However, all readers - sooner or later - find for themselves a literary genre that is fundamentally different from all others. Publishable By Death by Andi Cumbo-Floyd (reading like a writer TXT) đź“–
- Author: Andi Cumbo-Floyd
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I gave everyone hugs as they headed out the door. Mart lingered just long enough for Daniel to arrive, and then she gave Marcus a lift home. He’d be staying with us until he had time to get his apartment ready. “Meet you at Cate and Lucas’s?” she said. “You come, too, Daniel. Cate said so.”
“Sounds good.” He waved as they left, and then looked at me. “What am I doing now?”
“Potato soup in a bread bowl,” I said with a smile.
“Oh man, that sounds so good.” He pointed to the window display. “You sit here. I’ll close up.”
I smiled and gave him the alarm code. It felt good to sit down. As Daniel headed toward me across the shop, I heard a knock at the window and turned to see Elle there – her arms full of flowers. I groaned. I had totally forgotten she was bringing those by for tomorrow. I shouted to Daniel and asked him to turn off the alarm, and then I let Elle in.
The flowers were amazing. I had imagined she’d bring me pink and purple flowers – soft pastels – but there were salmon blooms and hot pink ones, too. Even a burgundy and a yellow. “Oh, Elle, I love them. I didn’t realize that hyacinths came in so many hues. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I got caught up with customers all day. Most of them had books, so I think we probably have you to thank for the boost in early-season business.”
“It wasn’t me. It was Michiko Kakutani and Galen Gilbert and their fans. I can’t believe it.”
She set the five-gallon buckets full of flowers and water down to the left of the door. “You’re being too humble. They praised your shop because it’s worth praising. This is a wonderful spot, Harvey.”
“Well, thank you, and I am really glad my good fortune is spreading down the street.”
“Oh, it most definitely is. I sold out of butternut squash by eleven a.m.. I’ve never been so glad for my little greenhouse and the fact that peas love cooler weather. I’m glad I ordered extra flowers, too. Lots of folks have spring fever and wanted fresh bouquets. But I held these back . . . just for you.”
I looked again at the flowers. “These are amazing. They’re a much-needed boost after a whopper of a day.”
“Indeed. After the news about the sheriff, we all need a boost.”
I clenched my jaw. “The sheriff? What happened?” I looked to Daniel as he walked up and then back at Elle. “Is he okay?”
“Oh,” Elle put her hand on my arm, “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you. Oh yes, Sheriff Mason is fine. But someone did slash his tires and paint that horrible word on his patrol car. He was madder than spit when I saw him a few hours ago.”
I turned to Daniel. “Oh my goodness. Had you heard about this?”
“Yep. Pretty awful.”
I shook my head. “As if he doesn’t have enough to deal with, two people murdered including his deputy, and someone wants to stir up racist BS. Unbelievable.” I could feel the anger running through my fingers. When I’m tired, my emotions often get the best of me, and tonight I was exhausted. “Does he know who did it?”
Elle shrugged. “He’s pretty tight-lipped about most things.” She looked down and sighed. Then she met my gaze again. “But he’s a force to be reckoned with. I wouldn’t mess with him.”
I nodded. He seemed mild-mannered, but I imagined that if he needed to be, our kind sheriff could be a hurricane of justice.
Daniel headed back to re-arm the alarm, and Elle and I walked out onto the street. “Thanks again for the flowers, Elle. I’ll get you a check once all this slows down, if that’s alright.”
“Oh, that’s fine. We’ll all be a little flush with cash after this weekend. Thanks again for this, Harvey. You’ve really boosted not only our revenues, but our spirits here.”
I blushed. “That’s kind of you to say. Now, if only we could find the person who murdered Stevensmith and Deputy Williams. It would feel like a good end to a hard couple of weeks.”
Elle shrugged. “I guess so. Sometimes, though, I think some questions are best left unanswered, don’t you?”
Daniel came out and joined us. “Some questions, yes,” he said, “but not a question about murder. All of the questions about a murder need to be solved.”
She gave us a thin smile and climbed into her pick-up.
As she drove away, I thought about that stack of newspaper articles on her desk. What had she been trying to answer?
We made it to Cate and Lucas’s just as the soup was coming off the stove. It smelled heavenly, like comfort had been made into vapor and spread throughout the room. “Oh, Lucas, I may pass out from delight,” I said as I slung my scarf and coat over the nearest chair and fell into it.
“Now, that’s a response to my cooking that I could get used to,” he said with a small laugh. “I left the bacon out because I wasn’t sure if any of you were vegetarian.”
“Bring on the bacon,” Mart and Daniel said at the same time before both cracking up. We were all a little on edge with all the busyness in the shop and the fair tomorrow and, well, the murders. It felt good to just be silly and indulgent.
“Help yourselves,” Lucas said as he gestured to a spread on their kitchen island. Normally, I was the kind of person who prefers to go last, but tonight, I just wanted to eat. I grabbed a plate, a perfect bread bowl – not as huge as those at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco but not a dinner roll either – and ladled it full with the thick, white soup. Then, I dropped a good portion of bacon in and covered it all with more than my fair share of shredded cheddar.
Cate had just finished pouring big glasses of ice cold water, so I grabbed one of those and then tucked myself into the far corner of the dining room table by the window. I didn’t even mind my manners and wait for everyone to sit. I just dove in. My mother would be horrified.
The table was filled with the sounds of satisfied eating for several minutes until Mart pushed back her plate, leaned back in her chair, and said. “Man alive, did I need that or what?”
I couldn’t even find words. I just nodded. I was satiated and relaxed . . . and wiped out. Totally wiped out.
“Oh, did I forget to mention that there’s cupcakes?”
Daniel groaned. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have had that third bowl of soup.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you.” Lucas grinned. “Besides cupcakes are, as my grandmother always said, highly squishable. Want me to poke around in your belly like she did just to prove you have room?” He pointed a finger toward Daniel’s stomach.
“No, thank you. I fear that I may have more room than intended if you explored.” He let out a long sigh. “But I will take a cupcake . . . to honor your grandmother, of course.”
“Of course.” Lucas got up and came back with a tray of the most amazing cupcakes I’d ever seen. They were huge – the size of those giant muffins you get in some bakeries – and topped with no less than three inches of icing. I immediately spied a white cake with white icing that had my name on it and lunged.
Cate made her move for her cupcake of choice at the same time, and we smacked heads hard just under the chandelier.
I sat back, cupcake in hand, and tried to focus while tears sprang to my eyes. It appeared, however, that Cate had gotten the worse end of our collision because her nose was bleeding . . . and worse yet, it was dripping into her cupcake frosting.
Mart and Lucas sprang into action grabbing paper towels and removing the blemished cupcake before getting Cate to put her head over the back of the chair and applying pressure.
“Oh, Cate, I’m so, so sorry.” I felt terrible. “Are you okay?”
She let out a muffled laugh. “Oh yes, I’m just fine. We probably need to call our shots on cupcakes from now on, though. Dessert should not be a full-contact sport.”
I still felt awful, but she recovered quickly, claimed another cupcake, and persuaded me to compete in an icing-licking competition with her. We could only lick with a flat tongue. No bites and no deep dives that weren’t really licks. The person who won had to clear the table.
It was a fierce battle, but I was a baked good expert and I finally took her by a few licks. I felt a little light-headed from the blow to the head, my reduced oxygen intake during the competition, and the sugar rush, but I was still having a hard time remembering when I’d had so much fun.
In the end, we all helped Cate clean up and then she showed me her 138 totes of books that she was bringing to sell in the morning. “Cate, woman, how are you going to get all these there?”
“Oh, Woody’s coming by bright and
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