“He’s sleeping with her.”
“Well, yes, of course.”
I sighed. “You know your son better than anyone.”
“What I know, Clare, is that Matt doesn’t love this woman. Not even remotely.”
I shrugged uneasily. “The caricoa strikes again. He’s made it perfectly clear he doesn’t need to love a woman to sleep with her.”
“If all he was doing, or intended to do, was sleep with her, I wouldn’t be so worried.”
“Worried?” My ears pricked up. Had Madame heard something suspicious about the woman, something that might be linked to what was happening with Ric? “What worries you?”
“I think Matt may be getting serious about her.”
“Oh, is that all...”
I tried not to laugh. Matt and serious —when it came to women, anyway—just didn’t go together in the same sentence. To prove it, I considered telling her about the pass he’d just made at me the night before, but I held my tongue. Madame still entertained the ludicrous idea that I might one day remarry Matt. Why give her hope?
“I saw them together yesterday,” Madame continued in a grave tone.
“Uh-huh.”
“They were at Tiffany, Clare. They were looking at rings.”
“Rings?” I repeated. My brain seized up for a second, but then I thought it through. “Breanne’s quite the fashionista. She was probably just shopping for a new bauble—”
“They were diamond engagement rings. I kid you not.” Good lord. I managed to keep my foot from jamming on the brakes, but only barely. “Did you ask Matt about it?”
“No. I was with a friend and we were on our way out. But I tell you Matt and Breanne were very close together, very intimate.”
“He is sleeping with her, Madame. I wouldn’t think standing cheek to cheek in a jewelry store would be an issue.”
“I want you to find out what’s going on.”
“Why?”
“I told you. My son doesn’t love this woman. I can’t have him marrying her.”
“He married me.”
“You’re the only woman Matteo’s ever loved, Clare. Don’t you know that?”
“Frankly, no. His behavior during our marriage was unforgivable—the women, the drugs—”
“I can’t defend him, and you know I’ve never tried. But that was a long time ago. He’s been off the drugs for years now, he’s working very hard, has wonderful ambitions for our business, and—”
“Please stop. We’ve hiked this hill already.”
“But he still loves you. I know it. If he marries Breanne, there’ll be no chance for you two to reconcile.”
“We’re not going to reconcile! I’ve told you before, we’re business partners now, but that’s all.”
“True love shouldn’t be ignored, Clare.”
I took a deep breath. As gently as I could, I said, “Madame, listen to me. I love you. And I know how much you loved Matt’s father. But Matt isn’t his father. And I’m not you.”
Madame fell silent after that. She leaned back in her seat and gazed out at the slow-moving traffic.
I could see by the crawling blocks that we were inching up on Joy’s culinary school. I began to scan the sidewalks, a little desperate to score a glimpse of my daughter’s bouncy ponytail. But then I remembered she was uptown these days, interning at Solange under that hot young chef, Tommy Keitel.
Given Madame’s news about Matt, a feeling of empty-nest heartache stung me especially hard. I swatted it away. You have a bigger problem to think about, I reminded myself. So think about that...
Ellie Lassiter was my only lead on the mysteries surroundingFederico Gostwick and his magic beans. Once more, I considered discussing everything with Madame— the smuggled cutting, the mugging, the stolen keycard, the possibility of attempted murder. But when I glanced over at her again, the look in her eyes told me she was no longer in the present.
I wondered what she was seeing now; probably an image of her late husband, some memory from years ago, like my marriage to Matt, something long past.
I’ll tell her about everything later, I decided, after I speak with Ellie. Then I juiced the car, swerved around two lumbering supply trucks, and moved with greater speed toward the Brooklyn Bridge.
In person, Ellie Lassiter looked much the same as she had on her Web photo: the layered, shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair, the freckled, fair skinned oval face. She’d been so slender in college, the little bit of weight she’d gained over the last twenty years looked good, giving her attractive curves, even beneath the Botanic Garden’s sexless green uniform of baggy slacks and zipper jacket.
“I almost forgot you went back to Cosi,” she said as she shook my hand. Her voice was still softly feminine, but the big, joyful smile I remembered was now tight and reserved. “I’d known you as Clare Allegro for so many years...”
I shrugged. “That’s all right. It’s apparently hard for my mother-in-law to remember, too. But then she has a selective memory.”
Ellie nodded. “My grandmother’s like that. Terribly forgetful when the subject’s irritating, but sharp as a pruning hook when she’s got an agenda.”
“Sounds like your granny and Matt’s mother have been playing croquet together.”
Madame might have made a barb of her own just then, if she’d been present, but she wasn’t. She’d already obtained a map from the Botanic Garden’s Visitor’s Center and set off on a trek of discovery through the fifty-two acre sanctuary.
I envied her. The October day was bright and warm, the foliage around us displaying vibrant colors—deep russet and bronzed gold, brilliant yellow and blazing orange. We’d parked in the Washington Avenue lot, and then followed a paved pathway onto the grounds. The smells of the Garden hit me immediately: damp leaves, late season blossoms, freshly turned dirt. (Funny, how you can actually miss the smell of dirt when your entire range of outdoorsy experience consistently runs from Manhattan sidewalk to Manhattan asphalt.)
We strolled past an herb garden with hundreds of varieties, from medicinal and culinary to ornamental. I picked up scents of sage and rosemary as we walked. There was fresh mint and basil, along with some wild pungent fragrances I couldn’t identify.
The Japanese Hill-and-Pond garden came next. A miniaturized landscape—Japanese maples dressed in bright vermillion and evergreen shrubs traditionally pruned into perfect cloud shapes—surrounded a manmade pool, alive with quacking ducks, turtles, koi, and elegant, slender-necked herons.
By then, Madame was hooked and so was I. But though I was dying to see (not to mention smell) the rest of the 10,000 plants from around the world, I had business. So while my former mother-in-law set out on a trek through the various little gardens within the larger one, I went to the administrationbuilding and set out on a quest for Ellie Shaw Lassiter.
Locating her wasn’t difficult. The receptionist in the administration building simply directed me to the Steinhardt Conservatory, a collection of immense greenhouses no more than a stone’s throw from the main plaza (not that I advocated throwing stones anywhere near those amazing glass buildings).
I found Ellie inside one of the warm, rather uncomfortably humid rooms of one structure. In the room next to us, I could see an amazing display of tiny, perfectly shaped trees. This was the Garden’s Bonsai Museum, the oldest collection of dwarfed, potted trees in the country.
In Ellie’s large, bright, transparent space, the display was much newer and closer to home—a collection of lush, green coffee plants in various stages of fruition. Some were flowering white, others were heavy with green, yellow, or red berries.
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