The Tea Ladies

by Eleanor Lippman

One year, in our ‘down the shore’ summer vacation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, we briefly stayed in an old, but elegant hotel located right on the boardwalk itself. Our group consisted of my grandmother, “Mom” as we called her, and my family which included my mother, my older and younger brothers, my baby sister and I. My father drove us there and returned at the end of the week to drive us home. He was not a beach fan.

Most of the people staying at that hotel were elderly couples and there were lots of widows. We were the only children there at that time. I know we terrorized the place — running up and down the dark hallways and finding staircases that ended on balconies and mezzanines, leaving little kids searching for the location of the staircase that would take them to a lower floor.

Meals were bland, but filling, served by waiters in jackets and ties. My siblings and I were made to behave at the table, sit up straight (loudly whispered to us many times by my mother), and not talk with food in our mouths. They were trying to turn us from wild animals into humans.

Reminding us constantly that this was a proper hotel, we were made to follow the rules. I remember coming back from the beach and standing under the cold outdoor shower in the rear of the building to remove every grain of sand that stuck to my body before entering the hotel. Getting the sand out of my hair was hard enough, but getting sand out of the crotch of my bathing suit where it collected in several layers of fabric was always hard to do and never completely successful.

One afternoon after returning from the beach and being cleaned up and dressed for dinner and the usual evening boardwalk stroll, it was much too early for dinner so I decided to explore the hotel. I ended up at the foot of one of the staircases that ended on a balcony overlooking the lobby and when I turned to find a staircase that would take me down one floor, I discovered the tea ladies.

Seated around a large round table were a group of white haired old ladies enjoying afternoon tea. Conspicuous among them was my grandmother who did not have a single grey hair in her head. She was the brunette, the only one without white or blue or silver locks. She spotted me, a skinny awkward 8 year old, peering at the group from behind the staircase railing and motioned for me to come and join them.

I shyly approached the table feeling like Alice in Wonderland. The ladies shuffled their chairs around, found an empty chair and invited me to sit down with them. I guess they were bored with old lady talk and were anxious to have fresh conversation. They were really happy to see me and poured into a delicate cup some steaming hot tea. The tea cakes were already gone, reduced to a few crumbs on their plates.

I took a deep breath and resolved to behave like a lady so as to not embarrass my grandmother who was all smiles and so happy to have me join them.

I stared at my tea not sure of what to do. At home, we didn’t drink afternoon tea and other than hot chocolate, the only hot beverage I was ever offered was a hot cup of Postum, a fake coffee made from roasted grains, on Sunday mornings when we had bagels and lox and cream cheese and Greek Salad (made by my father) and smoked fish and my father and mother leisurely drank cup after cup of coffee and smoked cigarettes. I drank my cup of Postum fortified with evaporated milk and sugar and even though it was almost like drinking cocoa, I felt like I was drinking coffee.

“Do you take sugar?” someone asked.

Thinking of my Postum, I added a teaspoon of sugar to my cup.

One sweet little old lady leaned into me and offered me a plate of lemon slices.

“Lemon?” she said.

Of course I couldn’t say no, so I dropped a lemon slice into my cup.

The lady on the other side of me, oblivious to my putting lemon into my tea, handed me a small creamer and said, “Milk?”

I was beginning to love this. All of the chatter back and forth, and the tea ladies being so welcoming. Here I was, having afternoon tea like a grownup. And my grandmother across the table so happy to see me. This was much more enjoyable than staying with my younger brother and sister and being involved in their little kid antics.

“Yes, thank you,” I said as I took the creamer and poured a generous amount into my cup.

A funny thing happened to my tea. The milk curdled and formed clumps and my tea turned into something no one would want to drink.

I was baffled and didn’t know what to do when the white haired ladies on either side of me realized what had happened.

“Child,” one of them gently and kindly said to me, “you only take milk or lemon, not both.”

The tea ladies were very nice to me and in the end, we all had a chuckle. After all, it was my very first afternoon tea and what did they expect?

More than a half of a century later, on a cold rainy afternoon, as I sat in the drawing room of Bank Barn, a British inn in the Lake District of England, I poured myself a cup of steaming tea and sat back in the warmth by the fire and remembered the tea ladies of Atlantic City.