by Amy Korman
“Sure, I help you out,” agreed Gerda. “I meet you there tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. sharp.”
“Make it ten-thirty,” Holly told her.
Joe, meanwhile, waved down the waiter for a double vodka, and Bootsie surprised me by getting up to leave when I did.
“Hey, aren’t you Gianni’s camera guy?” Bootsie said to a cute twenty-something guy in a navy T-shirt and jeans who was doing a shot at the bar as we passed it on our way out.
“Yup,” said the guy boozily. “I’m Randy. Gianni insisted I film him going to the ER, which he says will make great TV. I was over at the hospital until half an hour ago. Gianni’s gonna be fine, by the way. The deboning knife is really thin, and it landed in a muscle, so it’s just a matter of sewing him up. Anyway, Gianni booked me into the Peach Creek Motel out on the highway, which is a total dive. I’d rather sit here and drink.”
As we left, a tiny elderly lady in a black skirt, black blouse, and white apron bid the chatty hostess a rather stern “Buona notte,” and headed out the door and to a flight of stairs that presumably led to her apartment, which had been the kitchen and lounge when this building had served as the Bryn Mawr Firehouse.
“So there really is a pasta lady who lives upstairs?” Bootsie asked the hostess.
“There sure is!” the Gap-clad teen assured her. “She and her cat Bianca are up there, which is kinda creepy. But then I also feel kinda bad for her! She has to deal with Gianni a lot. He even flew her out to Beverly Hills to work at his new place, but she hated it and demanded to come back here. Supposedly she made it into the Food Network show for a few episodes, though, and she gets her name into the title credits.”
As I crossed the parking lot and got into my slightly dented Subaru, I saw the light from a TV flicker on upstairs in the apartment of the charming old building. Was Nonna Claudia lonely, I wondered, or was Bianca enough companionship after a full day of pasta making? Maybe she was one of those single-minded people for whom work was everything. A perfect, pillowy gnocchi or pappardelle might be enough for Nonna Claudia. I sighed. Waffles and I weren’t all that different from Claudia and her cat, when I thought about it, although we were still in the same town where we’d always lived, which afforded a certain comfort. How, exactly, had Chef Gianni gotten this lady to leave her home and share her genius for pasta with greater Philly, and did she regret having packed up her rolling pin and pasta machine for leafy Bryn Mawr?
For a moment, I wondered if Claudia might have been the tipster who’d ratted out Gianni to the FDA, but then dismissed the idea. She was probably just what she seemed: a lady whose passion for pasta ruled her existence.
Chapter 7
THE NEXT MORNING, a slight hangover mingled with paint fumes combined to give me a headache that didn’t improve with the arrival of Eula Morris, who stopped by at 10 a.m. with three framed still-lifes of tomatoes that she’d personally painted.
“The Colketts told me these don’t work with their vision for the party,” she told me sourly. “Which is ridiculous. I mean, how do tomatoes I depicted in the style of Cezanne not convey tomatoes? Anyway, I thought maybe you could sell them here at The Striped Awning.”
The paintings were cute enough, I thought: two larger canvases, and another tiny one about eight inches square, all in antique gilt frames. I told Eula she could leave them on consignment, and she zoomed away in her Miata. Next up was Bootsie, who came at one-thirty with a delivery of a late lunch.
“Nothing happened at Eula’s last night,” she said, handing me chicken salad on toasted white from the luncheonette. “I sat in a tree in her backyard and watched her for forty-five minutes through her living room window. She misted her tomato plants, put on her pajamas, and watched HGTV for forty-five minutes. She has a bunch of paintings hanging in her house, but Heifer in Tomato Patch wasn’t one of them. And she was in her beige dress, not a blood-spattered polo shirt.”
“That’s so creepy of you,” I told Bootsie as I munched half my sandwich and gave the rest to Waffles, who thumped his tail happily as he ate. Bootsie shook her head disapprovingly—her yellow Labs eat organic kibbles and never enjoy the fatty snacks that Waffles gets, which is why Bootsie’s dogs are slim and fit, and Waffles is, well, portly in a dignified and adorable way.
“I mean, you sitting out there in the dark, watching her. That’s super-weird!”
“What—you don’t do that?” Bootsie asked. “Anyway, I’m a reporter! And Walt doesn’t have the manpower to do surveillance. I’m helping the community.”
She shrugged. “And, anyway, Eula went into her bedroom to change into her PJs, and she pulled her blinds down. What’s the big deal?”
I sighed.
“Anyway, here’s our story on Gianni getting stabbed, which will have to hold over the public till Walt lifts the news embargo on the stolen painting,” she added, handing over the Gazette. “Obviously, my photos and Gianni story are page one. I texted it into my editor while I was sitting outside on Eula’s patio,” she added.
I scanned Bootsie’s story—really, more of a paragraph, since Walt had said he couldn’t comment on an open investigation and had no official suspects.
Luckily, Bootsie’s editor is accustomed to her random and unsubstantiated theories, and always edits out her personal opinions, so the story about Gianni merely noted that buzz around town suggested that there were plenty of people with a grudge against the chef, including employees who complained that the chef forced them to work tons of hours and never honored requests for time off.
“It’s hard to find anyone who wouldn’t want to stab the chef, actually,” mused Bootsie, wadding up her sandwich wrapping and making a neat three-point shot into my trash can. “It’s not just the Colketts who hate him. I mean, he forced one waiter to cancel his honeymoon last year, and when his sous-chef’s wife had twins in April, he had to be back at work the next morning! Plus he has that elderly pasta lady working every single night, although I doubt she stabbed him. Anyway, all his staff admits that Gianni pays well and their tips are great. They make too much money to quit.”-
I pondered this as I poured paint into a plastic tray. I could only imagine the tips left on the hefty checks that diners were handed at the conclusion of a meal at Gianni’s.
“I’d love to moonlight at Gianni’s myself and make some extra cash,” I admitted to Bootsie. “But I can’t cook, I’d never be able to memorize all the specials, and I’m not good at balancing trays.”
“You don’t have the cleavage for it,” Bootsie told me, looking skeptically at my T-shirt. “Even if you got one of those Bombshell Bras at Victoria’s Secret, Gianni would never hire you. Speaking of jobs, though, I saw Leena from the Pack-N-Ship over at the luncheonette, and she said you could take on a weekend shift,” Bootsie told me. “I told her how broke you are, and she said she’d pay you seventeen dollars an hour to sort through her backlog of packages.”
“Really?” I said, intrigued. The pay sounded pretty good for a job that couldn’t require too much brainpower. If I worked Sunday afternoons, I’d be more than three hundred dollars a month closer to paying off my always-overdue bills. How hard could it be? Leena’s mail counter is only open nine to two on weekdays, so there couldn’t be that many boxes stacked in the back room . . . could there?
“Leena said things are a little worse than usual there since she’s been focusing on her tomatoes for the past couple months. She’s entering San Marzanos in the late-tomato contest next month,” Bootsie told me. “Which reminds me, I need the Heifer in Tomato Patch story ready to go as soon as Walt gives the okay,” Bootsie said, whipping her iPhone from the pocket of her flowered pants.
“Shouldn’t you be, like, interviewing Mrs. Potts and some art experts if you’re working on a front-page story?” I asked her.
“It’s only two. I’ve got till seven tonight to turn in my story,�
�� Bootsie told me. “I usually only need, like, fifteen minutes. I’m an excellent multitasker.”
“You could ask George about the importance of Heifer in Tomato Patch,” I suggested. “He’d be discreet if you told him to keep the theft quiet, and he knows everything about the art world. Maybe he’d even have a theory who took it.”
George Fogle is the local liaison for Sotheby’s, and went to high school with us. He spends most of his time in New York City these days, but comes back to town frequently to meet with local clients—including Holly, who actually buys things like art and “important jewelry.” He’s always willing to lend his time and expertise, and even helped my elderly neighbors Hugh and Jimmy Best sell an heirloom ring last spring that turned out to be worth $2.7 million—which enabled them to fix the heating and the roof on their formerly crumbling house, pay off their tab at the country club, and enjoy a very comfortable old age.
“Great idea! Once George starts talking about a painting, he can’t stop—which is perfect, because I’ll just type everything he says, and my story will be done! Boom!” Bootsie said.
“That’s it? I thought you were positive it was either Eula or Gianni who took the painting,” I said mildly. “You’re going to just let them go about their business today?”
“Of course not,” she told me. “Holly’s going to be at the country club all day, and so will the Colketts and, presumably, Gianni, since the stabbing didn’t do much damage. Holly texted me that Eula said she has a mysterious errand to run today, and won’t be over at the club till late afternoon. Which sounds totally suspicious, and is why I’m leaving here in five minutes to find her and follow her.”
“I don’t see why Eula would want to steal Honey’s painting,” I told Bootsie, climbing down from my stepladder, moving it slightly to the left and dipping my roller brush into the plastic paint tray. “Eula comes from the kind of family that probably has tons of paintings in gilt frames.”
“That’s true,” agreed Bootsie. “But I think Eula’s playing a diabolical mind game. She figured Honey would be so devastated by the theft that she’d quit the tomato contest,” said Bootsie. “Eula would do anything to win this Early Girl competition tomorrow.”
“I guess,” I said doubtfully. While Bootsie dialed up George, putting him on speakerphone so she could type copious notes into her phone about the works of Hasley Huntingdon-Mews, I painted and mused on the fact that Bootsie had decided this year to enter the early-tomato game herself.
She’d admitted to me after a few beers at the Pub last week that while she’d planted the actual seeds, she’d then turned over the care and nurturing of her tomato plants to her mom, Kitty Delaney, who’s an excellent gardener. Bootsie hadn’t seen her own tomato plants since April—but had texted, tweeted, and Instagrammed pics as she’d dropped them off at the country club this morning, since today was the deadline to enter Early Girls in the competition.
Suddenly, George’s painting monologue, still emanating from Bootsie’s phone’s speaker, caught my attention.
“So let me get this straight—Huntingdon-Mews is suddenly hot in the art world?” Bootsie said, still taking notes.
“Yup,” George confirmed. “Another of his pastoral scenes, Ewe in Sunlit Meadow, sold last month at auction for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s an all-time high for his work, and represents a hundred and fifty percent increase in value over the past ten years.”
Just then, the country club’s booziest members, Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, opened the screen door to the shop.
“That old oil painting might be worth three quarters of a million dollars?” Mr. Bingham said, emitting a slightly boozy whistle of admiration at the hefty price tag and adjusting his striped bow tie.
“That kind of money could stock us with white zinfandel for life!” said Mrs. Bingham, looking her usual colorful, cheery self in a coral shift dress, with lipstick to match.
The Binghams, passionate consumers of chilled wine, are a kindly if tipsy pair invariably found eating lunch at the club. I have a soft spot for the Binghams, who smell faintly of soap and mothballs. Mr. Bingham is a retired banker and genial fellow in his late sixties, one of those golf-tanned gents who seemingly never ages, and is in a perpetual good mood. He and his wife have always been around town, seeming completely happy with their gardening and an occasional nine holes of golf for Mr. B.
Because they drink from about 9 a.m. on, they don’t make a ton of sense, but they’re a likable pair. Unfortunately, they like to repeat newsy items heard around town, but their retelling is invariably full of errors. By the time they got through with George’s Heifer info, Honey’s painting would have been bought by a Russian billionaire or headed for the Louvre to hang next to the Mona Lisa.
“Could be!” said Bootsie, adding fuel to the fire. “Check out my front-page story tomorrow for details.”
“Speaking of which, there’s a Gazette story appearing this week in which we play a prominent role,” Mrs. Bingham whispered loudly to us with a little wink. “Stay tuned, because you’re going to love it.
“We wanted you to write it,” she added to Bootsie, “but that little Eula was persistent as the dickens. She’s a born reporter. Anyway, love the pink paint!”
AS THE BINGHAMS left, Sophie burst through the shop’s doors, huge sunglasses obscuring most of her small face, and an uncharacteristically dejected slump to her tiny shoulders. She wore a pink Lilly minidress that looked adorable, but all of her usual jewelry and glitzy sandals were missing, along with her usual upbeat attitude.
“Are you okay, Sophie?” I asked her, concerned. “Did you talk to your lawyer yet?” I asked her as she sat down on a little bench by the front window and patted Waffles tentatively as he wagged up at her.
“Yeah, I just came from his office. I’ve been there since eight this morning!” she said. “I showed him the papers I got handed last night, and he said Barclay’s demands are BS. He’s just dragging out the divorce to be a jerk! Which is no surprise! Plus my guy knows a paralegal over at Barclay’s attorney’s office, and he’s pretty sure he can bribe him, because this paralegal is saving up for law school and he needs the cash real bad.
“But it’s not Barclay who’s ruining my life—it’s Joe!” she added, and erupted into a huge sob and a storm of tears.
Waffles went running for his dog bed, and Bootsie looked distinctly uncomfortable. Her tennis-playing, vodka-sipping family doesn’t do crying. If they’re upset, they swim in a lake in Maine and have an extra couple of cocktails.
“I’m sorry,” I told Sophie, putting down my paint roller to sit down with her. “You two will work things out. You really love each other!”
“Ya think?” she said, pushing up her sunglasses as a ray of hope dawned on her tear-streaked face. “Because I brought up getting engaged again this morning, and he told me that he couldn’t talk about it because the fabric came in wrong for the curtains in our new living room, and it was a fuckup of epic proportions.”
“He gets really focused on fabrics!” I told her encouragingly. “That’s just how he is. Plus Joe’s not a morning person, so maybe you can bring it up again over dinner.”
“I know! I mean, all I said was that we should talk about pear-shaped versus emerald-cut engagement rocks, and that I know some guys in Jersey who have incredible discount diamonds, and he grabbed his fabric swatches and took off! Jumped in his car and was gone in, like, 2.3 seconds. It was only seven-forty-five in the morning!” Sophie wailed.
“He probably, um, went to the diner for breakfast, and then to the fabric showroom to straighten out the curtain fuckup,” I told her, feeling a wave of sympathy for Sophie—as well as for Joe, who gulps anxiety meds anytime the subject of marriage comes up. “Plus he told me last night he’s dying to go over and critique the tent for the Tomato Party. He gets really jealous when the Colketts are doing a
ny high-profile jobs,” I added.
“Ya got a point there.” Sophie sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with a Starbucks napkin she’d dug out of her Versace bag. “He’s real mad that the Colketts got that job, but like I told him, Mrs. Earle paid him out the wazoo to do her kitchen job in Florida, and she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight for the last two weeks.”
“That’s probably why he’s so pissy!” I told Sophie.
“That, and he wasn’t in the mood for lovin’ last night after we saw Gerda,” Sophie said. “And then this morning, he said he never should have left town and left Holly to deal with Eula Morris on her own, because he knows exactly how to handle Eula.” She paused for a second. “He really hates Eula! It’s kinda weird, to be honest.”
“It dates back to the senior prom,” I told her.
“Speaking of Eula,” Bootsie said, “I’m heading out in a minute to trail her movements for the next twelve hours. I’m fairly certain she’s going to have to move Heifer in Tomato Patch if it’s in her house, because Walt will look for it there.”
“I’ll come with ya!” Sophie told her. “I got nothing else to do, and maybe if Joe misses me, he’ll start to appreciate me.”
“One thing’s for sure, Eula has to get her Early Girls to the club by 6 p.m. today to meet the contest deadline,” Bootsie said, getting up and grabbing her tote bag. “Even though her mom probably grew her tomatoes for her.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I told Bootsie, frustrated. “You’re taking credit for your mom’s Early Girls.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged. “I already dropped them off this morning, and I don’t mean to brag, but I did a fantastic job for a first-time exhibitor.”
“You didn’t grow them!”
“Doesn’t Eula drive a Miata?” asked Sophie, squinting out the front window of my shop. “Because there’s a blue Miata pulling out of the ten-minute parking spot in front of the diner right now, and I think she’s behind the wheel.”