old oak dining room table. The phone kept ringing. “Sorry,”
Judith apologized, as she set the pancakes and syrup on the
table, “I don’t usually get calls this early unless they’re reservations from the East Coast.”
The bed and breakfast guests made various incomprehensible sounds, then began dishing up pancakes. Judith returned
to the kitchen just as the phone trunked over to the answering
machine. After delivering bacon, eggs, and extra butter, she
checked the message.
“I know you’re there, you twit!” Cousin Renie’s voice had
an early-morning croak. “Call me! Quick!”
It was 7:36. Judith’s cousin never, ever got out of bed before nine and almost never achieved full consciousness until
ten. Apprehensively, Judith dialed Renie’s number.
“Are you okay?” Judith asked in a breathless voice.
“I’m terrible,” Renie replied crossly. “I’m up the creek, in
the soup, down the toilet.”
The exaggerated response relieved Judith’s mind. If Renie
had been held hostage or was lying at the bottom of her
basement stairs, she wouldn’t describe her plight so vividly.
Judith poured a mug of coffee and sat down at the kitchen
table. “So what’s really wrong?” she asked, more intrigued
than alarmed.
A big sigh rolled over the phone line from the other side
of Heraldsgate Hill. “It’s the OTIOSE conference—you know,
the Overland Telecommunications and Information Organization of Systems Engineers.”
“It’s called OTIOSE for short?” Judith asked in surprise.
“Do they know what it means?”
“Of course not. They’re engineers. Anyway,” Renie went
on, still sounding vexed, “they used to be part of the local
phone company before the Bell System got broken up by the
Justice Department. Remember I told you I was putting together a really big graphic design presentation for their annual winter retreat? I’m redoing their logo, their colors,
everything right down to the cheap pens they hand out to
lucky customers and members of their board. But there’s a
problem—the caterer backed out at the last minute and
they’ve asked me to find a sub.”
“So? There are a zillion caterers in the Yellow Pages. If
they’re telephone company people, why can’t they let their
fingers do the walking?”
“Because they
aren’t attached to their fingers. Plus, these are the top executives. They’re not used to doing things for themselves.”
Renie was clearly exasperated. “Anyway, I opened my big
mouth and told them I knew a topnotch caterer. Believe it
or not, I was referring to you. What do you say?”
“Ohhh…” Judith set her mug down with a thud and
splashed coffee onto the plastic table cover. Running a B&B
was hard enough, especially with the holidays so recently
behind her. Of late she’d been trying to phase out the catering arm of her business. For several years it had
