Summerkill by Maryann Weber

Author:Maryann Weber [WEBER, MARYANN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780759526655
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2001-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

The rain continued into Thursday morning—wonderful for Mariah’s plants—and with the ground so well soaked, putting in the paths and edging the next couple of days would go more easily. It was supposed to stay coolish, too, always a blessing for the heavy work. Things should be substantially finished before I went to the Cape.

I got to Jake’s around 9:30 and we spent about half an hour finalizing our proposal, then headed south. For the occasion he was wearing the newest-looking plaid shirt I’d ever seen on him, and pants with hardly any spots. I’d reluctantly decided to wear a skirt again, a different one, with a white peasant blouse that hadn’t been in style for fifteen years, at least. We looked like we were on our way to a hoedown.

As we turned into the Cutlers’ driveway, my uneasiness about potential second thoughts came rushing back. Would we return to square one? The quick and easy answer turned out to be no. They’d used their second batch of mulling-over time to come up with an imposing list of questions, but these all started from the assumption that the project was a go. I’m a sucker for intelligent questions about my work. An hour or so into things, I upgraded my projection that the Cutlers would be tolerable clients—I was looking forward to working with them.

We had to have lunch to celebrate, one of those artistic-looking, screamingly healthful spreads with lots of veggies and some or other Mideastern grain. Jake grimly got down most of his one and only helping. I let myself be talked into seconds, halfway liking this sort of stuff, though not to the point of asking for recipes. There was wine, naturally, two glasses of which noticeably improved Jake’s spirits. I’m up for a glass of white if sociability demands, as opposed to coffee, which you’d have to force down my throat. For dessert Janet brought out Bavarian cream, a tasty concoction even if the closest thing to cream in it, she proudly assured us, was skim milk. “So why don’t you call it Bavarian skim milk?” Jake inquired sourly. Janet declined to discuss the merits of the idea.

As we were finishing up, Sam mentioned that they’d been at Hudson Heights a couple of weekends previously, playing in a mixed foursome. “You’ve spent a lot of time there this summer, right? Do you have any idea when they’re going to have the last nine holes ready? I thought it was supposed to be the beginning of this month.”

“I believe they’re shooting for mid-September now. That’s not too bad a delay, as these things go.”

“You mustn’t have any money in it.”

I couldn’t help chuckling, thinking of the grief Mariah would give me over that. “It’s not my type of investment. How about you?”

“I passed, too. Back when they were putting the funding together, a couple of clients asked me to take a look at it. Your district attorney was organizing an investment group good for ten percent ownership.

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