A Soufflé of Suspicion

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  “Who’s Scooter?”

  “Sorry, Mimi. I forgot to close the door to the shed.”

  “Who is Scooter?” I repeated.

  “Scoundrel’s significant other.”

  “He’s a black cat,” I murmured, my heart chugging from the fright.

  “As black as lava and faster than a bullet train.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. I was not superstitious by nature. Fantasies and folk tales didn’t suck me in, but I had to admit, a black cat crossing my path unnerved me. Black cats signified imminent danger, didn’t they?

  Chapter 2

  Needing a moment after the lunch crowd departed to collect myself—I was still thrown by the black cat incident—I tossed on a pink scarf and light jacket and headed to Maison Rousseau to introduce myself to Renee. I wanted to see how she was getting along with the preparations for the festival. As I strode down the path toward the entrance, a crisp breeze swept through. I was glad I’d donned the extra clothing.

  “Hey, Mimi!” Jo met me halfway.

  Jorianne “Jo” James, the little birdie who had told me about Renee, was my best friend and the manager of Maison Rousseau. She was also the brilliant woman who had come up with the idea of introducing me to my benefactor, Bryan Baker. I would be forever grateful to her for that. How I missed him. He would be so proud of our successful venture. Thinking of the way he’d been killed last June continued to jar me. I pushed the horrid memory to the recesses of my mind—dwelling on the negative was never fruitful—and powered on.

  “Love the look.” I drew a finger up and down, indicating her outfit. Jo usually dressed in tailored blue suits, but today she was wearing a peach-toned floral silk combination that showed off her shapely figure. She had even dusted her spiky ebony hair with peach-toned hair color. “Peach suits your coloring.”

  “Tyson said the same.”

  Wow! Dating Tyson Daly was apparently taking Jo out of her blue period, as artists might have called her devotion to the color.

  I grinned. “I bet he likes you in any color.”

  “You might be right.”

  Tyson, Jo, and I had grown up together. For years, he’d had a crush on her. Three months ago, he had finally found the courage to ask her out. I’d never seen her happier.

  “But aren’t you cold?” I asked.

  “Not a bit. I’m moving at warp speed. And the breeze will die down. It always does.”

  Napa Valley’s climate was mild and akin to that in the Mediterranean.

  We hugged and strolled toward the entrance. As we drew near, I gaped. The SWEET TREATS FESTIVAL banner at the entrance to the inn was huge and packed with words, all in capital letters:

  CRAZY ABOUT MUFFINS? PASSIONATE ABOUT PIES? ZEALOUS FOR SOUFFLÉ? THE HUNT IS ON FOR AMATEUR BAKERS TO TAKE PART IN THE FIRST SWEET TREATS FESTIVAL BAKE-OFF. IF YOU DREAM ABOUT PUTTING YOUR SKILLS TO THE TEST, ENTER NOW AND PROVE YOUR METTLE. IF YOU KNOW FRIENDS UP FOR THE CHALLENGE, GIVE THEM A BUTTERY PAT ON THE BACK AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO COMPETE. THE MORE THE MERRIER!

  “Renee sure put effort into the sign.” I giggled. “Will festival attendees take the time to read it?”

  “You did.” Jo squeezed my arm. “If you think that’s an eyeful, wait until you see the rest of the festival. It’s popping with color and energy. The Renoir Retreat is packed with red tents and red balloons.” The Renoir Retreat featured chili-red bougainvillea, a variety of red tea roses, and a beautiful marble fountain. “The Sisley Garden is under way, too. We’ll tackle the Bazille Garden after that.”

  The Renoir Retreat and Sisley Garden lay to the left of the inn; the larger Bazille Garden was situated to the right.

  Jo hooked her arm through mine. “Come this way.”

  “You’re sure in an upbeat mood. What’s going on? It can’t simply be the festival. Are you going on a date with Tyson tonight, hence the pretty dress?”

  “No, we’re not going on a date, and for your information, I decided to give myself a makeover because.” She planted a hand on her hip.

  “Because?” I echoed.

  “Okay, fine, Renee Wells suggested the idea.”

  I balked and cleared my throat. “Ahem. Since when do you let someone else dictate your clothes? You’ve never let me.”

  “There’s a reason for that.” She poked me in the ribs.

  Jo and I were opposites in almost every way. She was dark to my light. She towered above me; I felt petite around her and I was five feet five. She almost always thought with her head, not her heart. She’d graduated UC Berkeley with an MBA; I’d never gone to college. The family couldn’t afford it—every penny went into the vineyard—so I’d skipped off to San Francisco to follow my dream of becoming a chef. But Jo and I did have the same sense of humor, and that was where we bonded. Plus, she loved my cooking. She had been my childhood guinea pig when I’d attempted recipes from every French cookbook I could find.

  As we sauntered through the inn, Jo righted a few of the Monet-style paintings that were askew. Thanks to Bryan, who’d owned a huge art collection and had donated a couple of works to our enterprise, some were the real thing.

  “By the way, the inn is booked up,” Jo said. “The festival plus Crush Week are drawing huge crowds.” She rubbed her fingertips together. “I can’t wait to tell my sister and lord it over her. I dare her to say something derogatory about my career switch. We are going to be rolling in dough.” After their mother had walked out on the family, Jo’s older sister had become Jo’s staunchest supporter—until Jo had given up her profitable CPA job to help me in my venture; she had been on track to becoming partner. Her sister had called her an idiot, and, truthfully, maybe Jo hadn’t made the wisest choice. I was paying her a good salary, but I didn’t have the funds for sizable yearly bonuses yet. But Jo enjoyed a challenge.

  “By the way,” Jo said, “you can tell who the festival employees are. They’re all dressed in the same khaki outfit.”

  She steered me left, past the green-and-pink mosaic fountain in the middle of the inn’s foyer and through the archway into the Sisley Garden. Sunlight flickered through the trees and made the beds of white roses and crushed-quartz gravel pathways glisten. Volunteers had constructed five white tents with white poles. Festive white bells hung from the tassels. The breeze, as Jo had predicted, had died down, but there was enough to make the bells jingle.

  Near a refreshments table that was set with beverages and cookies, a skinny man in a khaki shirt and shorts was filling white balloons with helium. Jazzy instrumental music emanated from gigantic speakers.

  “Hold it! Not so fast. Whoa!” A curvy woman in tight jeans, fashionable red boots, and a tight long-sleeved T-shirt bedazzled with the words SWEET TREATS FESTIVAL darted into the area and motioned to a quartet of festival employees who were trying to erect a display tent. “Hey, you four, stop!”

  The woman flipped her beribboned blonde pigtails over her shoulders and marched toward the problem. One of the four, a freckle-faced female volunteer, was teetering and couldn’t manage her tent pole.

  I said to Jo, “The woman in the red boots is Renee, I assume?”

  “Yep.”

  “Stop! Do not move!” Renee looked nothing like Camille, and she didn’t have a French accent like hers, either, but she had the same commanding voice. She scuttled to the crewwoman and helped insert the pole into the cement base. “Whew. That was close.” She circled the tent and made sure all the anchors were tight. “Okay, let’s put up the next one, everybody.”

  Across the way, our gardener, Raymond Cruz—who had also grown up with Tyson, Jo, and me—was working alongside Nash Hawke, the former wine representative who had, as of July, taken on the responsibility of running my mother’s vineyard. Raymond and Nash were quite a handsome pair with their dark hair and muscular physiques. Nash was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. Raymond was dressed like the festival employees. In addition to his normal job, he would head up the physical labor for the festival. He and Nash were pounding tent pegs
into the ground.

  Nash caught sight of me and waved. My heart did a little skip. I offered an inconspicuous wave. I refused to let him know how much I liked him. Not yet. We went on a date every few weeks, but I was wary of his, um, appeal to the opposite sex. Truth? There wasn’t a woman who didn’t flirt with him. Granted, when he was with me, he gave me his undivided attention, so I had scrubbed the notion that he was a playboy from my mind—a devious rumor his ex-wife had fostered—but I was still reluctant to open my heart. What if I wasn’t enough for him? What if another woman knocked his socks off? Perhaps my deceased husband’s duplicity about our finances was the reason I questioned a man’s undying love. I mean, c’mon, Derrick had lied to me for years about how flush he was. How could he do that if he’d cherished me?

  Nash beckoned me. I mouthed, Business. He nodded that he understood.

  I headed to Renee, hand extended. “Renee, hello! I’m Mimi Rousseau.”

  A big grin spread across her face. “I’m so embarrassed.” She pumped my hand. “I should’ve stopped by yesterday and introduced myself, but I was too eager to get started. Jorianne has been amazing.”

  “Pshaw,” Jo said, though she was drinking in the compliment.

  I gestured to the tents. “It looks like you’ve got this whole thing under control, Renee.”

  “I’m doing my best. Wait until you see the crowds.” She rubbed her hands together with glee. “We’ve sold all of the week’s presale tickets. That was the number needed to cover initial expenses. More people will purchase at the gate. Ooh, think of the press you’ll get for the inn and your restaurant.”

  I smiled. “Reservations at both places are spiking. It’s a win-win.”

  Renee beckoned us to join her as she made the rounds. Jo begged off. She had to help out at the reception desk. A large party was checking in. I kept pace with Renee.

  “We’re a tad behind,” she said. “It’s my fault. I was out all morning. I couldn’t oversee everything. We have a number of tents left to put up.”

  It did my heart proud that Nash had finished the chore he and Raymond had been doing and had already started in on another. He was that way about life, jumping in with both feet. Was I wrong to keep him at bay? Would he run the opposite direction if I said we needed to talk?

  “Mimi?” Renee said. “Are you with me?”

  I blushed. “I sure am.”

  “Speaking of tents…” She stopped and faced me. “A man goes to the shrink complaining of an identity crisis. ‘You have to help me,’ he says. ‘Sometimes I’m a yurt. Other times I’m a tepee. A yurt. A tepee. A yurt.’” She gestured with her hands, weighing her options. “The guy goes on. ‘It’s too much, doc. Help me.’ The doctor says, ‘Calm down. You’re two tents.’” Renee paused. “Get it? Too tense.” She roared and slapped her thigh. “I told that to Donovan Coleman. That’s who I was with this morning. Do you know him?”

  “I do.”

  “He didn’t get it.” Renee tittered. “How could he not get it? It’s a camping joke, for heaven’s sake.”

  “Camping joke?” I racked my brain and a light dawned. “Got it. His name is Coleman. Like a lantern. Cute.” I chuckled. “I heard you two went to The Bookery.”

  “We did, indeed. What a terrific place. Your inn is much prettier, but it was so festive. They were having a ten-year anniversary celebration with confetti and balloons, and it was such a treat.” She spoke to me out of the side of her mouth. “While we were there, I pitched them a festival and Donovan learned all sorts of baking tips. He is so talented.”

  “Camille told me he wants to open his own bakery.”

  “He does. He—” Clucking her tongue in a dismissive way, she approached a display table set with mason jars filled with goodies for do-it-yourself cookies. “Some people don’t have an eye for display, you know?” She rearranged the taller jars behind the shorter jars and pressed on. “Where was I? Right.” She snapped her fingers. “Donovan has a great head for business. He’d like to start his own line of cookies, like Famous Amos. He’s calling them Donovan’s Delights. Catchy, don’t you think? He’s rented a tent and is going to sell them over there.”

  She pointed to the spot next to the COLORFUL COOKIES tent. DONOVAN’S DELIGHTS was written in pink script on a white banner. A table was set with pink bakery boxes.

  I scanned the crowd for Donovan, who because of his height would have stood out, but he was nowhere in sight. “He’s not here?”

  “Not yet. He’s teaching a cooking class. Today, his cookies are free for the volunteers. Hey”—Renee tapped my arm—“while we were out, I learned that, in addition to cookies, Donovan loves soufflé. Camille makes a killer chocolate one. She’s going to teach me how.”

  “Wonderful. So will The Bookery host your next festival?” I asked.

  “Yep! I landed it. We’re calling it the Read for Life Festival.” She grabbed a handful of Sweet Treats Festival flyers off a table and directed me to follow her. “And thanks to a very influential friend, I’ve got two more booked—a folk music festival and a wine-and-chocolate festival.”

  “An influential friend as in the councilman’s wife?” I asked. Nouvelle Vie, though unincorporated, had a town council that was quite active on the town’s behalf.

  Renee glanced at me. “How did you know?”

  “Word gets around.” I’d overheard a couple of customers talking at the bistro. The restaurant wasn’t huge. Gossip was hard to miss. Plus, people liked to chat about the councilman’s wife. If people would describe Renee as colorful, then they might describe Felicity Price as garish.

  “She’s been so helpful,” Renee said. “So informative. I’ve gotten a real education from her. With her help, I plan to produce nine more festivals over the next few months.” She flashed nine fingers. “All of them will donate ten percent of their proceeds to educational causes throughout Napa Valley. Isn’t that great?”

  When I’d learned that a portion of the festival’s sales would be donated to bringing local schools new tables and chairs and trailer-style classrooms, I’d cheered. The fundraising aspect of the festival was one of the reasons it was drawing such enormous crowds. People could donate more if they chose.

  “If everything goes as expected,” Renee continued, “I’ll be riding high in less than a year. Crossing my fingers.”

  “Is your husband embracing your new venture yet?” I asked.

  Renee scrunched her nose. “He doesn’t have a say in it. He and his chicken feathers can go to—”

  “Renee Wells!” a woman bellowed. Storming toward us was a doughy-faced, tawny-haired woman in her thirties. She was stuffed into a tight white blouse and frothy pink skirt that made her hips look rather large. Her short hair framed her face like a lion’s mane. “We need to chat.”

  “Not now, Allie,” Renee said. “I’m too busy.”

  “Now!” Allie demanded. She flailed an envelope. “What is this?”

  “Mail,” Renee quipped.

  “Don’t make fun. You lied.”

  “Go back to being a short-order cook, Miss O’Malley,” Renee said with saccharine sweetness. “I hear you’re great at it.”

  Allie sneered. “I sold this festival to you with the agreement that I would earn a percentage. You call this a contract?”

  “No, I said it was mail.”

  Allie stared daggers at Renee; Renee didn’t flinch. Her ski jump–style nose scrunched up and her eyes sparkled, as if she found Allie entertaining.

  “This is not a contract. It’s a single page of nonsense,” Allie sputtered. “You’re thumbing your nose at me.”

  “I told you to have an attorney look it over. You opted not to.”

  “How could you?” Allie’s voice skated up an octave. “I trusted you.”

  Renee frowned, then yelled to the volunteers, “Everyone, take five! Grab something to drink and snack on a Donovan’s Delights cookie! Mimi, don’t move. I’ll be back.” She dumped the festival flyers on a nearby table and cla
sped Allie’s hand. “Let’s go.” She ushered her toward the rear of the garden.

  Allie continued her rant at full volume. “You also promised that I could buy the business back at any time. Well, I want to do so now.”

  “I’m sorry, but I never promised that.” Renee matched Allie’s tone.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Where is it written, and where would you get the funds? Did you rob a bank or kill your father to get your inheritance?”

  Allie stomped a foot. Renee guided her to a wrought-iron bench and forced her to sit. Renee said something I couldn’t make out and didn’t care to. This was a private matter. Allie covered her face with her hands.

  I strolled to the refreshments table, where Nash was pouring tea into a plastic cup filled with ice. Raymond and two volunteers stood at the end of the table. Raymond was telling them about the next master gardener chat he would be giving at a local nursery. He was the most talented gardener in the valley, and I was lucky to have snagged him.

  “Hey.” Nash sidled up to me and ran a finger down my arm. I shivered with pleasure. Knowing the effect he was having, he grinned and said, “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “I do own the place.”

  “Huh.” He cocked his head, a twinkle in his eye. “I heard the owner was a real bear.”

  “Goldilocks, at your service.” I roared in the cutest way I knew how.

  “I also heard she’s a pretty good cook.”

  “She might know a thing or two.”

  “Enough to toss together a meal for a beleaguered soul like me on her next day off?”

  “I think she could swing it. How about jambon-beurre?”

  “Sounds exotic. What is it?”

  “A ham sandwich with the best ham and the creamiest butter on the freshest baguette I can find.”

  “Perfect. I’ll take you wine tasting. Afterward, we’ll go to your place for a ham sandwich”—he added in a whisper—“and I can kiss you properly. I know you don’t like public displays of affection.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like PDAs; I just wasn’t ready. But then he winked, and something inside me went snap, and I felt like having a major public display of affection—right here, right now.