Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

He stared down at the lemons and I was immediately sorry. I knew his warning was meant to prepare me for not caring, not him.

“Sorry, hon,” I said. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“Will Vonette be here?” he asked. “I wanted to talk to her yesterday but Fritz said she was sick again.”

Arch did not use words like grammy or grandpa because John Richard and I had never taught him to. He had a child’s devotion to his grandmother, who doted on him. Fritz had always been too involved in his practice to pay any more attention to Arch than recognizing him. But Vonette’s “being sick” was the euphemism the adults in Arch’s life used to refer to her cocktail hour beginning at eleven in the morning. I often wondered if Arch knew, or suspected, the truth.

“Sick again,” I repeated as I scanned the kitchen. “Yes, Marla told me that.”

“They’re coming,” called Patty Sue from the other room.

“Quick, slip on your apron, kiddo,” I told Arch. “Then go to the front door and greet people. Tell them to leave coats, if they have any, in Laura’s bedroom, which is on the other side of the living room.” I hesitated. Then I said, “And show them where the bathroom is.”

His apron was in place; he raised fearful brown eyes to mine at the word bathroom.

I put my hands on his shoulders. “I checked it, and it’s all clean.”

He said, “I really don’t like this. I’m afraid.”

And so, for different reasons, was I.

CHAPTER 3

Parsley tendrils brushed the sides of the salmon and the exposed pink backmeat when I set the silver platter down on the long main-course table. I ladled the mayonnaise into a crystal bowl and placed it next to the salmon. Then I carried out the asparagus and the rest, including a packet with the mushrooms I had minced to replace the Jerk’s tomatoes. Arch had ushered the first group into Laura’s bedroom to leave their coats. The murmur of voices and click of heels on the brick walkway filtered through the air.

Backing up to the kitchen, I gave the room a quick scan before putting on my apron. Catering a reception was much like directing a play: the props and actors all had to be in place before the entertainment could begin.

My hands were shaking, my ears burning. Inexplicably, my right shoulder began to hurt. I had to take mental stock. Pull yourself together, I told myself. But the old fears welled up.

Toward the end of my marriage to John Richard, we had a fight in which I fell backward into an open dishwasher. My right shoulder was slit open by a protruding knife, necessitating stitches and a sling. While I was recovering, but before I could consciously acknowledge how bad things had become, I had a recurrent nightmare of being raped. The man in the nightmare was a famous regional tennis player named John. When the rape was over, a voice would say, “Call the plumber.” Then with great clarity one morning I realized that John in the dream was John my spouse, and that it was my life which was draining away.

I filed for divorce, then threw myself into the catering work with the zeal of a lover. Though I’d finally gone back to school when Arch was in first grade to finish a degree in psychology, the food service offered the most immediate potential for financial security. The child support payments, when they came, took care of about a third of the house payment. New recipes, new bookings, keeping accounts, working in the kitchen, and most important, being financially independent of John Richard, all these I relished. My shoulder healed; my work was my love. My nightmare now, when I had one, was that the business would be taken away as my dream of a family life had been.

I took a deep breath. My heart beat in its cavity. John Richard was going to be here and I understood why Marla was staying away. He would act charming, do his handsome guy routine with the women. Then in a few moments he would come up and make some cutting remark. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, in any event not physically, not here in front of all these people. I pressed my lips together. Go greet the guests, I told myself, but could not.

I looked through the kitchen drawers and found a pack of Kools, lit one, and inhaled deeply. Heavenly. I pondered the walls of the kitchen, which Laura had papered in a pattern of ice cream cones in Neopolitan colors. Just right for a teacher. But at least she smoked. Smoking is self-destructive. Laura Smiley was self- destructive, remember?

But she hadn’t had an ex-husband showing up to taunt her, I reminded my inner voice.

How do you know what taunted her? asked the voice.

I put out the cigarette and slipped into the living room. Maybe I would just take a look at that wall of photos during my break, see who had been the people in Ms. Smiley’s life. But I couldn’t take a break if I never started working.

“Trixie,” I said to the backside of a tall, muscled woman.

Trixie Jackson finished shaking off her coat and turned around. She was one of the aerobics instructors at Aspen Meadow’s athletic club, although I had not seen her for about a year and had put it down to a class-schedule change. She narrowed her eyes at me. I thought, She can smell the cigarette.

“Good to see you,” I said. “How was the funeral?”

“Depressing,” she replied. She raised an eyebrow at me. “Your ex-husband was there. John Richard.”

I resisted asking her if that was what made it depressing and motioned Arch over to take her coat. More people shuffled through the door and their low voices gurgled through the room like water melting a lake of ice. Trixie headed off toward the as-yet unmanned beverage table.

Vonette Korman’s shrill voice carried over from outside. “It just makes me so sad,” she was saying, “and she was so young and all. Course maybe not that young. Still, though. She was a caring person. And it is sad.”

I was caught in a dark bustle of coats, unneeded on this warm day but for the chilling effects of a funeral. Vonette’s highly made-up face and brilliant orange-red hair emerged by Trixie and the glasses of white wine. Threading my way back toward the food, I kept an eye on my ex-mother-in-law by pretending to examine the straightness of the tablecloths. And there it was, just as Marla had observed. As quickly and stealthily as any magician, Vonette drew a small leather-covered flask out of her purse and poured a clear liquid into her wineglass. It must have been vodka or gin. Unlike a magician’s, her glass contents did not change color, although I imagined it had changed into a martini.

“Mom,” came Arch’s shrill whisper from nearby. “Now what do you want me to do?”

“Go tend the drinks,” I whispered back. “Let them pour their own wine. You just do lemonade and coffee.” I looked back at the table. “And tea. That other pot has hot water in it and the Lipton bags are next to it. Sugar and cream are on the table. All you need to do is keep everything going.”

He nodded and turned away.

“Please come and have something to eat,” I said to a desultory group. And with that the show had begun. When their stomachs were full, the entertainment would be complete. I hoped.

“Well, if it isn’t the little food lady,” came the all-too-familiar voice. How he had found me so quickly I did not know. “I may not miss much,” John Richard said with a laugh, more like a snort, “but sometimes I miss your cooking.”

“Really?” I replied. “Funny, I don’t miss anything.”

I looked up at my ex-husband. Although I had not cared what clothes he’d worn when we were married—he looked like a male model in everything—I had a compulsive interest in assessing his current wardrobe. Perhaps it was the new ostentation. He wants to look younger. Or the leather, wool, occasional silk: he’s making lots of money. If I thought it was polyester, I savored an inner victory: the practice is failing. I now glanced from the hand-tooled cowboy boots past the charcoal-colored wool pants to the silk cowboy shirt and Navajo bolo tie. The bolo was held with a silver ring sporting a hunk of turquoise that matched his eyes. John Richard was tall and blond, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He had more the build of a prizefighter than a doctor. Which, I reflected, was probably appropriate.

He straightened his tie.

He said, “Outfit okay?”

I took a deep breath. I was too angry to admit he looked fabulous. I closed my eyes and feigned