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every bit a Monday: jarring, exhausting, and a calamity of errors. He was cute in that finance-guy kind of way and late in that my-meeting-ran-over-and-it-will-never-happen-again kind of way. The only thing he did get right was the never-going-to-happen-again portion of the evening.
    When she’d decided to move back to St. Helena and Pricilla had insisted on Lexi taking over the apartment completely, she had believed her grandmother’s intentions to be pure. A quiet place for Lexi to grieve and reassess. Now, after seeing her list of bachelors, the only thing Lexi had reassessed was Pricilla’s motive—she didn’t want her granddaughter to have to fiddle with a sock on the doorknob.
    Well,
Grandmère,
you moved out in vain
, Lexi thought. She was done with knobs, fiddling or otherwise.
    Her heels clicked on the barn-style wood floors, stopping right before she reached the white painted line that separated Mr. Craver’s part of the store—the butcher’s shop—from Mrs. Craver’s part—everything else. The specialty grocer had been around since 1894 and the Cravers for about as long. Marilee asked for a divorce about a year after they were married, and Biff denied her request on the groundsthat the divorce would make his wife happy. Livid, Marilee painted a white line down the middle of the store and told her husband that if he ever crossed the line she’d claim crime of passion. And the fighting had been going on ever since.
    Lexi dropped two Valencia oranges into her basket and then paused, looking at the sour oranges two barrels over. She picked one up and smelled it, the bitter scent tickling the tip of her nose. The blood orange might be too sweet, but was the sour one too acidic?
    She didn’t know. And that made her nervous. Today’s lunch was special because it was the first time she would be cooking for her grandmother since Jeffery left her for chicken noodle soup. Too bad that it was not the first time since discovering the affair that Lexi had been unsure of what ingredients would work best. Not a good sign for her future as a Michelin-starred chef hopeful.
    “Bought some of those last week. Biggest mistake of my life.”
    Lexi turned and found Nora Kincaid, current treasurer of the Daughters of the Prohibition and a big enough busybody to give ChiChi a run for her money, hunched over her shopping cart, her teeth bared in what appeared to be a smile.
    “Why’s that?” Lexi asked, even though she knew better. But she was having a crisis of the culinary kind and needed help.
    “Bitter, I tell you. Made me salivate until my Harvey though I’d gone rabid.” Nora grabbed the orange and set it back in the barrel with a disgusted tut, and Lexi wasn’t so sure it was the salivation that had led Harvey to that conclusion. “If you ask me, things here have been going downhill ever since Marilee started selling produce from Chile.”
    Nora shot a glance at Marilee, who was standing behind the cash register, and dropped her voice. “I hear it’s because Biff told her that real Americans didn’t sell foreign wares and he would have nothing to do with it. She told him that real men don’t need so many little blue pills to make it happen down there and then started importing things from all over.”
    Nora leaned in closer. “My Harvey never needed any of those blue pills. His plumbing works just fine, and I do my job as a wife.”
    “Um, congratulations,” Lexi said, looking around, not sure what she was supposed to say.
    “Oh my. This is awkward, isn’t it? I didn’t mean to imply—” Nora glanced down at Lexi’s bare ring finger, and before Lexi could defend herself against the nonimplication, Nora changed the subject. “Nonetheless, I’m glad I ran into you.”
    Lexi wasn’t sure she could return the sentiment.
    “Your grandmother signed on to provide all the pastries for the Book Walk this Saturday.”
    “I saw it on her calendar.” The Book Walk was run by the Community Action Committee