Free The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch Page A

girlfriend?”
    â€œAre you kidding me? Girlfriends weren’t invented when I was on the market and boyfriends in my experience are nothing but a ton of flesh and bone just sitting there waiting to turn themselves into deadbeat husbands who will squash the joy of living out of you as soon as look at you. I had one of those for twenty-three years and I won’t be having another one.”
    â€œOh, I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a bad time,” Sugar said, thinking that she needed to make sure Mrs. Keschl did not sit next to Ruby.
    â€œWe’ve been divorced twenty-seven years now,” Mrs. Keschl said with a dismissive flap of her hand, following Sugar out onto the rooftop. “Although hardly a moment passes when I don’t wish he was dead or, you know, permanently disfigured. Bees!” she said, clapping her eyes on the hive.
    She seemed to be smiling.
    â€œYou like bees?” asked Sugar.
    â€œMy grandmother had them, back in Hungary. Talked about them like they were her children.”
    â€œDid she keep any here?”
    â€œShe didn’t live in some fancy schmancy penthouse like this! Although I think her apartment was bigger. No, nobody kept bees in the city in those days. But I took her to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden one day—you been there?—and do you think she cared about the tulips or the roses or the flowering rhododendrons? No. All she cared about were the bees. Made her happy and God knows her glass was almost always completely empty.”
    The muffled rooftop air was pierced then by the approach of Lola and Ethan.
    â€œOh, crap,” Mrs. Keschl said. “You had to ask the bad balloon seller?”
    â€œI asked everyone in the building,” Sugar said.
    â€œYou should can my coffee order then,” snapped Mrs. Keschl. “I don’t want to be awake for too much of this.”
    Lola looked tired and suspicious, yet seemed to relax when Sugar took Ethan straight out of her arms and led her out onto the terrace to sit with Mrs. Keschl at the table that she had laid with her honey loaf, Nate’s pastries, fresh berries, cream and jugs of iced tea.
    Sugar then took the little boy back inside and quickly checked his ears and throat. She wondered if his sinuses were inflamed because of allergies, and she got a piece of honeycomb out of the fridge for him.
    â€œHey, looks like she got the brat to shut up for once,” said Mrs. Keschl, not altogether unkindly.
    Lola opened her mouth to bite back but instead just reached for a pastry and flopped in her seat. Despite the warm morning sun, she was wearing a fluffy vest in fluorescent green, and her hair was up in bunches. She dressed like a much happier person.
    â€œI gave him some honeycomb,” Sugar said, bringing Ethan back to the table. “I hope you don’t mind. It’s a little sticky but otherwise delicious and it’s my own so I know exactly what’s in it, which is nothing but good old-fashioned bee stuff.”
    Ethan took the comb out of his mouth and smiled at them all.
    Lola gaped. “You can give him whatever you like if it makes him do that.”
    â€œKid’s quite cute when it stops its caterwauling,” said Mrs. Keschl.
    A gentle knock at the door heralded the arrival of Ruby but when Sugar answered the door they were both almost bowled over by Mr. McNally, who thrust his way straight toward the terrace without even stopping to say hello.
    â€œI should have known,” he said to Mrs. Keschl, grabbing a pastry and taking a bite before he sat down, crumbs cascading. “Any chance of a free feed and there you are.”
    â€œMeanwhile you’re sitting at home with your hand in your pocket,” Mrs. Keschl returned.
    â€œThat sounds disgusting,” said Lola.
    â€œAnd who are you?” Mr. McNally asked Lola.
    â€œI’m Lola, from the second floor.”
    â€œAnd this is Ruby from the first floor,” said