The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

Author:Kate Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

“Home economics?” Grace paused a moment, glass of sun tea in hand, then burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Bea objected, but too late: the Briar Club’s collective funny bone had been set off. Nora giggled into the neck of Grace’s cat, Fliss buried her laughter in Angela’s ruffled romper, even Arlene tittered against her fingertips. Claire flopped all the way onto her back from where she’d been sitting on the floor.

“Kill me now,” she announced. “Bea Verretti, teaching home ec!”

“You’re all dead to me,” Bea said, and that just set everyone off again.

“I’m sure Miss Verretti will do just fine,” Arlene’s sharp-faced FBI boyfriend, Harland, called over from the kitchenette area in his Virginia drawl. Arlene hadn’t gotten a ring out of him yet, but she still had her hooks in somehow—Bea couldn’t think of any other reason a man would come over and offer to cook for his girlfriend’s housemates. He stood at the hot plate now, jacket discarded and sleeves rolled up, frying chicken with surprising dexterity. “You took home ec in high school, didn’t you?” he asked Bea.

“I didn’t pay attention. I barely went.” Too busy ditching class for batting practice, or sneaking off school grounds to watch the Red Sox at Fenway. “What do people learn in home ec, anyway?” Bea asked, somewhat desperately. She was supposed to start filling in for Miss Ferguson on Monday.

“Sewing, of course,” said Nora. “How to run up a simple blouse or skirt on your Singer—”

“Housework,” Claire said with a dramatic retch. “How to get stains out of things, polish silver—”

“Household accounting?” Grace suggested. “How to shop on a budget?”

“What is there to learn about not having any money?” Bea wanted to know. “You don’t have any, you buy what little you can afford, it’s not complicated. Why is there a class?”

“Oh, sweetie, home ec is where you learn the refinements of being a wife,” Arlene cooed. “How to dress nicely, host a party, set a proper table. How embarrassed would you be, not knowing where to set the bread plate and the cake fork if you had your husband’s boss coming for dinner?” Sidelong glance at Harland: Look at me! Excellent wife material over here!

Bea groaned, pulling a bottle of Schlitz out of Grace’s tiny icebox. “Just put me on the DL now. I’m finished.”

“You can do the cooking part at least, can’t you, Miss Verretti?” Harland lowered the last floured chicken drumstick into the pan of hot oil with a pair of tongs. “What with this supper club you ladies have had going for what, nearly three years?”

“You know what the Briar Club eats when it’s my turn to cook?” Bea bashed the cap off her bottle. “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I can’t cook a lick.”

The saintly Harland looked disapproving. He probably thought all females emerged from the womb knowing how to cook. Bea grinned and took a swig of beer right out of the bottle, knowing he didn’t really approve of that, either. Or her slacks, or her short hair—a man who wore such unbelievably starched shirts and spoke so respectfully of J.

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