Michael Malone - Weebly

Prudence Lattice had never meant to own a tribal
meeting place for the aimless assignations of teenagers
who baited and dated one another while slouched in her
white wicker chairs. She had meant the Tea Shoppe to
serve afternoon teas to professional gentlemen and
shopping ladies. But then, it seemed to require so
surprisingly many of them eating for her to be able to
eat, and in a buyer's market one must live with the
buyers who come. But Miss Lattice had not meant it to
be this way.
She had meant to marry Sloan Highwick in 1928,
when he was at Princeton and she was almost the most
popular girl at Miss Whitely's in New York, and almost
the most daring madcap of all her flapper friends. She
had not intended to turn down two marriage proposals
only to discover that Sloan Highwick planned to ordain
himself a bachelor forever. And she had meant to travel
through the south of France in a racer and to be a stage
star on Broadway and to have a thousand
acquaintances. She had meant to write poetry and to
give birth to beautiful laughing children. She had meant
to have romance, to be swept into mystery and