by R. L. Syme
When she turned back to Mason’s brother, both he and Mason were standing in front of her, hands empty.
“We unloaded all the equipment.” The surfer twang, that would have been endearing on any other day, made Gillian want to roll her eyes. “Where can we set up for service?”
“The kitchen.” Gillian pointed back to where they’d been unloading.
The brothers exchanged an exasperated glance. Mason shook his head. The surfer continued, shaking his bangs out of his eyes. “Uh, that’s where we’re prepping, but where do we serve?”
“The kitchen,” she repeated, trying to keep her voice civil.
Mason put his hand on his brother’s chest as the blond was about to speak and Gillian couldn’t help her instinct to take a step back in preparation.
“That room is barely big enough for all of the roasters that Tyson is bringing, let alone trying to serve out…” His eyes rounded into little white Christmas wreaths of frustration. “Wait, you’re intending to do table service for 100 people out of a twenty-foot kitchen?”
Gillian crossed her arms. She hated it when Mason did this—his patronizing voice. He sounded like her father.
“They’ve done it here for fifteen years this way.”
“You haven’t worked here fifteen years.” Mason mirrored her stance and she glared at him. She’d learned how he won arguments long ago, and she wasn’t letting him diffuse this one.
She needed to have a good yell. Of all the people on earth, he could take it.
“I don’t care how long I’ve worked here. I happen to know, from the director, that they’ve done it this way for fifteen years. If an old, fat farmer with only his wife to help him can make this happen, I would imagine two college-educated food professionals would find this an easy challenge.”
“Three,” Surfer said.
Gillian shook her head. “What?”
“There’s three of us. Our other brother is on his way with all the meat.”
“I don’t care how many there are.” Gillian pointed to the horrifically decorated tables in the lobby. “We have to keep this space open for guests. All you have is the kitchen.”
A twinge of regret settled in her throat when the blond nodded in resignation. But when she saw Mason’s fiery eyes, she released any sorrow she felt at putting her foot down.
“This is the way it’s always been. It’s the way it has to be.”
“Let’s just… we’ll make it work.” The surfer took his brother’s arm and tried to pull Mason back toward the kitchen.
Instead, Mason walked forward. At first, Gillian thought he meant to intimidate her, but his gaze had softened. “Tell me the truth,” he whispered. “Are you doing this because it’s me? Or is this really a problem?”
Gillian swallowed back the emotion that threatened. Sure, she’d love nothing more than to punish Mason. But she really couldn’t snap her fingers and create more space. This was all they had.
With emotion coating her voice, she whispered back. “I need this to work, Mason. My job depends on this being the best meal they’ve ever had.”
A cloud of something passed over his face. Was it regret? Concern? She wouldn’t let his nearness and her lack of current romantic entanglement color her judgment.
He stepped back to his brother and whispered something. “We’ll make it work, Gillian. I promise.”
The familiar armor returned. Don’t let him in. “Your promises don’t mean much to me, Mason. Just do the job and you’ll get paid.”
Mason hung his head and whispered back and forth with his brother for a moment. He went back to the kitchen, leaving Surfer with her.
“I’ve gotta wait for the other van.” Surfer put his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry about Mason. He can be intense.”
“I do remember.” Gillian glanced back at the ticket office. Her evening dress hung against one wall. That would be a perfect excuse to get away from the awkwardness of this moment.
“I didn’t know about you, for the record.”
Gillian eyed him. “I didn’t know about you, either.”
Surfer flashed a white, winning smile. He must be a heart-breaker, this one. “I’m Cash, by the way.”
She nodded, but kept her distance. “Gillian. Nice to meet you.” She wasn’t about to get sucked in to any conversation that would lead to what happened between her and his brother.
“I’m sorry to hear about your caterer.”
“He wasn’t really a caterer. Just a volunteer.”
Cash’s eyebrows went up. “You mean, he wasn’t certified?”
“No.”
“Bonded?”
“No.”
Cash whistled. “Lucky thing you called us.”
An engine sounded out the side door.
Yes, she thought. Lucky that our other guy died so we could pay through the nose for a real caterer who happens to be the only man I’ve ever loved in my life. Instead of saying what she meant, Gillian just smiled. “I guess so.”
Cash opened the door and signaled to the other van. Gillian could see that the streetlight had come on. It was already dark out.
Great. Now she’d missed most of the rehearsal.
She forced a smile when Cash waved goodbye and disappeared into the dark.
The third act music sounded from inside the theater and Gillian rushed in. She made the final adjustments to the last of the scene changes and released the kids to their dressing rooms.
Willa and Rich left the production booth when the kids had all gone and stood, flanking Gillian as she stared at the stage. They’d returned it to the first scene opening. This was the way it would be when the show began. In less than two hours.
Rich gave her one of his famous five-second shoulder massages and Gillian felt the tightness in her neck. She would give herself a migraine if she wasn’t careful.
“You should get dressed, dear.” Willa took the chair next to her.
“Tell me, both of you, honestly. Should we cancel?”
Laughter rang through the room. “Cancel? Honey, we’re two hours from curtain. That train sailed this morning.”
“Train? Sailed?” Rich’s high, tinny voice brought some of that laughter to Gillian. Willa was nothing if not a font of mixed metaphor.
He kissed his wife’s hand and made another joke about sailing trains. Gillian felt that familiar pang in her chest. The one she always got watching the two of them.
Not a heart attack. A lack of heart attack.
“Go get dressed.” Willa pushed her up and leaned her elbow on the table in front of her and pointed up at Rich. “You. Get those magic hands on these shoulders. Jilly, I had Shonna take your dress and things into the girl’s dressing room. We had to move the hair and makeup station into the office because it was causing a backup at the mirrors.”
“Plus, those curling irons, along with all of Arthur’s wassail pots, are throwing the circuit breaker.” Rich began to knead his wife’s shoulders.
Gillian sighed. “And the ticket office curtains are still at Dimity’s house somewhere, aren’t they?”
“I need to send Arthur over there someday to get those. Oh, honey. That’s the spot right there.” Willa grunted, then laughed. “Maybe you should go back to being a massage therapist, Richard.”
“And miss doing all this?” Rich gestured around and Gillian took it all in for a moment. Standing in the midst of all the decorated tables, in the near-dark, with only pink lights illuminating the stage and residual light throughout, it was breathtaking.
Gillian stepped onto the stage and ducked behind the heavy black curtain. She wove her way through the backstage passages to the girl’s dressing room.
Inside, the MFDA kids were being transformed into wood nymphs and milk maidens and ladies in waiting. This was where the real magic happened.
Gillian quickly changed out of her jeans and sweater into her evening dress, which was tighter than she remembered. Figure-hugging, clingy… at first, it had seemed flattering.
When she tried it on at home. Now it seemed… slutty.
She could not wear this dress around Mason Herrick. Absolutely not. Maybe she could stay backstage until the curtain came up. She could give orders from here.
“Oh wow, Miss G.” Regina, one of her nymphs, stood next to her in the mirror. “You look hot.”
Gillian dabbed concealer under her eyes and blended while she considered Regina’s assertion.
“Yeah, that dress is killer,” said another girl behind her.
“Thank you, ladies.” Gillian finished applying whatever makeup she’d put in her purse and stared at the result. Not bad for an opening night. Perhaps a little too smokey on the eyes.
She helped the girls with the finishing touches on their costumes and listened to the pre-show chatter. The room buzzed with energy. This was what Gillian lived for. These moments of intense pressure where it was do or die, and everyone would step onto the stage, and the spotlight would come up…
A knock on the dressing room door knocked her out of her reverie. “Who is it?” Gillian called out.
“It’s Peter.” Her Lord Nymph and the oldest of the boys cast.
Gillian hurried to the door and peeked out. “What do you need?”
“Rich sent me back to get you.” Peter gestured for her to follow and disappeared into the dark corridor.
He was headed back out to the lobby. With a careful sigh and a steel to her nerves, Gillian Potter smoothed her fitted golden dress and followed.
“What is it, Peter?” she called after him, nearly catching up, even in her patent leather black heels.
“Cordy said something about a snowstorm. They can’t get the front door open.”
All of the carefully projected confidence deflated on the spot. If the hallway weren’t so dingy and dank, Gillian would have sat down right there and called the battle. She couldn’t handle even one more crisis tonight.
Mason nearly threw his Misonu chef’s knife across the kitchen when Tyson left the kitchen to get the last roaster. There was no more room anywhere.
Except the floor.
“Do you think they actually put food on the floor?” Mason said. This Gillian did not compute for him. On one hand, the tacky lobby and food on the floor. On the other hand, the elegant, white theater and her European clothing. Five years ago, Gillian would have laughed at either extreme.
“Dude, the least of our worries is what they used to do.” Cash came to the tiny counter where Mason was shoveling butter into a giant pot of steaming, drained potatoes. He carried the last of the dessert trays. “There’s no more room in the refrigerator.”
Mason eyed their perfectly piped ginger-clove cream cheese frosting, dotting a snowflake pattern over the trim stacks of sticky toffee pudding. Something sank inside.
“They have to stay cool. In fact,” he pointed to the bottom right corner of the tray, “look at that. They’re already melting in this heat.”
“There is no. More. Room. In. The. Refrigerator.” Cash’s sarcasm-laced voice edged Mason’s already frayed nerves.
“What about the freezer?”
Cash shrugged. “It smells like rotten fish in the freezer. I don’t have enough wrap left to cover these, even if I could find a way to wrap them without damaging the snowflakes. Do you want the crowning jewel of the dinner to taste like last year’s frozen halibut?”
Mason let the pot of potatoes drop onto the stove with a clang. “What the hell does she expect from me?”
Tyson shuffled into the tiny space with the last roaster. “Where should I put this?”
With a deep breath, Mason tried to calm himself. Getting angry wouldn’t solve the problem. Tyson shook his head out toward the hall and white flakes flew everywhere.
“Is it snowing outside?”
Tyson nodded, his dark blond hair fluttered back into place. “It’s been snowing since I got here. Pretty hard, too.”
“Is the first van cold?”
“Probably.”
Mason pointed toward where he assumed the van would be. “Cash, put those in the van. If you think it’s cold enough. Maybe leave the back doors open for a bit, too, just to freeze it out.”
Cash left and Tyson came closer with the hot roaster. “What about this?”
Mason tried to rearrange the kitchen in his mind. They already had so many roasters and roasting pans and chafing dishes full of food, set up on every available prep space. He closed his eyes.
“For now, put it here on the other side of the stove.” He moved the potatoes to the front left burner and Tyson put the roaster on the cooled-off surface.
“You want me to start on the beet salad?”
Mason pointed to the orange cooler under the table. “Willa said they usually have a finger-food appetizer on the table before everything starts and it’s all in there.”
“What about the beet salad?” Tyson rested a hand on his slim hip. Mason realized what was eating him up so much about the situation. He seemed to be the only tense one.
Both Cash and Ty were rolling with the punches, but Mason could feel himself winding tighter and tighter as the night progressed. He had to calm down.
“We’ll have the beet salad set when they sit. So it’ll have to be room temp.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Tyson pulled at the orange cooler and Mason nearly tripped backwards over it. He was just about to let loose a creative sentence of curses when he heard a scream—or a squeal—echoing down the hallway to the kitchen.
Gillian.
His pulse immediately jumped into his throat, he forgot everything he’d been doing and ran for the lobby.
Mason wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but considering she’d just sent his adrenaline into overdrive, Gillian should have been in some kind of danger. And the sight of her did, indeed, close off his breathing… but not because she’d been hurt.
Instead, she stood by the front window, her silky hair a thick curtain down an open-back, curve-hugging, jaw-dropping gold dress. When she turned around and met his eyes, Mason thought his heart might stop, as well. She’d put on just enough makeup to enhance her natural beauty, but something about her eyes pinned him. This wasn’t five-years-ago Gillian, or ten-years-ago Gillian. But she was arresting.
“I… um…” Mason cleared his throat. “I… uh, did someone scream?”
Gillian pointed at the window as though it should be so obvious, he was an idiot for not seeing it. But Mason couldn’t focus on the window.
He couldn’t focus on anything.
Every moment they had spent together suddenly came flashing back to him. A barrage of sunny mornings and yoga classes and nights at their favorite bar. Every second he’d ever spent just watching her, marveling at how beautiful she was… it was like reliving them all at once. Life suddenly felt frozen, like his lungs were made of lead.
He tried to catch his breath, but the adrenaline wouldn’t let him slow anything. “I just heard you scream.” He thumbed toward the kitchen. “I should get back.”
Gillian looked back at the window and slid a hand onto the semi-fogged glass, where it made an imprint. “The night is ruined.”
The theater doors opened and Willa stuck her head into the lobby. “What happened?”
“Oh, nothing. Only, it snowed almost a foot in the last hour.” Gillian pulled her hand away and shook it, then rested it on her thigh. She cast Mason a wary look and he felt the tug again.
She had fix-it-face and he wanted to fix it. Whatever it was.
“What needs to be done?” Mason asked.
Willa walked over to Gillian and embraced her. Mason would have given his expensive Japanese knife set to make sure Gillian had what she needed. No matter what had passed between them, he still cared about her.
Maybe more than was good for him in that moment.
A white-haired, Grandpa-esque man followed Willa out of the theater. He gave Mason the once over. “Damn blizzard. We thought it would miss us.”
“What needs to be d
one?” Mason repeated. He didn’t warrant a response from Gillian, but maybe Gramps would talk to him.
“It looks like the front doors are taking the brunt of the wind.” Grandpa walked around the embracing women and peeked out the window, looking side to side. “We’ve got all the theater windows blacked out for the show, otherwise I could have been shoveling out since it started.”
“My brothers and I can help if you need it.”
Gillian sniffed and met his eyes. “Don’t you have work that needs to be done?”
“We’re at a spot where we can just let things sit for a bit. Or a couple of us could.” He rolled down the sleeves of his chef’s coat. “Just get us a couple of shovels and we’ll handle it.”
Willa’s eyebrows tented and she murmured, “Full service catering, I see.”
“It’s ok. I can get a couple of the boys out there.” Rich waved Mason off. “It shouldn’t take long to clear the sidewalks if we can get out the side door.”
“Ty just came in the side door, so that shouldn’t be a problem.” Mason smiled at Gramps and tried to keep himself from checking on Gillian again, but it was a habit.
She still leaned against the window with one hand, and Willa held her around the waist on the other side. The icy fog on the windows melted around the outside of her handprint, on the edges of where her skin met the glass.
As Mason remembered, everything melted around Gillian. That had been the problem.
He was about to escape back to the kitchen when he remembered a conversation he and Cash had never resolved with her. Might as well get it out of the way while she allowed him in her presence.
“I forgot to ask, since you told us not to hire wait staff, do you have any idea when your waiters will be arriving?”
Gillian glanced over her shoulder. “They’re already here.”
“Oh, good. Send them on back when they’re ready.”
“We’ve already rehearsed that, so they won’t be back until service.”
Mason shook his head. “We rehearsed what?”
“The entrance. Most of the kids who play wait staff have two roles, so they won’t be back until the second act.”
“The second act?”
