Next I ran cold water over the cleaned heads of romaine, carefully separated the dark green leaves, and patted the best ones dry with clean towels I’d brought. People often comment on how delicious salads made by a caterer are, and it’s because our ilk rely, once again, on several tricks. The cold salad plates are one. Another is picking out the youngest, best-looking heads of organic lettuce. After rinsing the cleaned heads under running water, we wrap the separated, cleaned, patted-dry leaves in cloth towels, then put the whole kit and kaboodle in a plastic bag and place it in the refrigerator. The cloth wicks away any remaining moisture, and the resultant leaves retain an almost magical crunchiness.
This done, I preheated the oven for the Parmesan Potato Puffs while Julian finished trimming the broccoli and snap peas for the veggie dish. Here again, many people at catered functions want to be able to look at the food and say, “I could do that. Why bother to hire a caterer?” And since that is the very last thing a caterer wants a guest to think, we gussy up even the plainest of green vegetables with something. Preferably with several lovely somethings.
In this case, Julian was using fresh cherry tomatoes from Tom’s hanging-upside-down plants in our basement, and tiny pattypan squash that he’d brought from Boulder the previous day. Barely steamed along with the broccoli and snap peas, the juicy, bright red tomatoes and crunchy yellow squash would look lovely against the deep green broccoli and snap peas. Tossed with salt, pepper, and just a hint of finely grated lemon zest, then topped with melted unsalted butter and tossed again, it was the kind of vegetable dish that guests look at and taste longingly and say, “I would never go to all this trouble.” Which is precisely what the folks in our biz want them to say.
I put the prepared tenderloin in to roast alongside the potato puffs. When we were checking to make sure everything was moving along, K.D. slipped into the kitchen.
“K.D.!” I cried, but she put her finger to her lips. I whispered, “What happened? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I sort of did. Maybe. Anyway, I was just rattled.” She bit her bottom lip. “May I call you later? I’m hoping we can talk.”
“You can’t tell me what it’s about?”
“I’ll speak to you after I get something at the hospital.”
“What at the hospital?”
“A name. Then I have a shift.” She was already making for the kitchen door. “Maybe we could talk tomorrow morning, before the christening.”
I didn’t have time to say that that was when I was supposed to see Wink, because no sooner had she left than Nora opened one of the other doors to the kitchen. “We’re ready to start.” She looked at both of us. “Richard’s got a little something planned, and he wants everybody, even you two, out there to witness it.”
“Okeydoke!” Julian replied cheerfully.
“Does either of you know if K.D. will be returning?” she asked, her voice high and querulous.
“Uh, no, she won’t,” I said. “She suddenly remembered something she had to do down at the hospital.”
Nora sighed. “And she told you this, but not me?”
“I guess so,” I said, putting on a meek tone.
Nora scanned my face for signs of sarcasm. Seeing none, she shook back her curtain of blond hair and went on, “Would you all like Louise Upton out here to help you? She’s been pouring the wine, but if you need her, she could come back.” Nora pressed her hands with their long tapered fingers together and began wringing them. “I just wanted this celebration to be a success—”
I stopped placing the broccoli in the steaming basket and gave her a reassuring look. “Oh, it’s going to be a great party. Trust me. Everyone seems to be having a super time. I mean, everyone is having a great time. Really. Several guests have already commented on it, and Julian and I see all kinds of parties. This is fantastic. A-plus.”
A tiny smile crept onto Nora’s lips. “Do you really think so? Several guests have commented?” When Julian and I nodded vigorously, she said, “Well, then, I suppose everybody should see what Richard has planned. I already know what it is; it took him forever to get it set up.” She eyed the island. “Are you ready to go with the salads?”
“Give us one minute.”
“All right,” she said, her mood suddenly charitable. “Come out to the living room as soon as the salads are on the table.” Then she disappeared.
“Several guests have commented?” Julian remarked. “Who, exactly?”
I checked the meat thermometer. “Nobody. I was just trying to reassure her.”
I pulled the crisp, buttery croutons from the second oven while Julian laid out the chilled plates. Then I nabbed the bag of lettuce and handed Julian the cheese. We began to circle the island. I placed chilled romaine leaves on each plate; Julian sprinkled on the Parmesan slivers as well as judicious amounts of chopped chives—never scallions, as this was another thing the do-the-catering-yourself crowd kept their eyes out for. We’d top the salads with the warm croutons after we’d sprinkled on the dressing.
We placed the salads around the table. I noticed Nora had whisked away K.D.’s plate and place card and rearranged the dishes so that nothing was amiss. So then what had Nora been upset about? Then again, what were catering clients ever upset about? I put most of their tantrums down to preparty nerves.
When Julian and I were done, I nodded to Nora, who raised an eyebrow at Richard, who in turn moved over to the wall beside the hearth. From there, Richard gave a signal to Vic Zaruski, who began playing “Autumn Leaves.” At the same moment, Richard tugged on a nylon string I hadn’t noticed before. From overhead, hundreds, thousands of yellow and red leaves came cascading down, sort of like balloons at a political convention. The guests squealed with delight…all except for Donald, who had looked up too soon. Now he was carefully trying to remove a batch of sycamore leaves from his mouth. But apparently they had become stuck deep in his throat. Involuntarily he hawked, then spit.
Unfortunately, this sputtering occurred just as Vic ended the first verse of “Autumn Leaves.” As a result, the coughing-up was much louder and more emphatic than Donald had anticipated, and the guests watched in fascination as Donald disgorged a bouquet of half-chewed leaves glued together with saliva onto one of Nora’s white sofas. I watched in horror. First the guac, now this? What was next?
Richard clapped Donald on the back. He hollered, “Take it easy, little guy. Just keep spitting till you get it all out. My soon-to-be ex-wife was the only doctor here, and I don’t know the Heimlich maneuver.”
Nora clenched her teeth, but managed to pull herself together. She trilled, “The birthday lunch has begun! Please take your seats, folks!”
And so they did. While Richard continued to whack Donald between the shoulder blades, Julian managed to snag a couple of maple leaves that had drifted onto several plates of romaine. Was maple poisonous? I hoped not. Eventually they both found their way to the table.
Following Nora’s directions, I had lit the candles at the table, even though it was the middle of the day. But she was right; this did make things look more festive, and luckily none of the leaves had caught fire. Vic had moved into playing some easy-listening versions of Beatles songs that were, I was surprised to admit, good dining music. Julian moved around the table filling wine and water glasses. Good thing most folks lived nearby and could walk home. While the guests were working on their salads, I removed the tenderloins from the oven so that they could rest. Louise Upton said she had to leave for a doctor’s appointment. I thanked her sincerely for her help, and since I didn’t know whether Nora had given her anything extra, I handed her two twenties from my purse. She could barely conceal her astonishment.
“Why, thank you, Goldy. I don’t really need this. I work for H&J.”
“Today you did double duty for Goldilocks’ Catering, and you deserve the gratuity.”
When I returned to the dining room to collect the salad plates, the guests were discussing Dusty Routt.
“Do you thin
k one or more thieves might have murdered her?” asked Michael Radford, the divorce attorney.
“I wonder if she could have been helping the thieves,” Ookie Claggett said. I wanted to drop a plate of vegetables in her lap, but refrained.
Richard Chenault shook his head. “That’s my niece you’re talking about.” He sighed. “She worked hard, but she wasn’t always able to keep up. So I guess it’s possible she fell in with the wrong crowd, but I hate to think that might have been true. I just hate to think it.”
“She didn’t fall behind when she was working for me,” Donald piped up. “Richard? She labored endlessly for me over a very complicated case—”
Michael Radford went on: “I don’t know. I just think paralegal work is too demanding for a twenty-year-old who hasn’t been to college.”
I was picking up Donald Ellis’s plate and was thus close by him and able to hear his whispered “Baloney.”
“Donald, come on,” Richard put in. “She really couldn’t manage your oil-and-gas-lease bequeathal, plus do all the work for Charlie Baker, which turned into work for Charlie’s estate.”
“Richard, Charlie Baker was ecstatic with the work Dusty was doing for him,” Donald said, his tone defensive. “He told me so himself.”
There was a silence: an associate had corrected a partner, and that partner, I well knew, had what they call in the psych biz “ego issues.” I paused, a dirty salad plate in each hand.
“Now, Donald,” Bishop Uriah Sutherland said mildly, “careful. Remember the old saying in the church: ‘He who is too big for his breeches may soon lose his shirt.’”
“Did Jesus say that?” Marla asked, her face wrinkled questioningly. “I never actually saw that anywhere in Scripture. Bishop, maybe you could remind me of the exact—”
“Actually,” Nora Ellis piped up, “Louise told me that she suspected Dusty of stealing from the firm.”
“Stealing?” Donald said, dumbfounded. “Stealing what—pencils? Legal pads?” I wondered at his courage at contradicting both his boss and his wife.
“You had a lot of valuable stuff in there, Donald,” Nora went on. “Richard put in quite a few lovely things, didn’t you, Richard? They’re yours, right? And not the firm’s?”
Richard Chenault beamed. “Yes, they’re mine.” Then his face soured. “They’re lovely things that I may end up selling, if K.D. and her ravenous lawyer have their way.”
Nora sighed. Marla snatched a glance at me and rolled her eyes.
Back in the kitchen, I was filling the steamed vegetable platter when my cell phone buzzed. Omigosh, I had forgotten to call Arch.
“Mom,” Arch began. “You promised I’d be able to have a driving lesson today. Did you forget?”
“We’ll do it, we’ll do it,” I promised. And then I remembered that we had Julian’s Range Rover. “Oh no, hon, maybe not. We’re just here in Julian’s Rover, and it might not work—”
“Should we just do it another time?”
My shoulders slumped in defeat and guilt, a stance I took quite often as a mother, matter of fact.
“What does he want?” Julian whispered.
“To have a driving lesson in your Rover,” I replied. “I forgot I’d promised him.”
Julian shrugged. “So let him. Tell him to have the Vikarioses drop him off over here. Or they could walk, I guess.” Then he lofted the tray containing the tenderloins, potato puffs, and vegetables. Out in the dining room, the guests were still talking, and Nora hadn’t appeared to tell us to hurry up with the next course.
“All right, hon, listen. The clients are just starting the lunch, and then we have cake. Mrs. Ellis has a maid helping who’s going to do the cleanup. Julian says you can drive his Rover—”
“Wow! Is he sure? When do you want us?”
“Look,” I said, “why don’t you and Gus walk over here”—this would take almost an hour—“and by the time you get here, Julian and I will be able to go. Or at least, we should be.”
“Really?”
“We’ll be ready.”
And surprisingly, we were. The guests all loved the beef, so much so that they downed it and the accompaniments in record time. Vic Zaruski played a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” as we presented Donald with his cake, complete with tall candles. He still didn’t look entirely happy. But he did brighten up during the opening of the presents. Richard gave him a couple of expensive silk ties. The neighbors gave him history books, to which he was apparently partial. And Marla gave him four bottles of wine that I knew had cost her two hundred bucks a pop.
“Oh, Marla, thank you,” Donald said, with the first truly appreciative tone he’d had all day.
“Well,” Nora announced, “I have two things for you. First is a trip to a place where they make that wine, the Burgundy region of France.”
“Oh, honey, you shouldn’t have,” Donald Ellis said, and leaned over to give his wife a kiss on each cheek.
“And your final gift,” said Nora, “is behind the needlepoint I gave you last year.”
Donald wrinkled his brow while his wife carefully removed the lawyer-hugging needlepoint. Behind it was a framed picture by Charlie Baker. It was entitled Journey Cake.
It really was gorgeous, and vintage Charlie Baker, which tugged at my heart. While Nora explained to Donald how valuable the painting was, part of the Cake Series II that Charlie had been doing when he died, I read Charlie’s list of ingredients. Flour, cinnamon and other spices, sugar, butter, cider. But I stared at the painting. Something was still wrong with this recipe; I just didn’t know what. I happened to glance over at Richard, who was smiling more widely than Donald.
Alonzo Claggett commented, “That must have set you back a few pretty pennies, Nora.”
Nora ignored him and put her hand on my forearm. “Don’t you like it, Goldy?” She seemed eager for approval, even if it was from the caterer. Richard was murmuring praise of the painting.
“It’s fabulous, Nora,” I said. “Happy birthday, Donald. You’re a lucky man.”
Donald Ellis gave me another Demerol-deprived look. I smiled sympathetically and bustled back out to the kitchen, where I could quietly begin to round up our supplies and almost be done with this job.
Arch and Gus arrived just before two, their faces flushed from walking. Arch’s countenance was its usual pessimistic self, as if he didn’t believe I was actually going to let him drive. Gus was bubbly, as usual.
“This house is so cool! And you worked here? Did you fix tacos? Just kidding,” he burbled on, in typical Gus fashion.
Julian tousled Arch’s hair, a show of affection my son still permitted, but only from Julian. “Big Arch! Going to drive us home, eh? And in the Rover, too?”
“I’m going to go study your dashboard,” Arch announced, his voice serious. “So I can know where all the controls are.”
Julian and I used the last of our time packing up the steamer and other utensils I’d brought. Nora Ellis actually came out to help us.
“Hi there!” Gus greeted her. “I’m Gus Vikarios. Were you Goldy’s boss today?” When Nora replied that she was, Gus piped up, “How did she and Julian do? Did you have a nice party?”
“Yes, it was very nice,” Nora said, pushing her blond hair out of her face.
“Are you going to give them a good tip?” Gus asked brazenly.
“Gus!” I cried, although I was wondering the same thing myself.
We immediately followed Nora back in for our last box so she could be spared an answer. As we were leaving, she said, “Could you take the trash out, please? Lorraine has so much to do.”
With a quickly mumbled “Of course,” I started toward the enormous black plastic sack she was pointing to. And then, out of the blue—the unconscious, or wherever these things come from—I remembered Wink’s comment about Uriah Sutherland: He likes to poke around, ask questions and I caught him going through our trash. My question was this: Why? Furthermore: Hadn’t he seemed a bit too attentive to Alo
nzo and Marla’s discussion of trusts? And hadn’t that also been Dusty’s area of expertise? Also, how about that bracelet? Had Uriah’s champagne tastes—in women, say, or jewelry—made him look for a receipt for something he’d given to a young lover—say, Dusty? Or what if you flipped things upside down? Maybe doesn’t-like-birthdays Uriah Sutherland had poked a little too hard in the wrong place, been discovered, and been forced to destroy the evidence—that is, Dusty.
“Let me get it,” Julian said, his voice edgy. Without looking at Nora, he handed me the box, which was, I was quite sure, about twenty pounds lighter than the trash bag.
“And oh!” Nora said, as if she’d just remembered it. “Your gratuity!” She reached into her purse and pulled out four twenty-dollar bills, which she tucked into one of my hands that was holding the box. With a smile and a wave, she walked back into the living room.
“What’s that, about a thirty percent tip?” Julian asked. “Fantastic!”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “It’s great. But listen, I want you to put that trash in your Rover. And put any other trash in there that’s outside in their cans.”
“What?” Julian cried.
“Just do it. With hired help taking out the garbage on a regular basis, they’ll never miss it.”
Once we were all settled in the not-smelling-too-great Rover, Julian said, “I’m going to back out, and then you can take it the rest of the way, okay?”
“Sure,” said Arch, who sounded none too sure.
Unfortunately, Julian was unable to make even a five-point turn to get us going forward. “You want to back down the driveway, Arch? The house is on a dead end. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m not so sure,” I began, but received a furious look from Arch.
Julian and Arch exchanged seats. Arch, unaware the car was on, turned the key in the ignition. The engine shrieked.
“Happens to everybody,” Julian said from the backseat.
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