May 24, 2017
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An Excerpt from 'An Enlightening Quiche' where an heirloom quiche recipe and baking rivalry turn up the heat in northern Rhode Island’s French-Canadian mill town of Beauchemins during the aftermath of a tragedy precipitated by reckless behavior:
Augusta:
I sprawled provocatively on the sofa and leaned back against overstuffed fringed pillows, a temptress in waiting. For a factory Gal Friday, my surroundings were none too shabby thanks to the largesse of a lothario. Replicated Baroque grandeur prevailed: hand-carved mahogany, gilded trinkets, ball-and-claw foot, winged griffins, and velvet opulence in shades of burgundy trickled from the parlor to the boudoir like spilled wine.
Yet, I was partial only to the elongated, leather keepsake box I’d scored at Lorraine’s yard sale last October, a false lull of normalcy before an Iraqi bullet struck her son dead two months later. Its bed lining simulated a much more suitable coffin to lay my mother’s effects to rest than Tante’s nondescript shoebox.
No doubt about it, the somberness of Louis XIV’s Versailles Revival suited my dark side, heretofore devoid of taking the high road along beau chemins.
The doorknob turned, prefacing his stride across the room. Boyish good looks and mannerisms belied the dysfunctional poseur hiding beneath a charming exterior. The tinge of his breath suggested he may have had a belt or two to blunt the edge of an illicit rendezvous precipitated and sustained by desperation. I sat up, ready for him to kneel at my feet and bury his face in my lap while he shed tears coursing from feelings of inadequacy. And, as of late, consumed with anxiety and gripped in its paralysis. I stroked his waves, knowing full well the gesture groomed a merge between two people fraught with human frailties.
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