The Secret's in the Sauce

by Linda Evans Shepherd

  Mrs. Gage gave me a hard look. “It is now, dear. Isn’t that right, Deputy?”

  I had no reply.

  Kat looked at me with disdain. “Oh.” Then with total disregard, “Come with me, Mother.”

  Mrs. Gage turned to leave and slid her arm through the crook of her daughter’s elbow. “Yes, dear, it’s time we left this woman behind us.”

  Then, they were gone.

  I blinked. Wade had left me for his mother.

  I was still fuming a few days later when I got the call to come to Lisa Leann’s meeting.

  I mean, it wasn’t that Wade and I hadn’t talked. We had.

  “What I don’t understand,” I’d told him on the phone as I leaned back against my kitchen counter, “is why you deserted me like you did.” I hugged my gray sweatshirt with my free arm. “Didn’t you know your mom would get her claws into me as soon as you turned your back?”

  “I don’t know what came over me,” Wade said. “I guess I just felt like we were in high school again, and she’d just caught us making out on that old sofa in the garage.”

  I had to laugh at the memory. “Don’t remind me. That was the most embarrassing day of my life. Especially when she noticed my shirt was inside out.”

  “She grounded me for a month, you know.”

  “Well, she just did it again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I ran my fingers through my short, blonde curls. “Didn’t you hear? After you left, she forbade me from seeing you.”

  Wade let out a sigh. “No wonder you’re upset.”

  I turned and stared at the sunlit peak outside my window and poured myself a cup of coffee. “Yeah, well, you’re still afraid of her, and that makes me wonder if we really belong together.”

  “Donna, wait. We can work this out. I know we can.”

  “What’s to work out? Either you stand up to your mom or you can kiss me good-bye.”

  Wade laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “After our hello kiss, there’s no way I’m kissing you good-bye.”

  That comment softened my disposition. “Well, then, what are you going to do, Wade? What?”

  “Let me talk to her, maybe I can even get us an invitation for one of her famous chicken parmesan dinners.”

  “If you can do that, then we can talk.”

  “Uh, I’m interested in more than talk.”

  This was a subject I wanted to avoid. My voice iced. “I’m not a bad girl anymore. I’ll tell you that up front.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean—”

  “Call me when you’ve patched things up with your mom.”

  I clicked out of the conversation, not even giving him a chance to reply, and slammed my almost empty mug next to the sink. This whole thing was nothing but a disaster. One I wasn’t sure I could weather.

  So, when Lisa Leann, one of the members of the Potluck Club prayer group I belonged to, called and told me “her Potluck catering business plan,” as she called it, and about the meeting scheduled at her wedding shop the next evening, I knew this was the distraction I needed.

  By the time Evie came out of her honeymoon daze, her little Potluck Club world, of which she was president, would be changed. But as she and Dad were so sweet on each other, I thought she’d hardly notice, much less mind.

  Maybe, this would lead to a new Evie, an Evie I could get along with.

  Only time would tell.

  Lisa Leann

  3

  Reality Bites

  The defining moment of my life came the day of Evie’s wedding, the very first wedding I’d ever planned and implemented as a professional wedding consultant.

  It was too bad I almost missed it.

  I had more urgent matters to attend to. When I got the call from Deputy Donna and her (ahem) friend Wade Gage that my sweet daughter Mandy had gone into labor, my world rocked. Suddenly, the last-minute details of putting on the biggest show Summit View had ever seen were no longer important to me. Without even waving good-bye, I tossed off my pink apron with the words “Lisa Leann’s High Country Weddings” embroidered across the bib, jumped into my Lincoln, and sped toward the hospital.

  Thank heavens I’d left detailed wedding plans that my dear friends, whom I like to refer to as the Potluckers, could implement without me. Otherwise, poor Evie might still be a Miss instead of a Mrs.

  When I arrived in the hospital parking lot, ahead of Deputy Donna, I didn’t know what to think. Donna had told me they were already en route. Had something gone wrong?

  Just as I’d decided to drive to the house, Donna’s Bronco with its siren blazing pulled to a stop in front of the emergency room entrance. I rushed to the truck and got the shock of my life. There my daughter sat in the back seat, holding my newly born grandson. So help me, I’m afraid I screamed.

  As I recovered my composure, Wade ran inside and grabbed a gurney, then he and Donna helped Mandy climb on board. That’s when I experienced my life-defining moment—the moment I took my grandbaby into my arms. If the baby hadn’t still been attached to Mandy, I might have burst into song, twirling my grandson through the hospital’s parking lot, you know, like Julie Andrews did in that high Alps meadow in The Sound of Music.

  For there, nestled in my arms, was red-faced Kyle Christopher, wrapped in one of my pale pink bath towels. His little eyes squeezed shut against the bright sunshine.

  How precious.

  One look into that little face and I went from a woman in her late forties whose main concern was how to fight wrinkles, to Grandmother5Extraordinaire.

  I may never recover from the shock of seeing my baby with a baby of her own. And I know I will never recover from the shock of having to put both my babies on a 737 headed to Houston’s Bush International Airport.

  I’d known that my time with Mandy was short. And it was only by luck, really, that she’d been with me in Colorado for Kyle’s birth. She’d traveled to see “the folks,” as she calls her dad and me, over the Thanksgiving holiday, two months earlier. We’d been having a grand visit when she collapsed in my kitchen with the pangs of early labor.

  With Mandy confined to bed rest, and Ray, her husband, having to return to Texas, Mandy had been left entirely in my care. It would have been heavenly if she’d not grieved so about missing Ray. “Mom, of course I appreciate what you and Dad are doing for me,” she’d say, flopping her strawberry curls against my velvety mauve sofa. “But I’m so homesick.”

  I’d sit next to her and pull her into my arms. “Of course you are,” I’d coo, patting her shoulder. “Just consider this time with us as God’s gift. It is, you know, at least from my point of view.”

  Her little chin would quiver and she’d dab her eyes with a tissue. “Mom, you keep reminding me, but I miss my Ray!”

  Then the sobs would start in earnest, and all I could do was hold her. After her tears, I’d comfort her with a slice of my famous chocolate cheesecake, which I always keep in the back of my freezer for emergencies. (Chocolate cheesecake has special power to heal any heartbroken woman, I say.)

  But now that the baby was born, it took no time for Ray to come to Summit View to collect his little family. Can’t say that I blame him, after all, and I’m happy Mandy has a husband who loves her.

  But here’s my complaint: Ray made it to Summit View faster than a dignitary on the Concorde, ready to pack my Mandy’s suitcase and whisk her and the baby back to Texas. Even then I had to put my foot down to convince him to stay a week after Kyle was born. “It’s too soon for Mandy to travel,” I’d scolded. “Honestly, is this any way to take care of your wife?”

  “But she says she’s more than ready,” he argued.

  Then from the bedroom down the hall, I could hear Mandy’s voice sing out, “And willing.”

  I walked down to her room, where she sat in my rocking chair nursing the baby. She looked so sweet in her pale coral buttondown gown that I couldn’t be angry.

  “Darling, I know you’re anxious
to get home, but a day, that’s all I’m asking. You can wait another few days.”

  That was all she waited. Before I knew it, it was a week later and Henry was driving us all to DIA.

  Little Kyle slept peacefully in his car seat, a gift from the Potluckers, while I sat beside him, gently stroking his silky head as his rosebud lips spread into what almost looked like a grin.

  “He smiled!” I crowed to Mandy, who sat just on the other side of him. She giggled. “He’s glad to be going home.”

  “I’d wish you’d let me come with you, to help.”

  “No,” Mandy and Ray chirped in unison.

  I looked at the back of Ray’s head, then at Mandy. “But how will you manage?”

  Ray’s announcement almost stopped my heart. “It’s not that we don’t want your help, it’s that we don’t need it. My mother is meeting us at the airport.”

  I fumed the rest of the way to the departure drop-off. I could just imagine Ray’s mother, Sandy, with my grandbaby all to herself.

  The next thing I knew, we were at curbside with the trunk of the Lincoln popped open. Was it good-bye already?

  “Let me go into the terminal.”

  Mandy held the baby in her arms and kissed me on the cheek. “No, Mom, we’ll be okay. Besides, you’re not a ticketed passenger; they won’t let you through security.”

  I reached for the baby and kissed his forehead. “Oh little one, your Mimi will miss you so much.” I looked back up as Mandy reached to retrieve Kyle. “Listen, I’ve decided. I’ll be down in a couple of weeks. I can stay as long as you need me.”

  The kids exchanged glances, then Ray cleared his throat. “Appreciate the offer, Mother Lambert, we really do. But that just won’t be necessary. We’re going to need some time to ourselves.”

  “To settle in,” Mandy said.

  Ray nodded. “Yeah, we’ll call you when we’re ready for company.”

  My heart lurched. “How long will that take?”

  Henry opened the front passenger door. “Time to go, Lisa Leann.”

  I could feel the color drain out of my face. “But . . .”

  Mandy and Ray turned to leave, but Mandy paused. “I’ll call you when we get home, love you!”

  I wanted to run, to hold her and little Kyle one more time, but Henry was ushering me inside the car, almost as if I was under arrest. All I could manage to do was wave before my vision blurred my family away from me.

  Upon arriving back at our condo in Summit View, I needed a slice of chocolate cheesecake, which I vowed to myself to burn as Jane Fonda workout fuel, and half a box of tissues before I could calm down.

  Despite my tears, I knew God had used this move from Texas to Colorado. I mean, if I hadn’t arrived in town when I did, the Potluck Club would have fallen apart, Goldie might have left Jack for good, Donna might not have ever found herself in Wade’s arms, and I doubt Evie could have made it to the altar with Vernon. Yes, God was using me right where I was, but how I missed my grandbaby.

  After the kids’ departure I sat with Henry as I knitted a pair of booties. I looked up at my husband, who had not that long ago retired from a Houston oil company. “Henry, just out of curiosity, would you ever consider moving back?”

  Henry glanced up from his paper. “Not a chance, Lisa Leann. This is our time.”

  I felt my heart skip a beat. There was something about the way that he said “our time.”

  I murmured, more to myself than to him, “Yes, our time.”

  The Lord knows that through the years we’d let our marriage fall into shambles. We were just now beginning to rebuild. I studied Henry carefully as he said, “It’s been nice, you and me growing closer, as a couple, I mean.”

  I suppose it was only my guilty conscience, but something in his eyes made me catch my breath. Does he know?

  I smiled. “Yes, I’m glad for that.”

  I returned to my knitting, my heart beating a little faster.

  Secrets, I’ve always found, are so difficult to carry. But sometimes they’re a necessity.

  I noticed Henry watching me. I put my knitting aside and stood up. “Ready for a slice of cheesecake?”

  He nodded.

  I practically bolted for the kitchen, but called over my shoulder, “Coming right up.”

  Once behind the swinging kitchen door, I braced myself against the kitchen counter. No, in my heart I knew he couldn’t know the real reason I’d agreed to this move, and if I could help it, he never would.

  I had to smile then. Who would have thought that I, Lisa Leann Lambert, would be so good at holding my tongue?

  I was putting the dessert dishes away when I was, once again, struck by my own genius.

  Of course, I had inspiration. You see, amid the congratulations I’d received about my new grandbaby, I also was getting a few calls congratulating me on the wonderful spread at the Vesey wedding that the Potluck Club had prepared. Come to think of it, I’d heard that Lizzie, the local school librarian, had teased about opening a catering business. Vonnie told me she’d even called it a catering party.

  Joking aside, this was a great idea, and I always have a knack of not only claiming but implementing all great ideas that come my way, whether original or not.

  This idea, though inspired by my friends, I would claim as my own, for not only did I have a commercial kitchen at the wedding shop, I had the know-how and I had the team. At last, I had a way to organize the Potluckers as their once-and-for-all leader. I quickly dialed Lizzie to tell her my plan.

  After I spilled the details, Lizzie said, “Ah, great minds think alike, Lisa Leann. And I must say, your timing is remarkable. Just tonight, Samuel and I were talking about my retirement. My early retirement is, blessedly, not too far off, and I’ll certainly want something to keep me busy and supplied with mad money. Count me in. Let’s call a meeting with the girls. How about tomorrow evening?”

  “What about Evie? Shouldn’t we wait and hold the meeting when she returns?”

  “Not this time. Who knows where her head will be when she gets back from her honeymoon. For all we know, she may want to spend all her spare time with Ver-non.”

  I giggled, very pleased to bypass the Potluck Club president. “You can never predict honeymooners,” I happily agreed.

  The next evening, the Potluckers, minus Evie, met at my wedding shop to discuss the possibilities.

  We were seated around my cozy front room, and I’d just put another log on the fire. I poured everyone a cup of Celestial Seasonings apple tea from my bone china teapot.

  I, wearing a camel-colored cashmere turtleneck with matching wool pants, was beside myself with excitement.

  It had been a slow day at the shop, so I’d spent the afternoon making a PowerPoint presentation, which now played on my laptop placed atop my marble coffee table. The girls watched, perched on the sofa and my wing-backed chairs, as I’d flipped through the slides.

  The last of my bulleted points and pie charts faded as I pressed a button. A pink background with the words “Potluck Catering Club” splashed across the screen.

  “Girls, we’ve got a name, we’ve got a kitchen, and we’ve got a plan,” I told them. “Who’s in?”

  Vonnie, a retired nurse, raised her plump hand, looking so sweet in her oversized pink sweatshirt embroidered with hearts and butterflies, which I’m sure she purchased at Wal-Mart. Her graying blonde hair was swept up in a do that was held together with a clear plastic banana clip. Soft ringlets of stray curls framed her face. “But do we have a reason?” she asked.

  Donna laughed. “Because we can?”

  Vonnie lowered her hand and shook her head. “No, what I want to know is, what are we doing this for? This looks like a lot of work. I can’t make this kind of commitment without a reason. It’s not that I couldn’t use an extra buck, but I’m comfortable with the way my life is now. Why bother?”

  I felt my brows knit together, mainly because I hadn’t tried Botox yet, though I was certainly thinking about i
t. “What about using our little business as a ministry fund-raiser? I mean, we could give 10 percent of our profits away to a good cause, and the rest could be divided among us.”

  Lizzie got so excited I thought she would spill her tea on her gray velveteen pantsuit. She had a way of looking elegant without even trying. That soft gray had remarkable powers for bringing out the blues of her eyes while highlighting the silver in her short hair.

  “Samuel says the church is looking at hiring a youth director. They even have a few candidates in mind, though the budget’s a bit tight. What if our new venture was able to help support the church’s youth program?”

  Vonnie actually applauded. “The youth are our future,” she crowed just before taking another sip of tea. “I always say a church is only as strong as its youth program.”

  The other Potluckers nodded in approval while I beamed. “Why don’t we test the waters?” I suggested. “Run a little ad in the paper to see if we get any calls?”

  Goldie, still dressed in her work clothes, a light tan dress with a matching blazer with gold buttons, seconded my idea. “Yes, let’s test the waters. I mean, I wouldn’t dream of quitting my job with the law firm, but I love this possibility of helping the kids at church. I know Chris will help us with the legal paperwork.”

  “That will save us a buck or two,” I gushed. “Wow, this is exciting. We have so much going for us, what could possibly go wrong?”

  Evangeline

  4

  Catering Dreams

  A few days after Vernon and I returned home from the paradise of the Bahamas, where we’d honeymooned for eight days, I had the girls over for some leftover wedding cake (still moist and delicious thanks to Lisa Leann’s freezing method) and coffee over at the house. Vernon wisely took off for the afternoon.

  “I’m going to get in a round of golf.” Vernon shoved his arms into his leather sheriff’s jacket he’d retrieved from the foyer coatrack.