much time.”
“Time for what?” Ali had asked.
“To get down to Phoenix and find you something appropriate to wear,” Aunt Evie had answered.
Ali’s high school years had been tough ones for the owners and operators of the Sugarloaf Cafe. Things had been so lean during Ali’s junior year that she had turned down an invitation to the prom rather than admit she didn’t have a formal to wear and couldn’t afford to buy one.
By the end of her senior year, things were only marginally better, but she was astonished when Aunt Evie took the whole next day-a Saturday-off work. She drove Ali to Metrocenter, a shopping mall two hours away in Phoenix, where they spent the whole day at what Ali considered to be the very ritzy Goldwater’s Department Store putting together a tea-appropriate outfit. Aunt Evie had charged the whole extravagant expense-a stylish linen suit, silk blouse, and shoes-to her personal account. The loan of Aunt Evie’s fake pearls would complete the outfit.
At the time, Ali had been too naive to question her aunt’s uncharacteristic behavior. Instead she had simply accepted Aunt Evie’s kindness at face value.
The next week at school, Ali had held her breath hoping to hear that some of her classmates had also received invitations to the unprecedented Ashcroft tea, but no one had. No one mentioned it, not even Ali’s best friend, Reenie Bernard, so Ali didn’t mention it, either.
Finally, on the appointed day, Ali had left her parents and Aunt Evie hard at work at the Sugarloaf doing Sunday afternoon cleanup and had driven herself to Anna Lee Ashcroft’s Manzanita Hills place overlooking downtown Sedona. Compared to her parents humble abode out behind the restaurant, the Ashcroft home was downright palatial.
Ali had driven up the steep, blacktopped driveway and parked her mother’s Dodge in front of a glass-walled architectural miracle with a spectacular view that encompassed the whole valley. Once out of the car, Ali, unaccustomed to wearing high heels, had tottered unsteadily up the wide flagstone walkway. By the time she stepped onto the spacious front porch shaded by a curtain of bloom-laden wisteria, her knees were still knocking but she was grateful not to have tripped and fallen.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ali rang the bell. The door was opened by a maid wearing a black-and-white uniform who led her into and through the house. The exquisite furniture, gleaming wood tables, and lush oriental rugs were marvelous to behold. She tried not to stare as she was escorted out to a screened porch overlooking an immense swimming pool. Her hostess, a frail and seemingly ancient woman confined to a wheelchair and with her legs wrapped in a shawl, waited there while another somewhat younger woman hovered watchfully in the background.
Ali was shown to a chair next to a table set with an elaborate collection of delicate cups, saucers, plates, and silver as well as an amazing collection of tiny, crustless sandwiches and sweets.
“So,” the old woman said, peering across the table at Ali through a pair of bejeweled spectacles. “I’m Mrs. Ashcroft and this is my daughter, Arabella. You must be Alison Larson. Let’s have a look at you.”
Feeling like a hapless worm being examined by some sharp-eyed, hungry robin, Ali had no choice but to endure the woman’s silent scrutiny. At last she nodded as if satisfied with Ali’s appearance. “I suppose you’ll do,” she said.
“Your teachers all speak very highly of you,” Anna Lee said.
Ali should have been delighted to hear that, but she couldn’t help wondering why Anna Lee Ashcroft had been gossiping about her with Ali’s teachers at Mingus Mountain High. As it was, all Ali could do was nod stupidly. “Thank you,” she murmured.
“I understand you want to study journalism,” Anna Lee continued.
Ali had discussed her long-held secret ambition once or twice with Mrs. Casey, her journalism teacher, but since going to college seemed like an impossible dream at the moment, Ali was trying to think about the future in somewhat more realistic terms-like maybe going to work for the phone company.
“I may have mentioned it,” Ali managed.
“You’ve changed your mind then?” Anna Lee demanded sharply. “You’re no longer interested in journalism?”
“It’s not that,” Ali said forlornly, “it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“I still want to study journalism,” Ali said at last, “but I’ll probably have to work a couple of years to earn money before I can think about going to college.” It was a painful admission. “My parents really can’t help out very much right now. I’ll have to earn my own way.”
“You’re telling me you’re poor then?” Anna Lee wanted to know.
Ali looked around the room. Even out on this screened patio, the elegant furnishings were far beyond anything Ali had ever seen in her own home or even in her friend Reenie Bernard’s far more upscale surroundings. Ali had never thought of herself or of her family as poor, but now with something for comparison she realized they probably were.
“I suppose so,” Ali said.
Without another word, Anna Lee Ashcroft grasped the handle of a small china bell and gave it a sharp ring. Almost immediately a man appeared bearing a tray-a silver tray with a silver tea service on it. Remembering the scene now, Ali couldn’t help but wonder if that man and the sprite who had delivered that morning’s envelope weren’t one and the same-albeit a few decades older.
The man had carefully placed the tea service on the table in front of Anna Lee. She had leaned forward and picked up a cup. “Sugar?” she asked, filling the cup to the brim and handing it over with a surprisingly steady hand.
Ali nodded.
“One lump or two?”
“Two, please.”
“Milk?”
“No, thank you.”
Arabella moved silently to the foreground and began deftly placing finger sandwiches and what Ali would later recognize as petit fours onto delicately patterned china plates. Mrs. Ashcroft said nothing more until the butler-at least that’s what Ali assumed he was-had retreated back the way he had come, disappearing behind a pair of swinging doors into what Ali assumed must lead to a hallway or maybe the kitchen.
Ali juggled cup, saucer, napkin, and plate and hoped she wasn’t doing something terribly gauche while Anna Lee Ashcroft poured two additional cups-one for her daughter and one for herself.
“I don’t have a college education, either,” Anna Lee said at last. “In my day young women of my social standing weren’t encouraged to go off to college. When Arabella came along, her father sent her off to finishing school in Switzerland, but that was it. Furthering her education beyond that would have been unseemly.”
No comment from Ali seemed called for, so she kept quiet and concentrated on not dribbling any tea down the front of her new silk blouse.
“But just because my daughter and I don’t have the benefit of a higher education,” Anna Lee continued, “doesn’t mean we think it’s unimportant, right, Arabella?”
Arabella nodded but said nothing. Sipping her tea, she seemed content to let her mother do the bulk of the talking, but there was something in the daughter’s wary silence that made Ali uneasy.
“You must be wondering why you’ve been asked to come here today,” Anna Lee continued.
“Yes,” Ali said. “I am.”
“This is the first time I’ve done this,” Anna Lee said, “so it may seem a bit awkward. I’ve been told that most of the time announcements of this nature are made at class night celebrations or at some other official occasion, but I wanted to do it this way. In private.”
Ali was still mystified.
“I’ve decided to use some of my inheritance from my mother to establish a scholarship in her honor, the Amelia Dougherty Askins Scholarship, to benefit poor but smart girls from this area. You’ve been selected to be our first recipient-as long as you go on to school, that is.”
Ali was stunned. “A scholarship?” she managed, still not sure she had heard correctly. “You’re giving me a scholarship?”
