It's no mysterywhy Edie Zambrino drives from her home in Provo to downtown Salt Lake City once a month to sip tea with strangers and share her favorite childhood memories over cucumber sandwiches and blueberry scones.
She'd be willing to drive to the Idaho border and beyond to spend a few hours with Nancy Drew, the gutsy strawberry-blond sleuth who has chased down criminals in her speedy convertible for 77 years.
Edie, who is 38, read her first Nancy Drew mystery "Secret of the Old Clock" 30 years ago and never stopped. A few weeks ago, I caught up with her and a dozen other Nancy Drew fans over a Free Lunch of miniature sandwiches and orange jasmine tea at Salt Lake City's Beehive Tea Room.
It was the second meeting of the Nancy Drew Mystery Book Club, a group started by tea room owner Lisa Brady this summer to celebrate the popular teen detective. Edie and her sister, Maddie Quayle, 34, had been thinking about starting their own Nancy Drew club when they spotted a notice about the book group in the window of Sam Weller's Bookstore.
"We knew we couldn't miss this," says Edie, who has a collection of old Nancy Drew mysteries to rival any teenager's. "Nancy is such an intriguing character — she was years ahead of her time. She's never needed a man to help her. She's always been perfectly capable of getting out of trouble all by herself."
Since 1930, young readers have devoured the books created by Edward Stratemeyer and written by a motley of ghost writers under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. From "The Secret of Shadow Ranch" to the "Mystery of Crocodile Island," there is no mission too dangerous for Nancy Drew.
"Nancy has always been such a great role model," says Lisa Brady, 42, whose daughter, Lois, 10, now collects the mysteries. "And you could always count on her to solve the mystery right before she went out on a date."
Because Nancy Drew and her friends, Bess and George, often stopped at tea parlors for quick meals while on road trips, Lisa knew that the Beehive Tea Room would be the perfect spot to bring young and old mystery fans together. Courtney Martin, a clerk at Sam Weller's, agreed to lead the club's monthly discussions.
"Nancy Drew was everything I wanted to be, growing up," says Courtney, 29, who hopes to hold meetings about all 56 original "yellow-back" mysteries.
"She was always calm and cool — even in scary situations, and she always had the perfect outfit for every occasion."
Although a new collection of modern Nancy Drew books are now available for today's readers, true Nancy Drew fans can't imagine their heroine using a computer or a cell phone to solve mysteries.
Bettie Barlow, 71, brought her granddaughter, Carli, 9, to the tea room, hoping to get her interested in the same stories that she read under a shady tree every summer.
"This is something fun that we can share together," says Bettie, who just finished reading "The Mystery of Lilac Inn" with Carli. "Besides, it brings back fond memories."
Similar memories helped Maddie Quayle when her younger brother, Anthony, died three years ago from lymphoma. "To cope, I opened my Nancy Drews — they were so comforting," she says. "One after another, I reread almost the whole set."
Nobody can tackle tough times, she says, quite like Nancy Drew.
Have a story? You pick the topic, I'll buy the lunch. E-mail your name, phone number and what you'd like to talk about to freelunch@desnews.com. You can also write me at the Deseret Morning News, P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110.