The Setup Read Online Free Page B

eclectic.”
    “I’ll work on it in my spare time.” This wasn’t about her, Charlotte thought, it was about Sylvie. She really cared about Sylvie. They all did. AndSylvie had practically been a nun since she’d moved back home, which was completely unnatural for her. According to Renee, she’d been pretty much like that ever since Daisy Rose was born. “So, are you game?”
    A twinkle came into Sylvie’s eye. “I’m always game, Charlotte.”
    Charlotte gave her a penetrating look. “Yes, that’s how you got Daisy Rose. We all know that. I mean for this date.”
    Sylvie knew her sister was teasing—mostly. She’d been nothing but responsible ever since Daisy Rose had been a mere hint in her life. Still, maybe going out with this bought-and-paid-for match might be fun. Besides, it was only for one evening. What could it hurt?
    “Maddy’s giving one of her famous dinner parties,” Renee interjected. “We thought that might be the perfect place for a first date.”
    “Or an ‘only’ one,” Sylvie pointed out with a whimsical grin. “Maddy, huh?”
    This had definite possibilities. Maddy O’Neill was as avant-garde as Sylvie had once been. The woman’s newest performance events involved inviting a group of strangers to an informal dinner setting and letting them mingle. It made for some interesting conversations. So far, the events had been fairly successful and fun. Maddy’s only requirement was that the groups be diverse, so she’d invited tourists and local citizens, highbrow and low.
    Sylvie made up her mind. “Okay—why not? I’lljust brush the cinders out of my hair and leave the broom in the corner. What do I have to lose?” That put to rest, temporarily, she turned her attention to the crates that had been shipped to the gallery. “Okay, which of you lovely ladies is going to help me with these paintings?”
    Renee raised her hands before her and backed away. “Sorry, just had my nails done.”
    Sylvie turned to her other sister. “Charlotte?” She pointed to an abstract on the wall. “I need to take that one down to make room for this new grouping.”
    “Sorry, Syl, I’m all thumbs. Call someone from Maintenance.”
    Sylvie sighed. “As if someone from maintenance would have any reverence for a Matthew Baldwin original.” Baldwin was one of several local artists that Sylvie had agreed to promote.
    Charlotte glanced over at the wall where the Baldwin was hanging. “They might have just the right perspective for a Matthew Baldwin original. It looks like what the kitchen tosses out at the end of the night.”
    “Peasant,” Sylvie declared.
    “I might be a peasant, but I know what I like,” Charlotte replied cheerfully as she left the gallery.
     
    J EFFERSON LOOKED AROUND the lobby of the Hotel Marchand as he walked toward the front desk. When he’d flown out of Boston this morning, the city was in the grip of the worst cold snap in fifty years. It had snowed for two days, stopping only yesterday morning.
    New Orleans might as well have been a different world. Coming into the hotel, with its Southern Plantation decor, had transported him back in time, slipping him into a life he’d known more than two decades ago.
    Not that he had ever specifically been here, at this hotel, but there had been other hotels, other clubs in the French Quarter. The ambiance, both outside the hotel walls and within them, brought back to him a part of his own past, a time when responsibilities did not sit so heavily on his shoulders and life offered much more freedom.
    Although he’d always had a plan, a focus to his life, going to school in New Orleans had managed to pleasantly blunt the edges and make everything more relaxed. Even studying for exams. Life in New Orleans did not streak by on a lightning bolt the way it did back in Boston. Here people walked, they didn’t run. They savored, rather than devoured. They lived life in the present, not the future, enjoying the moment.
    He stopped to