🤪😂
Back to that moment with Mr. and Mrs. Bridge…
I heard the yodel—as I mentioned pages ago—just as I was about to go back into the cottage.
Lenny was outside at the time as well—beyond the cottage gate—tending his rosebushes on the side of the Main House.
He was shears in hand. Probably thinking about Henry VII and the Wars of the Roses. He is so into that sort of thing, and he told me that The War of the Roses always streams through his head when tending the rosebushes.
He, too, saw the marauding duo—the Bridges—come through the gates, fussily making their way and holding something.
The Bridges were beaming.
They paraded with such pride—heads high, noses in the air—onto what they consider the closest thing to royal grounds in Sea Breeze.
They paraded as if in full imagined regalia—bearing the honor of delivering a package as if it were a trophy they were about to present.
They greeted Len with a nod and a smile as he was still at the rosebushes off to the side of the path. And without stopping, they walked right past him, opening the cottage garden gate en route to the cottage door, marching in sync, bearing the package as if it were a crown on a velvet pillow.
Lenny, still with shears in hand, quickly made his way to catch up as they briskly marched past, beaming as they paraded.
Len didn’t run, nor did he walk; Len made a few leaps worthy of a ballet dancer to catch up to them.
Picture a male ballet dancer flying forward in a sequence of grand jetés.
(Grand jetés? Look it up. It’s ok. We all need to brush up on the arts.
It was hilarious to see him doing those leaps, shears in hand, just to reach them.
The Scene: Their smiles, that march, their stance? My hair stood on end. My alarm bells rang: The Bridges were in full gossip mode.
Len landed, literally landed in front of the marching Bridges to squelch their imminent intel-gathering move, and he practically grabbed the package from their hands. (So unlike Len to make a scene like that and land in front of them. And to grand jetés? But their gossip terrifies him. They terrify him.)
There was no need for him to literally take the package from their hands—they willingly handed it over, seeing he’d staged such a dramatic interception and was still shears‑in‑hand.
The unplanned handoff of the package to Len—a package that was obviously being delivered to me—didn’t deter Mrs. Bridge’s intel gathering for a second.
She was in a race against time—rushing to gather information before Len and I could retreat.
On your mark. Get set. Go.
And they (The Bridges) are off! 🏇🏻🏇🏻
The Intel Derby has begun…
“Dez, my dear, this package is addressed to you, not to Len. Look and see for yourself! It’s from Calypso.”
Len was holding it so I couldn’t see the names on the package. I didn’t move closer to Len because he looked like a stunned deer, wide-eyed, staring at the Bridges as if they were the oncoming headlights. I wanted him to recover calmly, so I nodded and took her word for it.
“Funny thing,” Mr. Bridge added, grumbling to himself, “this here package didn’t seem to have a return address at first glance… had to rotate it just so.”
He even moved his hands to show the angle needed to make out the sender’s address.
Mrs. Bridge shot him a disapproving glance for interrupting her train of thought and then immediately took back the conversation’s steering wheel.
“It’s marked fragile, dear. Mr. Bridge and I were wondering what could be inside. Why is Calypso sending you a package? Seems extravagant—mailing something when she’ll be here tomorrow. But then again…”
(a pause)
“…not everything fits neatly into that tiny car of hers, does it? But don’t get me wrong, Dez… it’s all very modern these days—two ladies sharing weekends under one roof belonging to an eligible bachelor, just next door, on the same grounds…”
Such thorough reporting of “facts,” such sound, key questions.
I cringed when she called Cal’s gorgeous vintage Triumph “that tiny car of hers.”
That was a full round of interrogation bombarded with no time to answer in under seven seconds.
Shocked, I must admit, by the arrival of a package. (From Cal, which I truly wasn’t expecting).
I felt like the dartboard on which Mrs. Bridge had been aiming with her question darts for the bull’s‑eye.
I froze—not like me—unsure where to begin answering her “whys” and “hows.” Normally, I adore talking.
Len came to the rescue and answered for me.
He is so not a people person. Hardly the chatterer nor the chatee.
But he came through like a winner—No, like an actor.
He knows what works with Sea Breezers.
Survival skill.
The Rescue:
“Mrs. Bridge,” Len said smoothly. “Calypso—if given the opportunity, which I’m certain you will most graciously provide—will happily explain everything you yearn to know. When she arrives tomorrow to spend the weekend here at the guest house with Dez, I’m sure she’ll find time to answer your questions. Meanwhile, Dez and I were anxiously waiting for this package, so you must excuse us. We must call her now with the good news that it has arrived.”
Then came the gallant flourish.
Len placed his garden shears on top of the package, shifted the parcel to the open palm of his extended hand—butler‑style—and with his free hand swept up Mrs. Bridge’s round, rosy hand.
He bent and kissed it lightly. She blushed.
“Merci, et au revoir, Madame Bridge,” he said as he let go of her paw.
As soon as he released the busybody’s paw, he straightened, finally gripping the package with both hands.
(To my relief.— Can you blame me? It’s marked fragile.)
Shears are still balancing on top (to my dismay, can you blame me?).
He turned to Mr. Bridge.
“Au revoir, Monsieur Facteur.”
Mr. Bridge beamed and puffed with pride—so blowfish‑like.
He always admired Lenny’s ‘gentlemanly airs.’
“Oh, come on, Len…seriously?” I thought. “Monsieur Facteur”? I was ready to guffaw but stifled it. “Mr. Mailman” (in French?).
“Ah, Harlen Lenton,” he proclaimed. “You are truly a gentleman. Ah, the Lentons—descendants of the founders of Sea Breeze. True aristocrats.”
He recited this well‑rehearsed line as he and his wife stepped backward, performing an invisible kowtow like Dickensian buffoons making their exit.
The Bridges eventually turned and walked away in ecstatic satisfaction—the kind of glee gluttons feel after feasting at a lavish buffet.
After a paw kiss and being called Mr. Mailman in French?
What will they blow that up to be, in their latest tabloid runs about town?
I MUST note:
If this hand-kissing and bowing nonsense had gone on for another moment, Nausea would have set in, and I would have wretched.
However, Lenny’s sucrose overdose theatrics did the trick regardless of how comical and nonsensical they appeared to me. It was quite Dickensian, though.
And into the guest house, Len and I quickly burrowed.
(That sounds so ‘Wind in the Willows,’ doesn’t it?)
I was so excited to see what Cal had sent me.
I couldn’t resist, I do admit, to bombard Len with a question about that last statement he made to Madame Bridge.
And so I had turned to Len, while we were still outside, and whispered to him—even though we were out of the Bridge‘s earshot range:
“Since when, Harlen Lenton, were we waiting for this package to arrive? Len? You knew about this package?”
Taking off his shoes as he entered the cottage, Len told me that Cal had texted him a little over a week ago to be on the lookout for the Bridges. Word for word, he recited the message:
Be on the lookout for the Bridges. They will be bearing a package any day now. - Cal
Wait… I will get back to this message, but I need to make a note of this ⬇️.
(Note: It’s not because Len is finicky that he slipped out of his loafers; I do have a no-shoes policy in the house.)
But. Thankfully. Lenny dropped the shears off at the Guest House door, right near the rue…
He didn’t bring them in.
Terrible energy…garden shears in the house?
And the fact that he was balancing those shears on the package outside while doing his Dickensian thing????
WHAT WAS HE THINKING?
What if they slid off the package? And landed on his foot? Not just the injury that could happen… but how OMINOUS would that have been, right?
Anyway…he didn’t let them slide. They didn’t land on his foot.
So forget I even mentioned that OMINOUS possibility that was in the cards yet brilliantly did not come to play.