Read Online Delicious and Suspicious by Riley Adams - Free Book Online

going to go under. I lost my temper. I just had this flash of a thought that came over me about how Aunt Pat had always made the restaurant about friends and family. She wouldn’t have tolerated any meanness toward her friends—and I couldn’t, either. But I didn’t handle it as well as I should have.” Lulu sighed. “Plus,” she said in a hushed voice that Tony had to lean over to hear, “she was . . . rude .”
    Tony, who had heard Rebecca Adrian called a lot worse, nodded his head. “She’s definitely that. Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Taylor. You’ve actually had the guts to tell her off, and she needed to hear it. Maybe she’s gone off to sulk for right now, but I bet she’s going to respect you a heck of a lot more for it later.”
    Tony continued, “The whole mindset is like that at the Cooking Channel. You almost expect to run into people like Rebecca there. I worked at Food Network for a while, and it was a totally organized, nice place to work. The Cooking Channel offered me more money, and I decided to jump ship. Wish I’d never heard of them. They’re just the ugly underbelly of the cable world. Mean-spirited. Always looking for the gotcha angle. And lots of people like Rebecca working for them—determined, ambitious, and sneaky.”
    He took a big sip from his iced tea. “Sometimes I gotta wonder about her,” said Tony. “Rebecca is tiny, you know. So she wears these spiky heels and puts people down all the time. Maybe she has one of those Napoleon complexes.”
    Lulu squinted thoughtfully. “She’s trying to compensate for being so little? It’s got to be a tough business, right? I’d think that she’d be at a disadvantage simply because she’s young and small.”
    Tony grinned as a waitress slid a plate piled high with ribs, slaw, spicy corn bread, and baked beans in front of him on the lunch counter. “As far as I’m concerned, Mrs. Taylor, Aunt Pat’s is where it’s at. I’ll put in my two cents with the boss when we get back home. They know Rebecca goes off the deep end sometimes.”
    Tony looked around the restaurant at the dark-paneled walls jam-packed with pictures on every available inch, the red and white checked vinyl tablecloths, and the happily chatting patrons. “And if you don’t mind, I’m not in any real rush to get Rebecca. Burning off some steam will do her good. I’ll hang out here for a while with all of you. I guess we can still make it over to Hog Heaven tonight and deal with the crowds on Beale. I don’t think they’ll bar their doors if we’re a little late.” He smiled.
    “Say,” said Ben, as a dawning thought occurred to him, “do you ever do any hunting, Tony?”
    Once it had been established that hunting wasn’t a popular, or even legal, pastime in New York City (and that Tony—and really, for that matter, Ben himself—didn’t really have the time to go driving off into the rural areas of Tennessee or Mississippi), they moved on to other topics. Then Ben had to get back to the pit to fix more barbeque, but Tony proved to be quite a popular draw for Lulu’s patrons. Maybe, thought Lulu, the good folks at Aunt Pat’s were trying to prove that they weren’t ordinarily inhospitable. Except, of course, in the most extreme of circumstances.
    By the time Tony had devoured his food, drained a beer, then eaten another order of ribs and had another beer, a blustery wind had struck up outside. Menacing dark clouds replaced puffy white ones and banded together to block out the sun. Everyone jumped at the crack, then boom of thunder soon followed by a deluge that blew up against the windows as the heavens split open.
    Lulu looked thoughtfully out the window. “I’d say you might need a ride now, Tony.”
    “I’ll second that.”
    “I’d drive you to the Peabody myself,” said Lulu, “but I arrived at the restaurant today courtesy of the ‘Jesus Saves’ bus. So we’ll both need rides.”
    Tony frowned as he looked at his watch. “She’s