I pouted, deciding to use my big blue eyes to my advantage even though they weren’t so much blue as a boring gray.
“Aw, c’mon, Mr. Sherwood. I’d never hurt a fly. I know what you think, and what everyone’s saying, but I swear on my honor, I just went in to take a look around and got clumsy. I grew up here and so much has changed. Madam Zoltar’s used to be a sewing shop when I was a kid. So I was curious to see the changes and maybe meet Madam Zoltar.”
Now he was interested. I saw it in his expression. “Who’s your kin?”
But this was where things could get sticky for me. My mother didn’t exactly have a stellar reputation. She’d been quite the cougar back in the day—or gold digger, depending on which of her victims you asked.
Still, I couldn’t lie about who she was. Maybe he’d even feel sorry for me.
“Dita Cartwright was my mother.”
He bobbed his balding head, his lips still in a thin line of disapproval. “Yep. Lived over in the fancy cul-de-sac, didn’t ya? That explains your good looks.”
“You knew my mother?” I asked before I thought better. Opening up the subject of my mother was always tricky business. You never knew who you’d run into when it came to a stranger’s experience with the infamous Dita. Sometimes they were friends, but more likely they were angry, bitter foes.
“Yep,” he offered before returning to his paper.
This was going exactly as I’d planned. Or not. Ugh.
The man behind the counter, whose back had been turned, saved me having to offer up excuses about Dita when he approached the table, a pad in his hand.
When I looked up, I almost fell out of my chair.
Why hadn’t I remembered Forrest Sherwood when Win told me Chester’s last name? Two years older than me, he was the hottest thing Ebenezer Falls High School had to offer back in the day.
I jumped up and stuck out my hand. “Forrest? I had no idea you were in town! It’s Stevie. Stevie Cartwright! I was two years behind you, but we went to school together, remember?”
Forrest smiled slow and easy, making deep grooves appear on either side of his mouth. He took my hand and nodded. “I didn’t at first, but I knew your name was familiar when Grandpa told me about what happened yesterday. Stevie’s an unusual name for a woman. Black lipstick, long trench coat, right?”
I waved my hand in the air at him and giggled. “All day, every day. That was me and my signature brand of Goth.”
“Could you be any more schoolgirl-crush obvious?” Win blustered in my ear.
I stuck my middle finger up behind my head in the direction of Win’s voice as I tucked my hair back into place and sat in my chair.
“You’ve really changed,” he said with his boy-next-door grin, eyeing my thrift store pink and gray Hermes scarf I’d so carefully wrapped around my neck and draped down my chest to cover the hole in my second-hand silk shirt.
The shirt was tucked into my third favorite pair of jeans to also hide the wasabi stain on the hem, and I’d paired it all with work boots because I’d sold most of my thrift-store shoes before I left Paris.
So while I’m sure I looked different, I was still the girl who dripped ketchup down the front of her when she was eating a hot dog.
But I grinned back at Forrest, brushing my hair from my eyes and setting my sunglasses on top of my head. “I have indeed. For the better, I hope.”
“So your hair really wasn’t that black with the purple glow?”
“Nope. I’ve always been a boring medium brown. My quest to be different from everyone else wasn’t always a success.”
Forrest laughed, deep and rumbly. “Well, you look terrific.”
Win’s sigh went long and raspy-loud straight through my eardrums. “God save the Queen. Let’s get on with this. This isn’t bloody eHarmony. This is an interrogation.”
“So you work here?” I asked Forrest, noting his hair was still as sunshiney blond and his eyes were still just as aquamarine as they’d been back when we were in school.
Chester dropped his newspaper altogether and glared at me. “He owns the place.”
Forrest put his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder and gave it a light squeeze before snapping one of his red suspenders. “Gramps? Ease up, huh? You don’t really believe Stevie hurt Madam Zoltar, do you? Be nice to the customers. Especially ones as pretty as Stevie—and stop perpetuating the rumor.”
Chester blustered. “Don’t you go givin’ me your PC nonsense about shaming and whatever else it is you extra-sensitive kids have come up with to get all up in arms about!”
I preened extra hard for Win’s benefit before I asked, “Speaking of Madam Zoltar, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions about her, Mr. Sherwood?”
“Finally,” Win groused.
Mr. Sherwood grumbled, adjusting his suspenders and shrugging Forrest off. “What do you wanna know? And remember, I’m immune to those big gray-blue eyes a yours.”