Pasta Imperfect - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,75

time," Mom commented as she watched the trio disappear into the crowd. "You seem to know your way around the city so well, Emily, maybe we should offer to meet up with the twins later this afternoon so you can show them around, too."

"Maybe we'll run into them someplace."

"But if we don't make arrangements now, how will we find them?"

I sighed in defeat. "Shouldn't be too hard. We look for the only two septuagenarians in Florence running around with my hair."

We strolled along some of the main streets of Florence -- Mom, oohing and aahing over the shoes and handbags in the stores -- me, darting my eyes back and forth so often that I was making myself dizzy. When we turned the corner onto one particularly narrow lane, we caught sight of tables and chairs set up cafe style on the sidewalk, and clusters of people standing in small conversational groups on both sides of the street, waving wineglasses in their hands.

"Oh look," Mom said, as we passed a shallow niche in a building that was replete with a counter, a tiered backdrop of bottled wine, and stemware in every available space. "It's like the salad bar at Fareway, only with wine. Look at all those lovely bottles, Emily." A hint of excitement crept into her voice. "How do you suppose they're arranged?"

I hurried her along before she could offer to alphabetize them.

"Emily! Margaret!" a man's voice beckoned. "Over here!"

I nearly got whiplash trying to find the owner of the voice amid the clutch of midday tipplers, but the tanned arm rising over the dark heads in the crowd looked familiar, so we headed in that direction.

"I'm glad I spotted you," Philip Blackmore said in welcome, his hand wrapped around the stem of a full glass of red wine. "We were just about to offer a toast to Sylvia. Join us, would you?"

Marla Michaels and Gillian Jones stood on either side of him, looking uncomfortable and subdued as they balanced their drinks in their hands. Duncan completed the quartet, giving me a quiet nod that spoke volumes.

"Two glasses of Merlot for the ladies," Philip instructed, handing Duncan a fistful of lire. While Duncan dutifully bought our drinks, Philip girded an arm around Mom's shoulders, embracing her like a proud father. "I'm in your debt for all the work you've done to make our contest a success, Margaret. With our unfortunate turn of events, if not for you, we'd have no contest at all."

Color scorched Mom's cheeks. "It was nothing."

"I love you Midwesterners. You're so damned humble. How does it make you feel to know your decision will change someone's life tonight?"

"A little nervous actually."

She was nervous. I was a wreck. Maybe I should consider a drug stronger than wine.

Duncan returned with our drinks and lingered casually beside me. Philip elevated his glass reverently. "To Sylvia," he toasted.

"To Sylvia," we repeated, raising our glasses and clinking them in midair.

"She was incomparable," he declared, his voice gravelly with nostalgia. "The industry will shine far less brightly because of her absence."

While Gillian and Marla fought off tears, Philip Blackmore knocked back his entire glass of wine in one long gulp. "I think I'll have another," he said, spinning around and heading back toward the bar, his harness of bottled water swinging from his shoulder like a scuba tank.

"I can't believe she's gone." Gillian dashed tears from her cheeks. "Over the last few months she'd become one of my dearest friends. She was warm, witty, honest. She negotiated the most lucrative contract of my career. Three books. Twenty-city author tour. Four million dollars."

"Four million dollars!" Marla's glass slipped from her hand and shattered at her feet, spraying wine over her flowered muumuu like a deadly red pesticide. "Hightower offered you an advance of four million? They only offered me three. The shysters!"

Gillian took a long sip of wine before arching one superior eyebrow. "I guess that proves which one of us is more highly regarded in the writing world."

Marla shook wine from her hemline as she stepped away from the broken glass on the sidewalk. "The only thing it proves is that Sylvia didn't do enough by me to earn her f-ing 10 percent!"

Gillian inhaled a sharp breath. "Sylvia only charged you 10? She charged me 15! She was screwing me out of another 5 percent? The shyster!"

Mom looked happily from one diva to the other. "Maybe if you did the math, it'd work out that advance-wise and percentage-wise, you were both earning