Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,1

book club. She’d spotted Delphine reading Scruples in the tasting room just a few days earlier. Delphine herself seemed to Leah like the heroine of a novel: beautiful, exotic, and endlessly knowledgeable about wine in a way Leah hoped to be when she grew up. Delphine was French. Leah’s parents constantly had to remind Delphine not to smoke in the winery because it would “blunt the palate.”

Now, looking around the veranda, it seemed the entire book club was assembled except for Delphine. She lingered until her mother placed a cool hand on her back.

“Leah, you must go,” her mother said, consulting her diamond Ebel watch. “And where is Delphine? I have half a mind to start without her.”

She looked around, but the only new arrival was Leah’s father, breathless and red in the face.

“Vivian, I need to speak to you,” he said.

“Can’t it wait, Leonard? We’re about to begin.”

“Absolutely not.”

What could this be about? Her father never went anywhere near the book club, and Leah knew that that was exactly how her mother liked it.

Vivian excused herself from her friends, patted her perfectly coiffed hair in irritation, and followed her husband down the stairs a discreet distance from the deck. Leah followed them and ducked behind a flowering shrub.

“Delphine is hysterically crying in the office. I need your help dealing with this.”

“What happened?”

“What happened is—she’s been sleeping with our accounts, and now one of our biggest is dropping us.”

“Dropping us? Why?”

“Because Delphine broke up with him. This is why women shouldn’t work at a winery!”

He stormed off, leaving her mother clutching the Bulgari necklace at her throat. She spotted Leah, who tried to slink away. “For the last time, get to the house, young lady,” her mother said. “You don’t belong out here.”

Of course she did. No matter what was happening, Leah knew it was the only place she’d ever belong.

Part One

Bud Break

Girls may start out smart, but not all girls stay so damned smart.

—Judith Krantz, Lovers

One

New York City

“I’m looking for something decadent,” the woman said, leaning over the counter and squinting at the menu board. “Something to impress.”

She was not one of Leah’s regular customers, the ones who stopped in every week to buy cheese for their weekend charcuterie boards or just to stock their fridge. Those people Leah had come to know over the years, as they debated the merits of tossing a good Castelrosso into salad instead of feta.

“Are you looking for a soft or hard cheese?” Leah asked. Typically, she would ask for more information: What other food would be served? If wine would be part of the meal, what varietal? But lately, she was distracted.

“Either one,” the woman said. She had brown hair shimmering with gold highlights and wore a chic, lightweight trench coat.

“I’m a big fan of the Kunik,” Leah said. “It’s a triple cream cheese. Very silky texture and truly delicious. Try this—like butter,” she said, passing the woman a sample of the soft white cheese.

The woman tasted it, and her eyes widened. “You know what you’re talking about.”

Yes, she did. Leah had opened the cheese shop eighteen years earlier, when her daughter was just three years old. The small space on the corner of Seventy-Ninth Street and First Avenue had stood vacant for a long time. Every day, passing it on her way to buy groceries at Agata & Valentina, she fantasized about turning it into a cheese shop. She even had a name for it: Bailey’s Blue, an ode to her love of blue cheese.

The door opened, and this time it was a regular, a party planner named Roya Lout who had talked more than one hostess into using Bailey’s Blue instead of a larger purveyor. “I like your style,” she had declared, and Leah knew she wasn’t talking about her clothes. Years earlier, before it was popular, Leah had made a commitment to feature locally produced cheese, and her shop consistently showcased northeastern artisanal varieties.

There had been a time when she thought about expanding her space to include the location next door if it became available. She taught wine and cheese classes in the cramped back room of the shop, and she could use a dedicated space for that. At just around eight hundred square feet, Bailey’s Blue had one long counter, and one display case filled with wheels of creamy Brie, Camembert, Comte, and Gruyère. She also had one case for her beloved blues: Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, a few wedges of the classic Maytag, Pur Chèvre Bleu from Illinois,