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smooth brown pageboy, was a smaller, livelier version of her older sister, Sarah. “You’re not Jewish.”

“Moishe’s not leaving it because he’s Jewish,” Laurel replied matter-of-factly. “He just doesn’t like broccoli.”

More laughter around the table.

Rivka smiled, and beamed at Laurel. “Smart girl.”

Annie felt a new respect for Laurel. Here she was, plunked in the middle of a strange city that might just as well be Hungary, with people she hadn’t the slightest thing in common with, and somehow she was fitting in, making the best of it … even learning new things. And maybe, at the same time, teaching these people something, too.

The burden of taking care of Laurel, of worrying about her and about how they would survive, now seemed suddenly lighter than it had even this afternoon. Maybe it wasn’t Laurel who was depending completely on her … maybe, in some small ways, she was coming to depend on Laurel, too.

Dolly slammed down the phone. She felt mad enough to spit. Four whole days, she thought. Those Customs peckerwoods at JFK had been sitting on her shipment for almost as long as it took Moses to free the Israelites. And the inspectors she’d spoken to either didn’t know what the hold-up was all about, or were too lazy to Mnd out, or both. Damn them!

She picked up the receiver again, and started dialling. She’d call back and read them the riot act. And this time she wouldn’t waste her time with the I & C boys, she’d go straight to the top, to Mclntyre himself. He was the import specialist. He was supposed to have a handle on things. What the devil did he expect her to do with two thousand dollars’ worth of highly perishable chocolates

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going gray and soft in some customs shed? And Thanksgiving only two weeks away!

All at once, Dolly thought better of it, took a deep breath, and put down the phone.

That’s not what’s really needling you, is it? You’re just using this to let off steam… .

Remembering that phone call from Ned Oliver a few weeks ago-dear swishy Ned, so distraught, telling her that Evie’s girls had run away from home-Dolly felt a stitch in her gut pull tight. Ned, her old friend, and Eve’s too, who over the years had secretly kept Dolly up to date on Annie and Laurel, sending snapshots, and also managing to pass off as his own the little gifts and small amounts of cash Dolly sent for them. If she could have, she would have given them more, but that might’ve made Eve suspicious.

Those poor girls! It had to be Val’s fault somehow. She’d called him, immediately after talking to Ned. Swallowing her dislike, she’d begged him to tell her everything he knew, which wasn’t much. Ever since, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was keeping something from her. Maybe he didn’t know where the girls had gone, but she’d bet her bottom dollar he had a pretty damn good idea of why they might have charged off in the middle of the night.

But why blame Val? When you got right down to it, wasn’t she the one to blame? If it hadn’t been for her knifing Eve in the back, probably none of this would ever have happened.

Dolly began to get that familiar downward-spiraling feeling, and she quickly caught herself short. What was the use of beating on herself over and over? Better if she could do something …

She had to find her nieces somehow.

She thought of the private investigator out in L.A. she’d hired. If only she could do something besides sitting around waiting for O’Brien to call with some news.

Itching with impatience, Dolly grabbed the phone and dialed the longdistance number.

“O’Brien,” he answered, his smooth, pleasant voice

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making her think of an insurance salesman or a young bank executive, not hard-boiled enough to be a P.I. But she knew he’d been with the L.A.P.D. for ten years.

“Dolly Drake here,” she told him. “You turned up anything on my nieces yet?” She felt out of breath, as if she’d been talking for hours instead of just asking one simple question. The other times she’d called, he’d merely told her to be patient, that he’d get back to her as soon as he had anything. Why should today be any different?

But now, dear Lord, he was saying something that made a bubble of hope start rising up in her.

“Funny you should call, I’ve been trying to reach you, but your phone’s been busy. Look, don’t get too excited, but I think I know where they are … at least the general vicinity. I talked to a Greyhound driver who recognized the photos.” He paused, and she could hear him shuffling papers. “He says they were headed for New York City. But …”

New York? Here! Dolly’s heart lurched.

“… the chances of finding a couple of runaways in such a big city, I have to tell you, could be a million to one. These kids just get swallowed up somehow. Believe me, I know.”

“Does this mean you’re giving up?” She felt frantic, her heart beating like a trapped bird in her throat.

“Look, it’s your dime. But if you want my opinion, you’re best off sitting tight. Sooner or later, they get desperate enough, and then they call home.”

Fat chance, Dolly thought. Some home. He didn’t know Val Carrera.

No, she told O’Brien, you keep looking. To herself she added, damn the expense. She had to keep on hoping. But as she Sung up, she felt suddenly leaden.

She could not count on O’Brien. It was going to be up to her. She would have to think of something. One way or another, she herself would have to find them… .

Get busy, she told herself, keep moving, and maybe an idea will come to you.

In the tiny office above her shop, Dolly squeezed out from behind her desk, and walked over to the

refrigerated case containing her overstock. Through its clear glass panels, she could see the boxes lining the wire shelves. Fifty-eight degrees, not enough to cause condensationbut exactly the right temperature to keep her precious chocolates from melting, or from turning gray with bloom. Fine chocolates, she had learned, were like fragile flowers, orchids or gardenias; they needed to be coddled, babied. But what good were all her precautions here when her next two weeks’ inventory was going stale in some shed at the airport that was probably either overheated or freezing?

She scanned the reorder list that was taped to the front of the case. Damn, they were just about out of the Bouchons-and those dark chocolate buttercreams flavored with cognac were Mrs. Van Dyne’s favorites. Every Thursday, rain or shine, that forever-smiling Filipino driver of hers came in the huge antique Packard to pick up a pound. She’d heard that the old lady existed on Girod’s chocolate and champagne. What would she tell that wonderfully obsequious driver tomorrow? Would he take bourbon creams instead?

And the Petits Coeurs, heart-shaped shells of bitter chocolate filled with coconut and cr่me fra๎che-her bestselling bonbon, and not just on Valentine’s Day, either. She was supposed to supply eight dozen for a wedding party at the Carlyle this coming Saturday, and right now she didn’t have one full box.

She was short on everything-praline Gianduja, Noix Caraque, and those lovely little snail shells of Escargot Noir filled with dark coffee cream. And that appointment tomorrow that had taken the better part of a year to set up, how in heaven’s name could she romance the Plaza’s food buyer without a single one of Girod’s signature Framboise truffles?

Dolly felt the beginning of a headache-as if there were an invisible thumb pressing just above the bridge of her nose. Then she remembered something else, something good: Henri was coming today. His plane was due in at JFK around five. She should’ve asked him to pack an extra suitcase full of chocolates while he was at it. In

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his shop in Paris, the original La Maison de Girod-shortened here to Girod’s-they were made fresh every day.

Then it occurred to her-two birds with one stone, why not? She could personally try to sweet-talk Mclntyre into releasing her shipment, and then afterwards meet Henri’s plane.

Oh, it would be so good to see him, to have him here again. And maybe Henri would come up with a good idea about how to find Annie and Laurel.

Her spirits rose, and her headache seemed to fade. Wouldn’t Henri be surprised, and pleased? Usually, she waited for him at her apartment, with champagne on ice and wearing nothing but black silk-chiffon. Well, the champagne she could manage-she’d have Felipe pick up a bottle of Cristal. But the black nightie? For now he’d have to settle for the black silk panties and bra she was wearing under her dress.

Dolly caught her reflection in the refrigerator’s glass door. Black was fine for lingerie, she thought, but she wouldn’t be caught dead in it. Bury me in fuchsia, she thought, Or orange, or kelly-green … anything but black. Her dress from Bloomie’s was a brilliant tomato-red with a navy polkadot panel over her bosom that, for a dressier evening look, she could unsnap to reveal more of her deep cleavage. In her ears, she wore the ruby-and-diamond earrings Dale had given her for their fifth-and last-anniversary. About her wrists, a wide hammered-gold bracelet and two smaller ones. Her long nails a defiant fire-engine red.

Dolly believed in bright colors the way some people swore by lucky charms and rabbits’ feet. Somewhere she’d read that in mental hospitals they painted the walls a soft, cool blue, and that was supposed to keep depressed people from jumping out of windows. But what kept Dolly from the lowdowns were brights that leaped out at you-crimson and yellow, orange, pink, deep purple. She loved stuff that glittered and twinkled-rhinestone buttons, shiny patent-leather shoes, oversized jewelry. Dale had once joked that the inside of her closet at home looked like Carmen Miranda’s turban. The way Dolly looked at it, the

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world was already gray enough without adding to its misery.

Dolly straightened the mother-of-pearl combs in her upswept honey-blond hair (twice a week, Michael took care of the wisps of gray that had begun showing up lately), and applied a fresh coat of Fever Red to her lips. Oh, she knew how the blue-rinse dowagers in her Park Avenue building gossiped about her, and their holier-than-thou butlers and housekeepers too. Loud, vulgar, cheap, she could almost hear them whispering. Her late husband was some oil wildcatter. She was waiting tables when he married her. Lavished a fortune on her … as if it did any good. She still looks right out ofafive-and-dime. Well, what did she care? Those antique snoots with their dreary clothes and tasteful pearls, what could they offer her that was better than what she already had with Henri?

Henri.

Dolly felt herself grow warm. Just thinking about him made her feel as if she was coming in from the cold and stretching out in front of a blazing fireplace. Starting at her toes, a rosy glow spreading up all through her, soothing and sexy. And it had been so long, almost three months. Oh, she couldn’t wait.

But at the same time, she felt uneasy. Tonight she was supposed to give him her answer. She had promised she would.

And if I say yes? If I agree to move to Paris? Dolly let herself imagine the two of them together, nights in Henri’s arms, weekends roaming the galleries on the Left Bank, or going off for a picnic in Chaville. An elegant flat near the Trocad้ro, and fresh croissants every morning.

But, dammit, Henri was still married. You can look at a mule ten different ways, but it’s never gonna be a horse, Mama-Jo always used to say. And, well, yeah, no matter how you sliced it, she’d only be what she was now-Henri’s mistress.

And what about Girod’s? Gloria could probably keep things going here, but that wasn’t the point.

She loved having her own business, knowing each time she unlocked the iron grate at 870 Madison that the

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shop was hers, that it couldn’t fire her or simply fade away like one more dead-end screen test. Dale might not have understood (Why, honey, she could hear him say, you can own most anything your heart desires, but whyever would you want to stand behind a counter when you could hire somebody for that?). But Dolly knew somehow that her well-being, if not her livelihood, was grounded somehow in this store.

She needed Girod’s, the chit-chat with the customers, with the UPS boys and the mailman, the figuring and ordering, the satisfaction of selling, the fun of arranging windows. And, of course, all those heavenly chocolates.

Dolly thought back to when she first decided to open a chocolate shop. One rainy spring day, some months after Dale had died, when the thought of spending the rest of her life alone had almost sent her reeling back to bed, on the spur of the moment, she’d packed a suitcase, grabbed her Baedeker and a battered French phrase book and escaped … to Paris.

On the rue du Faubourg St-Honore, poking among the elegant shops, she’d happened upon La Maison de Girod. Stopping at an antique shop where she was admiring a Cupid garden ornament in the window, she’d spied a young mother across the street with her little boy in tow, emerging from an old-fashioned-looking shop with windowpanes set in gleaming dark wood. The boy was clutching something in his free hand, his fat cheeks smeared with chocolate, wearing an expression of ecstasy.

Intrigued, Dolly had crossed the street and pushed her way inside with a tinkle of the brass bell over the door.

Within the hour-having sweet-talked her way into a tour of the chocolatier’s basement kitchen, inhaling aromas that made her almost dizzy with pleasure, and sampling flavorป that tasted too delicious to have been created on this earth, she’d learned that Monsieur Baptiste was indeed eager to franchise a Girod’s outlet in New York. Dolly suddenly knew exactly what she wanted to do when she returned home.

And now, after five years, her little Madison Avenue shop felt more like home than the cavernous Park Avenue

apartment. Could she just go off and turn her back on it? Did she love Henri enough to give up what she’d worked so hard to build for herself?

Stop torturing yourself … you can make up your mind when you see him.