Newlyweds
An: I do not own Arrow.
Summary: It was Ivy Town's weekly tea gathering for the women of Apple Lane. The hot topic for the day was the extremely handsome half of the newlyweds that arrived two days before. Olicity AU.
Mrs. Carol Granger took one last look at the area she would be hosting tea that day before she went to answer the bell. The first person to arrive would be the very elderly Mrs. Spritzer, it was always Mrs. Spritzer. She liked to arrive five minutes early and comment on the set up. If a single tea cup wasn't dead centre on its saucer she would make a comment. The older woman considered herself an expert on tea since she attended boarding school in England. She was so prim and proper no one in their group was allowed to call her by anything but Mrs. Spritzer.
Carol opened her large mahogany door to find Mrs. Spritzer on her front entrance dressed sharply with one of her famous hats and a clutch similar to Queen Elizabeth II perched on her arm. The woman smiled widely at her.
"How do you do?" Mrs. Spritzer asked and Carol had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. The old woman was very fond of these archaic customs.
"How do you do?" Carol replied. She had gotten very confused the first time she responded to that particular question with an answer of 'I'm fine and you?'. The frown she had received from the older woman had confused her and made her feel very unwelcomed to their tea group. It was only when another lady at tea explained that the correct response that Mrs. Spritzer was looking for was 'How do you do" and that everyone got it wrong the first time that she felt a little better.
"Where will we be having tea today dear?" Mrs. Spritzer asked as she stepped into the house.
"The weather has been so lovely recently I decided we could have tea on the porch," Carol replied. She noticed the wrinkle that formed on the other woman's forehead indicating that she did not approve of that decision. What a surprise.
"Isn't it too hot for outdoors?" Mrs. Spritzer queried.
"Not at all. The weather is just right," Carol replied leading her through the house to the porch.
Mrs. Spritzer's eyes surveyed the area in great detail. She had the chairs arranged in a semi-circle around a coffee table that was already set up with the tea pot and five tea cups and saucers. She would be serving her appetizers on platters she would bring from the kitchen when everyone arrived.
"Please have a seat," Carol offered when the doorbell rang again. That would be the other three guests. As she was turning to leave she caught site of Mrs. Spritzer adjusting the tea cups. She honestly didn't' know why she even tried. It was an impossible standard to reach.
She returned to the front door and found Mrs. Lisa Carter, Mrs. Deedee Tucker and Mrs. Bernadette Davis all at the door. The customary greetings were said and she escorted them to the porch where she found Mrs. Spritzer fanning herself with a magazine that Carol had no idea where she got it from.
"It's hot," Mrs. Spritzer complained.
"You're always hot," Lisa countered taking a seat and reaching for the tea pot to pour the tea. Lisa never cared whose responsibility it was to serve the tea. She did as she pleased.
"It is kind of hot," Deedee agreed and she sat next to Lisa.
"It's called menopause," Lisa chided.
"I am not old enough to be in menopause," Deedee replied highly offended.
There were snorts among the group and Mrs. Granger took that opportunity to sneak into the kitchen and pick up a tray of canapes and a tray of deviled eggs. She returned and offered each lady an item before placing it on the coffee table and taking a seat. She caught the tail end of a conversation, "they are Queens."
"Queens?" Carol asked.
"The newlyweds that moved into the Fick's old house a few days ago," Bernadette told her.
"We have Queens in the neighbourhood," she asked aghast. "How did the home owners association allow that?"
"You dimwit," Lisa said, "Their last name is Queen."
"Oh!" Carol said understanding dawning in her eyes. "What about them?"
"The husband is hot. Carrie has already started circling but she's going to have a hard time with that one," Deedee said. Carrie was the thrice divorced woman that lived on the same lane as them. She was a sultry red head with a very good figure. She was known for stalking good looking men. She had slept with most of the husbands on the block, Deedee's husband included.
"Why?" Carol asked curiously. When Carrie set her sights on something it was hard to deny that woman.
"They're still clearly in the honeymoon phase. I would say they've been married for six months tops," Lisa said.
"Yeah," Deedee agreed, "He still looks at her as if the world revolves around her. We all know how long that lasts in a marriage," Deedee said bitterly. She and her second husband have only been married for two years though after Carrie that marriage might be ending soon.
Carol frowned, "But they have children? I swear I saw three kids running around in the front lawn yesterday after you borrowed the clipper to prune something in the garden you have never pruned before," Carol said to Deedee. She had been quite surprised when the blonde woman turned up begging to borrow some type of gardening tool because she had work to do in the garden.
"Oh that's where you got those clippers from," Mrs. Spritzer said. "You were holding them all wrong but I supposed you were paying more attention to the nice young man that was mowing his front lawn shirtless."
"Shirtless," Bernadette spluttered. "You saw him shirtless!"
Deedee's whole face turned red as she nodded enthusiastically.
"That's not fair," Lisa complained. "I only caught one glimpse of him throwing the little girl in the air and catching her."
"He throws the child in the air?" Carol asked horrified.
"Must be his own daughter from a previous relationship because his wife just stood there smiling at him. Not an ounce of concern on her face. Clearly still newlyweds," Lisa said.
"I'm hosting tea next week, perhaps I should invite Mrs. Queen to join us," Bernadette suggested.
"That sounds like a fantastic idea dear," Mrs. Spritzer said.
"Pity we can't invite Mr. Queen," Lisa commented.
The conversation soon turned away to the mysterious black car that parked in front of the widower, Mr. Grant's house three nights in the last week.
Felicity nervously walked over to the neighbour's house that was two doors down from her. Bernadette had stopped by the day before to invite her to tea. Apparently a few of the married women in the neighbourhood got together every week for tea. Felicity had politely accepted the invitation but then panicked as soon as she closed the door. She had never been to tea! What did one do at tea? She went straight to her husband's kitchen where he was working on a tray of cookies to ask him about tea. He had laughed at her for half an hour. She sulked away to her home office to do some research on proper tea etiquette.
Based on her research, Felicity chose a very modest outfit to wear and had Oliver bake some delicious cinnamon scones so she was not attending empty handed. She made sure her hair was presentable, Oliver had tried to muss it up for her when he kissed her senseless before she left, and ran out of the house platter in hand. She knocked on Bernadette's door and had to wait a few minutes. She knew she was five minutes late and the other ladies had probably all arrived on time.
The white door opened and Bernadette greeted her with a large smile.
"Felicity! You made it, come on in," she said smiling.
"Yes, a little late. I'm sorry. I brought some cinnamon scones to make up for the tardiness," she said offering her the platter that was already fully decorated.
Bernadette took the platter from her, "Thank you. It was very thoughtful of you," she said closing the door behind her.
Felicity followed her through her house to a closed in porch at the back of the house that overlooked a pool. The table was already set and there were four other women around the table. Felicity had been living there for over a week now and she had no idea who her neighbours were, well besides that redhead Carrie that kept coming over to try to talk to Oliver.
"Everyone, I would like to introduce you to our newest neighbour, Felicity," Bernadette said to the group. She placed the platter of scones of the table and took the clear wrap off of it.
"Hi," Felicity said giving an awkward wave.
"This is Lisa," Bernadette said, "She lives at the end of the lane, next to that house with the gaudy gate. Next to her is Carol. She lives across the road from me. Then Deedee who lives in the house opposite you."
"Oh the one that had the emergency over the weekend," Felicity said recalling the ambulance that had pulled up in front of the house.
"My son thought it was a good idea to lock his baby sister in the freezer. It was completely the nanny's fault," Deedee said.
That was apparently not any news to talk about because Bernadette went on to the last lady seated at the table that looked older than the Queen of England.
"This is Mrs. Spritzer," she said.
"How do you do," Mrs. Spritzer said to her.
Felicity grinned widely, "How do you do."
The old woman smiled brilliantly at her. "At last you've finally invited someone with a little bit of class to this. What boarding school did you go to?"
"Uh, I didn't go to a boarding school. I grew up in Las Vegas," Felicity said uncertainly.
"You're a Vegas girl," Deedee said cocking her head to right and studying Felicity's physical appearance.
"Not in the sense that you are applying that phrase," Felicity responded a bit miffed.
"Please have a seat," Bernadette said trying to smooth things over.
There was an open seat next to Mrs. Spritzer and the old woman was patting the chair next to her quite enthusiastically.
"Tell me more about yourself dear," Mrs. Spritzer pried when Felicity had taken a seat.
"I went to MIT, and graduated with my masters in cyber-security. I was approached by a lot of well established companies to work for them but I eventually chose to work at an IT start-up company in California. I learned a lot there and eventually I decided to start my own company. I've been running it for the last five years," she stated proudly.
Mrs. Spritzer nodded her head but then dived right back in with the questions, "You recently married?"
"No, Oliver and I have been married for ten years," Felicity said with a fond smile.
Their jaws all hit the ground.
"I'm sorry did you say ten months?" Lisa asked the confusion clear in her tone.
"No ten years. I met him at my first job. We knew each other for about two years before we started dating. We didn't date for that long before he proposed. We were married three months later," Felicity said with that giddy smile she got whenever she thought of the beginning of her relationship with Oliver.
"Ten years! Are you sure? I didn't think marriages lasted that long anymore," Deedee commented bitterly.
"I'm positive," Felicity said a bit creeped out by the women. "Oliver bought us this house here as a summer house for our tenth anniversary. I'm using it to test run some software I wrote to allow working mothers to work from home a few days a week. It's kind of unfair that while he and the kids are on vacation, I'm still at work."
The women ignored her comments about her job and focused on the length of time she had been married.
"It used to be that ten years of marriage was nothing. Roger and I made it to fifty years before he passed," Mrs. Spritzer said. "Now it's like a miracle if you make it to ten."
"Oliver and I will definitely be making it to fifty years," Felicity said confidently.
"Nope I'm not buying it," Lisa said. "There is no way the two of you have been married for ten years. Are you undercover spies or something."
"Excuse me?" Felicity asked.
"I saw the way that man looks at you. That is not the look of a man married for ten years!" Lisa insisted.
"And how is my husband supposed to behave?" Felicity asked hotly.
"He's supposed to have a beer belly, look at all the young girls that walk passed and forget to do his house chores. You're supposed to yell at him a lot too," Carol explained.
"Oliver and I do not have that type of marriage," Felicity explained. "We are true partners in everything we do."
"If it's true then you're an anomaly. Carrie has already set her sights on your husband. We'll see how long you last," Deedee said.
"My husband can't even remember Carrie's name and she's told him about ten times. To him, she's the annoying redhead next door that can't do anything for herself. Helpless women are a big turn off for him. Well unless it's me trying to reach something off the top shelf in the kitchen. Then he just enjoys watching me flail," Felicity said.
Lisa grabbed a scone off the platter and bit into it, "This is delicious," she said her eyes going wide.
"Really?" Deedee said reaching for one herself.
Mrs. Spritzer reached for her own as well.
"Where did you get them Bernadette?" Deedee asked.
"Felicity brought them," Bernadette said with a frown. Felicity's scones were upstaging her own food.
The women around the table turned to her, "And where did you buy them."
She fidgeted with her fingers a bit, "Uhm, Oliver made them. He's a professionally trained chef. He owns two restaurants now."
"Wow you must have a lot of competition to hold on to him," Lisa said bluntly.
Felicity laughed, "Oliver always says food may have been his first passion but I will always be his last. There will be no one after me."
"That's sweet that you believe that dear," Deedee said in a condescending tone. "My husband and I are having a cocktail function for our friends next week. He thinks it's a normal party but I'm going to serve him with the divorce papers in front of all of our friends," she explained in a cold tone. "Do you think your husband could cater?"
Felicity gave her a tight smile, "I will ask him and let you know but the response will probably be no. He's have a blast being home with me and the kids."
"Again, are you sure you've been married for ten years?" Lisa asked.
He heard the front door open and he anxiously made his way from the kitchen to the front of the house where his wife was. He looked into the study on his way there to ensure the kids were still busy with their summer activities.
"How was your tea?" Oliver asked as soon as he spotted her.
"Oliver some very strange women live in this neighbourhood!" she said very frazzled.
He frowned in confusion. He knew she might have a hard time adjusting to life here. She was brilliant and she shone brightest when she was around brilliant people. He was afraid that testing her software in a completely different town might stifle her creativity. He knew she was having trouble with the software not working the way she wanted it to work yet. Their eldest was only eight but like his mother he was a genius that liked computers. He liked going over the code that his mother wrote. In fact that was probably what he was doing now while his younger siblings took apart an old sewing machine that Felicity had brought for them to figure out how it worked. He knew his kids were very different to other kids but he would never stifle their creativity by forcing them to do something else.
"Felicity," he sighed taking her hands in his, "Not everyone can understand that brilliant mind of yours."
"No it's not that. They thought I was lying when I said we have been married for ten years," she explained.
Oliver frowned, "Why?"
"Well it took a while to pry out of them but eventually I discovered it's because we look at each other as if we just got married. We still have that newlywed glow," she explained to him wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest. He was pleased when she sighed contentedly.
"That's a good thing isn't it?" he asked wrapping his arms around her and rubbing her back.
"I suppose so," she admitted, "It's a good thing I didn't tell them I am pregnant. Then they might have accused me of using you for sex only."
Oliver cracked a smile, "I have no objection to being used for sex. In fact, the kids look fairly occupied I'm sure we could get away with a quickie."
"Mom!" their eight year old called.
"Dammit," Oliver said.
Felicity patted his chest, "Tonight," she said before walking off to join their children.
Oliver watched her walk away with a large goofy smile on his face. Movement on their front lawn caught his eye and he saw the annoying redhead making her way towards their front door through the window at the side of the door. It was a good thing he disconnected the doorbell while Felicity was away. If that woman kept trying to get his attention they would probably end up selling this house as soon as Felicity finalised her software. While he liked the area, nothing was more important to him than the happiness of his wife and children.
An: Thanks for reading. This is the first of 8 one-shots I have to post.