Taste of Honey by Eileen Goudge

wandered into the road. Old Dick Truesdale’s—he really ought to keep his dog chained up. But repeated complaints by concerned neighbors had fallen on deaf ears; the poor guy hadn’t been the same since his wife’s death. And from the looks of his overgrown yard, littered with the shriveled brown fists of fallen oranges, and ramshackle house beyond—an older frame structure missing a good deal of its shingles whose walls seemed to lean inward like old drunks holding up each other—he wasn’t doing a very good job of looking after himself, either.
    At least I have my kids …
    Minutes later she was turning onto Old Mission, with its quaint Spanish-style shops trimmed in colorful tiles. The tile-roofed arcade that stretched along one side of the street was bustling with shoppers, and she remembered that the January white sale was still on at Rusk’s. In the park across the street, white-haired Clem Woolley, toting a bundle of his self-published tome, My Life with Jesus, was holding forth to the Vietnamese head gardener, Mr. Nuyen, a solitary little man as silent and ageless as the grounds he tended. She knew only that he’d come here just after the war, and was said to be so enamored of his new home he hadn’t spent a single night away from it since.
    Gerry, lost in her thoughts, nearly missed the entrance to Del Rey Plaza, then had to circle the lot several times before she found a spot. Now where was that grocery list? She searched her purse before moving on to her pockets. It must have fallen out at Aubrey’s.
    The reminder of how she’d spent the afternoon brought a flush of remembered pleasure. What would these people pushing their grocery carts think if they knew? She spotted Marguerite Moore climbing out of her light blue Le Sabre in front of Safeway. Last summer when Marguerite had gotten wind of Sam and Ian’s affair, she’d been like a bloodhound on the trail, no doubt secretly wishing a man, any man—never mind one as young and attractive as Ian—would give her a reason to change her sheets in the middle of the week.
    She caught the narrow glance Marguerite shot her. Marguerite and her ilk had been looking down their noses at Gerry for years. For one thing, she didn’t conform to their standards for how a middle-aged woman should behave. Nor did she dress in the secular equivalent of a habit and veil, as befitting a former nun. Today’s outfit, formfitting jeans that left nothing to the imagination and a stretchy top showing more than an inch of cleavage, had Marguerite eyeing her with open contempt. Gerry waved cheerily as she passed. I wonder what the old cow would think if she knew what I have on underneath.
    Inside she cruised down the aisles, tossing boxes and cans and jars into her cart with scarcely a glance at their labels. She was too preoccupied with thoughts of Claire. Had the Tree House been the best choice of venue? Should she have chosen somewhere less crowded, where they wouldn’t draw unwanted attention from the likes of Marguerite?
    Gerry didn’t see Fran O’Reilly until they’d nearly collided. She glanced up to find fiery-haired Fran hastily stuffing a box into her cart with a faintly abashed look. It was a moment before Gerry realized that the owner of Francoise’s was embarrassed to be seen buying Pop Tarts.
    “Yeah, I know,” Fran said with a self-conscious laugh. “Me with my culinary degree.”
    Gerry laughed. “I’m not one to judge, believe me. In my house I’m known as the Lean Cuisine Queen.”
    “You don’t have a reputation to uphold.” Fran cast a mock furtive glance at Marguerite, trundling up the aisle.
    You got that right, Gerry thought. Whatever reputation she’d once had, it had long since been trashed. “Your secret is safe with me,” she said, placing a finger over her lips. “Speaking of which, how’s business?”
    She recalled when Fran had first moved here, a single mom from Brooklyn who’d traded her secretary’s salary for a shot at a