The Taste of My Husband's Brother (A Wife's Revenge) novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: The Boat

"Thanksgiving," I said.

"Thanksgiving."

"That's four weeks, Mémère."

"Then don't waste one sitting on my porch."

I called the woman in the fleece at seven the next morning.

She picked up on the first ring, in a car, with the radio going.

I told her the truth.

A bank, a deadline, a sale.

"If your run is in my hands by the Monday before Thanksgiving," she said, "and it tastes like that oyster, I'll walk the order through myself. Nobody gets anything signed that fast. I'll try."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Two thousand cases, Josette. Lab-certified. On a real line."

"On a real line," I said.

Then I did the math on a napkin.

Bottles, caps, labels, cases.

Vinegar by the tanker.

The lab, and the man who certifies the lab.

Ninety-six thousand dollars.

I had four thousand eight hundred from New Orleans in a coffee can.

The board met that Thursday in the front room of the office, around Mémère's big desk.

Mémère in her chair.

Luc in his suit.

Me, for the trust, in my only good blouse, with the foreman sitting behind me because he'd asked to come.

"No," Luc said, before I finished.

"You haven't heard the number."

"I don't need the number. The company is not spending one dollar on Jo's pickle juice a month before it's sold." He smiled around the table. "Fiduciary duty. Look it up."

"The trust votes yes."

"I vote no." Luc turned. "Mémère?"

Mémère looked at me over her glasses for a long time.

"I don't vote company money on a jar," she said. "Luc runs the money."

Luc spread his hands.

"Tie goes to the CEO."

"Then I want the line," I said. "Sundays. It sits there empty. Empty's free."

"Absolutely not."

"Sundays," Mémère said, before he could go on. "Empty is free. He's right about that much, Luc. She can have your Sundays."

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