Valentine’s Day, Evelyn Moreau had been stupid enough to say yes to her twelfth proposal and follow a retired podiatrist to Palm Beach.
“If I hadn’t spent thirty-nine hours in labor with her, and if her daddy hadn’t died when she was just a child, I would have shot her by now.” Pricilla sighed. “Honey, you could never be like your mother even if you tried. You’re hardworking and driven and just about the sweetest, most loyal person I know. Which is why you would never ask me to go back to those nice young men and cancel their dates. They are looking forward to seeing you, and it would be rude.”
Grandma was right; Lexi was never rude. She prided herself on that…although when it came to Marc, she couldn’t seem to remember her manners.
“Fine, I will go on the dates”—she held up a hand as Pricilla practically quivered with delight—“but only the ones that I have already agreed to, no more. And no more Match.com, got it?”
“You always were stubborn.” Pricilla leaned over and kissed Lexi on the forehead. “Think of it as preparation for Mr. Right.”
“Mr. Right?” Lexi’s stomach suddenly hollowed out. The twinkle in her grandmother’s eyes only made it worse.
“How are you supposed to know what you are looking for if you’ve only ever really dated one man?” Pricilla stood and gathered the dishes. “Your mother’s problem was she would never go out with a Mr. Wrong, so everyone became Mr. Right. If you date a bunch of different men with no pressure about the future, you won’t mistake a Wrong for a Right ever again. That way you’ll know a Right when you meet him.”
Lexi ducked into Picker’s Produce, Meats, and More, grabbed a bar of specialty chocolate, and managed to sneak past the owner, Mrs. Craver, who was arguing with Mr. Craver—her estranged husband, who also happened to be the butcher.
Normally Lexi would say hello and politely inquire as to how things were in the grocers’ business, but today she was in a rush. She needed some kind of citrus for her citrus-infused chocolate sauce and a few minutes to pull herself together before she went back to the bakery, where three very opinionated grannies were setting the table for lunch.
Lexi had wanted to thank Pricilla for letting her stay in the apartment, and ChiChi for giving her grandmother a place to live until Lexi found her own pad. What she hadn’t wanted was to endure an hour-long interrogation about yesterday’s date with Mr. Monday Night, especially since Mr. Monday Night had turned out to be every bit a Monday: jarring, exhausting, and a calamity of errors. He was cute in that finance-guy kind of way and late in that my-meeting-ran-over-and-it-will-never-happen-again kind of way. The only thing he did get right was the never-going-to-happen-again portion of the evening.
When she’d decided to move back to St. Helena and Pricilla had insisted on Lexi taking over the apartment completely, she had believed her grandmother’s intentions to be pure. A quiet place for Lexi to grieve and reassess. Now, after seeing her list of bachelors, the only thing Lexi had reassessed was Pricilla’s motive—she didn’t want her granddaughter to have to fiddle with a sock on the doorknob.
Well, Grandmère, you moved out in vain, Lexi thought. She was done with knobs, fiddling or otherwise.
Her heels clicked on the barn-style wood floors, stopping right before she reached the white painted line that separated Mr. Craver’s part of the store—the butcher’s shop—from Mrs. Craver’s part—everything else. The specialty grocer had been around since 1894 and the Cravers for about as long. Marilee asked for a divorce about a year after they were married, and Biff denied her request on the grounds that the divorce would make his wife happy. Livid, Marilee painted a white line down the middle of the store and told her husband that if he ever crossed the line she’d claim crime of passion. And the fighting had been going on ever since.
Lexi dropped two Valencia oranges into her basket and then paused, looking at the sour oranges two barrels over. She picked one up and smelled it, the bitter scent tickling the tip of her nose. The blood orange might be too sweet, but was the sour one too acidic?
She didn’t know. And that made her nervous. Today’s lunch was special because it was the first time she would be cooking for her grandmother since Jeffery left her for chicken noodle soup. Too bad that it