“Do you think I should help her look for him?” She was almost out of sight. Dinah grabbed my arm.
“Snap out of it,” she said. “He’s not that helpless. He’ll find his way back to their room even without his phone and in the fog. And she won’t leave in the morning. It seems to me she’s been threatening something since the moment we first saw her.”
“Dinah’s right, Sunshine,” Mason said. “Let’s get back to finding some food.”
We went inside the administration building and Mason talked to the redheaded clerk. Meanwhile, Dinah and I checked out the long table set up for morning registration. Sheila and Adele had left the boxes of folders under the table along with a check-in list. I opened a random folder and was glad to see it had a schedule, map, name tag, and meal ticket.
“Apparently there’s only one option,” Mason said, leaning against the pool table as I put the folder back and pushed the box under the table. “The nearby restaurants are already closed, but there’s a market still open.” As we headed toward Mason’s rental car, which was parked near the gate, Commander Blaine caught up with us, and when he heard where we were going, he asked if he could tag along.
“I need to get some things for my session tomorrow,” Commander said. Dinah didn’t join in as Mason and I invited him along. I was really going to have to find out what was up with her. The street outside was very dark, and we followed the clerk’s directions. A few blocks up, we passed some businesses and a restaurant. All closed for the night. I was relieved to see cars in the grocery store parking lot. At dinner I had been too busy being concerned about everybody to eat, and I was very hungry.
We each got a basket and started going through the aisles. Mason headed off to the prepared foods, Dinah and I went on a cookie hunt, and Commander headed for parts unknown.
I pulled Dinah into the aisle with the toothpaste and cat food. “Okay, what’s with you and Commander Blaine? He brightens up like a three-hundred-watt halogen bulb every time he sees you, and you look at him like he’s dust. What’s the problem?”
Dinah shook her head so vehemently that her dangle earrings began to jangle. “There’s no point in encouraging him. He’s not my type. Did you look at his jeans? And the shoes! And did you listen to him?”
I had to admit I hadn’t been paying attention to his pants or footwear. We slipped around the aisles until we looked down and saw Commander reading the labels on the olive jars. At first I thought Dinah had lost her mind, then I got it. His jeans had creases so sharp you could probably cut butter with them. The shoes were tasseled loafers that were polished to perfection. The kind I called party shoes.
“Too fussy,” Dinah said, coming up behind me. “I bet he wears boxers, and they’re probably starched and ironed.”
Down the aisle out of earshot, Commander looked up from an olive jar and waved us over to ask our opinion on whether to get the plain olives or the pimento ones. I wasn’t sure what the olives were for.
“Sorry,” he said, “I should explain. I had a few boxes of things shipped up here for the workshop, but I always forget some things and I also always like to add some fresh things.”
I looked at the jar of olives again. “Are those for your gourmet s’mores?”
Commander’s eyes lit up as he laughed. “No. I don’t go that far outside the box with the s’mores. Olives and chocolate. Even for the most adventuresome palate that sounds like a bad combo. Part of my workshop is teaching people how to use vegetables to make amusing table decorations. It’s along the line of radish roses, but a step up. I make palm trees out of crookneck squash and cucumber peel, and stick olives on as coconuts.”
While he was talking, Dinah was behind him, rolling her eyes. Maybe he was a little too excited about the details of his workshop. Actually, until that moment I hadn’t really thought about the content of his workshop.
“So, your workshop group puts together the s’mores?” I asked.
“No, no. The s’mores I do personally. The group will be helping set up some of the other activities. And my people will be doing the food and decorations for the final party. The rest of the workshops provide the entertainment.”
At the moment the closing party seemed a long way off, but I was glad he had it covered.
Mason showed up carrying some kind of sandwich and a container of lemonade. Commander glanced from Mason’s dinner option to our empty baskets. “Are you gals hungry, too?”
Dinah and I said something about dinner being a little heavy for our liking but we were thinking about a snack.
“You can just pick up some food and go back and eat it in your room, or we can make something out of it. My personal philosophy is to make an event out of everything. I love impromptu get-togethers. How about it?”
“I’m in,” Mason said. “The sandwich would have been okay, but your idea sounds much better.”
I looked toward Dinah, expecting something negative after what she’d said about Commander.
“You know, I feel that way, too. Why not have some fun?” Dinah actually smiled at him, and they all turned toward me. I got it. As the holder of the rhinestone clipboard, I was the decision maker.
“Go for it,” I said, catching some of Commander’s enthusiasm. Mason replaced his sandwich and drink and came back with a cart. Dinah and I abandoned the baskets, and we began to follow our party leader through the store.
“I’ve got a perfect idea,” the silver-haired man said as he headed for the bakery. He picked up a long French baguette and put it in the cart. He kept going, stopping along the way to add more items. By the time we headed for the checkout, we had bread, sliced cheese, cartons of soup, and a flourless chocolate cake for our late-night meal, and trail mix and cookies to keep for snacks in our rooms.
We paid, then headed out into the darkness, already having fun. Even the fog made our excursion more exciting. By the time we went back through the gates of Asilomar, we were all laughing. I didn’t even realize how tense I’d been until the tension fell away.
“C’mon, let’s go to the fire circle,” Commander said as we passed the administration building. I didn’t know what he was referring to until we got to an area on the edge of the grounds. I had passed it before, but it had been empty and plain, and hadn’t made any impression on me. Now there was a fire in the pit in the center, though no one was sitting around it.
“They built the fire for the bird group’s farewell,” Commander explained. A low wall with a glass layer on top formed the enclosure and protected it from the constant wind. We put our packages on the benches and sat around the fire. The warmth felt good and the brightness was reassuring. Commander said he had to get some equipment from his room.
The man might have too-sharp creases in his jeans, but he knew how to pull together a last-minute meal. He came back with a box of supplies, and within a few minutes he was holding some kind of contraption with the bread and cheese inside over the fire. Dinah was holding the long wire handle of the pot the soup was heating in.
“Still think he’s too fussy?” I said under my breath to Dinah after the food had been served. She was too busy eating one of the chewy toasted sandwiches to speak. The nod of her head said he’d definitely earned some points.
“This is going to be a great weekend,” Mason said, smiling at me as he toasted everyone with a mug of the hot soup.
Mason, Dinah, and I ate the chocolate cake with our hands, a messy choice that gave me a case of the giggles. I don’t know if it was because of our sticky fingers or it was just the final release of all the tension I’d built up in the day. Our party organizer would have earned more points with Dinah if he hadn’t eaten his cake with a plastic fork and a napkin.
I jumped when my cell phone began to vibrate, then ring, and tried to swallow my laughter, but that only made it worse.
I answered, trying to keep the chocolate crumbs off the phone and the giggle out of my voice. I failed at both.
“Hi. I called to say good night,” Barry said. I managed to get out what I thought was a serious sounding hello as I stood to collect myself. Then I took a few steps away for privacy. Commander had produced some marshmallows and long forks, and the rest of the group had started roasting the white puffs over the fire.
“You sound funny. Is everything all right?” Barry said. I swallowed a few times and tried to think of something serious to get the giggles to stop, but I couldn’t keep the laughter out of my voice as I attempted to tell him everything was fine.
“Where are you? I hear voices in the background.” Barry never turned off his detective skills. I moved farther
