Much Ado About Muffin Read Online Free PDF Page A

office, but originally she’s from Ridley Ridge, like all the Urquharts.”
    â€œThat doesn’t surprise me.” I call Ridley Ridge, a town slightly larger than Autumn Vale that is up the ridge and down the highway a few miles, the Town That Hope Fled, or The Saddest Place on Earth.
    Janice gobbled down the muffin, then mumbled, “It’s not bad, I guess, but your muffins are better.
Any
way, as I said,Minnie’s current boarders are those two jokers and Brianna something or other.”
    â€œThey look shifty. What do you know about them?”
    â€œNot much. Both from out of town.”
    I don’t get “vibes,” as some people call it, but there seemed something off about those two.
    â€œAnyway, back to Crystal Rouse,” Janice said. “With Emerald’s help she has gathered quite the bunch of dummies who go to her meetings, which are supposed to be all about motivation and self-fulfillment. You know the shtick: if you put your desires out into the universe, you will receive what you need. Load of crap. Sure,
some
of what you get from life is from what you put out there, but
no
one deserves cancer, or divorce, or a crippling accident.”
    â€œIt’s a scam made to make people who aren’t successful or healthy feel guilty,” I agreed. “So that’s what Consciousness Calling is all about? Have you been to a meeting?”
    â€œI did go out of curiosity,” Janice admitted. “But the relentless
cheeriness
got me down!”
    I smiled and chuckled. “Couldn’t the world use a little more cheerfulness?”
    â€œNot the idiotic variety that spouts platitudes like it’s philosophy!” A few people around us had heard our conversation, and one nodded, her eyes wide.
    â€œYou got it, Janice!” the woman said, leaning across her table toward us. “I went and asked Crystal what to do about my lousy cheating almost-ex. She said I clearly had let myself go, and that’s probably why he cheated!”
    I eyed her and saw a middle-aged woman who was pretty normal: some spreading across the middle and the bottom, graying hair, and a few crow’s-feet tracking around her sparkling eyes. “Any guy I’ve known who cheated did it for their own reasons, something lacking inside themselves.”
    She nodded. “I’m not taking the blame for getting old when
he’s
the one who looks like a pregnant sumo. I didn’t complain about
his
sorry butt, and he thinks
I’ve
let myself go?”
    â€œAnyway . . . Crystal Rouse?” I said to Janice as the other woman got up to pay and leave. “I’m concerned Emerald has been roped into a scam.”
    â€œShe’s a big girl; she can figure it out on her own,” Janice said. “I like Emerald, but if she’s going to keep spouting this crap I’ll avoid her until she’s recovered.”
    â€œI guess I’m more worried about Lizzie,” I said. “I’d better get going. I have a few more people to see today, now that I’m back.” I paused. “You know, Janice, I am sorry I didn’t come back for so long.” I told her about Maria’s passing. “Time there helped me figure things out. As much as I loved Miguel, he was used to me doing whatever he wanted. I think he and I would have had to renegotiate our marriage as we got older.”
    â€œThere is not a marriage around that doesn’t require renegotiation as the years go by, honey,” she said, and patted my hand.
    Reminded about Roma by my mention of Miguel, I told her in brief how I knew the woman, and Janice rolled her eyes. Mabel came back and crouched down near our table, the smell of tobacco smoke on her breath. It’s not an odor I find offensive, oddly enough. Lots of models smoke, and sometimes they did so while I was styling them, a profession I picked up after my brief plus-size modeling career.
    â€œI s’pose