Pier 16 at Forty-ninth Street, 8:00 P.M.
The dates on the card—tonight and tomorrow night, as Matt had said—placed Tad’s seminars right in the middle of Fashion Week, one of the busiest and most stressful weeks of the year for Lottie.
“Don’t you find the timing odd?” I asked.
Matt gave me one of those looks that I translated to mean, “Uh,
“Look,” I pleaded. “I’m a bit suspicious of Tad. And Rena, too. Even if you don’t believe me, we owe it to Tucker to try to find the real culprit—you know we can’t rely on those Starkey and Hut characters to do that. And besides, you said it yourself, this morning. Tucker Burton works for this business. He’s like family, Matt.”
Despite my ex’s flaws—which had more permutations than the coffee drinks on our menu—Matt did have a conscience, and he hated when I appealed to his better angels, mostly because he usually relented. His expression appeared pained. He sighed and looked down.
“Clare, you’ve got to understand how important it is to me to get this kiosk idea off the ground. I…I’m… getting older…”
“I can’t be trekking around the world looking for coffee forever…I’ve been planning this for a year now…and no matter what you suspect him of, Tad is helping me approach investors this week. I did what I could to help Tucker. Now it’s up to his lawyer, Clare. Not me…and not you.”
I let Matt see the hurt and disappointment on my face.
“Oh, all right,” he said at last. “You can come with me if you want to. Snoop around, find out all you can. Just don’t mess up my presentation, okay? Or my relationship with Tad.”
“But if I start snooping around Tad’s investment seminar, asking all kinds of questions, then Tad’s bound to get suspicious—especially if he really is guilty of something.” I shook my head. “No, I can’t do this myself. What I need is a potential investor. A complete stranger who won’t arouse any suspicion….”
Matteo snorted. “Maybe you should wear a disguise then. Sounds like the perfect Nancy Drew move.”
“Maybe I will. But even then, I won’t go alone. I’m going to bring the perfect candidate along with me. Someone who obviously looks like she’s made of money—old money—and is itching to throw it into risky ventures, win or lose. The last sort of individual Tad Benedict would suspect…”
Matteo sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. Now it was his turn to sigh with theatrical patience. “And who might this perfect candidate be?”
“Why, Matt. I’m surprised. Have you forgotten your own mother?”
Twelve
I phoned Madame from the coffeehouse and told her I was on my way over to see her.
“I hope this is a social call,” she replied. “My maid told me you rang me up last night.”
“It’s business, I’m afraid.”
I could almost feel Madame tensing on the other end of the line. “Well, let me warn you, dear,” she said after a pause. “If it concerns those monthly financial reports you insist on sending me, I haven’t read a one of them.”
“We’ll talk when I get there.”
A brief, brisk walk brought me to Washington Square Park. The large square appeared luminous in the long, golden rays of the waning September day. Students from the surrounding New York University occupied the benches or sat in clusters in the grassy areas, with dogs, squirrels, and children romping around them. I circled the fountain and followed the paved paths.
Finally I passed under the seventy-seven-foot marble arch that dominated the northern end. Built in 1895 to replace a wooden structure that had been erected by architect Stanford White for the Centennial celebration of George Washington’s inauguration, the white marble arch has served as a rallying point for labor unrest, civil rights marches, antiwar protests, feminist bra-burnings, socialist gatherings, and anarchists riots for generations. The irony is that Fifth Avenue, a central Manhattan artery running north from the arch, where the most affluent of the New York City old guard resides, geographically begins at this site of repeated antiestablishment rebellion.
Madame occupied an opulent penthouse capping one of Fifth Avenue’s exclusive residential buildings near the arch. The imposing structure boasts a concrete moat, a spectacular view of the city, and a doorman dressed like an eighteenth-century European naval officer. My mother-in-law had moved into that building when her late second husband, Pierre Dubois, insisted she give up what he felt was Madame’s “rather small” West Village duplex above the coffeehouse—the elegantly furnished space where I now live.
Of course, Madame’s world was not mine. She’d been raised an aristocrat before being forced to flee Europe during the Second World War, finding herself in America with very little to her name. After her first husband— Matteo’s father—died, a life of great wealth followed through her second marriage to the late Pierre. Even though the bulk of his assets had been willed to the children from his first marriage, Madame retained ownership of the fabulous penthouse where she now lived, as well as a modest trust fund for her living expenses.
Coming from solidly working-class roots, I was admitted to Madame’s world through marriage to her son. And through the rocky marriage and divorce, the birth of my daughter Joy, and the move to the New Jersey suburbs and back again, Madame and I had only grown closer. Part of our bond was having more in common than superficially appeared—my own immigrant grandmother had raised me with the same values Madame had come to embrace through the hardships that Nazi-occupied Europe had inflicted on her and her family. The other part was our mutual love of Joy. And, if questioned under torture, I suppose I’d admit that sprinkled in there somewhere was our common affection for Matteo.
When I arrived at the front door, Madame’s personal maid ushered me into the matriarch’s dark, brocaded sitting room, rich with a heady aroma. Coffee had been freshly pressed, and the scent of it nearly knocked me over. I had recently smelled something vaguely similar.
A filigreed tray containing a silver coffee service and petit fours had been laid out on a table of Italian marble, beside an original Tiffany lamp. I no sooner dropped into one of the leather chairs than Madame appeared. Today she was clad in a white silk pantsuit, her silver hair in a French twist, held by an ivory comb.
Madame poured the coffee into delicate china cups. Normally, I would stain the black with a bit of cream, but the scent of this offering was too intriguing. I sipped the rich, hot brew, and looked up, astounded and amazed. I didn’t know exactly what it was—I only knew what it wasn’t.
“This isn’t your usual Jamaica Blue Mountain.”
Madame smiled. “No.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Can you guess?”
For a moment, neither of us spoke as we continued to savor the flavor of this absolutely remarkable coffee, brimming with kaleidoscopic nuances of fruit. The taste was clean and sweet, yet densely rich with hints of blueberry, wine, and spice. It was bright and spirited yet at the same time deeply resonant and balanced. A coffee this complex and alive with fruit almost had to carry a very slight fermented tinge, and it did, but to care would have been like criticizing Da Vinci because he left a stray stroke of paint on the Mona Lisa’s frame.
“Is it Ethiopian?” I asked.
“You’re guessing?”
“To be perfectly honest, the aroma is familiar only because Matt roasted a top secret batch of whatever this is after he came back from Ethiopia, but I’m still not sure what it is. Of course, your son wouldn’t tell me squat.”
“It’s Harrar. Wet-processed.”
“It can’t be.”
“Oh, but it is.”
Grown on small farms in the eastern part of Ethiopia, Harrar was one of the world’s oldest and most traditional coffees. Unlike its more elegant and high-toned wet-processed cousins in other regions of the country— Ghimbi and Yirgacheffe (a.k.a. Sidamo)—Harrar was traditionally a
