The Long Quiche Goodbye Read Free Page B

later, I ambled into The Cheese Shop, certain that the day was going to be a snap compared to yesterday’s mishmash. Was I ever wrong.
    Soon after my arrival, Grandmère pushed through the front door and ground to a halt. Prior to her retirement, she often came in early, gave me a hug, then headed for the office to balance the books and pay bills. She didn’t look ready to do any of the above. She tapped her tiny foot like a riveter. Rebecca slipped in behind her, mouth grim, arms at her side. Hand the girl a musket, and she could have been a soldier ready for battle.
    “Good morning,” I said cheerfully, my heart doing a not-so-cheerful jitterbug.
    Grandmère approached with unbridled fury in her coconut shell brown eyes. “I won’t have it, Charlotte.”
    “Me, either,” Rebecca said.
    “Have what?” I asked, knowing full-well what they meant. They were upset about the deal I had cut with Meredith in regard to Amy. Guess I was too lenient.
    “Allowing the girl to work in Fromagerie Bessette during the days she is expelled from school is no punishment at all, and you know it,” Grandmère said.
    “She loves The Cheese Shop as much as you do,” Rebecca added.
    True. Ever since she had arrived on my doorstep, Amy had made a habit of showing up at the shop after school. She lingered over the wheels of cheese and quickly proved she could distinguish a cheese simply by its aroma. A good nose was a gift. I had it. So did Pépère. Was it wrong to let Amy spend extra hours in an environment that she loved, learning about something that could one day be her future?
    Reluctant to have a confrontation where locals could spot us, I steered Grandmère and Rebecca to the little office beside the kitchen. It was bigger than a bread box but certainly not big enough for me, Grandmère, Rebecca, Rags, and the sixteen-year-old techie I had hired to create our new website.
    “Bozz?” I said. “I know you just got started, but I need you to step out for a moment.”
    The boy sat hunched in the oak desk chair with Rags draped over his shoulders like a stole. A set of iPod buds were stuck in his ears. His fingers tapped fervently on his cell phone, texting Lord-knew-who.
    “Yoo-hoo, Bozz?”
    Considering the boy’s slow rate of productivity, I wasn’t sure if he would finish the website in time for the grand opening of the shop, but he was the only web designer in town. I had planned to take a community college course to learn how to create a website, but never got around to it. Matthew, a renaissance type of guy, was computer illiterate.
    One thing at a time was fast becoming my new mantra.
    I plucked an iPod bud from the kid’s ear. “Bozz, step out a moment, will you? It’s tight quarters in here.”
    “Sure, Miss B.” He offered a toothy grin, then removed Rags from his shoulders, plopped the cat onto the chair cushion, and shambled out of the room.
    I glanced at the partially completed website on the computer screen and liked what I saw. Bozz had chosen a calligraphy font and set it on a golden background. Images with groupings of cheese, bottles of wine, and people enjoying a cheese and wine tasting—all captured by a professional photographer from Cleveland who had charged me a minor fortune—lined the left side of the screen. So far so good, I thought, eager to get the site up and running. I envisioned having to hire a second clerk just to manage the online orders. A gal could dream.
    I closed the door and Grandmère lit into me. “Too much freedom leads a child down the path to destruction.”
    “She’s right,” Rebecca said. “I heard that on Law & Order. ”
    I sniffed. “Oh, please, it’s not like I’m giving Amy a gold medal for cleaning the little Woodhouse’s clock. Anyway, the girl deserved what she got. She and her friends were making fun of you and razzing Amy because her mother walked out.” I jabbed a finger at my grandmother.
    She stiffened. “I didn’t hear—”
    “Amy whispered it to