Cleo Coyle [Coffeehouse Myste Murder Most Frothy (v4.0) (epub

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.For the rest of the night, I continued to remain entranced by the bewitching seaside setting—and, of course, the ever-flowing French bubbles.What can I say? Back in the city, I could barely afford an occasional lobster tail.Out here, sterling sliver serving trays—one of which my daughter, Joy, was now carrying—overflowed with seemingly endless rounds of seafood canapés and miniature French pastries that resembled works of modern art.David had graciously encouraged all of his servers to eat, drink, and be as merry as his guests, and I most definitely took him up on that offer.While it was true that I was just “the help,” and it was also true, when you got right down to it, that this whole Hamptons thing wasn’t a whole lot different than your average backyard “kegger,” I just couldn’t talk myself out of being impressed.I’d never before been to a July Fourth party in the Hamptons (a New York City social accomplishment so noteworthy you’d think it would come with a military campaign ribbon), and I was secretly thrilled.It’s no wonder that violence and decay were the last things I expected to encounter that night.Certainly, they were the last things on my mind before I found the body.The time of death, I would eventually learn, was around the same time the evening’s fireworks began.But I wouldn’t actually find the corpse until long after the show ended.So, at this point in the evening, I was still relatively carefree.The same could be said of my twenty-one-year-old daughter who had come with me to David’s while on summer break from her Soho culinary school (she came at my insistence for reasons I’ll get to later).Joy was as thrilled as me about being at this party—but for her own particular reasons.“Mom, Mom, did you see Keith Judd?” she bubbled, rushing over with her empty serving tray.Joy had my chestnut hair, green eyes, and heart-shaped face, and her father’s height.No, she wasn’t six feet.But she was four inches taller than my five foot two and had a personality like her father’s, with more effervescence than a magnum of Asti.Tonight she was clad in the same Cuppa J outfit worn by the rest of the waitstaff—a salmon-colored Polo knit with the Cuppa J logo embroidered in thread the color of a mochaccino over the right breast.The men wore khaki pants and the females khaki skirts.At the restaurant we also wore mocha-colored aprons.For tonight, however, since we were catering a private party at David’s home, he asked us to ditch the aprons.“Look, Mom, look.See him over by the pool? He winked at me.He totally, actually winked.At me.”“Uh-huh,” I said as I dosed freshly milled Arabicas into the portafilter cup.I tamped the ground beans in tightly, swept the excess from the rim, used the handle to clamp the portafilter securely into the espresso machine and hit the start button to begin the extraction process.“And why is that a ‘good thing’?” I asked Joy.A number of Famous types—actors, pop stars, writers, television personalities—lived in or near the Village, and I’d served them many a grande latte.But even before my time, the coffeehouse’s revered owner and my ex-mother-in-law, Madame Dreyfus Allegro Dubois, had regularly served some of the most famous members of the Beat generation, from Jack Kerouac to Lenny Bruce, Willem de Koonig to James Dean.So I was far more jaded than my daughter about “celebrity sightings.”“C’mon, Mom.Don’t tell me you don’t know who Keith Judd is.”“Oh, I know who he is, honey.Star of slick spy thrillers, right? He landed a courtroom drama role that got him an Oscar nod this year.Hunk of the moment.”“Hottie, Mom.Hunk is old school.”With a groan, I finished pulling the two espresso shots, dumped the dark liquid into a waiting blender, added crushed ice, milk, chocolate syrup, and a dash of vanilla syrup, then took the whole thing for a spin on high.I poured the “Iced ChocoLattes” (as we called them at the Village Blend) into two glass mugs, mounded the frothy drinks with chocolate whipped cream and chocolate shavings, and waved Graydon Faas over to the outdoor espresso station.Like my daughter, Graydon was a member of David’s Cuppa J waitstaff working tonight’s party.A surf-crazy twentysomething with a brown buzz-cut streaked blond, Graydon was the tall, silent type.With a quick, nervous-looking glance at Joy, he picked up the frothy drinks and walked them over to the two waiting guests who’d ordered them.“Okay,” I told my daughter.“Hottie then.What I want to know is why you think I’d be happy to hear that a man at least as old as my ancient forty years, is winking at my twenty-one-year-old daughter?”Joy rolled her eyes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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