The Parr Tea House

THE PARR TEA HOUSE

“Do you want to meet up tonight?” Tilda asked her best friend Bethany.

“Sure. Where?”  

“How about the Parr Tea House?”

“Eww! Sounds like fun! What time?”

“Eight-ish?”

“Sounds perfect!” said Bethany.“Text me the address.”

Bethany ended the call. Even though she thought eight o’clock was a little early for a night of clubbing, she was super excited because this was the first time in almost two months that Tilda had wanted to get together for a night out on the town. Two months was a long to time to lament over Larry the Looser, as Bethany liked to refer to Tilda’s ex-fiancée, Lawrence Endicott, the Third (or turd — Bethany did love a sophomoric turn of phrase). He had broken up with Tilda just before her birthday, saying that he was having difficulty seeing them together in old age; that perhaps they should just be friends; and could he have the ring back, please?  

Tilda had been shocked, and angry, especially when she had seen a picture in the lifestyle section of the paper of Anita Throckmorton, a tire manufacturing heiress, and Larry canoodling on a couch in the newest “it” club.  

Tilda was also a lawyer, and checking legal precedent, she informed Larry that, no, he could not have her ring back. It was considered a gift, and as long as he was the one who broke off the engagement, the ring was, legally, hers.

Then Larry had sicced the family lawyers on her to get the ring back, which was awkward, because Tilda was a partner at Howell, Spinelli, and Moore, the Endicott family law firm. In fact, Tilda had met Larry in her capacity as a member of the Endicott legal team. Thankfully, the firm stood behind Tilda, as the Endicotts were considered problem clients — they demanded the unattainable, were notorious for not paying for services rendered, and disputed every billable hour charged. They were a family full of frivolous lawsuits waiting to happen. HSM happily let the family out of their client contract, and the Enidicotts were forced to find other counsel. Then Larry changed tactics, saying that Tilda had broken up with him, not he with her. But thankfully, Larry was also a coward, and had broken up with Tilda via text, and Tilda had saved the texts. Larry no longer had any legal standing to demand the ring back, so he switched tactics and offered to buy the ring back from Tilda. When they had first been engaged, Tilda had taken the ring to an independent appraiser, and had it valued, for insurance purposes. It was worth considerably less than Larry had led her to believe it was worth. But now he wanted to buy it back from her for even less than its lower appraised value. Tilda had declined his offer. Her counter-offer was a price that was closer to double its appraised value, the amount Larry said he paid for the ring. Larry had stopped bothering her soon after. Tilda had then sold the ring, and donated the money to the local food bank.

So now, two months later, Tilda’s self-imposed exile was over, and she was now ready to cut loose tonight with Bethany.

Bethany was so excited that they were going out tonight. She loved to go clubbing with Tilda. And, she had really missed her friend. They used to hit all the clubs every weekend before she had met Larry. Now Tilda was back, baby! And Bethany couldn’t wait to paint the town red with her best friend.

In fact, she thought she’d surprise Tilda, and get the old club crew back together for tonight. She sent texts to Jenna, Blake, Blaine, and Brittany, telling them the address and the time. They were all going to get together to have a fantastical, magical, fun night — dancing, drinking, and dudes. She was excited and figured a little pre-drinking was a good way to celebrate, so she opened a split of champagne to sip while getting ready.

Bethany herself was in a pretty stable relationship. She and Jake had been dating for almost four years. They had talked about getting married, but it never went past the discussion stage.  Bethany wasn’t sure she was ready to marry. Her career was just getting off the ground — she was an interior designer, and had just had one of her projects featured in the online weekend magazine of one of the major newspapers, and now her name was out there. It wasn’t Elle Decor, but it was still her name, her work, and it was on the Internet. So, yay! She toasted herself in the mirror.

Jake was a custom builder, and his business was really taking off. Apparently everyone wanted a new home in the country to get away from the city and the pandemic. The last two years had been amazing for Jake’s business, but not so great for their time together.  It seemed that they mostly saw each other when Bethany was designing the interiors of the houses Jake built. But their relationship was working. Bethany quickly texted Jake and told him the good news about Tilda “bustin’ out.” He texted back offering to come pick them up after they finished their night out, but Bethany told him that Blaine had rented a limo to drive them all over town, so no need.  

“But thanks!” she texted back, with a kissy face emoji.

And now it was time to prepare for their epic night out.

After she showered and washed her hair, Bethany walked to her double closet, and threw open the doors. Her love of design and decoration did not end with the interiors of people’s homes. No, it extended to her closet. Bethany believed clothes were design for the body.  

Gently tapping her lips with a finely manicured fingertip, she considered her clothes and smiled.  

Tonight’s going to be a party at the Party House! she said to herself. And I’m gonna look like I was born to party!

She looked over all the options available to her in her wardrobe.  And what a wonderful wardrobe it was. Her clothes were hung in sections according to activity — business meetings, on-site work with clients, on-site work with builders, coffee house chic, relaxing around home, outdoorsy, and finally, her fav, clubbing. She pushed away the clothes on either side of her clubbing section, and examined her choices. Mostly dresses — short, tight, shimmery dresses, but also short tight skirts, leather pants, silk blouses and lacy camisoles, all meant to be worn with mile-high stilettos, or knee high black leather boots. 

“That’s the one!” she said out loud, and pulled out her blood-red bandage dress and laid it on her bed. Bethany loved this dress. It was tight and short, and showed off all her curves. It had spaghetti straps and a built in push-up bra, so no unsightly lines. And she looked fantastic in it! She bent down and pulled out her black Manolo Blahnik stilettos with the red soles that matched the colour of her dress perfectly. She pulled out her Jimmy Choo Candy Glitter bag, and laid it beside her dress. Now she just had to add her thong, silk stockings, and she would be ready to hit the town.

But first she had to put on her makeup and do her hair. Half an hour later, her hair was ironed, and she literally had her party face on.

She carefully stepped into her dress, slipping it up over her hips.  

“Perfect,” she murmured as she added chunky gold earrings — "let the dress speak for itself." She slipped her feet into her Blahniks.  

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she smoothed the front of her dress down, finished her champagne, and said “Party House, here I come!”

She called an Uber, put her phone, credit card, cash, and lip gloss into her clutch.  

She was ready!

When the Uber arrived, Bethany gave the address to the driver, and settled back. She had a nice buzz on, and was looking forward to a girls’ night out.

About twenty minutes later, the driver stopped in front of an odd looking building.

“Here you go — 1243 Preston Street.”

“You’re sure?” asked Bethany, looking at her phone and confirming the address.

“Yup.”

She got out and looked closely at the building. It was vaguely pagoda-shaped. And there was no doorman. Or lineup. 

Maybe, she thought, it’s too early for lineups.

She walked up to the door, pulled it open, and stepped in. What she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. She scanned the room. There were low slung dark wooden tables placed throughout the room, with floor pillows surrounding them.  A few shoji dividers were strategically placed around the room to provide some privacy between the tables. Women wearing kimonos were placing pots of tea on the tables, or filling cups, or clearing tea sets from tables just vacated.

This was not what Bethany expected. No, not at all. No bouncers.  No bar. No music. No dancing.  No dance floor, even.

This was not the Party House she expected.

Overwhelmed as she was, taking in the site before her, she didn’t immediately see Tilda, waving from a table at the rear of the room. Bethany immediately noted the confusion on Tilda’s face. She recognized it as the same look she was sure was on her face right at this moment.

She walked over to Tilda’s table. People stared as she strode by.

Tilda stood and hugged her friend. Then they both stepped back and looked at each other.

Tilda was the first to speak. “Wow! You look fantastic! Perhaps a bit over-dressed, but what the heck, you still look phenomenal.”

And she laughed.

“Thanks,” said Bethany. She looked at Tilda, who was wearing black skinny jeans, a long tunic style blouse, and low-heeled boots.

“And you look, surprisingly casual,” she said to her friend.

“Come, sit down,” said Tilda, pointing to a mat.

“How?” asked Bethany, looking down at her body-hugging dress, mile high heels, and then way, way down at the tatami mats arranged around the table on the floor. There wasn’t a chair in sight.

Tilda just looked at Bethany.

“Uh, Beth, why are you dressed up for clubbing?” she asked.

Bethany looked around. “Because when you said ‘Meet me at the Party House,’ and I figured I should put my clubbiest-club clothes on.”  She held he arms wide, and did a little pirouette in front of Tilda.

Tilda looked at Bethany, and smiled. Then she started to laugh. Really, really, laugh. Belly laugh.

“Oh, Beth, I’m so sorry,” she said between guffaws and snorts, tears streaming down her face. “It’s all my fault. When I said Parr Tea House you thought I said Party House.   This is the Parr. Tea. House. They serve tea. That’s all.”

“No booze?”

“Nope. Just tea.”

“No dancing?”

“Not a step.”

“So, just tea.”

“Yes. Just tea.”

“And you sit on the floor?”

“Yes. On the tatami mats.”

“No chairs?”

“No chairs.”

Bethany started to smile, then joined Tilda’s laughter. One of the servers, shot them a glance.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Tilda.

She took money out of her purse, and paid her server, tipping her generously.

“Arigato gozaimasu” she said with a slight nodding of her head.

“Dou itashimasite” said the server, returning the nod.

“I didn’t know you spoke Japanese,” said Bethany, in awe of her friend, yet again.

“Two months is a long time to do nothing. So, why not learn a language?”

The two friends walked out the door of the tea house just as the rest of their posse spilled out of the limo they had rented for the night.

“What is this place?” asked Blake, looking from Tilda and Bethany, to the tea house, and back.  

“A misunderstanding,” said Bethany. She turned to look at Tilda.  “Wanna go find the real Party House?”

“For sure!”

They all turned and got back into the limo and headed downtown.