Sea Change (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

equally black four-inch wide belt, and a white, twenty six-foot radius hat tilted slightly and perfectly askew, as though precisely in tune with the gravitational laws prescribed by the zodiac at just this time of the morning, just this spot in the universe—entered, and pronounced:
    “My dear ladies!”
    This in and of itself––this three word utterance––was an event worth celebrating and remembering, as was every gesture and sound connected with Madame Delafosse. It was not the “my dear” so much that needed celebrating and adoration; it was the word “ladies,” which had never been said quite the same way on earth, and never would be again.   Precisely what she said could not have been written, nor would any professional writer have tried. “Laaaaaydeeez,” was perhaps the closest orthographic fit, but those inky marks on white pulp paper would have failed completely to recreate even part of the total effect of the thing itself or the “Ding an sich” that was Allana.   It would not have the tilt of her head, the radioactive smile flashing out from her dark-coffee Creole skin like a thermide bomb detonated in the mouth of a cave.
    “My dear laaaaaydeez—how aaahhhhhhrrrr yew this maaaawwwrrrrning?”
    Margot, who, despite years in the great city of Chicago, and a decade or so before that in the great city of Los Angeles, and some years before that in various radical communes around The University of California at Berkley––had never encountered a creature more bizarre than she herself, was momentarily stunned, outgunned, and out-outrageoused. So it was left to Nina to reply to the verbal Daryl F. Zanuck cinemascopic presentation that was “Laaayyydeeeeeze, how aaaahhhhhrrrr yew?” by saying simply:
    “We’re good!   How are you?”
    How humiliating.
    “I’m wunnnnnnderful!   It’s such a deviiiiiiiine maaaaaawwwwwrning, is it not?   I do hope I’m not disturbing you?”
    Margot had refitted herself by now, and found composure enough to rise and gesture to one of the chairs:
    “We’re fine, Allana.   Please sit down.   I was just going to get some tea.”
    “Oh you were?” said Allana, pulling out the chair, evaluating it, cleaning it, disdaining it, hearing its   brick-scraping apology, forgiving it, and accepting the petition of the entire garden to join her realm and worship her, all with one brief sweeping magnificent gesture…
    …upon the end of which she was somehow there, seated across from Nina at the table, the now-reigning queen of what had once been Margot’s little shop.
    She and Nina exchanged a few pleasantries, after which Margot reappeared in the doorway:
    “I have several teas to offer. We can have Darjeeling or Assam if we’re in an Indian mood; I have Chinese White Tea, Sencha from Japan, or Ti Kwan Yin from Taiwan.”
    Allana’s gaze focused, narrowed, and hardened.   She spoke slowly, the words drenched no longer with sweetness but with a great deal of disappointment, mixed only to a slight degree with rancor.
    “Why, Assam, of course.”
    Margot nodded.
    How , Nina found herself asking Margot mentally, could you have asked?
    Embarrassing both of us like that!
    Darjeeling indeed!
    “Assam,” Margot said, “it is.”
    Darjeeling.
    The very thought.
    “Dearest Nina. I must admit I am happy to have found you here. There is…well, an ISSUE that has arisen.”
    Strange , Nina thought, how Allana Delafosse had the ability to speak in capital letters.
    The tea appeared, and was properly sipped.
    Allana Delafosse broached the ISSUE.
    “It concerns this evening, Nina.   I assume you’ve heard.”
    “Oh.   You mean…”
    “The writer.”
    “Tom Broussard?”
    “Yes. Mr. Broussard.”
    “Well.   I heard he was coming to talk to the writers’ group.”
    “Indeed.   And it’s just that there do exist, at least in my mind, questions of––how shall I say it?–– APPROPRIATENESS. I’m sure Mr. Broussard has written some very fine things. I must