Chapter One
To Do:
1. Catch up with old friends!
2. √ Phone Jill and set a date.
3. Land a new client.
4. Buy Paula a present for new baby.
5. Get back in shape!
From inside Tea & Tumble, I checked my phone for the umpteenth time. My best friend, Paula, was due to give birth any day now, and I’d promised to babysit her toddler when the time came. The café was empty save for myself, my four-month old daughter and another pair of moms with their infants camped out in the corner.
Tea & Tumble was rated as the top pick for baby friendly cafes in the Bay Area. It was decorated in pinks and greens with a colorful, plush carpet in the corner of the dining area and a large leather couch. On the carpet, the two infants drooled over picture books, while their mothers were perched on the couch sipping lattes.
I glanced at Laurie, who cooed up at me from her baby carrier nestled at my feet. “Paula’s going to have her baby any day now. Are you ready for a new friend?”
Laurie batted her hand out, grabbing at imaginary items.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. I freed her from the infant carrier, then lowered my voice. “Then you can slobber over the book of the month club choice like those other two in the corner.”
Laurie flashed me a wide, toothless grin.
“Besides,” I said. “A girl can never have too many friends.”
A gust of wind vibrated the windows of the café, and I glanced outside to see Jill parking her car.
I hadn’t seen Jill since quite some time before my pregnancy, and I was looking forward to visiting with her and catching up on gossip.
She climbed out of the car, wearing an asymmetrical orange blouse that caught the wind and billowed about her. She reached inside the car and pulled out a tan coat that matched her leggings and set off her black, stiletto thigh-high boots. As she wrapped it around herself, she spotted me in the window and waved vigorously. She sprinted across the street in her stiletto boots, short blond bob flapping in the wind.
Dear God, I wouldn’t be able to walk in those boots, much less run in them, but Jill looks chic and fashionable, as usual.
I placed Laurie up to the window and moved her little wrist back and forth in a hello. When I pulled her back into my lap, a man wearing a long, dark coat and a black skull cap with a Smith & Wesson logo on it turned the corner.
He raised an arm as if hailing Jill.
She didn’t notice him and pulled open the door to the café.
The wind rumbled through the café as Jill stepped in.
The moms in the corner glared at Jill as she made her way toward my table, annoyed that their tête-à-tête had been momentarily interrupted. Jill ignored them as she clippity-clopped over to my table.
Jill pressed her frozen check against mine. “Hey, stranger!”
Jill and I had been chummy once, but had fallen out of touch. In fact, now that I thought about it, it’d probably been several years since we’d last seen each other. But since the birth of my daughter I’d felt the need to get in touch with old friends and build a community around her. I held her up. She was dressed in a little pink knit dress that my best friend Paula had sent while visiting Paris.
“This is Peanut,” I said.
“Oooh, love the dress,” Jill leaned in toward Laurie, who reached out and grabbed a fistful of Jill’s blonde bob while shrieking with delight.
Jill’s hand shot up to her head to save her hair from getting pulled out by the roots.
“Sorry,” I said, detangling Jill’s hair from Laurie’s fist.
Jill laughed and rubbed Laurie’s chubby knee. “Good to meet you, you feisty little thing.”
“And sorry I’ve been so out of touch,” I said.
She pulled off her coat and took the seat across from us. “Well, I can see you’ve been busy so, of course, I forgive you.”
She didn’t know the half of it. We’d only talked briefly to set up our lunch date and I still hadn’t told her about my new career as a P.I. Since giving birth to Laurie, I’d managed to be involved in several murder investigations and basically had decided to launch a private investigation business. But since I didn’t have a P.I. license, I was doing a semi-very-unofficial mentorship under Albert Galigani, an ex-cop, to hone my skills and become marketable.
“Do you know the guy across the street?” I asked.
Jill frowned. “What guy?” She glanced over her shoulder.
“The one on the corner wearing the Smith & Wesson skull cap,” I prompted.
Jill remained turned away from me. “Why would I know him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought he called out to you when you were crossing the street.”