Free Basil Instinct by Shelley Costa Page A

“My cat Abbie.”
    Landon, who owned the splendid tabby Vaughn, nodded over his ravioli dough.
    That silenced me for all of fifteen seconds, when I said to Georgia, “So . . . where have you been working?”
    “Oh, I’ve knocked around for a while now.” Then, with some spirit: “Most recently I was selling gloves at Bloomingdale’s.”
    I tried to get into the swing. “Men’s?”
    She smiled, the expert knife work still going. “Women’s.”
    And now we were having fun together. “Wool?”
    “Calfskin,” she countered, the little flirt.
    “Were you living in”—let’s see, where could she sell gloves at Bloomingdale’s and afford to live?—“Brooklyn?”
    “Queens,” she said triumphantly. And added, “Ha!”
    First we laughed, then we shifted the diced mushrooms and truffles into one bowl, and before I could even reach for the bottle, Georgia drizzled just the right amount of olive oil over it with a circling flourish. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Landon studying her.
    “And before gloves?”
    She smiled but it was paired with a steely look. “Oh, I knocked around—”
    And together we finished, “Here and there.”
    Her hands paused midair. “Right,” she said softly.
    At that moment Li Wei showed up, plugged into his iPod, wearing gray ripstop cargo shorts and a black motorcycle jacket. When I introduced him to Georgia Payne, he lit up and sang a soulful few bars of “Georgia on My Mind,” then finished with a bland look that makes you wonder whether you were imagining it.
    We kept working, picking up the pace as I glanced at my watch, dealing with interruptions from Choo Choo, Jonathan, and Giancarlo, who wanted permission to play the soundtrack from the Plácido Domingo version of Carmen . (Personally, I prefer the Stones, but said fine.) I had all but forgotten the fact that three weeks ago my nonna’s boyfriend turned up murdered on the very spot where I was presently chopping tomatoes for a pomodoro sauce.
    Li Wei started emptying the industrial dishwasher from the night before, so the noise level increased, what with clattering pots and plates competing with dangerous tenors and scoffing sopranos. Then he started on the flatware. But therewas a pause in the activity at the moment Maria Pia emerged from her office lair. I sensed her presence the way animals can tell the tsunami is on its way. “Tomorrow at one,” she declared, “she’s coming to check out the preparations for Friday night.”
    I pushed back my hair. “Who’s coming, Nonna?”
    “Fina Parisi.”
    At that moment a knife hit the beautiful black-and-white tiled floor.
    *   *   *
    Over the next couple of hours, once I could tell Georgia was fine on the prep work, I paid some bills, complimented our aged bartender, Giancarlo, on his new Clark Kent eyeglasses, and debated with our pianist, Mrs. Crawford—resplendent in a white cocktail dress embroidered with gold—whether chiffon has indeed had its day. Landon settled it unequivocally when he breezed by and flung “Never!” at us.
    An hour before we opened on this third night of Grief Week, Paulette and Vera returned with Corabeth, who was actually, well, dressed. The shirt and pants from Target, as a quickie spin on the Miracolo look, fit her pretty well. But the biggest change was from the neck up. Her short, shrieking-red hair had been freed from the skullrubber bands, dyed ash blond, brushed, and swept behind her ears. With some bronzing, plucking, volumizing, and glossing, this CRIBS girl now looked kind of like Michelle Williams on steroids.
    Our new sous chef, Georgia, hit it off with sommelier Jonathan, and they were discussing whether the merits of Barbaresco had indeed been overlooked when the mandolin and clarinet players showed up early to set up the framed photo shrine on the bar and meet Dana Cahill to go over the repertoire. The fact that they even had a repertoire was news to me, but I always enjoyed it when I saw all over again how