“Why am I not surprised,” Ethan muttered. “I don’t understand why you get off making people think you’re a ditz when you really aren’t, Fifi.”
“Nath,” Diana said, and looked up at him. “Isn’t that Iva’s significant other’s last name?” She sighed, and reached up to brush the smudge from his nose.
“Iva?” Fiona asked, turning away from the shop. There wasn’t anything else to see for now. She’d have to wait to have her curiosity appeased. And her anxiety lessened.
What if the shop was nothing more than a big money pit?
Meow.
The guttural cry had her turning as an ink-black cat with a copper splotch over its left eye emerged from the narrow alley next to the shop.
“Well, aren’tyougorgeous.” She knelt in a pool of long flowy skirts and held out her hand for the cat. “All dark and black and mysterious with a pretty pirate eye-patch.”
The feline eyed her emotionlessly, her copper-brown eyes cool and remote. Then she gave that low, deep meow again.
“She—or he—doesn’t have a tag on his collar,” Fiona commented, still holding out her hand in a friendly gesture. “But she’s obviously a pet.”
“She is a beautiful one,” Diana agreed, crouching next to her. “Very striking. Come here, kitty.”
The cat was even less interested now that two of them were crooning at her. She lifted her nose as if they were four levels beneath her, then gave one last growly meow before turning away. With her tail in the air, she walked off with clear disdain for the fawning humans—and confirmed that her gender was in fact female.
“Do you want to look around the back, Fi?” Ethan asked. “Maybe there are more windows there, or on the alley side wall.”
Of course Fiona wanted to, so they followed the cat down the narrow space between the two buildings. Behind the shop was a slightly wider alley—maybe large enough for a vehicle, if it was careful—and a broken light over the back door. However, there were no windows in the back or along the side, and though Fiona tugged at the door, it was locked tightly.
“I guess I’ll have to wait to see more,” she said in disappointment. “H. Gideon said he thought probate could settle within four to six weeks, which would put me here in late October. Oh, well. I’m getting hungry.”
“Let’s go to Orbra’s,” Ethan suggested with a grin at Diana as he slipped an arm around her waist. “Now that you’ve come to terms with an occasional cup of tea.”
Diana sighed, but her dismay was exaggerated. “Nothing replaces coffee in my book, but at least it’s Saturday and I don’t need the fuel—so tea is acceptable.” She glanced at Fiona, a smile playing about her lips. “The first time I went to Orbra’s, I made the mistake of ordering coffee. I thought they were going to kick me out of the place.”
Since Fiona had driven, Diana and Ethan climbed in the back of her bug. Her brother showed her a “secret” parking lot in the back of the block near Trib’s, and soon they were strolling along Faith Avenue toward Orbra’s Tea House.
“Oh, great,” Diana said under her breath as they walked in, but just as quickly she smiled with genuine, if exasperated, fondness. “Maxine! And Juanita!”
They’d barely stepped over the threshold when Maxine Took was already giving orders from her customary seat at the biggest round table, right at the front window.
“Ethan and Diana—well, it’s been long enough since you been up here, hasn’t it? Now that the two o’ you are heating up the sheets don’t mean you can’t drive up here and visit us old ladies! Sit yourself down—and that’s your sister, ain’t it?” Maxine possessed a head of thick, iron-colored hair in a non-descript style that might or might not be a wig. She had dark skin and large hands with knobby knuckles, and peered through bottle-thick glasses as she gestured violently with her cane. “What’s your name again, girl? Look just like a fortune-teller, you do, with that hair and your headband, and those long skirts—you better take care not to trip on them. Break a knee or a wrist, you know. You can read my palm again today—tell me if something’s changed. Sit right here.”
Fiona, as everyone tended to do when faced with the imperious Maxine Took and her cane, obeyed.
Diana, who’d flushed a little pink when Maxine mentioned heating up the sheets, took a chair next to Juanita Acerita. “Who’s winning?” she asked, gesturing to the Scrabble board on the table.
“I am,” Juanita replied.
“That’s because she’s cheating,” Maxine grumbled, somehow hearing their conversation even as she was ordering Fiona around. “I saw you swap those letters when you thought I wasn’t looking.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Juanita replied with such heat that Fiona thought maybe Maxine had a point. “You just can’t stand it that I got a Q-word without a U that you didn’t know. She had to look it up because she didn’t believe me,” she added, looking at Diana. “Sheqalim.”
“What the hell is asheqalimanyway?” Maxine demanded.
“You looked it up—didn’t you read the definition?” Juanita replied archly. “It’s obviously the plural ofsheqel.” She was holding a large leather totebag on her lap, and from inside, her seven-pound papillon Bruce Banner was looking around with bright, interested eyes.
“Orbra,please, I beg of you, bring us some tea and food,” Ethan said as the proprietress approached, putting a temporary end to the Scrabble squabbling.
“Make room—Cherry’s on her way over on break from the studio,” said Orbra van Hest. At seventy, she was a large-boned powerhouse of a woman, standing six feet tall and sturdy as an oak, with pure white hair Fiona suspected she had washed and set at least twice weekly. “Do you want the whole tea set-up, with sandwiches and scones and all that, or just a sampler, dearie?” She was speaking to Ethan.
“I want it all. Bring us the whole thing—extra egg salad and cucumber sandwiches, though, because Fiona’s vegetarian.”
