“You can leave work, just like that?” Jeremy asked, falling in step with her.
“I am working. An important couple in our congregation needs help making their dream wedding come true. As far as I’m concerned, that’s top priority.” She clicked the remote to unlock her car. Though she had initially balked at getting an SUV, she loved its shade of maroon and how the black roof gave it the style of a smaller car.
“How many kids do you have?” Evan asked, peeking inside.
“Just one, but I chauffer him and his friends.” Not lately, she realized. Since the divorce, she could count on one hand the number of times she had driven Travis and his best friend Leo to one of their band events or parkour. Once his father started dating her best friend, Ember, they had completely taken over the drop offs and pickups.
She belted herself in and, out of habit, made sure her passengers did the same before putting the SUV in reverse. She snapped off the sound system before the Trevor Hall CD could engulf the space.
They filled the drive with wedding dreams, Kat’s favorite topic. When she had married at twenty-two, she’d spent half her life planning her own wedding, and nothing pleased her more than working to make someone else’s dream come true.
She took city streets. One, she knew the 101 was a nightmare even in the early afternoon, and two, without detouring she could stop along Ventura at her son’s favorite burger joint and the donut shop her mother liked best. Twenty minutes later, she parked at the bottom of the long drive next to the twin palm trees in the front yard of the house she now called home. She looked at the two-story white Colonial through Jeremy and Evan’s eyes. “You could have the ceremony here in the front yard. Come look.”
They climbed out of the SUV and followed her across neatly manicured grass taking in the grand porch of the almost one-hundred-year-old structure. To the left, steps led to a balcony.
“Whether you have the ceremony here or in the back, you’d have to get a picture of your wedding party from the balcony,” she said.
Evan rested his head against Jeremy’s shoulder. “At our age, it won’t be that big of a gathering.”
Jeremy put his arm around Evan. “You’re the one who told me a party is made up of the people gathered.”
“Come see the back.” She led them past an aviary with parakeets and love birds. A red brick path ran the length of the house.
“It’s magical,” Jeremy whispered under the canopy of towering ficus trees. A fountain gurgled into a basin of smooth black rocks next to a white metal lovers’ bench.
A smile stretched across Kat’s face. She had known they would love it. “Explore the yard, please. Imagine what you can do with the space. I have to get this food inside before the natives get restless.”
She climbed the back-porch steps and pushed the door open with her hip. “Delivery!” The house was quiet. She walked through the kitchen to the stairs. Back in the kitchen, she opened the door to the basement and hollered again, “Delivery!”
From below, she heard her son call, “Coming!” and from above, she heard her mother respond, “I thought that sounded like you in the drive.”
Kat unloaded the food and listened to the footfalls on both sets of stairs. Travis’s lanky frame emerged first. “I paused my game. Do you care if I eat downstairs?”
“No. Not this time.”
“Thanks, Mom!” He kissed her cheek and disappeared.
“Why are there old men creeping around my house?” her mother asked. She leaned her cane on the table and sat, pulling the pink donut box closer.
“They’re not creeping. I have a favor to ask.” She sat across from her mother at the old scarred wooden table. They had spent innumerable hours in this position through many of what she thought of as her mom’s various Barbie editions. She’d been Church-Goin’ Barbie when Kat was a girl. In her teens, Kat enjoyed Athletic Barbie more than Baby-Talk Barbie. Shoppin’ Barbie was fun for the two of them, but not so much when her dad had taken away the credit cards. She now worried about her mother’s significant weight gain with the new Donut-Lovin’ Barbie.
Millie bit into a glazed donut and lifted her eyebrows in question. Her thick white hair was tousled, a result of her advanced gift in napping.
“Reverend Thorn won’t let them get married in the sanctuary, so they’re looking for somewhere to hold their wedding.”
Her mother kept chewing until Kat’s words and the couple’s presence connected for her. “Wait, you want a gay couple to get married here?”
“Is that a problem?”
“It might be for your father.”
Kat paled. “I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
“Weren’t you?”
“Should I tell them no?”
Millie leaned back in her chair, plucking crumbs off her purple shirt. She looked at the men standing in the driveway, bright smiles on their faces. “Could you?”
Kat followed her mother’s gaze. “No.”
“When do they want to do this?”
“In a month.”
Millie set her donut down and picked up a napkin. She slowly wiped each finger. “A month?” she said dubiously.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but they were so upset.”
“If I were them, I’d be looking for a new church.”
“They love Kindred Souls. And they love each other. I don’t want them to leave just because Reverend Thorn hasn’t caught up with the times.”
“Someone has got to explain to that man what the name of his church means.”
“Mom…” Kat didn’t need another lecture about her ultra-conservative boss.
Her mother eyed her donut but didn’t pick it back up. “It’s already done, isn’t it? You’ve never been able to say no, have you?”
Kat pointed at the donut box. “You really want to go there?”
Laughter filled the kitchen. “No. Fine. If they want to get married here, of course we’ll support that. But don’t expect me to do anything.”
“Of course not.” Kat rose and kissed the top of her mom’s head. “I’ve got to get back. I’m going to have to stay after bell practice to wrap up what I didn’t get done today.”
“Fine with me if it’s okay with Travis.”
She trotted down the stairs loudly to warn her seventeen-year-old that she was coming. “I’ll be late tonight. You’re okay here with Gramma?”
“’Course. You want her in bed by ten?”
As she’d done with her mother, Kat kissed the top of his head. “Smartass. Are you sure you’re not going to turn into a troll down here?” Through the tiny windows at the top of the wall, she could see Evan and Jeremy standing in the drive.
“It has crossed my mind to charge you guys when you walk over my bedroom.”
“Hey, I fed you!”
“Which is why you got a pass.” He smiled, and she saw a flash of herself. With his muscular build and dark complexion, she more often saw her ex-husband, Jack. Travis thumbed toward the window. “What’s with the dudes walking the perimeter?”
“They’re thinking of having their wedding here.”
“Huh.” He turned back to his game.
“Would you be okay with that?”
“Fine by me, especially if I can charge them for walking through the kitchen.”
“Troll!”
“Ogre!”
“Love you.”
“You, too,” he said around a mouthful of food.
Back outside, she found Evan and Jeremy with their arms around each other debating which they liked better for the staging of their wedding—the porch between the regal pillars or the back patio with the wisteria arbor behind them.
“Does this mean it will work?”
Evan embraced her again, and she smiled at the look of relief on Jeremy’s face. “You must be a fairy godmother in your spare time.”
“Hardly,” Kat said, but her heart felt warm.
“Speaking of time, we’re feeling the crunch of planning all t
his with so little of it.” He threw his hands in the air. “Less than a month!”
“I have a long list of recommendations for photographers, florists and a caterer. That should speed you up.”
“How are we ever going to get all this done?” Jeremy asked.
“Don’t worry about things here. I can get the chairs and tables from church, and the caterer is a friend of mine. I’d be happy to call her tonight to see if she can work her magic here.”
“Oh, that would help so much!” Evan said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all. Plus, it makes more sense for me to call since I can tell her what the kitchen is like. On the way back to church, you can think about what kind of food you’d like and your budget.”
“Listen to you! You really do know what you’re doing. I don’t know how we’re ever going to thank you enough.”
“By not worrying about a thing,” Kat said.
By the time they got back, she had a good idea of their catering needs and the office was clear. She’d managed to avoid her boss. She glanced at the clock. Street traffic had been kind to her, giving her some time before bell rehearsal. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts.
“Hey, sunshine!”
Kat smiled. It didn’t matter when she called. Wendy always answered the same way. “Hey, I only have a minute, but I have a proposition for you.”
* * *
Wendy Archer’s stomach did the roller-coaster dip it always did when Kat Morehart’s name lit up her phone. Though she’d come a long way from the wallflower admiring Kat from afar in high school, seeing her name still made Wendy feel like she was finally part of the in-club. “Anything for you.” With how much Kat had helped her business over the years, she found it nearly impossible to say no to her.
“You might regret saying that,” Kat said. A soft chuckle carried over the line.
“Try me.”
“I’ve got a catering gig for you, off campus.”
Almost three years ago at their twentieth high-school reunion’s sit-down dinner, catered by one of the larger firms in the area, Wendy had complained to Susan, her girlfriend of two years, about the cold rubbery chicken. She’d been aware of their close proximity to the “cool kids”, but she never dreamed they be listening to anything outside their circle. She was stunned when Kat pushed back from the table and asked why it was so hard to find a decent caterer. Kat was as vivacious as ever but seemed to have softened somehow, like she wasn’t trying so hard. Wendy’s professionalism saved her from turning into a stammering mess. She suggested a few common mistakes that may have been made in the kitchen and thought that would be the end of Kat’s interest. Instead, Kat surprised Wendy by turning her chair to ask more of her.
The conversation stole her attention so completely that she and Susan had fought the entire way home. Wendy argued that her job required her to network. Her girlfriend complained that she never came first. Consequently, she had lost yet another relationship to her career, but as promised, Kat had begun recommending Wendy to cater church events. Wendy had started with staff gatherings, but she’d quickly landed huge weddings and funerals. Since the church had a congregation of nine hundred, she didn’t regret that evening’s networking one bit, especially when it meant receiving calls from Kat.
“That’s no problem. You know I love any business you direct my way.”
“You’ll need to check your calendar.”
“How far out are we talking and what’s the venue?”
“That’s the thing. It’s in a month. But it’s mid-week. And at my house.”
“A month!”
“Yes. It’s their fiftieth anniversary, and now with the Supreme Court’s decision…”
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
“For everyone without their head up their ass, sure,” Kat said.
She had to laugh. “Is that targeted at a someone specific?” Wendy was touched by the passion in Kat’s voice when she explained how she was trying to right what she felt Reverend Thorn had very much wronged.
“I’m sure we can make it work.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. You just made my day!”
“That was easy.”
“So do you want to come tomorrow?”
“What’s that?” Wendy smiled wryly.
“To check out the kitchen. I thought you’d like to know what you are working with.”
Wendy had a menu that would only need the final touches on-site, and could rent convection ovens or gas grills if necessary, but if the wedding party was small, she might be able to get by using Kat’s kitchen. “Do you know how many guests they’re expecting?”
“I told them our yard would max out at a hundred. Our plumbing wouldn’t be able to handle more than that!”
“Sit-down or finger food?”
“Sit-down. I told them about some of the meals you’ve done at the church, and they’re interested in setting up a tasting with you.”
“Absolutely. We can do that. Text me your address. I should be able to swing by next week.”
“Thank you, Wendy!”
“You’re quite welcome!” The way Kat said her name…Wendy sighed like a schoolgirl. It was ridiculous how happy it made her.
Chapter Two
Wendy grabbed a coat with “Key Ingredients” stitched on the breast pocket. Having her dream of running a catering business become a reality still filled her with pride.
When her mother left, she and her father had lived paycheck to paycheck. Eating beans and rice day after day had played a big role in her life and contributed to her desire to eat well and then to feed others. She didn’t want to be tied down like her father, earning a minimal wage, caring for a kid and barely being able to pay the rent.
Over the years, she had enjoyed working on cruise ships, where unlike her father, she had called the shots. She chose her jobs, loving the freedom she had to move around. If she didn’t like the job, she would switch to a new one. She wasn’t stuck with an asshole boss who sucked the joy out of the carpentry her father had adored. It had taken time and the right business partner for her to settle down. She ran her side of the business and José ran his. They would have both gone under trying to do it on their own, but teaming up had given them stability and a better resource base.
Though Wendy had entered the event on the calendar, she hadn’t mentioned it to her assistant, Cory Gutierrez, yet. Once he learned the location, she would not hear the end of it. He already teased her about how much work they got from Kat’s referrals. His theory was that Kat was searching for ways to be close to Wendy, so she could work up the nerve to ask her out. While the idea held immense appeal, Wendy had known Kat for a long time and assured Cory repeatedly that Kat was as straight as an arrow. Still, he would have a field day if he knew she had a meeting at Kat’s house. She’d kept the event a secret for now but revisited it like a smooth stone tucked away in her pocket that she could run her fingers over.
It was almost a week before she had an early afternoon and could meet Kat. She programmed the address into her phone and let the automated voice guide her from her restaurant home base in Sherman Oaks. It routed her along Sepulveda Boulevard instead of the 405, and in twenty minutes, she made it through the familiar neighborhood where she and her dad had shared an apartment. She remembered that her favorite house was only blocks away. Set far back from the street behind huge green hedges, it had always spoken to her as she walked home from high school. Every day, she had thought about the family that lived there. They had to be rich. What she would have given to have so much lawn to play on! She had always wondered what the backyard looked like and what it felt like to live in a place without shared walls. Without drug deals on the corner. Without gunshots.
You have arrived, her phone announced. Your destination is on the left.
The house. It couldn’t be.
She pulled over and checked the address in Kat’s text. It matched. She parked by the curb and
tentatively walked up the long drive, her youthful self whispering that she was trespassing. Shoving such notions aside, she climbed to the porch and stood at a green door with a large oval of glass in the center. Looking inside was like looking into the past. An upright piano took up a small wall across the room. Upholstered chairs clustered in a sitting area next to polished wooden stairs. Kat lived here? She looked for a buzzer and found only a brass knocker. She lifted it and tapped as gently as possible.
And there, walking toward Wendy with a huge smile on her face, was Kat. She opened the door and pulling her inside as if Wendy had been there hundreds of times.
“Thank you so much for doing this!”
“You know I cater at a lot of private homes. I don’t know what you’re worried about.”
“You haven’t seen the kitchen yet. It’s not exactly modern.”
“Does it have electricity?”
“Of course.”
Wendy leaned to the side to try to get a look.
“I’m so sorry.” Kat ushered Wendy toward the kitchen. “It’s straight through. Just keep walking.”
* * *
Kat watched as Wendy took in the décor of her childhood home. She knew their living room didn’t look like any normal family’s with rocking chairs that had crossed the prairie in covered wagons, stiff-backed cane chairs and a small love seat next to a fireplace. Sheer curtains allowed light from the west and south-facing windows to fill the room. She remembered the family pictures on the mantel too late and hoped they didn’t capture Wendy’s attention.
What was she thinking when she invited Wendy to her home? Having Jeremy and Evan walk around the property had not panicked her, but Wendy in the living room had her sweating. Above them, she heard her mother get out of bed. She gave a powerful prayer that she would go to the bathroom and right back to bed as usual.
Kat's Nine Lives Page 2
