Free Monet Talks by Tamar Myers

wouldn’t go trolling for one in a family restaurant.”
    â€œA gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. Honey, I don’t want no trouble, and you look like the troublemaking kind, so I tell you what. You let me have the big handsome hunk—the one with the hair—and you can have that skinny bald guy with the glasses.”
    â€œI don’t want the skinny bald guy!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
    Alas, the music had stopped abruptly, a signal that the belly dancers were to scurry back into the kitchen. But there was no scurrying just then, only stares. I could feel the eyes of everyone in the tent trained on me.
    â€œNot that there’s anything wrong with skinny bald guys,” I said, my words echoing as if I were in a tomb the size of the Taj Mahal, and not a tent. “As a matter of fact, I prefer my men scrawny and hairless. And as for the glasses, the bigger the better I always say.”
    â€œAbby,” Rob whispered, “what the heck is going on?”
    â€œNothing,” I whispered back. I turned to the tart with the twitching tummy. “You can have the hunk—after you get off work, of course.”
    â€œPromise you won’t touch him until then.”
    â€œGirl Scout’s honor.”
    Satisfied, she shimmied her way back to thekitchen, leaving behind a trail of cheap perfume.
    I dove into a pile of cushions. “Pull the drapes please,” I choked.
    â€œWhat just went down?” Rob asked, after sealing us in a cloth cocoon.
    â€œYou’ve got a date tonight.”
    â€œA what ?” Bob brayed.
    â€œDon’t worry, dear, it’s with a woman. That dancer has the hots for Rob.”
    â€œWhat about me?”
    â€œShe has the hots for you, too, but I thought it was only fair that she share, so you’re mine.”
    â€œAh, so that’s why you shouted out a description of me. Let’s see, how did it go? Scrawny, hairless—”
    â€œBut I forgot the good cook part. Did I say good? I mean excellent.”
    Bob beamed. “Abby, you’re not going to believe what I’m making for dinner tonight.”
    â€œI’m sure I won’t.”
    â€œWell, we’re having some discerning friends over for dinner—not that you’re not discerning, dear—so I’ll be serving squab giblet pâté on toast points as the appetizer, marinated turkey wattles on a bed of endive for the salad, and then for the main course, it’s alligator balls in alfredo sauce over homemade pasta, and topped with a special parmesan cheese that has been aged for three years in caves above a monastery on an island in the Aegean, wherethe only woman allowed to set foot is the Virgin Mary—although I’m told she seldom visits.”
    â€œWhoa, back up a bit. I didn’t know alligators have—”
    â€œLike meatballs,” Rob said, “but made from ground alligator meat. Just be happy you’re not invited, Abby. And speaking of invitations, you promised to give us the scoop on the other bidders if we met you here for lunch. So spill it, girlfriend.”
    â€œAh, the other bidders. As it turns out, y’all have a connection.”
    â€œWe do?”
    â€œYour shop assistant, Simone Dupree, is the daughter of Blackmond Dupree, owner of this fine establishment.”
    â€œWell, I’ll be damned. And here I thought she was a struggling grad student at the College of Charleston.”
    â€œShe may be that. Restaurants often operate in the red for the first couple of years. Or she may have a bad relationship with her father. All I know is that they are father and daughter.”
    â€œHow did you find out?”
    â€œI was just interviewing him in his office. I saw a photo of her and asked.”
    Bob caught on first. “So you’re saying that the swashbuckling Blackmond Dupree was one of the five top bidders on your birdcage?”
    â€œI’d hardly call him