by Avery Aames
I tugged the hem of my linen shirt over the waistband of my Not-Your-Daughter’s jeans. Casual chic, in my humble opinion, was always best. “Do I look okay?” I whispered.
Grandmère toyed with the feathered-cut tresses around my face, then cupped my chin. “You look radiant, as always. Just be your delicious self.” She winked. “Get it? Delicious, Délicieux? I made a joke, no?”
I chuckled.
“She’s not actually here here,” Rebecca said, amending her story as she gathered her long blonde hair into a clip. “She’s in the Country Kitchen having coffee. But she’ll be here when she’s done. Some of the local farmers are there, too. Don’t you have a meeting with them at ten?”
“They rescheduled. It’s now set for tomorrow at eight.” I glanced at my watch out of habit while ticking off impending appointments and feeling my blood pressure soar. Why did good things often happen all at once? For that matter, why did bad things happen in threes? I looked forward to the end of the day when I would curl up in my Queen Anne chair with a glass of wine and a good Agatha Christie mystery.
“That racaille . . .” Pépère stomped into the shop through the rear entrance, his arms filled with tomatoes and basil, and kicked the door shut.
I hurried to him. “What’s wrong? Who’s a rascal?”
“Ed Woodhouse.” The town’s biggest real estate holder. Powerful beyond measure. Ruled by his snappish wife who wanted to oust my grandmother from her position as mayor so she could take over herself. Elections were next week, set in early June because our town founder, Ed’s great-great-grandfather, had wanted it to coincide with the birth of his son. Ironically, the son chose that very same date, sixteen years later, to dump a cartload of cow manure in the Village Green to protest his father’s stance on a youth curfew.
“What’s he done now?” I said.
“He’s selling the building.”
My heart leapt at the news. Pépère had been trying to buy our building for years, but Ed was never willing to sell. “That’s wonderful,” I said. “We’ll purchase it and be rid of him for good.” The man was not a nice landlord. He indiscriminately raised rents. We had to beg him to allow us to make the archway to the annex. Once, he said he wanted to put my grandparents out of business simply because they were French.
“He refuses to entertain an offer from us,” Pépère said.
“What?” I nearly screeched. “Can he do that?”
“Je ne sais pas,” he said, then mumbled a few choice snippets in French that would make a longshoreman blush.
Grandmère grasped him by the elbow and drew him into the kitchen by the walk-in refrigerator. I couldn’t hear what she was saying to him, but she had a way of calming him down with nothing more than a tender kiss. Their love was magical, like something out of storybooks, love I longed for but didn’t think I could ever hope to find. A moment later, they broke apart and Grandmère rejoined us.
“I must be gone,” she announced. “The theater awaits.”
“What are you putting on this summer, Mrs. Bessette?” Rebecca asked as she laid out more drop cloths. Before moving to Providence, she had never seen a play.
“A ballet of Hairspray.”
Grandmère’s events were quite unique and not to everyone’s liking. Last year, she had staged Jesus Christ Superstar as a ballet.
Rebecca gasped. “Can you do that?”
“Dear girl, I can do anything I please as long as the town votes yes.”
“I mean, 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 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 me before Matthew hustled her home. Look, Grandmère, I know Kristine Woodhouse is hungry to replace you as mayor, and now she has her child spreading rumors. Someone has got to put a foot down. Might as well be me.”
Grandmère harrumphed. Rebecca folded her arms over her petite chest.
“C’mon. Let’s cut Amy a little slack,” I said. “She’s only been here a short time. She’s trying to fit in. Wanting to defend family is a commendable trait.”
“Not with one’s fists, chérie.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll talk to her about using her words.” How many times had my grandparents reminded me that words were our sharpest weapons? “She is under my roof, so I’m in charge.” I didn’t have a clue how to raise a child or set ground rules, but I was a fast learner. At least I hoped so. “In the meantime, I’ve got a meeting with the local farmers. Now, can we disband?”
“Oui,” Grandmère said.
“Oui,” Rebecca echoed. She knew about three words of French but was catching on quickly and was a little too curious about Pépère’s more colorful phrases.
I snagged three Hershey’s Kisses from a stash in the lowest desk drawer and handed one to each of them and kept one for myself. Kisses were my passion. After cheese and wine, chocolate could cure a whole lot of ailments. We ate in silence, sealing our agreement with a kiss, then I swung open the door, told Rags to stay, and marched into the shop. I found Pépère muttering yet another string of French longshoreman curses and shook my head. So far, retirement wasn’t doing either of my grandparents any good. Perhaps Matthew and I could entice them to go on a vacation to the Caribbean. An extended vacation.
“What happened, Etienne?” Grandmère rushed to Pépère. She grabbed his hands.
I knew better than to intrude, but I kept an ear open as Rebecca and I removed drop cloths from the tables and barrels. The smell of paint and antique stain hung in the air, but with the doors and windows opened, the place would quickly air out. One thing Ohio offers is plenty of clean, crisp air.
“You won’t believe what I heard at Country Kitchen.” Every morning, Pépère visited the fifties-style diner across the street for an espresso. Alone. His private time, he said. In truth, as good a cook as my grandmother was, she couldn’t brew a decent pot of coffee for the life of her. “Kristine Woodhouse told that . . . that . . . reporter . . .” Pépère’s cheeks and neck flushed red.
“The reporter from Délicieux?” Grandmère said.
He nodded. “She told her that you were unfit to be mayor. She said you were past your prime, and she said . . . she said . . .” His jaw ticked with anger.
“Mon ami, breathe. I can handle whatever lies Kristine Woodhouse makes up. Go on.”
“She said the shop is a disgrace, that we are making a mockery of Providence with our . . . our pretension.”
“Pretension?” I shrieked. How dare she!
“She said she should have been the one to open the wine store, not us, and she said—”
“Relax.” Grandmère stroked my grandfather’s hair and kissed him on the forehead. “It means nothing. Do not rise to the bait.”
The grape-leaf-shaped chimes tinkled and the front door opened. I turned and realized my eight A.M. appointment, a group of local farmers, had arrived. I wasn’t nearly ready. Merde.
The crowd split and I caught sight of Jordan Pace, a rugged man with the untamed energy of a silver screen cowboy. Call me crazy, but whenever I saw him, my knees went weak and I thought I could hear movie music swell and spurs jingle. He always wore blue jeans and work shirts rolled up at the sleeves, which showed off his powerful tan arms. If he slipped an arm around my waist and kissed me hard on the lips, I wouldn’t object. But that wouldn’t happen. We were only friends. He supplied the majority of the shop’s artisanal cheeses, all made by hand with the freshest products available. Buy local is another of my mantras.
Jordan left the crowd and strolled toward me with an easy, catlike grace.
I finger-combed my hair and smoothed the front of my short-sleeved turquoise sweater, wishing I had carried a tube of gloss in my trousers’ pocket so I could smear a coat on my parched lips.
“Morning, Charlotte.”
I smiled, thankful that I had checked my teeth in the mirror before leaving the house to make sure no blueberries were lodged there. “Jordan.”
“Place is coming around.”
“Sure is.”
“I like the color of the walls.”
“Thanks.” Could I sound more inept?
“So . . .” He hooked his thumbs through the loops of his jeans and hitched his chin.
Something inside me fluttered.
“What’s with the protesters in front?” he said.
I glanced out the display window and my mouth dropped open. He hadn’t hitc
hed his chin to flirt with me. Women in dresses and sunhats were marching on the sidewalk with signs in their hands that read Vote for Kristine!
Kristine Woodhouse, a lean brunette with a beak of a face, led the pack, her floral dress flouncing around her stick-thin legs.
“Mon Dieu!” With the fury of a train heading downhill, Grandmère stormed outside.
I galloped after her. Of the family, she had the sharpest set of tools in her vocabulary chest.
“Kristine Woodhouse, get off my property,” Grandmère ordered.
Three women broke from the crowd, Kristine’s coterie of snobs, all clad in summer hats and chiffon dresses no doubt purchased at Kristine’s boutique. They clustered around Kristine, hands on hips, heads bobbing, mouths chattering, reminding me of a gaggle of hens.
Kristine raised a hand over her head to silence them. “Girls, thank you for your support.”
Girls? She had to be kidding. Kristine’s pals had to be in their fifties. She, herself, was on the wrong side of forty. The birth of her daughter had surprised everybody.
“This sidewalk is public property, Bernadette Bessette. I may walk it freely.” Kristine drew near to my grandmother and looked down her nose at her. “You, as mayor, should know that, but obviously you have grown dim in recent days.” She eyed her pals. They clucked with delight.
Grandmère whispered something in French that even Pépère wouldn’t say.
“Speaking of which,” Kristine continued, “we need someone with a clear head and an eye to the future to run this town. You and your ridiculous theater events are a distraction.”
“They are works of art!” Grandmère shouted.
“They are works of a lunatic. People laugh behind your back. They want classic ballets.”
