French Pressed - By Cleo Coyle Page 0,3

mention my employer, since she owned the Village Blend). So, of course, I respected her opinion; I also just plain admired her.

Despite her age and the lateness of the hour, Madame’s effortless elegance was something to which I—at half her years—could only aspire. Her bearing was all the more impressive to me because I knew her background.

The woman had lost everything in her youth, including her mother and sister. Then she’d remade herself in America, only to lose the young husband she’d passionately loved. Antonio Allegro’s death had left her completely alone to raise their son and keep alive the century-old coffee business begun by Antonio’s grandfather.

More recently, Madame had lost her older, second husband, a French-born businessman whom she’d highly esteemed. Yet through the challenges of her life, her outlook remained focused and positive, her bearing invincibly regal.

Tonight, for example, her dress of deep violet draped wrinkle-free on her slender form. Her only jewelry was a tasteful necklace of pearls and platinum. Her shoulder-length silver-white hair was swept into a still neat chignon, and her big blue eyes continued to appear alert and alive, their lids maintaining their stylishly applied hint of lilac.

As for me, I’d managed to dig a cocoa-colored pinstriped business suit out of my usual wardrobe of khakis, jeans, and hoodies. I’d even managed to jazz it up with a necklace that I’d bought from a local street artisan. As cheap as that sounded, the tigereye stones set in distressed gold didn’t look half bad with the cocoa suit. Plus I’d done up my own Italian-roast brown hair into a twist, shoved my hastily shaved legs into sheer stockings, my feet into high heels—at five two I needed all the height I could get—and stuck my lobes with earrings that sort of matched the necklace.

Suffice it to say, I was presentable enough to avoid embarrassing my daughter, who was apprenticing behind the double doors at the back of this très fashionable dining room.

“You go on, Clare,” Madame advised. “Visit Joy at her cook station. New York restaurant kitchens are terribly crowded, busy places. I’ll just be in the way. Besides, there might be a very good reason for me to sit here alone for a few minutes.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes…there’s an intriguing man sitting alone at a corner table.”

“A man?” I began to turn and look.

“No, no! Don’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“I suspect he may be a bit shy or easily embarrassed. He’s been eye-flirting with me for the past half hour, but he hasn’t acted. I think perhaps, if he sees me sitting here alone for a few minutes, he’ll make his move.”

“On the make already?” I teased, since Madame had just broken up with her last boyfriend, a charming oncologist who’d finally retired at the age of seventy-five.

In Dr. McTavish’s grand plan, Madame was to have married him and moved immediately to New Mexico, where she was to take up golfing, camping, and trail hiking. Madame gently told him that although she cared for him, she had no intention of uprooting herself from her New York life. And since he’d set his plans in unbreakable stone, he should definitely take a hike—with another woman.

“At my age, dear, one shouldn’t waste an opportunity for amour,” she said, pausing to drain her water goblet. “And, quite frankly, I’ve been conjugated too many times to play coy.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, rising. “I’ll be right back.”

“No hurry,” Madame said with a wily smile. “Take your time.”

Resisting the urge to check out Madame’s newest potential flame, I instead sought out the maître d’.

Napoleon Dornier was a tall scarecrow of a man in his early thirties. He had narrow shoulders, a beaked nose, and a large head with short, spiked radish-colored hair and long red sideburns. Clearly a fussy, meticulous manager, he’d been breathing down the neck of the waiters and busboys since Madame and I had been seated. It seemed nothing was quite good enough for him, not even the position of his tie’s knot, which he’d adjusted twice as I approached.

“Excuse me,” I said.

Dornier had been watching a member of the waitstaff deliver a bill to one of the last large tables, a gathering of six businessmen. Behind his catlike amber eyeglasses his dark gaze focused on me.

“Can I help you?” he asked, flicking an imaginary speck of lint from his black jacket.

“Would it be possible to see the kitchen?” I asked.

The man sniffed, the sort of mildly disdainful gesture that I swear every Frenchman learned to master in maître d’ school.