runways around the world. Her new spring line would be showcased on Fen’s models once again—at the end of this week.
I had hoped to see what the legendary Fen thought of one of the Village Blend’s lattes, but he hadn’t attended. “Too busy finalizing the upcoming show,” Lottie had informed me.
I finished crossing the length of the packed room, squeezed around the wrought-iron spiral staircase and finally spotted my ex-husband next to the roaring fireplace, one hand casually braced against the exposed brick wall, which was adorned with coffee antiques gathered over the last century: a French lacquered urn, a cast-iron, two-wheeled grinding mill (used in the late 1800s, when the Blend was primarily a wholesale shop), copper English coffee pots, Turkish side-handled ibriks, and an array of 1920s tin signs advertising coffee brands.
Matt’s attention, however, was not on the aforementioned décor, but on (no surprise) an attractive woman.
TWO
JUST a few days ago, Matteo had returned from Ethiopia looking like something my cat Java had dragged in from the Blend’s back alley. But tonight, even I had to admit he’d cleaned up well. In fact, he looked better than a French-pressed pot of Jamaica Blue Mountain. His muscular shoulders were draped in fine Italian fabric, his chiseled jaw, usually brushed in black stubble, was closely shaved, his Caesar haircut in masculine trim.
Matteo wasn’t just my ex-husband. He was also the Blend’s coffee buyer, an astute coffee broker, and the owner’s son. Thanks to his French-born mother, Madame Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois, Matt and I had not only remained partners in the raising of our daughter, we were now partners in the running of the Blend. Madame had offered me co-ownership of the Blend’s business and the multimillion dollar Federal-style Greenwich Village townhouse to entice me back into managing the family business, only to reveal later that her pirate of a son was slated to be the other co-owner.
After a decade of divorce and my self-imposed exile to raise my daughter in New Jersey, I knew that a reconciliation with my ex-husband was, in the words of The Godfather’s Michael Corleone, “an impossibility that would never happen,” so I subsequently convinced myself that the Blend was worth the aggravation. I bit the bullet and agreed to put up with Matteo’s intermittent stays in the duplex between coffee buying expeditions.
Admittedly, it wasn’t always an aggravation. Our daughter Joy loved her father, and saw more of him now (since she’d moved to Manhattan to attend culinary school) than she ever had growing up in New Jersey. And in rare moments of truth I had to admit—to myself and myself only—that Matt had changed for the better lately. Not that he wasn’t still exasperating. But he’d been helpful and supportive in ways that actually astounded me.
I approached my ex-husband and the elegant, fortyish woman with whom he was now deep in conversation. She was a sleek New York sophisticate type, tall and Waspish with salon-highlighted blond hair smoothed into a perfect french twist and a sexy suit with a plunging neckline and fabric the color of a mochaccino (not surprising since Fen had made brown the new black this season). Earlier in the evening, Matt had cornered a young pixie-haired bubble-head in a spandex minidress. I hadn’t felt a thing when I saw him speaking with that type—it was just Matteo being Matteo. But, for some reason, seeing him with this woman closer to my own age sent an annoying and totally unwanted twinge of jealousy through me.
I, of course, instantly repressed it.
“Excuse me,” I said through a smile of gritted teeth.
“Clare!” said Matteo, snaking an arm around my waist. He flashed an easy smile at the elegant woman. “This is my business partner in the Blend,” he informed her, then turned his big, brown innocent eyes back on me. “What’s up?”
“Well, partner, you’re supposed to be stationed at the door.”
“I asked Esther to cover for me.”
“Ah, but you see,” I told him, “that’s problematic.”
“Problematic?”
“You appointed an openly hostile anti-fashion activist to meet and greet a crowd of people who mainline designer labels.”
Matt laughed nervously and shot a glance at Miss Elegant, who sipped her latte and looked away as if bored. Then he leaned close to me.
“I’ll be there shortly,” he whispered into my ear, “and if Esther turns out to be a problem, then you can always look after the door until then.”
With that, I felt his muscular arm spin me at my waist. Then his hand dropped to my lower back