. He is ill. Well, anyway, um, I don’t know how to say this; he keeps calling for you. Fever talks.”

“I see,” said the teacher, drawing out each word as if it were some kind of injunction from God. Rachel didn’t know if the revelation pleased or annoyed her. A sick pilot calling her from the depths of his illness was intriguing and frightening and then suddenly she remembered his burning gaze as he stood in the parking lot and asked if she was interested in him.

“I don’t know anything; I am not even sure you wanted to know this; it’s just that he seemed to sincerely want you.”

“Jason takes me flying,” she explained unnecessarily. “We’ve talked for a while; there was an altercation, well, no not really that; he was confused about us; he is dating..”

“Sally,” said Grace, looking up to see if he stood there. All was as it had been.

“I’m not even sure why I called you. I asked him if he wanted me to call; he said it wasn’t any use.”

“No use? Well we’re nothing more than pilot and passenger.”

“He said you are a great lady,” she encouraged.

“Jason Cross said that?”

 “He did.”

“Oh, I see,” she said again.

“Would you like to come see him?” Grace asked, breaking into Rachel’s confusion.

“Oh I don’t know that it would be professional,” Rachel hedged, knowing she would see him. It would only take the slightest of encouragement to have her putting away the salad ingredients and reaching for her keys. “Rachel, do you think that Jason is crazy or are you interested in him, too? I mean sometimes this is just one way.”

“No, I’m interested.”

“Okay so it’s safe to call you and you don’t think Jason is nuts.”

“Jason is far from nuts,” Rachel assured, “he’s a consummate professional and a decent man.”

“We live on Cedar Tree in the two-story house on the corner,” Grace said now more confidently. “There is an old Buick Skylark in the driveway with a long scratch on it! You can’t miss it!”

Rachel stood at the foot of the stairs. Grace had told her that he slept in the first room on the right. She balled her hands into fists and put one foot before the other and made her way to the top to admire the pictures on the wall; pictures of another time; longer skirts and children in bobby socks now long out of them and raising children of their own who wanted expensive apparel that they probably couldn’t afford. Jason’s nightlight shined at the top of the landing, almost inviting her to take the hall to his bedroom. Rachel proceeded to the door. She felt kind of strange. She had only seen him behind a counter, sitting before the controls of an airplane, or across a restaurant table. This would be much more intimate. It was a possibility that frightened and delighted her at the same time. She gently put her hand on the knob. She knocked. There was no answer. She opened the door and was shocked to find a bedroom whose floor she could actually see. A light cast gentle shadows on the floor; the heavy blinds on the windows on one side of the room blocked the balmy sunshine. The occupant of the queen-sized bed, rapped in a blanket, his head on the pillow did not care about the beautiful spring day that lay outside. Rachel stepped inside, leaving the door slightly open. She proceeded to the bed; his hand lay near the edge of the coverlet. Her fingers brushed the bedspread hanging over the bed frame. The man lying there breathed in, coughed briskly; turned and coughed more deeply; he sat halfway up, wiped his mouth, looked around him.

He looked through hazy blue eyes, he seemed confused; he lay back down having done nothing. His cough quieted; he eased himself against the pillows; his hands reached for the sheet and blanket and pulled them about him. It was unclear to Rachel whether or not he had seen her. He was suddenly chilled and then sweat glistened in the flight instructor’s hair; he lay back, eased into silence. Rachel took a wet rag from the nightstand and wiped his face. He turned and opened his eyes, taking in a woman’s face; a familiar face; yet one that he didn’t dare notice.

“Grace?” he questioned quietly, not sure but he thought it might be Rachel.

Rachel knelt beside him. She finished wiping his face. It was a small, gentle face; weather-beaten from hiking and hours spent out in the sun. Rachel had to step back; she thought Jason looked somehow more appealing with a red flushed face. His eyes fever-bright were still appealing to her. She dared not look into those eyes; she would fall desperately for him.

“No,” she said, the first word she had uttered since coming through the door. She pulled the sheet over Jason’s now cool body. “I’m Rachel.”

A million expressions crossed Jason’s face, all of them exquisite in their intensity: astonishment, embarrassment, gentleness, sadness, till finally a gentle hazy acceptance rested in his eyes.

“Don’t be angry with Grace,” Rachel implored him. “She wanted me to know.”

Jason moved restlessly, the sheets rustled; he stretched a little, his head hurt; he did not care; it was amazing that he could be so lethargic. He let his gentle gaze fall on the woman who now sat in a chair beside him.

“I’m not angry,” he said. “I don’t think I have that much energy.”

“It’s a perfect day for flight,” she said, not looking into his eyes.

“Is it?”

“The sky is crystal clear today,” she said, “almost like a storybook. It’s very beautiful.”

They said nothing. Here he was, calling for her in his fever, and here she was, sitting with him. He didn’t know what to say or didn’t want to say anything and she didn’t want to say anything either.

“Anthony?” questioned the flight instructor after a suitable interval had passed between them. It was the only word he could muster. He coughed deeply in the silence.

Rachel gestured toward a bottle on the nightstand but he pushed it away.

“makes me sick,” he said. “It has codeine. I can’t take it. I just have to deal with it.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she drew a deep breath and spoke to him, not sure if he understood.

“Anthony called and said he had a surprise lecturer. We were supposed to have dinner but he wanted to go hear the lecturer.”

Jason didn’t say anything; he just lay with his eyes closed. Rachel put out her hand and gently touched the warm brown hair, eased her hand along his forehead, but she wouldn’t look into his face. She let her hand fall awkwardly to the pillow, she felt Jason’s breath on her fingers. He turned on his side, caught her hand, gently pushed it away.

“You don’t want this bug.”

Rachel put her hands in her lap feeling strangely like a rebuked child. Her fingers seemed to burn where he had touched her.

“It’s nice to see you,” he now said, closing his eyes and Rachel’s heart pulled in her chest.

Rachel went to bed that night thinking of Jason and the relationship that was in jeopardy. Anthony was becoming more and more recalcitrant, increasingly jealous and perhaps with good reason. He had pegged her distraction; he wanted to know why she seemed more reluctant to see him sometimes. Rachel was reluctant and now this did not help. Probably home ensconced at his desk writing a grandiose article about the social history of British sailors, like that needed explaining, although it may have needed explaining in Anthony’s world, he had given up dinner with her and she had gone to see a sick pilot; and hadn’t missed Anthony at all. She turned the light out on a confused English teacher.

Jason got up to ease his cough. Had he been dreaming or had he really seen Rachel? The pilot’s head hurt and he felt hot and exhausted. He slowly sat up, looked around him, nothing seemed out of place. The model airplanes were hung on the wall, the closets closed, the dresser neatly organized. Jason didn’t have much time to be disorganized; not with so many things going on. Spending many hours at the airport, amusing Sally…Sally. Where had Sally been? He got to his feet slowly, shivering. He reached out and placed his hand on the dresser as a chill went through him. He coughed. He shuffled to the bathroom, got some honey cough syrup, put the spoon to his mouth, the metal clinking on his teeth. He looked at the red spot on his lips, wiped it away. He went into the other room where he had his office. His fingers touched the light switch and suddenly the sparsely furnished room was no longer in darkness. He quickly glanced around at the desk, the small bookcase, the recliner, all accoutrements he had acquired throughout the last five years here. He sat down in the beige recliner. It was cold here, or was it his fever. He sat there silent, his cough punctuating the moments. Had he seen Rachel at his bedside earlier? Had he talked to her, felt her hand on his? Jason could not ever remember being this sick and he wondered just where he had gotten the virus that now laid him low. But most of all he wondered if he had seen her and where was Sally?

Grace heard Jason’s cough. The mystery novel she was reading had drawn her into such an agony of suspense that she now looked at the mantle clock in her living room. She liked reading at night; it was so quiet and peaceful. Seeing the ornate hands resting at the 3:00 AM position, she gave up all hope of sleeping. She heard Jason rustling around upstairs. She wondered if she should disturb him. She put on her sweats and made her way quietly upstairs. She knocked gently on the open door. The pilot lifted his head, beckoned for her to enter.

“I don’t want to disturb you,” she said easily.

“You’re not disturbing me, Grace.”

“I am wide awake,” she said, “I heard you moving around up here. Are you feeling okay? Should I make tea?”

Grace had always been a gentle woman and Jason liked her. She had raised four children and bought this house in the final approach pattern for the airport. It had been one reason why he rented from her. They went to the same church and when Jason’s parents moved out of state to relocate because of his father’s job, he being in this position at the airport could have done no better than to have rented from a woman he knew for a decent price. A bedroom, a bathroom, and an extra room for $400 wasn’t such a bad deal. He had his privacy, he had kitchen privileges when he was home long enough to use them, and he had a place to sleep. It was a cave Jason liked. Grace, despite having an immense curiosity about Jason’s life, was good for him and he did like her. He nodded gratefully for tea.

“Rachel brought some licorice tea for you,” she said noticing his eyes suddenly brightened. “she said it might help your cough.”

“She was here, then,” he said quietly, “I wasn’t dreaming?”

“No, you weren’t’ dreaming, Jason. Rachel came to see you two days ago. You’ve been pretty sick since then; slept most of the day yesterday. You’re still running a temperature I can see it in your eyes.”

“I’m tired,” said the flight instructor, “it just doesn’t ever seem to go away.”

“No. You got hit hard. You look better, though. Your colleagues from the airport call here. They want to make sure you’re okay.”

“But Rachel was here. And Sally?”

“No. Sally called yesterday but she won’t come over. Guess she’s worried about getting sick.”

“And Rachel doesn’t worry?” he asked quietly.

He found that lying quietly here not only relaxed him but eased his discomfort and made each moment more bearable.

“No,” she smiled a bit, “Rachel just loves you. You know that, don’t you?”

Silence fell into the room and Grace could hear Jason’s wheezing. She thought he drifted for a moment and then his eyes came back to her.

“Rachel is a good woman,” she continued, “she was afraid to come here.”

Grace got to her feet, but the pilot’s hand stopped her.

“Why was she afraid to come here?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.

“Because she thought she might be invading your privacy; that it might be wrong.”

He sat silently and Grace went downstairs to get the tea. She brought it back upstairs and he took it from her. He seemed to have fallen into a silence not entirely related to his illness.

“Jason?” asked the woman who had been a nurse on an American air base in Japan, “you know I don’t ask questions. But you seem distracted and if I can help I’d like to do that.”

“You already did help,” he said quietly. “I'm not sure how you did; but you did.”

She suddenly felt guilty.

“I looked up her number in your book,” she confessed, waiting for his disapproval. “Two days ago when you were sleeping I got it. You seemed as if you wanted her and I couldn’t refuse. You can yell at me if you like. It just seemed important.”

“Grace,” he said, the tea was helping, “perhaps you have more courage than either of us.”

“And you have to deal with Sally? What will you do?”

“I don’t know.”

But Jason knew what he had to do; he was just too tired to think of it now.

“You have a pile of mail,” she said to ease his distraction, “the air show is coming. Are you going to fly in it? I guess you would have already signed up for it.”

“I’ll work the flight school table. I’ll look at it all later.”

He put the cup down; he was feeling sleepy. Grace got up.

“I’ll leave you alone. I’ll go feed the cats. I’m up now; I won’t sleep.”

But Jason felt better. He was suddenly exhausted and so heavy-eyed he went back to his room and got into bed. He pulled the covers over him and soon was out. The house was quiet that day; he slept most of it. His body was healing; it was his heart that now required his energy.

 

 

Copyright © 2004 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"