Page 2 of Blush
“Delphine is hysterically crying in the office. I need your help dealing with this.”
“What happened?”
“What happened is—she’s been sleeping with our accounts, and now one of our biggest is dropping us.”
“Dropping us? Why?”
“Because Delphine broke up with him. This is why women shouldn’t work at a winery!”
He stormed off, leaving her mother clutching the Bulgari necklace at her throat. She spotted Leah, who tried to slink away. “For the last time, get to the house, young lady,” her mother said. “You don’t belong out here.”
Of course she did. No matter what was happening, Leah knew it was the only place she’d ever belong.
Part One
Bud Break
Girls may start out smart, but not all girls stay so damned smart.
—Judith Krantz,Lovers
One
New York City
“I’m looking for something decadent,” the woman said, leaning over the counter and squinting at the menu board. “Something to impress.”
She was not one of Leah’s regular customers, the ones who stopped in every week to buy cheese for their weekend charcuterie boards or just to stock their fridge. Those people Leah had come to know over the years, as they debated the merits of tossing a good Castelrosso into salad instead of feta.
“Are you looking for a soft or hard cheese?” Leah asked. Typically, she would ask for more information: What other food would be served? If wine would be part of the meal, what varietal? But lately, she was distracted.
“Either one,” the woman said. She had brown hair shimmering with gold highlights and wore a chic, lightweight trench coat.
“I’m a big fan of the Kunik,” Leah said. “It’s a triple cream cheese. Very silky texture and truly delicious. Try this—like butter,” she said, passing the woman a sample of the soft white cheese.
The woman tasted it, and her eyes widened. “You know what you’re talking about.”
Yes, she did. Leah had opened the cheese shop eighteen years earlier, when her daughter was just three years old. The small space on the corner of Seventy-Ninth Street and First Avenue had stood vacant for a long time. Every day, passing it on her way to buy groceries at Agata & Valentina, she fantasized about turning it into a cheese shop. She even had a name for it: Bailey’s Blue, an ode to her love of blue cheese.
The door opened, and this time it was a regular, a party planner named Roya Lout who had talked more than one hostess into using Bailey’s Blue instead of a larger purveyor. “I like your style,” she had declared, and Leah knew she wasn’t talking about her clothes. Years earlier, before it was popular, Leah had made a commitment to feature locally produced cheese, and her shop consistently showcased northeastern artisanal varieties.
There had been a time when she thought about expanding her space to include the location next door if it became available. She taught wine and cheese classes in the cramped back room of the shop, and she could use a dedicated space for that. At just around eight hundred square feet, Bailey’s Blue had one long counter, and one display case filled with wheels of creamy Brie, Camembert, Comte, and Gruyère. She also had one case for her beloved blues: Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, a few wedges of the classic Maytag, Pur Chèvre Bleu from Illinois, and Bergère Bleue from upstate. The shelves behind the counter brimmed with jars of assorted olives, figs, chocolate-covered almonds, artisanal crackers, and jam—the accoutrements to tease out the nuanced flavors of fine cheese. Her husband had recently added a mounted display of cheese knives and serving boards for sale.
“It’s getting cluttered in here,” she’d said. But Steven, recently retired and now working beside her in the shop, was eager to make his mark.
As it turned out, there would be no expanding next door: the landlord was selling the entire lot to developers, and they would belosing their lease in six months. It was happening all over the Upper East Side neighborhood known as Yorkville, once a haven of mom-and-pop bakeries, hardware stores, boutique pharmacies, and beauty shops. Now entire city blocks were being razed to build high-rises, the small businesses replaced by CVS and Citibank.
Steven saw it as an opportunity to start fresh with a bigger, better space.
“Change can be a good thing,” he said.
Leah, who had been in business for nearly two decades, felt like maybe she needed a moment to catch her breath.
“Congrats,” Roya Lout said. “I read your daughter’s story. To be published inThe New Yorkerbefore she even graduates college? She’s a genius.”
A genius who had not answered any of Leah’s texts or calls for the past few days.
“Thank you,” Leah said, brushing the concern about Sadie out of her mind. “And I think you’ll love this Hudson River Valley blue. It’s mellow, but you’ll notice a bit of tanginess.”
