“Clare Cosi!” Everyone cried, lifting their glasses.

Matt climbed down from the chair and grinned at me. Breanne curled her lips, too; it was the kind of smile the old crone gave Hansel and Gretel the morning she wanted to pop them in her oven.

Matt turned to his bride. “Go ahead, Breanne. Don’t be shy. You can propose a toast to Clare, too.”

Bree’s Beaujolais Red lips froze so stiffly I thought they were going to crack off and fall into her antichuchos. She set her small plate of diced, marinated, and grilled cow heart down on the room’s long bar, took a substantial hit off her white sangria, and said, “I’ll pass.”

“You’ll pass?” Matt echoed.

“You’ve said it so eloquently already, darling. Why would I want to gild the lily?”

A vision of Breanne lowering me into a vat of molten gold came to mind. I shuddered-while maintaining my own plastic smile.

“My mom’s the greatest, isn’t she?” Joy gushed beside us.

I turned to my daughter and thanked her with a smile (sans synthetics). Matt and I had picked her up at Kennedy Airport the night before, and it was honest-to-God heaven having her home again. We ordered a fully loaded New York pie from Village Pizza, opened some ice-cold beer, and talked for hours (all three of us).

I couldn’t get over Joy’s transformation. Her health was back, for one thing. She’d lost a great deal of weight a few months ago. After her false arrest, the murder of her friend, and her degrading expulsion from culinary school, she’d spent two solid weeks doing nothing but crying. Her skin had gone sallow, her bright eyes had dulled.

The magnificent city of Paris had recharged her spirits and tempted her with its cuisine. Her too-thin figure had filled out again, her cheeks were rosy, her skin a warm peach. She said she and her roommate had gone down to Nice for a few days to catch a tan, not to mention the attention of a few cute-looking French boys from the cell phone pictures she’d showed me.

She looked cute herself at the moment in a sundress the color of lemon pie. She’d arranged her glossy chestnut hair in a French twist as sleek as Breanne’s golden do. But she still had my green eyes, and they looked as bright and lively as this sunny spring Thursday-a huge change from the hollow, red-rimmed look she’d sported a few months back.

It had been hard as hell, sending my broken daughter away. But seeing her so happy now recharged my own spirits. I was proud of the way she’d pulled herself together and dug into the demanding job she’d secured (with a little help from her grandmother’s connections). Working as a line cook in any restaurant had its challenges: long hours, low pay, difficult bosses. Joy was apprenticing under a demanding boss now, and the chef de cuisine and his executive staff weren’t cutting her any breaks. On her third beer last night she recited for us the long list of French obscenities she’d learned courtesy of her superiors on the Michelin-starred kitchen staff.

“I learned so much from my mom,” Joy told Breanne (which I certainly hoped didn’t include a long list of obscenities-in French or any other language). She glanced at me then and raised her glass once more. “And I owe her a lot, too.”

I almost pinched myself. Given the rough ride I’d endured with my child over the past few years (which mainly consisted of Joy telling me-with a great deal of attitude-to butt out of her business), I often wondered whether we’d ever again be as close as we were when she’d been a little girl. Her maturing outlook gave me hope.

“Despite what your lovely daughter implied,” Breanne told me in private a few minutes later, “I don’t feel that I owe you anything.”

“You don’t owe me,” I said. “That’s true.” We were standing alone at one end of the bar. Matt had taken Joy by the arm to proudly introduce her around the room, leaving Breanne and me to talk alone. “What I did, I did for the father of my child, as a wedding gift. And I hope you know the only reason Matt thanked me was because I saved the thing he most wanted in his life right now: you.”

“Right now.” Bree rolled her eyes. “You’re so transparent, Clare.”

“I am?”

“You want him back.”

I nearly choked on my sparkling water. After last night’s beers, I’d declined any alcohol. I suddenly changed my mind.

“Pisco Sour,” I told the bartender.

Hoping to shake Breanne’s interrogation, I gave her my back, turning my attention instead to the bartender. With swift, efficient movements the young man mixed the Pisco (a brandy made from grapes grown in Peru ’s coastal valley) with lemon juice, sugar, and ice, garnished it with Angostura bitters, and handed me the tumbler. (It was Matt who’d introduced me to the cocktail. He’d sampled it in Lima during one of his Andes buying trips.)

“Answer me, Clare,” Breanne hissed in my ear. “You won’t deny it? You want him back?”

Oh, for pity’s sake. Can’t this woman take a hint? I turned to face Breanne (since she gave me no choice) and took a nice long, unhealthy hit of my cocktail. The flavor was sweet yet tart; and though the drink itself seemed mild at first, the ninety-proof Pisco carried a kick you had to respect. I main-lined it into my quiet reply: “All right, Breanne, listen to me, and listen good. You’ve got the Tiffany’s engagement ring and the big, lavish wedding. On Saturday, you’re even acquiring the optional accessory to your grand event-a worthy groom. So why don’t you focus on that instead of what I do or don’t want in my life because, frankly, I’m sick to death of your superior attitude.”

“And I’m sick to death of your meddling.”

Meddling?! Unbelievable! I risk my life for this woman, and this is what I get?

“You know what, Bree? You’re a big girl. I think it’s time you heard the unvarnished truth: I don’t want Matt back, and do you know how I can prove that to you for once and for all? If I had wanted him back, you wouldn’t be planning this wedding.”

Breanne’s royal-blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare imply that I’m sloppy seconds,” she hissed, her ivory cheeks turning the color of her lipstick.

“I’m not implying anything that crass. I’m trying to get you to remember that Matt’s going to put Nunzio’s ring on your finger a few days from now. Not mine.”

“Hey, kids…” Matt walked over, a big, clueless grin on his handsome face. “How are two of my best girls doing?”

Breanne turned on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The man’s puppy-dog smile fell.

Congratulations, Matt, you finally picked up on your bride’s mood. What did it for you? The acid tone or the murderous scowl?

“What?” He scratched his head. “What did I say?”

Breanne rolled her eyes. “Two of your best girls?”

“That’s right.” Matt shrugged. “I’ve got my daughter here today, too. And my mother. I have a lot of important girls in my life, Breanne, you know that.”

God, Matt, just open your mouth and put your Bruno Magli shoe in already.

Breanne took another drink of her sangria. “I need something stronger than this.”

“Allow me.” I turned to the bartender and ordered Bree her very own Pisco Sour.

“Everything’s okay, isn’t it?” Matt said, his gaze darting from Breanne to me and back again.

“Ask her,” I said.

Breanne waved her French tips. “I was just telling Clare that although her concern was appreciated, I really don’t think my ex-husband was anything more than a nuisance. The entire episode was blown way out of proportion.”

Matt’s eyes found mine. “I don’t feel that way.” He turned to his bride, took hold of her arms. “I was worried about you, Bree. And Clare helped me out. She helped us both out, as far as I’m concerned.”

Breanne broke away, took her drink from the bartender, and began nursing it.

“Clare, dear! Over here!” From across the crowd, an older woman with sleek silver hair, a softly wrinkled face, and amused blue eyes waved at me.