The Long Quiche Goodbye Read Free Page A

isn’t that rock and roll?”
    “If Billy Joel can do it, so can I. Adieu .” Grandmère did a curtsey, then jetéd toward the shop entrance, arms spread wide. She ran headlong into my best friend, Meredith Vance, who was entering. In a flash, Grandmère recovered. “So sorry, chérie .”
    “My fault.” Meredith, voted Providence Elementary’s most adored teacher, was lovely in a freckle-faced, natural way. Sun didn’t burn her; it kissed her. Sun didn’t bake her tawny hair; it glossed it with a shimmering sheen. She also smiled more than anybody I knew. But she wasn’t smiling now, and she was visiting during school hours. She stood half in, half out of the doorway, her lips a hard knot.
    A peppery taste of anxiety flooded my mouth. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
    Meredith yanked her arm. In trotted my niece, Amy, her cocoa bean eyes wide, her pixie face lowered. What had the little imp done this time?
    I hurried to them with Matthew and Pépère at my heels. I steered Meredith and Amy away from the front door, to the empty area by the display window. We huddled around the duo as if circling the wagons.
    “Tell them,” Meredith ordered.
    Amy’s chin quavered. “I . . . I . . .” Gumdrop-sized tears fell from her eyes. “I . . .”
    “Ah, heck,” Meredith cut in. “She hit the Woodhouses’ daughter in the nose.”
    A light sparked. I spun to my right. A boxy woman in a T-shirt with a huge zinnia on it stood just inside the front door. She held up her camera and took another picture.
    I cringed. Z for Zinnia. The Délicieux reporter. She was getting an eyeful.

CHAPTER 2

    At seven A.M. the next morning, after packing the twins’ lunches, I sat on the wraparound porch of my two-story Victorian home, a cup of cinnamon-laced coffee in my hands, and I debated the punishment I had meted out to Amy. Matthew, afraid to discipline the girls since their mother ran off, had ceded the decision to me. Had I been too lenient? Too harsh? How could I be sure?
    I set my deliberations aside and instead focused on the initial interview with the reporter from Délicieux . In that regard, I was quite pleased with myself. At first, Zinnia had been resistant to release the rights to the photo with the angry family huddling around tearful Amy. I had signed a model’s release, she reminded me. I begged and pleaded, but she didn’t yield. I asked about her career, her family, how she got her name—a hippie mother dedicated to flower power, she confided. I even offered to let her take multiple pictures of the family at the opening night party, but she remained bullheaded. However, when I treated her to a taste of Tuscan Tartuffo, the ultimate in Italian cheeses, made with raw milk Pecorino and black and white truffles, fabulous alone or drizzled with a nutty honey, she caved. That was putting it mildly. In truth, she had nearly swooned. Everybody does. Success, Pépère often told me, is a result of being persistent. And clever.
    At half past seven, dressed and showered for a busy day, I scooped up my rescue cat Rags—a fluffy Ragdoll with the easiest demeanor in the world, his silver, rabbitlike fur marred by one brown spot near the tail—and I headed off to The Cheese Shop. I let Matthew deal with the girls and their breakfast.
    Late May is my favorite time in Providence, when dog-woods, azaleas, and daylilies are in bloom. With a bounce in my step, I strolled down the lane of colorful vintage houses like mine and turned right. Sunlight glinted on the face of the clock tower that stood in the middle of the Village Green. The scent of lilacs growing against the Green’s white picket fence was intoxicating. At Hope Street, I made a right and sauntered past the brick buildings with green awnings that housed Mystic Moon Candle Boutique, Europa Antiques and Collectibles, and Sew Inspired Quilt Shoppe. At each, I took a moment to admire the display windows and make mental notes of what I could tweak in my own.
    Minutes