Page 104 of The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth

“Yes. Have you worked here a long time?” Veronica asked. “It’s wonderful.”

“I started here as a dishwasher when I was fourteen,” he said, straightening his tie. “In those days, there were many more cafés of this kind, but they’re all closing now. This one and a few others are the only ones left.”

On impulse, Veronica asked, “Did you ever know a place called Café Guli?”

“Sure! Not too far away.” He pointed with his pencil, over his shoulder. “Farroukh Irani; my father knew him. It closed long ago, twenty, thirty years.”

“We have visited some cafés his daughters created in London and Paris,” she said. “Did you know them, too?”

“I did,” he cooled ever so slightly as Mariah returned. “I didn’t know they’d gone to Europe. We all thought it was America.”

“Did you know their brother, too?”

His expression closed. “It was a long time ago.” He readied his pencil. “What would you like to order?”

Interesting. Veronica took the hint, and ordered a simple breakfast. Mariah also ordered a bun and egg and chai. Only Henry, a big man with a big appetite, ordered a full meal. “And bring three fresh lime sodas, please,” he added.

“Oh, yes,” Veronica said. “I forgot. Thank you.”

Mariah looked as if she’d washed her face with cold water. The edge of her hairline was wet, her skin faintly pink. “In other news, you might be happy to know that I’ve been texting with Jill about a contract for the book, and she thinks the best answer is to pitch to my mom’s publisher.”

“Really.”

“It won’t be as much as they paid my mom, obviously, but she thinks they’ll be really happy to publish this ‘posthumously.’”

Veronica glanced at Henry, slightly alarmed. It was one thing to make a deal with Mariah, quite another to make one with a publisher. “What would they need in order to go ahead?”

“I’m not sure. I think she said—” She pulled her phone out and punched up the message string. “Yeah. You’ll need to send a sample chapter and an outline of what you think the book will be like.”

In the kitchen, a dark man made a joke to another man in a language Veronica couldn’t understand. A server swung by with a tray full of drinks and placed three tall glasses of a pale-green liquid on their table.

A publishing deal! Her heart skittered. What did that even entail? What did she know about any of this?

Except, maybe she did know. She’d been intimately involved in Spence’s pop philosophy book. She’d helped with the structure, the outline, and read every single chapter before he turned it in. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll see what I can pull together.”

“You’re welcome,” Mariah said, and drank from her glass of soda. “Oh, man! That’s really good. Maybe I’m dehydrated.” She reached for the glass of water, and Henry halted her.

“I’ll get bottled.”

“Yeah. I keep forgetting.” She shook her head. “It just seems weird that everyone who lives here can drink the water, but we can’t.”

“I know what you mean,” Veronica said. “I knew a professor who never drank anything but bottled water wherever she went, even the next state over, because she said the gut gets mixed up when it gets different bugs in the water.”

She nodded. “So do you know how you’ll set up the book?”

Veronica pursed her lips. “Maybe. I think your mom was enchanted with the original Parsi cafés, so we can start there. How much of your mom’s story do you want in there?”

“I don’t know,” Mariah said. “I guess I haven’t thought about that. Maybe we need to get to the end of the story before I decide. And I’ll read the letters. Thanks for forwarding them.”

“Sure. Whatever you decide is fine. If we don’t include her story of coming to India, I’ll focus more on café culture through history, and connect to each of the places we’ve explored.”

“That sounds good,” Henry said. “I can send you a sampling of photos, too. Maybe they’ll inspire you.”

“Good.” A wild sense of possibility buoyed her. What if she could pull this off? What if?

After they ate, Veronica wanted to find where Café Guli had been, and see if they could find anyone in the neighborhood who’d known the Irani family. As the server had suggested, it turned out to be within walking distance. It gave them a chance to see the area, too: dogs cheerfully running the streets, cats on motorcycle seats, trees offering shade. And, all at once—

“A monkey!” Mariah cried, pointing. “Three of them!”