splashing, from which she deftly leapt away. ?Hey, Montgomery deserves it after the way he treated you on Sunday, so don?t give me a lecture,? she said defensively. She scooped up the salad bowl, swayed her body from side to side, and chanted, ?I truly don?t know/which is worse/Listening to his sermons/Or listening to his verse!? The woman was on a roll. I saw Montgomery storm out of the church with Frances Markasian in hot pursuit. My bet was on the journalist.
The bakery-fresh smell of breadsticks heating filled the kitchen. I watched Marla toss the salad with the balsamic vinaigrette and wrap the warmed breadsticks in a linen napkin inside a wicker basket. When the ladies emerged from the prayer meeting, the oohed and ahed over the sumptuous array. In a fuzzy part of my brain, I registered that Agatha Preston hadn?t shown up; maybe Frances Markasian had nabbed her, too. Between refilling the salad bowl and breadstick basket, Marla remarked that she hadn?t seen Agatha either. But when I went outside to get a breath of fresh air and stretch my back, I saw Agatha on her knees digging around in the columbarium construction area. With its deep mud and frozen puddles, steep-sided ditches and erratic surface, perhaps Agatha was working in the mud and thinking about her favorite topic: hell.
The women raved about the Canterbury Jumbles more than any other dish. This bore out the truth of the caterers? maxim that you must serve a rich and sweet dessert after a fish course. This was true even if the fish is shrimp in a wine-and-cheese sauce. After virtuous behavior, even if it is not truly virtuous, people feel they have earned their right to calories.
?Tata, dear!? one woman called gaily to me as she tied her Hermcs scarf under her chin. ?I hope they find your fiance!? Her tone was along the lines of, ?I hope you buy a new car!?
I glanced at my watch as Marla cleared the plates. 1:00. Tom Schulz had been gone for fifty hours.
?You cannot cater tonight,? Marla insisted once we were back at my house, sitting in the kitchen with our feet up. ?I won?t let you I?m too tired. Besides, we don?t have any food left.?
I shook my head. The only message on my machine had been from Alicia, my supplier. That afternoon, she was bringing up the Chilean sea bass and vegetables I had bee planning to prepare for the first meeting of the Board of Theological Examiners. This was fortunate, as I was indeed out of shrimp. I said, ?This committee is counting on me. I can?t just show up with no food.?
?They were counting on you for tomorrow. Not tonight.?
I got up slowly and took unsweetened chocolate, vanilla, and Amaretto from my pantry. ?Look, Julian will be home soon, and he won?t mind helping. Dinner will be very simple,? I said as convincingly as possible.
Marla scowled. ?What kind of medication did Stodgy Hodge put you on, anyway, hallucinogenic Darvon? Was lunch your idea of simple??
Actually, the pain pills were helping. I melted butter and whirled chocolate cookies in the blender to make a crust. If we were going to have bass, especially teamed bass, then the caterers? postfish maxim made chocolate cheesecake a dessert necessity. Besides, I wanted to use another of Tom Schulz?s recipes. It made me feel close to him.
?I don?t believe I?m watching you do this,? Marla muttered. ?At least it?s chocolate. Then we can both have some. Not to mention that your back will feel a lot better after a dose.?
Nudging me aside gently, she beat cream cheese with eggs, sugar, and melted chocolate, then doused the smooth, dark mixture with cream, vanilla, and Amaretto while I patted the crumbly crust into a springform pan. When the cheesecake was safely in the oven, Marla poured herself a generous glassful of Amaretto. She announced she was going out to rest on the living room sofa.
Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake
Crust:
9 ounces chocolate wafer cookies
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Filling:
? pound unsweetened chocolate
1 ? pounds cream cheese
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
z cup Amaretto liqueur
1 ? teaspoons vanilla extract
? cup whipping cream
Whirl the chocolate cookies in a blender until they form crumbs. Mix with the melted butter. Press into the bottom and sides of a buttered 10-inch springform pan and refrigerate until you?re ready to fill and bake.
Preheat the oven to 350 . In the top of a double boiler over boiling water, melt the chocolate. Set aside to cool. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the eggs and sugar and beat until well incorporate. Stir a small amount of this mixture into the chocolate to loosen. Add the chocolate mixture to the cream cheese mixture and stir well. Stir in the Amaretto, vanilla, and cream. Stir until all ingredients are well mixed. Pour the filling into the prepared crust and bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until the cheesecake is puffed slightly and no longer jiggles in the center. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours. Take the cheesecake out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving for ease of slicing. Remove the sides of the pan and cut with a sharp knife. If the cheesecake is hard to slice, hold a long, unflavored piece of dental floss in 2 hands and carefully saw through the cake to cut even pieces.
Makes 16 servings
?If you leave this house, I?ll never speak to you again,? she mumbled once she?d downed the liqueur and slipped off her shoes. ?And another thing I?ll never do again is think catering is this easy, fun, glamorous profession.?
I shook out the heart-in-the-center and cross-in-the-center afghans and gently placed them over her. ?It?s nice to be appreciated,? I told her. But immediately I felt a wave of sorrow: Here I was catering a fancy meal to a bunch of examiners and examinees, when I should have been on my honeymoon.
I dutifully hobbled back out to the kitchen and pulled out the pile of exams. I leafed through to Mitchell Hartley?s first set of question. This section of the exam was constituted to replicate that most pastorally challenging part of Sunday morning, the coffee hour. Many parishioners saw the priest?s presence at coffee hour as an opportunity to get free advice. Think Ann Landers meets Dial-a-theologian. This years? written questions reflected the kind of bizarre interrogatories that were common. At our last meeting, Father Olson had told the board that a long paragraph was acceptable as an answer to a coffee-hour question. We examiners were always to remember that the candidate was supposed to be pastoral first and theologically correct second. The Episcopal church didn?t want to make anyone feel unwelcome, no matter what. At least, that was their official line.
The first question went, ?My neighbor asked me if I?d been born again. I said once was enough, thank you. She said I needed it, and I said I didn?t. Who?s right??
Mitchell Hartley had written: ?Your neighbor is right! You have to be born again, even Jesus says so. You need to get with the program.?
?uh-oh,? I groaned. On the living room couch, Marla stirred in her sleep. Not exactly pastoral, I wrote in pencil, and what happened to the long paragraph?
The second question was, ?Our teenager babysat for some neighbor kids whose bedtime prayer began, ?Our Mother and Father in Heaven …? I though God was a man! What do you think, Father??
Mitchell Hartley?s tall, loopy handwriting replied: ?God is a man! Don?t let your teenager babysit there again.?
Candidate Hartley was beginning to tick me off. Again.
The third question. ?I don?t understand, Father. Is AIDS God?s judgment against homosexuals??
Mitchell Hartley?s reply was unequivocal. ?Yes!? he?d written.
