Banana Muffins & Mayhem - Culinary Competition Mystery #5

Chapter 14

(Amy)

Amy sighed with relief when she stepped onto the landing. Stairs and snack trays were a challenging combination. Rather miraculously, all of the crackers were still on the metal platter with the bowls of dip roughly centered among them. Her balancing skills were playing nice that evening. It was much more likely that she would've left a trail of crackers in the stairwell. As she began walking down the hallway, a man emerged from Geri's apartment. Amy nodded a greeting to him as their paths crossed. He was probably in his early thirties, with light-brown hair and blue eyes. Very good looking and very obviously younger than Carla's mother.

What was he doing in Geri's apartment?

Since Alex was working late again, Geri had insisted that she come to another wine and whine evening. The girls' night out probably would've made Carla feel better too, but she was home—in her own words—clinging to her husband. After the couple returned home from the emergency room, she had learned more about what had transpired with the shooting. A murder suspect had panicked when Shepler knocked on his door and decided to try to shoot his way out of the situation. Luckily, the guy didn't have great aim, and the bullet ended up barely clipping Shepler's arm. But the wound was only a few inches away from his heart. Scary. She didn't blame Carla for spending the evening snuggling with her, thankfully, barely-injured husband.

Amy tapped on the wooden door with her free hand. A couple of seconds later, Geri answered. A wide smile spread across her face, and she said, "Hello! I'm so glad you could join us again."

"I had so much fun the last time. How could I resist?" She slipped off her shoes and used her foot to slide them over to the other footwear congregated beside the welcome mat. "Thank you for inviting me again. But I'm curious—who was the man who just left?" She looked at Charlotte and Tommy, who were already sitting on the floor cushions in the living room. "Is one of you a cougar?"

Tommy snorted and pointed her thumb at Charlotte. "She likes to think she is, but you have to get the younger guys to actually go out with you to be considered a cougar. Charlotte just likes to look and pretend. She takes the say it and you will become it approach."

Charlotte shot her sister a death ray of annoyance look and then turned to smile at Amy. "To answer your question...the man you saw was Isaac, my son. He is going to fix the leaky faucet in Geri's kitchen and stopped by to see what he needs to bring with him for the job."

Heat crept up Amy's neck and settled in her cheeks. "Oh! I'm so sorry. I know you mentioned a son. I didn't think he would be older than his late teens or early twenties."

Tommy cupped her hand beside her mouth and whispered loudly, "She's old."

Charlotte shook her head. Her scarlet-red hair was so bright that it seemed to glow in the diffused lamplight. "I'm flattered. I got pregnant with him when I was in college. Life hasn't always been easy, but we made it. I'm so proud of the man he's become. It was difficult to find husbands when he was little, but everything worked out."

"Notice she said husbands, with an S." Tommy laid her open hand on her chest, over her heart and a strap buckle for her overalls. "I haven't had even one husband or a child, and my life has worked out just fine also. To each her own."

Amy was still standing in front of the door, staring in amazement at the sisterly verbal sparring. It was unlike anything she had ever witnessed before. She smiled at Geri when she exchanged a glass of white wine for the snack tray. "Thank you."

"Find a comfortable pillow, and settle in for a while."

There was a low table in the center of the arrangement of pillows. It reminded Amy of a table at a Japanese teahouse. Geri slid the platter of homemade cornmeal crackers, mango salsa, and avocado hummus next to the other plates of snacks as Amy settled onto a cushion that faced the window. Had Geri told the other women about her fear of parenting issues or was she just being paranoid that the topic had strayed in that direction?