A Different Kind of Honesty - excerpts

All the proceeds from A Different Kind of Honesty go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

'Maggie made the grocery store in ten minutes, bought three packs of her teabag fix and headed back to the hotel. But within eight or nine steps, a tangled scent of bread, hot sugar, and meat sauce reached out of a doorway and embraced her like a siren song.

She wondered how she’d missed the little delicatessen before. Left behind from another era, its window framed with green, white, and red twists of crepe paper, it had the name Luciani’s acid-etched in belle-époque script across the glass. Cartons of panettone hung from ribbon handles along the length of the window, between more tricolour strips of crepe that twirled one way then another in the warmth of the shop. Below those, a row of assorted salamis ranging from Schiaparelli shocking pink to ox-blood red, studded with sequins of glistening white fat. On either side, a mile-high stack of nougat stuffed with almonds and candied fruits snuggled in cellophane wrappers. She sighed at the temptation of forbidden riches.

Inside, a pretty, black-haired girl in a starched white apron emerged from what Maggie supposed was a kitchen. She carried a platter piled with tiny golden nuggets; fried rice balls that would be stuffed with a mouthful of minced beef in ragu sauce, or melting, full-flavoured cheese. She placed the dish in the centre of the window display with the sort of reverence accorded to the relics of a saint.

Maggie yielded to sweet temptation and went in.

She knew the pressure Tony was under with the case, the long hours, arriving at the courthouse early and leaving late to avoid the press. He hated every minute of it; simply doing his job, all the media attention was anathema to him. Right now, they didn’t exactly have romantic candlelight dinners, but perhaps a little indulgence would relax him, take some of the stress away for a while.

She chose a couple of dimpled focaccia breads, their tops crusted with sea salt and olives, and some prosciutto ham sliced so thin you could read a newspaper through it. A pot of glossy black olives stuffed with salty anchovies and twists of lemon zest. And cookies...ricciarelli flavoured with honey and vanilla went in a box along with hard cantucci for dipping in coffee, and a pile of almond biscuits, crumbly and golden, topped with creamy white pine kernels.

Treats selected and paid for, Maggie decided to warm herself with a frothy cappuccino. As she waited she thought of the small hours a few nights back when she’d lain in the dark with Tony. Unable to sleep, he’d spoken about his very Italian childhood right here in New York City and his couple of visits to the home country when he was younger. He’d talked about the girl he had a teenage crush on, and he’d laughed, telling her he hadn’t even begun to know what love was then; hadn’t really known until now. His words filled her with something way beyond happiness, an entirely new emotion. Being with him was coming home.....'

© Jane Richardson 2007

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