Banana Muffins & Mayhem by Janel Gradowski Read Free Book Online

names. It was fascinating to an only child like Amy how two women who shared the same bloodline could be so different. Tommy, the pottery artist who owned Make It Unique, always wore blue jean overalls over tie-dyed T-shirts. It was her uniform. She and Carla's husband looked as though they shared the same hair stylist. Not many women chose super-short buzz cuts as their hairstyle of choice.
    In contrast, Charlotte, the interior designer who owned Unique Decor, was completely hip and trendy. Her shoulder-length, clown-red dyed hair was board straight. Even though she was relaxing after work, she still looked ultrafashionable with a navy blue-and-gray, chevron striped tunic over tan leggings. Amy was impressed with the casual chic look. Whenever she chilled out, she usually ended up wearing stretched out yoga pants and baggy, stained T-shirts.
    Charlotte plucked a bottle out of the ornate, silver pedestal champagne bucket filled with ice, which stood next to her. She filled an empty glass sitting on the end table with the white wine and handed it to Amy. "Welcome to whine and wine night."
    Amy raised the glass. "It's a pleasure to be here, even though I had no idea I would be a part of your get-together. I just wanted Geri's opinion of a couple recipes I'm working on for a national vegan baking recipe contest."
    "You're going to win," Geri declared as she returned from the kitchen and set a platter filled with the bar cookies in the middle of the circle of women-topped pillows. "These are truly wonderful. I wouldn't change a thing with the recipes."
    Good to know. Amy was an omnivore who would try any food at least once. While she was always interested in eating a healthier diet, baking without eggs or butter had been a daunting kitchen chemistry experiment. But she just couldn't resist a good challenge. Or the chance to indulge in her favorite obsession—cooking competitions. Geri had been vegan for several years, so Amy had turned to her for advice and taste-testing duty.
    "Thank you," Amy said. She took a sip of the fruity wine. "I love trying new things, but flax eggs and brown rice syrup were new to me. I'm so happy that you like them."
    "Oh, yeah. These are good," Tommy said before popping the last bite of a date bar into her mouth.
    When Charlotte finished off her cookie, she held up her condensation-coated wine glass. "Okay, now that our sweet cravings are satisfied, I would like to start the whine portion of the evening. I just want to say that while I would never wish death on anybody, after doing the demo with Phoebe Plymouth on Saturday, I find it hard to believe somebody didn't strangle her before now. She was so full of herself that I thought her head was going to explode. And the tone of voice she used when addressing me…I thought my son was the master of condescending speech when he was sixteen. She had him beat. I can't believe the whole debacle is on film, preserved for posterity."
    Tommy stuck her tongue out. "Serves you right for being vain enough to videotape yourself. Just delete the file, and stop being such a drama queen."
    Charlotte placed her hand over her heart. " I didn't make the recording. It was the producer of Phoebe's show. I guess he was hoping to do some special segment based on our demonstration. Every time she made a suggestion , the guy rolled his eyes as if he had seen that behavior before. Anyway, he has the video files."
    "And he'll never do anything with them now that cranky pants is destined to be worm food." Tommy shrugged. "I wouldn't worry about it. At least you know why she didn't like you—she thought your decorating style sucked. I have no idea what I did to deserve to be attacked."
    Amy set her glass on the end table beside her. She leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees. The apparently mock testiness between the sisters was fascinating. And the subject of their discontent was very interesting.
    "She made me look like an incompetent fool in front of a lot of