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from grabbing the waitress—“Look at this! We’re going to the place where the doughnut hole was invented!”
    At least Krista is always good for a squeal. I do my due diligence and check out her suggestions for New Hampshire and Vermont and I have to say they can’t be bettered! She’s even going to meet up with us at the Trapp Family Lodge as it’s the last destination on the itinerary.
    “I have to be there to see Pamela’s face when she checks out the view from the on-site bakery. The hills are alive, I’m telling you!”
    I wanted to get the final seal of approval from the woman herself before I confirmed everything, but her agent told me that her plate was too full to trouble her with details. They trusted my judgment. Pamela’s mother wanted to know the exact driving route but, other than that, I could do a big reveal when she gets to New York. So, as you can imagine, by the time I arrive at the airport to collect the Lambert-Leigh ladies, I am beside myself.
    I have the itinerary all printed up in a special ribbon-tie folder with different-colored information sheets for each state including a cutely designed recipe card for each of the featured cakes. I’ve even bought a new camera so I can properly document the journey. This trip is going to be a dream! An absolute dream!
    Just as soon as we get out of the hellhole that is JFK.
    •   •   •
    “Don’t mind me!” I mutter as I get bashed for the umpteenth time, trying to hold my position at the Arrivals barrier. I’ve been elbowed, jostled, lunged across and had several signs held directly in front of my face. But I’m not budging. I patiently continue to fend off the fray and track every face as it rounds the corner.
    I wonder what Pamela’s mother will look like? I did try and Google her but there were very few family pictures available. Despite all her on-screen success, Pamela seems to be an otherwise private person. Perhaps that is why her marriage has lasted an impressive twenty-one years. I can’t quite figure out what her husband does for a living. Or did. He’s probably retired now but I’m guessing something suit-y at some point. There was one anniversary picture of them in Paris, taking a boat trip down the Seine, and I thought, I wonder what that’s like, to have a smooth-flowing love life. One that glides ever onward through the years. Mine has been more of a series of leaky, slowly sinking rowing boats.
    A while back, Krista asked me to name the defining quality of my ideal man. I said someone who would make me orange-scented brioche on a Sunday morning. And then I saw Pink on TV talking about the advice her dad gave her in terms of attracting an ideal partner—
whatever qualities you are searching for in someone else, be those things yourself
; be honest, be adventurous, be affectionate. Or, in my case, be a brioche baker. I was seriously looking into some classes when
The Traveling Tea Shop
offer came in. Talk about learning on the job! Oh that just being in the presence of Pamela Lambert-Leigh could cause me to attract someone lightly smudged with flour and smelling of orange zest—
    “Laurie!”
    I can’t believe it! She’s here! I snap out of my daydream and into pro mode as I hurry over to greet her, and the two uniformed men she has with her.
    One is pushing a trolley heaped with luggage. The other has charge of a woman in a wheelchair. This surely cannot be her mother—she looks like a collapsed blancmange, held together with a velvet wrap. Her neck is concertina’d into her chest, her coiffure tips forward concealing her face, all bar her mouth, which is distinctly
glistening
at the left corner.
    Surely not?
    I force my brightest smile. “Welcome back!”
    “Laurie, I’d like you to meet my mother Gracie.”
    I look down at her limp hands, one of which has just slid off her lap and is hanging dangerously close to the wheel.
    “But now is not the time.” Pamela looks rueful, securing her mother’s