Grantville Gazette 37

younger daughter of someone just barely noble enough to be tolerated. If this went badly, when the count died she might as well find a comfortable convent, unless she managed to give the old man the one thing he wanted: a son.

'Yes, I do,' Anna said. 'And I know that man has enough brass to be a bell. He looks much like the count. He's a charming devil, certainly. You mark my words, be careful around that one.'

****

Heinrich looked at Estil with a face carefully schooled to show nothing at all. Estil's first thought was, Don't play poker with this guy. He'll take the shirt right off your back.

'Shall we start with the kitchen?' Heinrich asked.

'No. I ain't going nowhere's near the kitchen except to scrounge something to eat. The kitchen and the rest of the house and servants is your job and I am going to leave it to you. If you've got any questions, I'll answer them if I can. But mostly I am going to say 'I don't know, ask the expert,' and then I'm going to send them to you.'

Heinrich huffed.

Bingo, Estil thought. He ain't at all happy about being upstaged.

'Sir,' Heinrich said, 'She has made it quite clear. You are in charge.'

'I'm in charge?'

'Yes.'

'Fine. I just delegated the kitchen and the staff to you.'

'Humnf!'

'Look, Heinrich. You know the house and the staff. I don't. My German is just barely passable. If I try to run this shindig, it will fail miserably. So I am delegating what I cannot do to someone who can. When this party is over, I'm gone. When it is all said and done, what do you think I am going to tell the countess?' Heinrich lost his poker face. Estil could see the wheels turning. 'Don't bother guessing. I am going to tell her I relied on her staff, mostly on you. I will take my fee and run. You will get the glory.' Estil paused. 'Or the blame. So, can we get over the pissing contest and work together instead of against each other?' Estil stuck out his hand.

Heinrich smiled and shook hands.

'Now, if that is settled, how can I help?' Estil asked.

****

At dinner, with three servers in earshot, Estil said, 'You have an excellent staff. They have everything in hand. But there are some things we need to discuss. The instructions they have been given just do not fit the party you are trying to have.'

'How so?' Maria asked.

'Let's start with the menu and the service. You've told them you want chili in paper bowls followed by hamburgers wrapped in paper and french fries in paper bags. I had a sample at lunch and the cook has it down pat.' This was less than completely true. The fries were soggy, and it was clear they had never seen a hamburger. It needed help. The bun was toasted on both sides not just grilled on the face. The meat was overdone, as well. 'This is the wrong menu for a formal dinner.'

'But this is an authentic up-time menu,' she objected. 'And we've already purchased the place service.'

'Come summer, have a barbeque picnic and use them then. Have your guests come in casual dress. Hamburgers and fries are finger foods. You don't use silverware. You pick it up with your hands, like fried chicken. For a formal dinner you want silverware. I suggest you start with french onion soup. Come as close as you can to a green salad, it will probably be coleslaw unless you can find some good lettuce. Have your potatoes baked or mashed, depending upon the meat. Beef Wellington is a good choice, or beef stroganoff. If you have the beef Wellington, you can have a linguini pasta dish with it.'

'But,' the young countess replied, 'what you have named is French and English and Russian or Italian. This is supposed to be an American party.'

'Madam, let me tell you a secret. There is no such thing as American cuisine. Culturally, Americans are great thieves. It comes with the language. It all came from somewhere else.'

'But, then, it is just another party!'

'Being dressed up in unusual clothes is going to be odd enough. Let them have comfortable food. If you want an American desert, have ice cream sundaes. You still have time to rent a couple of ice cream makers from Grantville. We can get into something really strange after dinner with the cocktails and the mixed drinks. The same thing goes with the dancing. Well over half of the music needs to be things people are used to. You can have a few exotic dances, but don't expect people to enjoy strange new dances they don't know. They will just stand around and watch while a few young people make fools of themselves. You can play a waltz, but if people don't know how to dance it, they won't do it. We have time to teach three or four young couples how to waltz. Settle for that this time, and have the rest of the dancing be familiar. The waltz will catch on. Actually, it is catching on elsewhere already, so you will be remembered as the first to introduce it locally. It might even get you in the history books.'

'The waltz is an American dance?'

'As much as any dance is. It came from Vienna in the seventeen hundreds and swept the world. Trust me, you can't go wrong with a waltz. Get me half-a-dozen young couples and I will put your name in the middle of a dance fad that will be around long after you're gone. With any luck and a good publicity campaign, this can go down in history as the party that introduced the waltz to the world.'

****

'Square dancing?' a dumbfounded Estil asked the chief musician. 'Where in the hell did you ever find out about square dancing?'

'Well I went to the library in Grantville and-'

Estil cut him off. 'It don't matter. I can't teach it, and, no, I can't call it. Besides, no one wants to learn square dancing anyway. Go and buy some waltz music. It might take several days, but we've got time.'

Estil started teaching the waltz to three couples, which grew to six, including the count and countess, and then ten couples by the time New Year's rolled around. Along the way, Estil spent a fair amount of time with the count in the billiards room.

'You see, sir,' Estil said, as he screwed together the two halves of his pool cue. It was in his suitcase. Everything he owned was in the suitcase. A good pool cue, like his own tux, was something Estil insisted on having. 'About a hundred years from now people will stop using clubs completely. This is a cue stick.'

The count interrupted. 'You mean like using the queue of the mace when the ball is too close to the bank?'

'Queue?' Estil asked.

'Ah, at last! An American who is willing to admit he does not know everything. I was beginning to think such did not exist. Queue is French for tail. It is what we call the small end of the mace.'

'Oh, that makes sense. You see, I can get a lot more control out of a cue stick than you can out of a mace.'

'Young man, I am quite good at billiards. Would you care to place a wager on a game? I should, in fairness, tell you I have only lost one game in the last year.'

'How much do you want to lose?' Estil asked.

'How much can you afford?' came the reply.

'Everything you were planning on paying me!'

'Agreed.'

'Set them up.'

Lady Luck smiled on Estil as she had never smiled on him before.

'So, whose idea was it to hold a cocktail party?'

'Marie's,' the count told Estil, 'She saw a cocktail party in a movie at the Higgins Hotel on our honeymoon. I took my first and my second wife on a trip to Rome. I offered to take Marie to Rome, too. She said she'd rather see Grantville. To tell you the truth, at my age I didn't want to make the journey to Rome, anyway. Grantville was new and exciting for both of us.'

Estil's first turn was the longest run in his life. Near the end of the game he was looking at a nearly impossible shot. He called it and asked, 'Double or nothing?'