My Cup of Tea

Sometimes you have to give yourself a win.

It’s easy to feel like the world is on fire these days. Especially because it is. It’s more important than ever to be kind and to be generous—with yourself as well as others.

This was a core belief for my mother, Suzanne. She believed in what she called “little luxuries.”

For much of her life, she was a hairdresser. She worked long hours in multiple shops, even made house calls. She took bartending gigs in the evenings. There was never a lot of money, and every little bit helped.

But once a month, no matter what else was happening, my mother put a little aside and spent it on something small and frivolous. A new pair of shoes. A bottle of perfume. Movie tickets and a bucket of popcorn. They were inexpensive, trivial—but they kept her from feeling she was working just to get by, to keep the wolf from the door. The little luxuries.

For me, it’s afternoon tea at the O. Henry Hotel.

I come from iced tea people. Sweet or unsweet? Please.

So the first time my wife took me to tea in the O. Henry’s wood-paneled social lobby, I had a little class anxiety. Wasn’t this all a bit Downton Abbey? Would it be all blue-haired old white ladies, discussing their gardens and looking down their noses at us? But my wife’s smarter than me about everything.

We took our seats in the lobby’s deep leather chairs, and I took in the ornate carpets and fine drapes, the artful flower arrangements and large oil painting of O. Henry himself, the text of his “The Gift of the Magi” painted in a great ring around the room above our heads. But I was taking in other things, too. The local chapter of a Black sorority celebrating a sister’s birthday. A Mexican family with three little daughters, all dressed up and shaking with excitement at this Real Grown Up Affair. A young Asian couple in ripped jeans and Chuck Taylors, laughing loudly and heartily. It looked like Greensboro.

When the menu came, I was shocked at the prices. In a good way.

An array of available teas, served in piping ceramic pots, and a dazzling variety of sweet and savory finger foods. Warm vanilla scones with clotted cream and fruit curd. Cucumber and dill sandwiches with cream cheese. Mini ham, brie, and fig croissants. Quiches. Tarts. Salmon crumpets. The offerings ranged from the more modest “Cream Tea” for $12, the “Light Tea” for $16, and the full “O. Henry Tea” for $22. We shared that larger last option and were both sated, body and spirit. For $22? You couldn’t manage that at McDonald’s these days.

Now and then, especially on those cool and rainy fall afternoons we’ve got coming, I’ll sometimes steal away to the O. Henry in the afternoon to write over tea. I’m partial to the Peaches and Ginger. Flying solo it can be cheaper than a Starbucks run, it’s local and much more satisfying. Great people watching, too, which William Sydney Porter himself would have appreciated.

Even more fun: taking someone who’s never been. I love watching them go from skeptic to convert, despite themselves, before the pot is spent.

I think of it as a little gift to myself—especially to the younger version of me, who dreamed of one day living in a real city where things like this existed. In Greensboro, this is one of those little luxuries attainable for just about anyone. Go enjoy it yourself sometime soon.