The Tea Shop on Lavender Lane. Sheila Roberts

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      “I can’t even leave my apartment. There are reporters hiding in the bushes.”

      “They won’t hide there forever. And I can guarantee they won’t follow you here,” Cecily said. At least she hoped they wouldn’t. “The story will die down as soon as the next manufactured scandal hits. Which, I predict, will be sometime within the next seventy-two hours.”

      “I asked her if she had any allergies,” Bailey said. “I have all kinds of menus to choose from, and she chose that one.”

      “Don’t worry. This will all work out,” Cecily promised.

      It was as if Bailey hadn’t heard. “I’m ruined,” she said again.

      “Only temporarily.”

      “Well, how long is temporary?” Bailey cried.

      That was something for which Cecily had no answer.

      * * *

      Ruined, Bailey thought miserably as she ended the call with her sister. She’d gone to the hospital to see Samba, thinking maybe they could talk, that she could explain why her food couldn’t possibly have made the actress sick. She’d even brought flowers. She’d encountered a hired guard at the door of Samba’s private room, and all he’d allowed in had been the flowers, along with the get-well card on which Bailey had written, I hope you feel better soon. But now she hoped Samba contracted terminal acne.

      Well, okay, not really. She liked to think she was better than that.

      Samba was out of the hospital the next day, shopping on Rodeo Drive, pretending to look annoyed when photographers took her picture. Of course, she’d given a quote to any paper that was interested. “I really don’t know what happened.”

      Bailey knew what had happened. She’d been duped.

      “All I want is to put this behind me,” Samba said, posing like a tragic heroine.

      Sure, now that she’d milked all the free publicity she could out of ruining Bailey. Rumor had it that Samba had been offered a part in a pilot for a new TV series, some sort of female detective show. (That was rich. Samba Barrett, who had just faked her own food poisoning, solving crimes.)

      Meanwhile, Bailey couldn’t even get a job catering to street people. She’d been dubbed “the party poisoner,” and not only had she lost business, but she was also the butt of everyone’s jokes. One late-night TV host had cracked that he’d planned to hire a caterer for his birthday party but changed his mind since he wanted to live to see his next birthday. Ha-ha.

      She’d finally given a quote to the Star Reporter, a diplomatic but strongly worded quote, insisting, “I don’t know what happened to Samba, but I know it wasn’t my food that made her sick. No one else at that party got ill.”

      The paper had run with it, and the next headline proclaimed, Caterer Claims Samba Barrett Faked Food Poisoning. Great. That was almost as good for business as the original incident.

      This will all work out, she told herself. Just like Cecily had said. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. Or eat chocolate. Except her chocolate stash was gone. Okay, she needed a drink.

      She went to her fridge to pull out a Coke. None left. The refrigerator was a giant, near-empty cave, containing a bag with a few spinach leaves, half a tomato, some canned olives and pickles and a dab of Gruyère. At some point she was going to have to go out and get groceries.

      Not today, though—at least, not in broad daylight. She’d have to wait until nightfall.

      Around ten-thirty, she deemed it safe to leave her apartment. No one jumped up out of the bushes as she dashed to her car, and she convinced herself that she was being paranoid.

      She drove to the supermarket; once inside, she hurried through the store, picking up produce, milk and juice. No photographer dogged her, and she let out her breath.

      But when Bailey went to pay, the checker kept studying her, all the while trying to appear as if she wasn’t. She could almost hear the checker thinking, Why does this woman look so familiar?

      The customer behind her had a copy of the Star Reporter and was eyeballing her, too.

      Now another shopper joined them, and he, also, began staring inquisitively.

      It was all Bailey could do not to pull out her hair and shriek. Instead, she paid for her groceries and said, “I didn’t poison Samba Barrett. She just got sick. Okay?” She didn’t stick around to find out whether it was okay or not. She grabbed her bag and left.

      As the doors swooshed open, she heard one of the gawkers say, “Do you think she did?”

      She rushed to her car, tripped in the process and dropped her grocery bag. A head of cabbage went rolling, and she dived to rescue it. As she plopped it back in the bag, she looked over her shoulder to check whether anyone had seen her clumsy moment.

      That was when she spotted the man with the camera lurking on the other side of the parking lot. Great. She could see the headlines now. Crazy Caterer Cracks Up at Supermarket.

      It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything to anybody. And these buzzards knew it. Frustration and anger finally took over, and she did something she’d never done in her life. She lifted her hand and saluted the rat across the lot with one finger, and it wasn’t her index finger. There. That said it all.

      That would probably say it all in the next issue of the Star Reporter, too.

      But it didn’t make her feel any better. With a sob, she put her groceries in the car and drove away. How long was this going to go on? How long were people going to look at her as if she were some kind of sicko?

      How long was her money going to last?

       Chapter Two

      Not for the first time, Cecily asked herself what she was doing as she walked into the murky interior of The Man Cave on a lovely spring Friday evening. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. She knew what she was doing here. She’d been moving in this direction ever since she’d hit town and encountered Todd Black. It had been only a matter of time until she gave in and agreed to do more than trade insults with him.

      It was eight o’clock, and the place was full, mostly with men. The mechanic from Swede’s gas station was playing pool with Billy Williams and one of Billy’s cowboy pals, Jinx Woeburn, as well as a skinny woman with long, stringy hair wearing Daisy Duke shorts, cowgirl boots and a tight tank top. A couple of bikers and their babes stood in a corner, playing darts and drinking beer. The rest of The Man Cave’s patrons were lined up along the bar, draped over drinks, watching a baseball game on the TV that hung over the array of booze bottles. They ranged in age from men in their twenties to grizzled old guys looking to get out of the house for a while. The vibe here sure was different from the bar at Zelda’s. That place buzzed with success and hospitality. The Man Cave was more of an “Aw, what the hell” kind of retreat.

      The clack of pool balls acted as a rhythm section for Trace Adkins’s “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” which was blasting from speakers in all four corners of the tavern, and that competed with the noise of the baseball game playing on the TV. The СКАЧАТЬ