Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

the bread before broiling. She pondered the soup’s consistency, finally deciding she’d need to add an immersion mixer to the kitchen equipment at the Sandbox, so that in the future she could puree part of the soup. Her own immersion mixer was back in the kitchen at the house on Sand Dollar Lane. Ben’s house.

When Rochelle finished her soup, she got up from her seat, found a piece of chalk, and began writing on the blackboard on the wall by the cash register.

Today’s SPECIAL—CORN CRAB CHOWDER à la GRACE. $10.

“You really think the customers will like it?” Grace asked, secretly pleased. She’d been living with Rochelle for nearly two months, and it seemed like the first time she’d done something in the kitchen or the bar that Rochelle approved of. “And more importantly, that they’ll pay ten dollars for a bowl of soup?”

“They’ll lap it up,” Rochelle predicted. “We just won’t tell ’em how healthy it is. And if anybody gripes about the price, I’ll show ’em my bill from the seafood wholesale house.”

They’d had a busy evening. One of the local softball leagues was having a tournament, and word had apparently gone out that the Sandbox was the place to meet after the games.

The first batch of soup was gone by 7:00 P.M., and Grace made another gallon, using up all the crab in the big walk-in cooler. At 9:30, she had to tell Rochelle to “eighty-six” that night’s special.

A loud groan rose up in the bar as Rochelle crossed the special off on the blackboard.

They were both exhausted by the time Rochelle’s late-night shift, consisting of Almina, a young Latin woman, and her husband, Carlos, showed up to take over at 10:00.

While Rochelle showered in the apartment’s only bathroom, Grace settled down to write her blog post, referring to her notes and editing and refining the photos she’d shot earlier before uploading to her blog, accompanied by a list of local farms, complete with their links.

It was after midnight when she tapped the PUBLISH button. She viewed the blog in its final form and smiled. “Take that J’Aimee,” she muttered, right before padding off to take her own shower.

*   *   *

Sunday morning, Grace was still sleeping when she heard the cell phone on her nightstand ding softly, signaling an incoming message.

She sat up and yawned, looking out the window. It was barely daylight. But the message on her phone woke her in a hurry.

HAVE U SEEN YR OLD BLOG TODAY?

The text message on her phone was from ShadeeLadee, one of her earliest Gracenotes followers and another lifestyle blogger based in Miami. Over the years they’d met at various blogger meet-ups and gotten friendly, and, although ShadeeLadee had a real name, which was Claire King, Grace always just called her Shadee.

Grace clicked over to what she thought of as Faux Gracenotes, and swore. Loudly.

The photo was the exact one Grace had posted on her own blog, but with the headline Grab Some Crab.

Beneath it was Grace’s corn-crab chowder, which J’Aimee (or more likely Ben, Grace decided) had rechristened Crab-Corn Bisque. She’d cleverly changed the recipe in the slightest ways, calling for a sprig of rosemary instead of tarragon and decreasing the amount of half-and-half. But otherwise, it was Grace’s recipe. And it was definitely Grace’s photo.

“Oh, hell no!” Grace exclaimed. She scrolled down to see the number of comments J’Aimee’s post had garnered. There were seventy-six, and it was barely 7:30 A.M. on a Sunday, usually her slowest day for blog traffic.

She quickly typed in a comment of her own. “THIS RECIPE AND PHOTO WERE HIJACKED FROM TrueGrace.com. To see the original, much better, recipe, click over to here.” And she added a link to her own blog.

Most likely, Ben, whom she assumed was the blog’s administrator, would delete Grace’s comment and block her from trying to comment again, but Grace didn’t care.

She opened her own blog. Nothing. Her new banner was there, but the only thing beneath it was a vaguely worded link. She instinctively clicked on it, and immediately regretted it. The link took her to the vilest, most sickening display of pornography she could have imagined.

Grace stared at the screen in stunned silence. How? She didn’t have to ask who had done this, who’d not just erased her blog post, but sabotaged her entire blog. It was Ben, that she knew. She just didn’t know how.

How could he have infiltrated her blog? She had a new protected password; he couldn’t have accessed it, or could he?

Fuming, she left the blog and went to check her e-mail. Her in-box showed she had eighty-eight new messages.

She read the first one, from another lifestyle blogger, Shana, of Design or Die, and cringed.

Grace, what’s going on with you? Your blog has been hacked, and it’s not only got a porn link, it’s infecting anybody who opens it with a virus. Love ya, girl, but for the sake of my readers, I’m removing you from my blogroll until you get your act together.

The next e-mail was from Nathan Woods, an influential interior design blogger with nearly half a million followers. Grace had been on cloud nine the day Nate had e-mailed to tell her how much he loved her post “Window Treatments That Ought to be Outlawed,” which he’d privately called “Swags for Hags.” He’d done two cross-promotions with Grace that had gained her a slew of new followers, and had even given her invaluable business advice about which advertisers to avoid on her own blog.

Nathan’s e-mail was terse and to the point.

What the fuck is this??? It was followed by a link, which took her to an infamous online forum called SnarkSauce, where contributers posted venomous items about Internet celebrities.

I HATE NATE was the post’s headline.

Closet queen Nathan Woods’s tenuous hold on the title of “Biggest Boozer” has never been challenged, but recently the Manhattan-based designer and blogger was knocked down a rung when textile giant F. Shumacher & Company ended their five-year contract with Woods, whose lame-ass line of botanical-based fabrics