Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery) by Amanda Cooper Page A

Groceries—there was indeed, as Dana had indicated, an UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT sign in the window—picked up tearoom supplies and headed back to Auntie Rose’s in time to help set up.
    As she parked the SUV, she noted the cars lined up at Belle Époque. According to Dana, Cissy had caved in and had some kind of familial tea party going on to placate her grandmother. It was family; you did what you had to do. As Sophie made her way to the side door, arms loaded with groceries, a Lincoln pulled up and eased into a parking spot. A gorgeously dressed woman got out of the driver’s side, as a younger fellow in a suit and tie emerged from the passenger’s side.
    That, if she was not mistaken, was Vivienne Whittaker and her son, Francis Junior, the mother-in-law-to-be and groom-to-be. With a start, she realized that Vivienne was the well-dressed woman at Auntie Rose’s two days before, the one who was arguing with a gentleman about something or other. Small world. Wait . . . wasn’t the argument about her
boy
, in other words, Francis? Hmm. Gretchen pulled up just then in a silver Prius. So she was around, just not answering her voice mail. Sophie would give her until the next day and call again. They all went into Belle Époque.
    What Sophie wouldn’t give to be a fly on
that
wall. She bit her lip to keep from laughing as she noticed Phil Peterson skulking out the back door, getting on a motorcycle and tearing off down the road, away from the tea party that was about to commence and to which he was probably not invited, anyway.
    “Supplies, Nana,” Sophie called out. Nana came into the kitchen trailed by Pearl, who jumped up on the counter, only to be shooed down by Sophie. No cats on the food prep area, she believed. Sophie started unloading plastic wrap and cupcake liners.
    “Sophie, I was going through the lost and found and wondered about this photograph,” Nana said, holding out the picture Sophie had put there the night before.
    “I know. I don’t know who dropped it. It was under the table in the front window. What is it of? I couldn’t see last night; it was too dim.”
    Nana handed it to her. “It’s just some land with a signboard on it.”
    “Weird,” Sophie said squinting at it. The sign was there, but it was blurry, impossible to read what it said. She handed it back to her grandmother. “I don’t know who dropped it. There were two or three changes of table here that afternoon.”
    “Okay, I’ll put it back in the lost and found.”
    It was a quiet day at Auntie Rose’s, so after putting the groceries away and helping to set up, Sophie retreated to her sitting room to try to plan out the bridal shower presentation she’d give. Nana, Sophie knew, would give a little talk on the history of teapots with selected examples from her own collection, then she would explain various tea ceremonies around the world. There would be a luncheon—a generous cream or savory tea—and the presentation of the “tea-a-ra” to the bride-to-be, a handmade tiara fashioned of cute teapot trinkets. She would wear that while she opened gifts, and then everyone would play games; in other words, typical bridal shower stuff, but with a tea theme.
    She lolled back in her chair with a clipboard and package of color-coded file cards, trying to figure out what to say and how. She had always believed in being prepared, but this was out of her comfort zone, for sure. A scratching at the door indicated that Pearl wanted to come in, so Sophie bounced up, set the door ajar to let the cat come in, then dropped back into the chair. “What should I do, Pearlie-girlie?” she said, thinking out loud. “I want to make this the best shower; Cissy deserves that. But how?”
    She thought about Dana’s uncertainty over Francis. She wouldn’t say what she had against him but Sophie would swear there was something more than just leftover dislike from the old days. “It’s getting a little warm in here, Pearl. If I’m going to be