Midnight and Mistletoe At Cedarwood Lodge

by Rebecca Raisin

  With a deep breath, Tim smiled and said, “Feng Shui, I never really understood it.”

  I laughed. “Feng Shui was forgotten by the time I got to New York. Out there it was something else every other week. A new hobby, a new passion. Following the latest craze, as you do.”

  The sultry smile was back in place but dialed down a notch. “Well, no matter what, New York was good for you. And I’m glad you returned home safe.” His cell phone buzzed, and he tapped his vibrating pocket, his mouth tightening. “That’ll be Vinnie. I’ll call you later.” With a quick peck on my cheek, he walked out, answering the phone as he went.

  I watched him drive off and counted the seconds, wondering how many it would take before Amory rushed in ready to grill me about Timothy. And sure enough: One, two… three, boom!

  “So what’s the deal with Timothy?” she asked, her forehead furrowing. “He practically had love hearts for eyes!”

  I scrunched up my nose. “We’re strictly in the friend zone. By my choice.”

  She sighed, drawing the sound out.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “I’m too fussy. But the thing is I just don’t feel anything for him, not now.” I shrugged. There was no point pretending, as sad as it was.

  She held up her hands. “I want to shake you until you see sense sometimes! Why can’t you go on a date and see what happens?”

  There was real confusion in her voice. Poor Amory could never understand my hesitation with men. I just had to be sure, and I found taking that step so difficult. “Well you know why, Amory! Yes, he’s sweet, so buff, financially secure… but my heart doesn’t beat a rhumba when he’s around. It just beats the same old boompety boom, as usual. And I don’t want to give him false hope if there’s nothing there for me.”

  “Oh, Jesus, darling, you and your obsession with visceral reactions. Won’t he do? For some fun, someone to have dinner with, dare I say a tangle in the sheets with after a bottle of wine on a Saturday night? Don’t you miss men?”

  I debated whether to lie. “Not really. I don’t think about tangling the sheets at all, because I know how much those sheets cost.”

  Her mouth fell open and she laughed uproariously. “Clio, darling, you’re hopeless. You go around kissing Kai and then pretending you haven’t.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up her hand. “Don’t think I don’t know about that! But what does it mean? Look, if you won’t tell Kai that you like him, and you won’t consider a measly date with Timothy, what are you going to do? Snuggle up to your Egyptian cotton sheets for the rest of your life?”

  “You have to admit they are nice sheets.”

  “Seriously, Clio!” Pink spots appeared on her cheeks. Scotty chose that moment to run over and try and climb up my leg like a tree. I scooped him up and buried my face in his fur; he really was the sweetest thing.

  “OK,” I said, trying to take her more seriously. “I don’t know who I’m going to snuggle up to. I might have to borrow your puppy.”

  “Nice try, but you cannot subject change like that with me and expect I won’t notice. You need to be honest with yourself Clio. Don’t let two good men walk out of your life because you’re scared to admit how you feel.”

  “Who said I’m scared?”

  “It’s written all over you, in big fat capital letters.”

  I sighed. “I think you’re loved up and you want me to be loved up too, so everyone at the Loved Up Lodge can be joyous and loved up. Not all of us are so lucky you know.”

  “I can see you won’t listen to reason.” She tried to appear huffy and I stifled laughter but it spilled out regardless.

  “Darling,” she moaned. “Why won’t you just give love a chance?”

  I fell back on my chair, and she followed suit. “I would, I really would this time. But he’s not ready.”

  “Who?”

  “Kai.”

  She raised her eyebrows, “How do you know? Have you asked him?”

  “Trust me, I just do. He’s going through something major in his life right now and love is not on the cards. The timing just isn’t right, which is the story of my life.”

  “And yet he’s here,” The sparkle was back in her eye and I realized I’d said too much… she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Kai’s sorting out Cedarwood again, just like he never left.”

  Chapter Seven

  The next day, I called a team meeting. We had to move at lightning speed if we wanted the party to go smoothly, and luckily we were well adjusted to working under immense pressure. Still, a lot of companies were closed over the Christmas/New Year period but we’d managed to get a number of things sourced and wheedled the suppliers into delivering on time.

  We crammed into the kitchen; even though we had newly renovated and painted offices we hung out like college kids around the table close to the coffee pot and the cookies. Good brain food, right?

  Thankfully after Timothy’s visit yesterday we’d already got the ball rolling on a lot of the finer points. As Amory lifted her iPad and showed us the invitation she made we all sighed. “Stunning, Amory. Did it get approved?” I asked. She had such a talent for design, I often thought she should use it for something other than just party invites.

  “Still waiting to hear back. I’ve emailed…”

  We had zero time to play phone tag, let alone email tag. I held up a finger and dialed Tim’s number, putting it on speaker so I didn’t have to relay the conversation. “Tim, it’s Clio. What did Vinnie say about the invites and overall plan for the party?”

  There was a groan and I held my breath.

  “Sorry for the hold-up, Clio. I’ve literally just hung up from him. He’s decided to go for a Gatsby theme. You know, black and gold and all that jazz. So I’m really sorry but the invitation will need to be changed.”

  Gah! The team twitched nervously. A last-minute change in theme could really set us back. There seriously weren’t enough hours in the day to be making huge changes like that. But I bit my tongue and pressed on, remembering that the customer was always right: “Roaring Twenties, got it. Is he sure though? Because if I order everything, we won’t have time to send it back if he changes his mind again.” It was almost impossible to keep the frustration from my voice because Amory and I had spent the morning sourcing table centerpieces and décor for the masquerade ball, not to mention that we had ordered most if it and convinced the suppliers to deliver the next day. Maybe we could swap for Gatsby style products if we called them and explained our predicament as soon as I’d hung up from Tim… I nodded at Amory, who opened up our spreadsheet of suppliers and highlighted the ones we would have to call and plead to change our order and still get it delivered on time.

  “I know,” Timothy said with a sigh. “I tried to convince him we just don’t have time to change everything now, but Vinnie is convinced a Gatsby party reeks of glamor and apparently that’s what we were missing.”

  I laughed, but it came out more like a nervous jittery squeak. “And the menu?” Cruz had sent in an order for a long list of ingredients already, and I knew for a fact they wouldn’t allow for any changes – we’d had problems with our supplier already, but we didn’t have much choice as there weren’t any other grocers in town.

  “He wants a different menu.”

  Cruz clutched his head, while Amory reached over to pat his back.

  “What kind?” I asked, hoping he would say something simple.

  “How about I email it over?” That didn’t sound good. I’d hoped Tim’s boss wasn’t an indecisive type. Maybe it was just nerves on his part? Either way, we couldn’t mess around our suppliers by chopping and changing orders, they’d soon tire of us no matter how much future business we promised them.

  “Email it now, Tim. And if we can’t return what we’ve already ordered Vinnie will have to cover it. We’ll try and swap what we’ve sourced but I can’t promise anything.”

  “I know, and that’s fine. I’ll email the n
ew menu and call you this afternoon.”

  “OK, thanks Tim.”

  I hung up, feeling wired and frazzled. I hadn’t met Vinnie in person, and going through a middleman always created conflict. As Vinnie was out of town it made sense for Tim to be the go-between, but not if Vinnie was going to overrule every choice we made. My phone pinged with an email.

  “Go on, read it,” Amory said. “I bet he’s got something ridiculous written there and that’s why he wouldn’t say it on the phone.”

  I shook my head. “If it says Beluga caviar from the Caspian Sea, I’m quadrupling the price. We don’t have time for this.”

  “Do you think Vinnie’s a flake?” Amory asked, wrinkling her brow. What she meant was, someone who’d pull out of the party last minute, with nothing paid, nothing promised, a time waster of the worst kind.

  “Maybe we should send a pre-party invoice?”

  “Let’s,” Amory agreed. “Just in case.” We’d been stung before at the agency in New York. I’d learnt pretty quickly that just because people had recognizable names, didn’t mean they were on the level. After a few mishaps where we’d been left sans client, we changed our practices and got a deposit upfront if they were a little skittish. No one liked paying ahead, celebs hated parting with their money (go figure), but it was insurance not only for the agency but also for us keeping our jobs. Here at Cedarwood we definitely couldn’t afford to be left in the lurch.

  “Perhaps we make that a stipulation going forward, Amory?” I said. “While our clients so far haven’t been celebs, we also don’t want to foot the total bill if they’re a no-show.”

  I wasn’t used to worrying about the money side of things – in New York someone else always did the tallying – but here, I had to be in charge of it all, and we were learning on the run. Thank god Amory was here.

  “I’ll email Tim an invoice and all our terms now,” she said as her fingers flew over her iPad. A few minutes later she said, “Done. Right, so come on read his email…”

  Cruz waggled his eyebrows, “Yeah, the suspense is killing me, let me guess, black and gold finger food?”

  I read the email and laughed. “Oh my god, yes. He wants everything black and gold, including gold covered strawberries. ‘Think edible glitter, think edible gold… the more glam the better!’” I quoted, rolling my eyes. “Golly how on earth are we going to get this done?”

  “Allow me one second to face palm,” Amory said. “Right, that’s done. Now, this sounds like an Aunt Bessie job to me. A gold plated dessert table sounds right up her alley.”

  I nodded at Amory. She was right, Aunt Bessie would love this challenge… and considering how involved Mom was with Puft, perhaps she could help out too?

  “Micah and I have to meet Ned from the council this morning, he’s inspected the chapel and hopefully going to sign off on it today. So we can drive you into town to see Aunt Bessie,” Kai said.

  “I have to get these suppliers sorted out first,” I said, hoping they’d swap the elaborate candelabras we’d ordered for something Gatsby-ish instead… though at least they were gold.

  “I’ll go,” Isla offered and I smiled at her, so grateful to have such a brilliant team around me. “I’ll explain to Aunt Bessie, and help her hunt online if she needs to find edible glitters… While I’m there I can look in the gift shop in town, I’m sure I saw some Gatsby-esque photo booth props, and some vintage posters that might work.”

  “What’s our motto, team? Always say yes!” I joked, the pressure fading a little as we divvied up the rest of the jobs.

  Cruz read the rest of the email about the menu updates and said, “So do I cancel the seafood? It’s not exactly black or gold is it?” He wrinkled his brow like the new menu was insane. He’d learn. This was nothing compared to some we’d catered for. We’d had lots of odd requests over the years, including a yellow themed party – you haven’t catered for odd until every single morsel had to be yellow. Thank god for saffron, we’d managed to dye a lot of the food to suit.

  “You could do nori rolls? Seaweed is black, or you could encrust them in black sesame seeds…” The more I thought about it the more ideas sprang to mind. “We’ll wow them with the gold glittery stuff. Trust me, they’ll love your menu.”

  He smirked. “I’ll go see what I can dig up, and get back to you with some ideas before I order any more stock in.”

  “Thanks, Cruz.” I liked how amenable he was to any spanner in the works. A lot of chefs I’d dealt with would have clutched their spatulas and spit out a torrent of abuse about indecisive clients. But not Cruz. After a quick moan he rolled with the punches and found their curiosities just that, curious. I hoped he’d never change.

  I’d had it up to my eyeballs dealing with highly strung chefs. None of us like a plan change mid-way but sometimes that’s exactly what happened, so the easiest way was for everyone to have a quick grumble and then fix the problem ASAP. Not hold the entire team up ranting and raving, like a spoilt brat. Another tick for life at the lodge, I didn’t have to put up with staff like that any more…

  As everyone rushed off to do their jobs, Amory and I faced our laptops ready to do battle with suppliers. I turned the coffee machine on again, thinking that if nothing else we could get through this with coffee, we always had in the past! And of course champagne when we’d solved every issue…

  “Right, waiters, bar staff and kitchen hands – we can hire a crew from a skill-hire place which guarantees a certain number on the night, but we won’t get to meet them ahead of time, and we won’t know their level of expertise. At this late stage though, we might have to go with it, and then see about hiring some long-term local staff?” Amory said as we rifled through our to-do lists.

  I bit down on my lip, contemplating. Staff were always hard to find, especially in such a small town. “Yes, we don’t have time to ask around town for this party. But let’s advertise afterwards and find some reliable locals.”

  Amory made a note on her calendar. “Done. I’ll call Sylvia from the skill-hire place and let her know. Next on the list – party prep.”

  “OK, we’ve done a few Gatsby parties in the past so let’s roll with the same ideas… everything glittery, sparkly, we have to hire musicians, drape the chairs with clusters of pearls, we need feathers for vases, and signs that say, prohibition stops here, dollface, that sort of thing.”

  “You’re actually getting excited, aren’t you?” Amory asked, and I recognized the same look in her eyes.

  “Gatsby parties are the best! Obviously we’ll have to order ourselves some kind of flapper dress.”

  “And flapper headpieces.”

  “Clearly! It’s part of the job to look the part.”

  We grinned at each other. “OK, let’s get everything ticked off our list. First things first, I’ll see if we can exchange the things we’ve already ordered. Once that’s done our reward will be dress hunting online over lunch?”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “Deal. Gone are the days we wandered arm in arm down Fifth Avenue…”

  The change in our lives was so great it had the ability to take my breath away at times. “Are you happy here, Amory?” I asked, suddenly nervous that my crazy dream to run back to Cedarwood and start a new life had also pulled Amory from her high-flying corporate life.

  Her eyes twinkled. “You know, never in a million years would I have thought I’d end up in a small town in New Hampshire by choice. But it’s the best thing I’ve done, I can feel it in my bones.” She stretched out and I noticed her slippers, jeans and big warm jumper and almost laughed – this was a far cry from the Amory who had only ever worn six-inch heels. “I’ll always love New York, but being away from the hustle and bustle is so goddamn nice, I wonder why I didn’t do it sooner. Working here is a whole different ball game, and I just know we’re going to make it great.”

  I smiled, and felt happiness all the way down into my soul. “I’m pretty sure at the ripe old age of
eighty our feet will thank us for the change. I see you’ve moved from stilettos to ballet flats.”

  “Why fight it?” she said. “I’ve swapped Fifth Avenue for Amazon, why not go all the way?”

  “Right? And look how far our dollar will go!”

  Chapter Eight

  Later in the afternoon we had finished off all the re-ordering; charming suppliers was one of Amory’s specialties so I had left that to her whilst I made progress with the rest of the list.

  “Just quickly,” I said, refilling my coffee. “Amidst the NYE party, we’ve also got to make a start on our February wedding. Can you touch base with our bride and get her RSVP list? Once that’s done, we’ll knuckle down what else we need to do.”

  “Already done, darling,” Amory said, holding out her empty mug.

  “You’re a super star.” That’s what I loved about Amory, in business she was always a step ahead. She truly loved her job and thrived on being busy.

  “Thank you, darling. It’s sweet of you to state the obvious.”

  “Humble too, so utterly humble.”

  “I try.”

  “Shall we set up a time to Skype her?”

  “Yes, I’ll email her and lock in time for this week, yeah?”

  “Perfect.” We may have been mid-way through planning a NYE party, but weddings normally needed more than a month’s notice and we needed to ensure our first Cedarwood nuptials went off without a hitch as well.

  After giving me an air kiss Amory went to her office and I called the grocer. Being the difficult supplier they were, he wouldn’t budge and gave me a stern talking-to about food waste and being flighty. Holding in a scream, I reassured him we’d take what we ordered and sort out the new menu soon. Really, we’d have to find someone more accommodating, but for now, he would have to do.