"Esther M. Friesner - How to Make Unicorn Pie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

and wiped dry on a paper napkin, it was nothing I could put a name to. About as

long as the first joint of my little finger and one-quarter as wide, it caught

the light from the coffee shop overheads and shimmered like the inside of an

abalone shell.



"Something wrong, dear?" Muriel's shadow fell over the object of my attention.



Muriel and her husband Hal own and run the Bowman's Ridge coffee shop. I like to

think that they belong to some mystic fraternal order of interior decorators --

the Harmonic Knights of the Cosmic Balance, Fabric Swatch and Chowder Society --

for the way they keep the place charming without being cloying. Anyone who's
dallied in small town Vermont knows how easy it is for an eatery to sink into

the La Brea Cute Pits. Either the management heaps on the prat-a-porter

antiques, or wallows in frills and dimity, or worst of all, beats it with the

Quaint stick until it catches a case of Terminal Rusticity from the knotty-pine

paneling and dies.



Hal and Muriel just serve good food, never patch the vinyl counter stools with

duct tape, adorn the place suitably for holidays, and periodically change the

basic decor according to the grand, universal imperative of We Felt Like It. Oh!

And they never shop at Everything Guernseys, thanks be to God, Jesus, Ben and

Jerry.



Muriel has never treated me like a Transient and she sees to it that all the

waitresses know how I take my coffee (black, two sugars) without my having to