Amuse Bouche

Alice and Maggie sat at a window table in Beppe’s Bistro. ….

Maggie drained the glass of Australian Shiraz that she had ordered for her stomach’s sake, and promptly ordered another from Beppe himself, who kept saying how great it was that the nuns from Doon Abbey had finally crossed his threshold. Alice, on a San Pellegrino, had ordered two beer-battered cods and chips. She badly wanted a smoke, but knew that to be seen smoking on the pavement outside Beppe’s might be a step too far.

from Sister Caravaggio by Maeve Binchy, Peter Cunningham, Neil Donnelly, Cormac Millar, Éilis Ní Duibhne, Mary O’Donnell and Peter Sheridan.