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  2 celery stalks, chopped

  8 ounces fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced

  4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

  6 cups homemade chicken stock (preferably the low-fat chicken stock made from the recipe in Killer Pancake)

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

  1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram

  2 tablespoons whipping cream

  6 tablespoons dry white wine salt and freshly ground black pepper

  In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and cook the carrot, onion, and celery, covered, over medium-low heat for 15 to 25 minutes, until the vegetables soften. Set aside to cool.

  In a small skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and sauté the mushrooms briefly until they are cooked through and begin to yield some juice. This takes less than 5 minutes. Set the mushrooms aside.

  In a blender, puree the carrot, onion, and celery. In a large skillet, melt the last 2 tablespoons of butter, stir in the flour, and cook this paste, stirring constantly, over low heat until the flour bubbles. Slowly whisk in the stock. Cook and stir over medium heat until hot and thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in the thyme, marjoram, whipping cream, mushrooms, wine, and pureed vegetables until hot and bubbly, about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

  Makes 6 servings

  “Help me,” pleaded a female whisper from the doorway.

  “Pah!” howled André, without pity. He slid the sugar-filled iron pan to an unlit burner. “Go away!”

  “What do you need?” I said quietly to a russet-haired woman whose large brown eyes glowed from within a gaunt, high-cheekboned face. She was stunning as well as very thin and tall. Despite the season, she was dressed in an oak-brown cashmere sweater, a long clingy brown wool skirt, and gleaming brown leather boots. She teetered precariously on the boots’ stiletto heels.

  Her cocoa-colored lower lip trembled. She drew her haunting face into an expression of intense pain. “Please—”

  I said, “Are you okay?”

  “Coffee,” she whispered. She grinned uncertainly, affording a glimpse of brilliant teeth. “I just need a tiny sip. If you don’t mind,” she added.

  André hrumphed and shrugged. I reached for the glass pot, but it held only an inch of metallic-smelling brew. My next job after heating the savory cheesecakes, laying out the spring rolls, mixing the vinaigrette, and arranging the buffet, would be to brew a fresh pot of coffee. I wondered vaguely how André would have managed if I hadn’t agreed to help today.

  “Do you have powdered nondairy? Nonfat, that is?” the young woman inquired. Under the thick makeup, I figured she was about nineteen.

  “Well, André keeps cream in his cooler—”

  “No! Just give me that.” She wobbled across the uneven floor toward me, eyes fixed greedily on the coffeepot. I sighed and poured the viscous liquid into a foam cup, which the model immediately grabbed, along with ajar of powdered creamer from a wooden shelf abutting the plywood over the sink. André frowned. The model ignored him, shook a dusty layer of creamer across the surface of the murky liquid, swirled it with a polished green fingernail, and took a noisy slurp.

  “I’m Goldy.” I kept my voice low in the hope that André would go on with his work and ignore us. “And you’re—?”

  “Rustine,” she whispered over her shoulder as she clutched her cup and swayed toward the wooden door. She turned and gave me a vaguely flirtatious look. “Goldy? You’re the famous caterer, right?”

  “Uh,” I said, mindful of André’s ego, “not exactly.”

  Rustine mock-kissed the air. “I can’t wait for lunch.” She raised the coffee cup in salute. The door swooshed shut behind her.

  Great, I thought as I turned back to André. Instead of continuing with the burnt sugar cake, however, he was penning another sign: DO NOT DISTURB OR YOU WILL NOT EAT!

  “Put this on the door!” He thrust the sign at me. “Then we will make our syrup!”

  I reluctantly thumbtacked the sign to the outside of the heavy kitchen door. In the cabin’s small foyer, a dozen handsome young people huddled mutely, waiting to be called. Rustine put her cup to her lips and avoided my eyes. In the bright sunlight, her hair shone like an orange-gold cloud around her face. I nodded at the models and quietly shut the door.

  “All right, we are ready. You must watch.” André moved the iron pan back to the burner and adjusted the flame. “Sugar can kill you,” he warned in a low voice. His very blue eyes, slightly bulbous above reddening cheeks, concentrated on the heating pan. He clutched the padded handle in a death grip. I stepped up beside the cabin’s ancient stove and dutifully watched. Andre’s wooden spoon moved rhythmically through the white crystals as they turned to slush.

  “The sugar melts.” The red folds on his neck trembled. “It is molten lead. It is lava. The burns to the skin are deep. Instantaneous.” He shook the pan and glanced again at my scar, then at the lid and towel that lay on the wooden countertop. There was a knock at the closed door.

  “Not now!” I called, ignoring Andre’s scowl. The knocker went away.

  The thick mass of muddy brown crystals melted under Andre’s determined stirring. He reached for the beaker of water he had poured before starting the caramel.

  “Of course you must never use water from the hot water heater.” His small nose wrinkled. “Minerals in the filtering process.” He shuddered, as if the minerals were radioactive. His eyebrows quirked upward as he poured the water onto the pan’s molten mass. A nimbus of mist erupted as the pan’s contents hissed. “The steam, mind!” he cried, and I made a great show of pulling back. Andre’s free hand slapped the lid onto the pan.

  “Very impressive,” I said, with genuine admiration.

  “My strop caramel,” he announced triumphantly. The dimple in his chin deepened as he smiled. “Now I will make my burnt sugar cake.” The beater on his electric mixer hummed and twirled through the softened butter. “You will tell me about your fight at the Soiree tasting party with this horrible competitor, Litchfield,” he ordered. He pronounced it leachfield.

  I sighed. For the last five years, my business—Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right!—had been the only professional food service in the mountain area. And for each of those years, I’d been the caterer of record for the September Soiree, the annual fund-raiser for Ian Hood and Leah Smythe’s charitable enterprise, Merciful Migrations. But now there was Upscale Appetite, and its proprietor, Craig Litchfield, was working diligently to steal the Soiree from me. Worse yet, Litchfield was cute. He always submitted a head shot.

  “Dark brown hair, drop-dead gorgeous. That’s Craig Litchfield,” I began, as André showered sugar into the bowl. “Women love him. He started the caterers’ version of a food fight in June. Ads, promotions, underbidding. He went after my customers with a vengeance. How he got my client list with all my schedules and prices, I don’t know.”

  André shook his head and dropped an egg into the batter. “I should have come to the tasting party at the Homestead. My doctor is an idiot.” Another egg plopped beside the whirling beater.

  “We were in the Homestead kitchen when Litchfield lost his temper with Arch.”

  André poured cake flour into his mixture. “How can a chef lose his temper with a fourteen-year-old while he’s cooking?” Teenagers, in André’s view, did not figure in the world of food preparation.

  I shrugged. “Litchfield’s no chef. He was heating frozen hors d’oeuvre when Arch asked who his supplier was for phyllo triangles. Litchfield said Arch was being disrespectful, implying the food wasn’t fresh. Arch argued, Litchfield yelled at him, then grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the kitchen. I calmed Arch down, told him to wait in the van. Then I marched back and told Litchfield to back off. But when Arch came in later for a snack, Litchfield shoved him out the back door so hard that he actually fell to the ground. I was so mad I banged my marble cake plate over Litchfield’s head. Didn’t hurt him. Broke my plate.”

&
nbsp; I groaned, remembering. Craig Litchfield had been unharmed; my son had recovered; the tasting party had been postponed. Litchfield, calling me an “unattractive, overweight harpy,” had reported the incident to the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. The investigating officer had told me I’d used undue force, even if I had been concerned about my son. The cop said I was lucky Litchfield hadn’t pressed charges.

  “Poor Goldy,” murmured André, as he dribbled the burnt sugar syrup into the batter. Tom, too, had sympathized with my plight. Even Arch had felt bad.

  André poured the batter into parchment-lined pans. Another knock, this one sharper, reverberated through the decrepit kitchen. “No!” André roared.

  The door banged open. I stepped back. André grimaced and thrust his pans into the oven.

  “What in the world is going on in here?” Leah Smythe demanded, her voice managing to be hurt, upset, and indignant all at once. Her shredded black-and-gold hair quivered as she regarded us. Stunned, neither André nor I answered her. She blew the bangs off her forehead and crossed her arms. Short and slender, she was dressed in faded blue jeans and a black cotton sweater.

  “Well—” I began.

  Leah studied me with an up-and-down look. Recalling my work on last year’s Soirée? No. She said flatly, “You’re not looking to work as a model.”

  I blushed. “No, I’m helping André with the lunch—”

  “Then please don’t give any more models coffee! Then everybody wants some and everybody complains about unfairness and nothing gets accomplished. And you’d better move that food outside to the deck. Hanna and Ian are terrified the set will be covered with crumbs. By the way, people have already started eating those burritos. The break hasn’t even been announced! Why did you put out the food?”

  Andre’s face wrinkled with rage. “My spring rolls,” he retorted loudly, “are not burritos, Miss Smythe. Goldy! Rescue my dish.”

  “I’m sorry, truly I am,” I murmured to Leah. “I’ll get it right now.” Conflict with competitors is one thing. But the first rule of food service is that you avoid fights with clients.

  In the great room, I snatched the spring rolls and slid them onto a tray. One was missing; one had been dug into. I scanned the cabin’s interior for the culprits, squinting suspiciously at the scruffy man in overalls who’d moved Gerald Eliot’s air compressor. Still engaged in set construction, the fellow was hanging a snakeskin on the wall between the Christmas tree and the far windows. Next to the skin, he’d hung a weapon I recognized: It was a Winchester, just like Tom’s. Rattle-snakes and rifles. Now that’s what I called the spirit of the holidays.

  Leah quick-stepped to rejoin the judges. She, Hanna, and Ian peered dubiously at a sharp-faced blond woman wearing white pedal pushers and a halter top. The woman’s extreme thinness, her bony hips, her distinct rib cage, contrasted bizarrely with her high, full breasts. The other auditioning models were nowhere in sight. Still, the smell of cigarette smoke told me they weren’t far off.

  Clutching the tray, I hustled back to the kitchen. Andre was cleaning up his beaters and bowl. I grabbed a clean pair of tongs and removed the gutted spring roll. To my chagrin, the tongs snagged unexpectedly. I carefully pulled them up; between the tongs was the violated roll and a cilantro-tangled piece of … hair. With a silent curse and surreptitious haste, I opened the tongs over the trash. Then I quickly covered the dishes with foil and rewashed the tongs and my hands. I had never seen André make such an error of hygiene. My doubts about his ability to shift from retirement to catering went from sea-level to subterranean.

  I scooped up the covered dishes, slipped into the foyer, and stepped briskly past the dozen young people who’d suddenly reappeared. Rustine held the front door of the cabin open for me.

  “The blonde’s had her breasts enlarged. Plus she’s wearing flesh-colored falsies,” she whispered.

  “I beg your pardon?” I whispered back, startled.

  “And that photographer’s a prick.”

  “What?”

  She gave me a Mona Lisa-mysterious smile. “You’re the caterer who figures things out, right?”

  “I don’t understand—” But the door was already closing. Figures out what? Gratefully, I stepped out into the pine-scented fresh air.

  When I darted past racks of clothing, a sapphire-winged hummingbird swooped by. Sixty feet off the deck, the creek gurgled over a bed of rocks. Two mountain chickadees flirted on the elephant-shaped boulder. When a breeze tossed the aspens’ lacy tops, movement caught my eye. Across the creek, a small herd of elk lowered their long necks to graze in a meadow that sloped to a broken wooden fence. Everything was serene and ordered: utterly unlike the contentious scene inside.

  The redwood deck wrapped around the cabin. I made a path through the clothing racks and deck chairs, then arrived at another row of windows. I carefully placed the covered cheesecakes and spring rolls on a picnic table and checked my watch: ten more minutes. I trotted back to the front door.

  Suddenly, the deafening noise of breaking glass split the air. Two feet in front of me, the picture window exploded. Shards burst over the deck. Across the creek, the elk bolted. I froze and waited for my heartbeat to slow. The projectile that had done the damage lay on its side among sparkling slivers of glass. It was Ian Hood’s Polaroid.

  I wondered if we’d ever get to lunch.

  Chapter 3

  Inside, all was chaos. The models whispered fearfully. The handyman, his hammer in his hand, gaped at Ian Hood. Ian was shaking his fist at the shattered window.

  “How many times have I asked for three new Polaroid cameras?” he screeched. “And I go to look for one, and trip over that damn compressor! Rufus, get the hell over here!”

  Leah Smythe made soothing noises while the scruffy construction worker dropped his hammer and trotted to Ian’s side. Hanna Klapper stood with her hands on her hips, judging the scene. Her face was a mask of fury.

  I looked in horror at the buffet. The camera had cut a straight path through the food. The salad lay upended on the floor. Vinaigrette had spilled down the row of napkins and now dripped on strands of endive. Liquid-soaked rolls had landed topsy-turvy on the marble shelf. I scooted toward the kitchen.

  André was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. He gave me a dry, appraising look. “Eccentric diners always provide the best stories,” he observed. “Is my lunch canceled?”

  “Let me check.”

  Ian Hood stomped past me, headed for the cabin door. Leah Smythe followed at his heels, urging, “C’mon, baby, we’ll get the compressor out of the way, you won’t trip over it again, don’t give up—”

  “Any chance we’re still going to try to—” I began. But Leah ignored me and raced down the steps after the seething Ian.

  At the buffet, Hanna delicately picked up the ruined rolls and piled them back into the basket.

  “Ah, Hanna?” I ventured. “Goldy Schulz. I worked on your museum exhibits. Congratulations on your new job with P & G.”

  “Thank you.” She sniffed and smoothed her clipped hair behind her ears. Her dark eyes challenged mine. “Do you know what my duties are?” But before I could answer, she went on, “Choosing the clothing to be photographed. Arranging the catalog layout. Selecting models. Overseeing the shoot.” Not temper-tantrum cleanup, in other words.

  “Leave the pick-up to me,” I exclaimed cheerfully, as if photographers flung cameras through windows and ruined my buffets all the time.

  “We promised the models lunch.” The authoritarian tone I knew so well was like a steel shaft through her voice. I nodded meekly, booted the metal housing that had come loose from the compressor back toward the rustic furniture, and leaned over to snatch a lettuce leaf from the floor. Hanna continued, “We must serve it.”

  Of course, I instantly recognized the clients’ universal we, which means you, caterer. “It won’t take ten minutes to set up on the deck.” I turned and winked at her. “André is incredibly versatile,” I l
ied.

  “That is certainly a good thing,” Hanna muttered skeptically.

  In the kitchen, André had flicked on the oven light and was peering at his cake. “Lunch or no?” he demanded impatiently.

  “Yes.” I dumped the garbage and washed my hands.

  He grurnted. “You should take the backup food, and leave.”

  Right, I thought as I set a kettle of water on to boil for the chafing dish, and leave you with this mess. Within two minutes I had checked on the soup, loaded another tray with the backup platters of salad, vinaigrette, rolls, and butter, and was whisking it out to the picnic tables. I checked my watch: five past twelve. We weren’t doing too badly, considering. I filled the chafer’s bain-marie with the boiling water. André poured in the mushroom soup, then retrieved the burnt sugar cake. The smell was divine and I told him so. A rap at the kitchen door preceded Hanna’s entry. Imperiously, she tapped at her watch.

  “Right now,” I promised as André lofted the cake platter and I picked up the bowl of whipped cream.

  I half expected the lunch to be rocky. The red-haired crew member with the thin beard introduced himself to me as Rufus Driggle, set-builder and still-life photographer. He told me to call him Rufus; he hated his last name. The work made him a hearty eater, Rufus went on to inform me, but he never gained any weight because he always had indigestion from dealing with Ian. He paused and stroked his beard. “I prefer working with the elk, actually.” I nodded vaguely and replenished the buffet as the male models piled their plates high with cheesecake, salad, baguettes, and spring rolls.

  The female models depressed me. Eschewing the cheesecake, breads, and salad dressing, they uniformly arranged a few greens on their plates next to one or two Asian spring rolls. Then, like bio-class dissectors, they pulled the rolls apart to extract the shrimp. I hoped André wasn’t watching, but of course he was. He hrumphed and concentrated on cutting the cake.

  Hanna curtly announced that the cattle call for that day was over except for two more female models: Rustine and Yvonne. The agents of the remaining models would be called later about a resumption of auditions. A groan went up from the group. Then all the women except for Rustine and the sharp-faced blonde, who I assumed must be Yvonne, made a beeline for André’s burnt sugar cake. They sliced themselves fat wedges, smothered them with whipped cream, then skulked to faraway chairs to eat in solitary silence. I started transporting dirty dishes back to the kitchen.