by Клео Коул
I surmised from the logo at the top of the page that BBG stood for Brooklyn Botanic Garden and this Curator’s Corner page was just one part of the larger BBG Web site.
I scrolled down the page. It featured essays about the Garden’s staff of managers, referred to as “curators” as part of the overriding metaphor of the Botanic Garden as a living museum. Smiling pictures of men and women were tucked in beside each essay, their CVs listing impressive credentials in horticulture, landscape design, and gardening seminars attended abroad. Then halfway down the list, I stopped dead...
“Ellie Lassiter,” I murmured. “Gotcha.”
The years were there in the photo—crow’s feet and some added weight to her pale, oval face. I knew she would probably make the same judgment about me. Still, I could see the striking woman I remembered. Her glorious, hip-length strawberry blond hair was cut more practically now, into a short layered style. Her big hazel-green eyes weren’t quite as big or bright anymore, and some of those adorable freckles had faded.
The sun seemed to be in her eyes, and she’d failed to smile. She looked severe and serious and a little bit sad, not the Ellie Shaw I remembered at all. The Ellie I’d known had laughed easily, smiled constantly, and loved fresh flowers, long velvet skirts, all things medieval, and my coffee. She’d lived in the Village back then and used to stop by the Blend every morning and evening for her fix, usually with a dog-eared paperback fantasy novel and an armload of college course work.
We’d continued our friendship after she’d finished her studies. But once she moved to Brooklyn, her visits to the Blend were less frequent. Then I moved to New Jersey, and our contact was reduced to a note written in a yearly Christmas card.
I remembered receiving an invitation to her wedding. She was marrying a corporate executive named Jerry Lassiter, at least fifteen years her senior. But I couldn’t attend the ceremony for some reason, probably one of my part-time jobs. I’d sent her a gift, received a nice thank you note, and that was about the last time we’d communicated.
Now I clicked around the Botanic Garden Web site, looking for a contact phone number. When I called the administration offices, a woman connected me to another line. A young man assured me that Ellie was in today but was working on a special exhibit in the conservatory. Would I care to leave a message or call back later?
“Leave a message,” I said, making an instant decision. “Please let Mrs. Lassiter know that Clare Cosi will be dropping in to say hello.”
In less than ten minutes, I’d exchanged my T-shirt for a more presentable pale yellow V-neck sweater, had put a belt through the loops of my khaki pants, and was standing downstairs with my jacket on, my handbag slung over my shoulders, and my car keys dangling between two fingers.
The lunch rush hadn’t begun yet. Only nine or ten customers occupied the tables and two were waiting at the coffee bar, so I approached Dante. He said he’d be happy to continue working, and I told Tucker to hold the java fort through lunch. Then I hiked to a garage near the river where I kept my old Honda (and the annual cost for my parking space was more than the car’s blue book value).
I started her up (and she actually did start up, thank goodness). Then I exited the garage, heading east. After a few blocks snaking through the narrow Village side streets, I heard my name being called.
“Clare! Clare!”
It was Matt’s mother.
Ten
Madame Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois had spotted me sitting at an intersection, waiting for a red light to go green. She strode up to the car and knocked on the passenger side window. I powered down the glass.
“Clare! I was just coming to speak with you,” she said, somewhat breathlessly.
The Blend’s elderly owner looked as elegant as ever in tweedy brown slacks and a burgundy wrap coat. Her hair, which had been dark brown in her youth, was rinsed a lovely silver, and she wore it down today in a simple pageboy.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“The Botanic Garden.”
She stared at me blankly, the clear blue eyes in her gently creased face appearing to be digesting this incomprehensible destination.
“The one in the Bronx?” she asked.
“Brooklyn.”
She glanced up at the cerulean October sky, then down at the stately old elms lining the cobblestone block. The sun was brilliant, the day warm, and the recent cold nights had begun painting the trees their distinctive golden yellow against black branches.
“You know,” she said contemplatively, “it is a lovely day. And I’ve never been to the Brooklyn Garden. All right, I’m game.”
“You’re game?” I repeated in confusion.
She didn’t explain. She simply climbed into the front seat beside me and slammed the door.
“Madame, I don’t think—”
Beep! Beep!
A line of cars had stacked up behind me.
Madame pointed through the windshield. “The light’s changed, dear.”
Beeeeeep!
As my former mother-in-law strapped in, I gave the car juice and turned the corner. “Are you sure you want to go with me? I’m planning to meet up with an old friend...”
“I’ll stay out of your way once we get there. Who are you meeting?”
“Ellie Shaw.”
Madame tapped her chin in thought. “Ellie Shaw... Ellie Shaw... refresh my memory?”
“She was a loyal customer when I first managed the Blend for you. She was also madly in love with Federico Gostwick.”
“Of course! I remember her. She was in the Blend day and night back then, and always so bubbly and happy. If memory serves, she had a gorgeous head of long, strawberry-blonde hair—”
“She’s cut it. And she’s married. She’s Ellie Lassiter now.”
“You and Matt went out with those two, didn’t you? A lot of double dates with Ric and Ellie?”
“That’s right.”
“Federico must be one of Matt’s oldest friends.”
I nodded and considered blurting out what I’d just learned from Ric, but I knew the smuggled cutting alone wouldn’t have overly concerned Madame. She was an honest businesswoman, but she was a canny one, too. During her decades of running our Manhattan business, she’d dealt with corrupt inspectors, mobbed-up garbage haulers, and underhanded rivals. The letter of the law was one thing, survival was another, and the woman wasn’t going to blanch at a few sidesteps of regulations in sending a little ol’ coffee tree cutting from one country to another. At the most, she’d be amused, and probably quote me the long history of coffee plant smuggling that I already knew.
Ric’s mugging, his stolen keycard, and the possibility of attempted murder, however, were something else. But I still held my tongue. Ellie Shaw wasn’t the only one who knew more than me about Federico Gostwick. Madame had known him for years, too, and I wanted her unbiased opinion.
“When you say Ric is one of Matt’s oldest friends, you mean childhood, don’t you?” I asked. “Years ago, Matt mentioned to me that he and Ric used to play together?”
“Oh, yes. Matt’s father was good friends with Ric’s father, and he often took Matt with him on trips to the Gostwick plantation on Costa Gravas. I went with them many times.”
“What did you think of Ric’s birthplace?”
Madame smiled. “Paradise.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. You know, Matt’s father was a true romantic. On our trips to Costa Gravas, he’d always arrange for Matt to stay with the Gostwicks for a day or two so he and I could share some time alone on the island.” Leaning back against the car seat, she closed her eyes. “I can still see Antonio on that beach in his swim trunks, all that white sugar sand, the clear aquamarine bay stretching out behind him...” She sighed again. “Matt’s father was such a handsome, passionate man... even after all these years, after marrying and losing Pierre, I still miss him.”
“Of course you do.”
“Sometimes my years with Antonio f
eel like a dream... but then I see my son, and I know they weren’t.” Madame opened her eyes. “Matt’s the evidence, you see, Clare? The evidence of those years of love.”
I shifted uncomfortably behind the steering wheel and cracked my window. Not only was the bright sun overheating the car, Madame’s voice seemed irritatingly vested with meaning for me, but I wasn’t catching what she was throwing, so I cleared my throat and politely posed my next question.
“I’m not really that familiar with Costa Gravas... if there were beaches on the island, then how flat was the land? Where did Ric’s family grow coffee?”
“In the mountains, of course,” she said. “The island had a range like Jamaica’s, between four- and five-thousand feet—a splendid altitude for cultivating arabica...”
Madame was right, of course. Arabica coffee plants grew best at elevations between three and six thousand feet. “High-grown, high quality” was how some put it in the trade.
She closed her eyes again. “What a paradise that island was...”
By now, we were driving east on Houston (pronounced “How-stun” on pain of being corrected by snippy carpet-baggers eager to prove their New York savvy). And I’d changed my resistant attitude about Madame coming with me to Brooklyn. She was clearly going to be a help as far as info on Ric.
“About the Gostwick family,” I said, “I was wondering if you could tell me something...”
Madame opened her eyes again. “What would you like to know?”
“If life on Costa Gravas was so wonderful, then why did Ric’s family relocate to Brazil?”
Madame stared at me as if I’d just suggested we replace our thirty-five dollar-a-pound, single-origin Jamaica Blue Mountain with Folgers instant crystals.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Matt didn’t share that with you?”
“Matt and I were divorced then. The last thing I remember about Ric was his over-staying his education visa for Ellie, then returning to Costa Gravas anyway—and without proposing, which I also remember had absolutely devastated her.”
Madame nodded. “Then you never heard the story.”
“What story?”
“Ric’s family didn’t move out of Costa Gravas voluntarily. The government turned into a socialist dictatorship practically overnight, and all private farms and companies were seized.”
“You mean like Cuba, in Godfather II?”
“I mean like Cuba in reality, dear. Federico’s father had been an outspoken opponent of Victor Hernandez, who had close ties to Castro. The man’s military swept over Costa Gravas. So the family fled to Brazil. It’s a good thing too. Hernandez could have imprisoned Ric’s father... or worse.”
Now I felt like a geopolitical idiot.
I could only say, in defense of my ignorance, that I was overwhelmed those years with concerns closer to home (e.g. raising my daughter, keeping food on the table, paying New Jersey Power and Lighting somewhere close to on time). Regardless of Costa Gravas’ political history, however, I knew one thing—quality coffee no longer came off that little island.
Farming coffee was an art as exacting as any. Years ago, the trade journals had downgraded the quality of Costa Gravas cherries as well as their crop yields. I’d never researched why. I’d simply focused on other regions and coffee crops.
“Why exactly did Ric’s family end up in Brazil?”
“A relative down there had some lands, and he gave them a section of it to farm.”
“So that’s why...” I murmured, turning south onto Broadway.
“What?” Madame asked. “That’s why what?”
“That’s why Ric buckled down... I mean, his botanical breakthrough came after his family lost their farm on Costa Gravas.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just couldn’t reconcile a man who’d painstakingly create a new hybrid plant with the sort of carefree playboy Ric had been during his college years. You know that Brazilian term Matt uses?”
“A carioca?”
“That’s the one.”
Madame sighed. “Alas, my son’s favorite foreign word.” “We’re talking about Ric.”
“Not just.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I want to talk to you about Matt. That’s why I was coming to see you.”
“Okay...” I said, curious at the suddenly hushed tone. “What did you want to talk about?”
“That woman.”
“Excuse me?”
Thinking my ex-mother-in-law was speaking about a pedestrian, I glanced out the window. To our left was Little Italy, although lately it was hard to tell. Swanky Soho (to our right) had jumped the avenue, bringing its chic boutiques and trendy watering holes into the neighborhood of old school Italian restaurants and mirror-walled patisseries.
“Which woman?”
Madame saw me searching the crowded sidewalk and shook her head. “No, dear, not out there...”
“Where?”
“Right under your nose, that’s where!”
“Right under my... ?”
“Breanne Summour.”
By this time, my reaction to the woman was an autonomic response. At the sound of her name, my grip on the steering wheel tightened.
“What about her?” I asked levelly.
“I know Matt’s been networking with her.”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Madame sniffed. “That’s the word he used.”
“Networking?”
“Yes,” said Madame. “I’ve seen their photos together in the tony magazines—you know, those charity party mug shots? I’ve met her a few times, too, and Matt continually tells me it’s a casual thing, a collegial relationship.”
“He’s sleeping with her.”
“Well, yes, of course.”
I sighed. “You know your son better than anyone.”
“What I know, Clare, is that Matt doesn’t love this woman. Not even remotely.”
I shrugged uneasily. “The caricoa strikes again. He’s made it perfectly clear he doesn’t need to love a woman to sleep with her.”
“If all he was doing, or intended to do, was sleep with her, I wouldn’t be so worried.”
“Worried?” My ears pricked up. Had Madame heard something suspicious about the woman, something that might be linked to what was happening with Ric? “What worries you?”
“I think Matt may be getting serious about her.”
“Oh, is that all...”
I tried not to laugh. Matt and serious—when it came to women, anyway—just didn’t go together in the same sentence. To prove it, I considered telling her about the pass he’d just made at me the night before, but I held my tongue. Madame still entertained the ludicrous idea that I might one day remarry Matt. Why give her hope?
“I saw them together yesterday,” Madame continued in a grave tone.
“Uh-huh.”
“They were at Tiffany, Clare. They were looking at rings.”
“Rings?” I repeated. My brain seized up for a second, but then I thought it through. “Breanne’s quite the fashionista. She was probably just shopping for a new bauble—”
“They were diamond engagement rings. I kid you not.” Good lord. I managed to keep my foot from jamming on the brakes, but only barely. “Did you ask Matt about it?”
“No. I was with a friend and we were on our way out. But I tell you Matt and Breanne were very close together, very intimate.”
“He is sleeping with her, Madame. I wouldn’t think standing cheek to cheek in a jewelry store would be an issue.”
“I want you to find out what’s going on.”
“Why?”
“I told you. My son doesn’t love this woman. I can’t have him marrying her.”
“He married me.”
“You’re the only woman Matteo’s ever loved, Clare. Don’t you know that?”
“Frankly, no. His behavior during our marriage was unforgivable—the w
omen, the drugs—”
“I can’t defend him, and you know I’ve never tried. But that was a long time ago. He’s been off the drugs for years now, he’s working very hard, has wonderful ambitions for our business, and—”
“Please stop. We’ve hiked this hill already.”
“But he still loves you. I know it. If he marries Breanne, there’ll be no chance for you two to reconcile.”
“We’re not going to reconcile! I’ve told you before, we’re business partners now, but that’s all.”
“True love shouldn’t be ignored, Clare.”
I took a deep breath. As gently as I could, I said, “Madame, listen to me. I love you. And I know how much you loved Matt’s father. But Matt isn’t his father. And I’m not you.”
Madame fell silent after that. She leaned back in her seat and gazed out at the slow-moving traffic.
I could see by the crawling blocks that we were inching up on Joy’s culinary school. I began to scan the sidewalks, a little desperate to score a glimpse of my daughter’s bouncy ponytail. But then I remembered she was uptown these days, interning at Solange under that hot young chef, Tommy Keitel.
Given Madame’s news about Matt, a feeling of empty-nest heartache stung me especially hard. I swatted it away. You have a bigger problem to think about, I reminded myself. So think about that...
Ellie Lassiter was my only lead on the mysteries surroundingFederico Gostwick and his magic beans. Once more, I considered discussing everything with Madame— the smuggled cutting, the mugging, the stolen keycard, the possibility of attempted murder. But when I glanced over at her again, the look in her eyes told me she was no longer in the present.
I wondered what she was seeing now; probably an image of her late husband, some memory from years ago, like my marriage to Matt, something long past.
I’ll tell her about everything later, I decided, after I speak with Ellie. Then I juiced the car, swerved around two lumbering supply trucks, and moved with greater speed toward the Brooklyn Bridge.