Grilling the Subject Read Free

sure we had Guy Fieri’s
Guy on Fire: 130 Recipes for Adventures in Outdoor Cooking
. Reviewers said his book really appealed to male customers, of which we had many. It wasn’t your typically pretty tabletop cookbook; it was filled with humor. I loved the fact that Guy called his outdoor tools his
arsenal
.
    I nabbed a few more books from the shelf and handed them to Ava. Snapping waylaid, she continued to browse, so I ventured to the display table and did a quick makeover without standing the books up. Call me foolish once, not twice.
    Next, I shifted to the display window to tweak our latest exhibit. Bailey and I had spent all day yesterday putting items in place. We had laid out a crisp checkered tablecloth and built levels beneath it, and then we’d added colorful barbecue tools with a variety of handles, a mini hibachi, some grill lights for late-night grilling, long tubes of matches, and candles. We included a corny-looking chuck wagon cookie jar—I had stumbled across an assortment of kooky cookie jars online and had purchased twenty of them—plus a huge wicker picnic basket, red plastic cups, and a red pitcher. Asa finishing touch, we set out mason jars packed with retro cinnamon candy sticks or gumballs.
    Staring at the display now, I felt something was missing, but what? A split second later, I snapped like Ava. Books.
Duh!
Yes, we sold lots of unique cooking items in our store, but mostly we sold books, and the display had none.
    I roamed the shop and plucked a few titles that would appeal to passersby. Two children’s books:
The Gingerbread Cowboy
and
Little Red Cowboy Hat
. As a savvy marketer, I realized that children often pulled their parents into stores. “Mommy, buy me that!” they would cry. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I expected to get paid back in spades when I had children—
if
I had children. They would tug me this way and that, and I would have to comply.
Too-ra-loo
, as my aunt would say.
    I added a fun adult book called
The Cowboy Hat Book
, a coffee table–style book that contained the history of the hat, and I placed a used edition of
The All-American Cowboy Cookbook: Over 300 Recipes From the World’s Greatest Cowboys
next to that,
used
because it was out of print, which was too bad. Inside there were colorful stories about a few old-time western stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. I had purchased the book for a song at a garage sale. I vowed I would never sell it, but I probably would. For the right price.
    â€œJenna!” Ava beckoned me with a finger. “Help me with these.” She had collected a dozen books.
    I hurried to her—see how she gets people to obey?—and I carried her haul to the checkout counter. “What a lot of books. Are you having a party?”
    â€œBetween you and me, shh”—she winked twice—“yes, I’m having a private party.
Private
because a certain somebody will not be invited to attend. I’ve asked a few of my neighbors, including your father, to come for cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres tomorrow night. I think your father has invited his beloved. That’s entirely all right.”
    My father, a former FBI man, is a widower and retiredand currently dating Bailey’s mother Lola, who is like my second mother. I adore her. Seeing them together always makes me smile. Dad was lost after my mother died.
    â€œWhy the secrecy?” I asked as I packed her books into one of our specialty shop bags and tied the handle with rattan ribbon.
    â€œIt’s a community gathering, if you will, but that certain someone is not, I repeat
not
, to hear of it. Do you understand?”
    I nodded, but how could I not tell that
someone
if I didn’t know who it was?
    Ava peered over her shoulder and back at me with a triumphant—or was it malicious?—gleam in her eye. “See you.”
    As she left, a chill ran down my spine. At the same time a door slammed. Outside