Queen of Babble Gets Hitched Read Online Free PDF

routinely slip into when speaking to my employers, though I hid the fact that I could speak it—not perfectly, but well enough to understand (and be understood by) them—for months. “It’s crazy here. The phones are ringing off the hook.”
    “Elizabeth, I’m so sorry. I meant to call earlier, but my cell phone doesn’t work here. I’ve been at the hospital.”
    “The hospital?” The other lines continue to ring. Callers, impatient at being placed on hold, have hung up and are calling back. I turn away from the phone. “Is everything all right? I hope nothing happened to the boys—”
    “No, the boys are fine. It’s Jean, actually.” Madame Henri’s voice sounds tiny. She’s a petite woman, but the one thing about her that’s never seemed small before is just that… her voice. She’s always had a commanding—even domineering—presence. But not now. “He didn’t feel well at breakfast yesterday morning. I thought it was just too much champagne from the night before. But then he said his arm hurt—”
    I gasp. “Madame!”
    “Yes.” Her voice sounds even smaller. “He had a heart attack. He is scheduled for emergency bypass surgery here at the hospital today. Quadruple.” Then, with a hint of her old asperity, she adds, “I told him he works too hard! I told him he needed to take more time off! Well, now he’s getting it… and look how he has to spend it! He could have taken it at our home in Provence. But no! Not him! This is what it has come to.”
    “Oh, Madame.” I shake my head. “Well, I’m sure he’s in very good hands—”
    “The best,” Madame Henri says simply. “But it will be weeks before he can return to work. And I as well, because who do you think will have to play nursemaid to him? His sons? Bah! They are worthless. Worse than garbage.”
    I’m relieved to hear her bad-mouthing her children. That means the situation is nowhere near as dire as I’d first feared from the way she’d sounded. If she can trash-talk the kids—who, from what I’ve observed, pretty much are worthless—things are okay.
    “And just as the shop is doing the best business it has ever done before,” Madame Henri goes on. “All thanks to you! And this is how we repay you. When he is well again,” she adds matter-of-factly, “I will kill him.”
    “Don’t worry about the shop,” I say, keeping my face resolutely turned away from all the blinking lights on the phone. “I’ll be fine here.”
    “Elizabeth,” Madame Henri says. “I am not a fool. I can hear the telephone ringing.”
    “The phone,” I admit, “is a bit of a problem at the moment. But not one I can’t solve.”
    “Do what you have to do,” Madame Henri says, with a sigh. “Even… even hire someone.”
    I can’t help letting out a gasp. The Henris are almost insanely tightfisted. For good reason, of course. Until I started working for them, they barely made a profit. In fact, for the first four months I worked for them, I did it for free, just to prove I’d be worth the eventual investment of my thirty grand a year… and the rent-free apartment over the shop.
    “Madame,” I say, hardly daring to believe what I’d just heard. “Are you sure?”
    “I don’t see what choice we have,” Madame Henri says with a sigh. “You can’t do it all alone. Not the phones and the gowns. I’ll try to stop in when I can, but it won’t be often. You’re going to have to get some help. It’s Jean’s own fault,” she adds waspishly. “And I’ll tell him so if he dares to complain when he hears of it… after he’s out of the hospital, of course.”
    “Don’t bother him about it, Madame,” I say. “And don’t you worry about it, either. Leave everything to me. I’ll take care of the shop. I’ll take care of everything.”
    I have no earthly idea, of course, how I’m going to go about this. I just know that this is a crisis, and, well, I used to be a Girl Scout. Crises are what Girl Scouts are trained for.