13 NoraMonday evening, the smell of frying onions set Nora’s empty stomach growling. She hoped she could make it through this interview without drooling.
Dressed in her on-the-road working outfit of khaki slacks topped by a midnight-blue cardigan and a white silk T-shirt, she was in the tiny kitchen of a three-bedroom house on the outskirts of Parma. Perching on a wooden stool on the dining side of the short breakfast bar, she had her elbows on the bar top and her eyes on her interview subject. The woman was brandishing a heavy-duty chef’s knife on the working side of the bar.
Julia Simpson was her height and only a couple of years older. Her skin was the color of milk chocolate, her short hair was dark and smooth as a raven’s wing, and she pronounced the J in her first name the same way
