women who would be attending the day’s banquet. The nightclub would be filled to bursting with blondes, brunettes, and redheads. All would be impossibly thin, impeccably made up, and fashionably dressed in suits with skirts shorter than what I used to wear when I played tennis, back when I was a doctor’s wife. Thinking of my caterer’s uniform and scrubbed face, I had a sudden attack of feeling inappropriate. Was that the real reason I resented doing this banquet—there would be all those stunning women, and then there would be me?
Disheartened, I glanced in the van mirror and gave myself another pep talk. The helicopter had droned away and was no longer visible. The pickup driver had changed lanes. My own face looked the same as always, my uniform, equally drab but serviceable. Later, I realized I’d made a mistake by not checking my reflection more closely. But at the time I was saying to myself:
Also a mistaken assumption.
So are we supposed to follow her, or not?” I asked Julian as Claire’s car spewed a cloud of inky exhaust while passing the silvery-gray marble exterior of the Prince & Grogan store building. No demonstrators stood outside the entrance to the upscale department store. I hoped this was a good sign.
The Peugeot darted into Westside Mall’s parking garage. Julian craned his neck to see where Claire had gone. “Let’s stay separated, the way she said. In case the activists are waiting at any one place. The salespeople aren’t even supposed to wear their Mignon Cosmetics uniforms. Claire’s going to park by the crepe place because she has some stuff to bring in. She told us to go on over by Stephen’s Shoes. She’ll take her things in while we start to unload.”
I wheeled the van past the majestic hemlocks and short, lush aspens that formed the mainstay of the expensive new mall landscaping. After a moment of confusion, I headed into the far end of bottom-level parking spaces. Hopefully we were going in the direction of empty parking spots near the chrome-and-glass garage entrance to the mall near Prince & Grogan. The space inhabited by the department store, as opulent and inviting a shopping environment as one could ever hope for, had formerly housed a Montgomery Ward. I’d come to know Montgomery Ward well during my lean divorce years, but the refurbishment and enlargement of Westside Mall had been so ambitiously undertaken that at the moment I felt completely turned around.
Not so Julian, who pointed to the garage entrance to the mall. I strained to Catch a glimpse of police cars or activists waving signs, rabbits, or Lord knew what-all. I saw only gaggles of gorgeous women, presumably the sales associates and top customers who’d been invited. They threaded through the rows of cars on their way to the Hot Tin Roof Club. Near us, a stunning hermaphroditic blonde dressed in blistering lemon yellow strutted alongside a Porsche with an empty parking place on the row just behind it. Beyond that line of cars glowed the neon sign for Stephen’s Shoes. I waited for the woman in yellow to move away, then quickly swung the van past Prince & Grogan, around the end of the row, and into the vacated spot. I checked my watch. So far we were exactly on schedule.
Guarding the doors to this level’s impressive glass-prismed mall entrance was an older-looking man in the process of instructing a couple of muscular fellows sporting slicked-back hair, matching charcoal suits, and gleaming black shoes with pointed toes. The muscular two stood nervously, feet braced, hands clasped behind their backs. As the older fellow addressed them, they rolled their massive shoulders and tilted their heads overattentively. I was pretty sure the three weren’t policemen. For the threat of riots, the Furman County Sheriff’s Department would certainly send officers in plainclothes as well as uniforms. But no matter what they were wearing, sheriff’s department deputies never acted so obviously like hired goons.
I glanced at my watch again: ten-thirty. “The mall’s open, right?”
Julian’s cap of blond hair fell sideways as he tilted his head to get a better look at the suits. “Actually, yeah. It opens at ten usually, but earlier day after tomorrow because of the food fair. Most of the stores don’t get busy until the afternoon, Claire says. Those dudes look like they’re from Mignon Cosmetics or Prince & Grogan. Or maybe they’re from some private security company.”
“I guess they’re supposed to look tough.” I turned off the ignition and pulled up the parking brake. “Maybe they figure they’ll be a deterrent if they act like they’re wearing shoulder holsters. That ought to tick off the
Outside the van, the foul, overheated garage air hit us like a slap. We’d have to hustle to get the food into a cool spot. In this heat, anything could wilt or grow bacteria. I opened the van doors, surveyed the undisturbed array of spa dishes, and wondered if the muscle-bound security men in the matching suits would go for the roast hot pepper, if I laid a few jalapenos on top and sprinkled them with cayenne.
As we began to unload the vegetables, shouts erupted from near the garage entrance to the mall. Julian and I exchanged a worried glance, hoisted our loads, and began to walk rapidly toward Stephen’s Shoes. Twenty feet away, the security guys were hollering at several demonstrators who had suddenly appeared, waving large placards. Laden with trays of broccoli, I couldn’t see if the activists were carrying anything else. From my vantage point, the demonstrators’ ages and gender were indeterminate. They uniformly sported long, unkempt nests of hair above their logo’d T-shirts, torn blue jeans, and sandals. I couldn’t hear what everyone was yelling, but I could guess it had to do with preserving small gnawing mammals with cute tails.
“Feel all right?” Julian murmured as he whacked open the service-entrance door with his sneaker and held it for me to pass through.
“Yes,” I said uncertainly. The shouts had increased in volume. “Maybe the security guys, or whoever they are, can run interference while we bring in the supplies.” I tried to sound more confident than I felt.
Julian moved to the shoe-store door and opened it wide. We quickly carried our culinary burdens past rows of brightly colored pumps and air-cushioned cross-trainers. Curious customers and gaping store employees allowed boxes of sandals and sailboat shoes to drop from their hands as we hustled past. They acted as if they’d never seen a catering duo lugging eighty pounds of food past them before.
The store manager, a tall fellow with sandy-red hair, came to our side quickly and murmured conspiratorially, “I know about the routing for the banquet.”
I wondered if he was going to ask for the password to cross enemy lines. “Sorry,” I whispered from behind the broccoli. “This’ll just take a few minutes.”
As the manager moved across the store’s carpeted floor to reassure his customers, Julian said, “I don’t know if those security guys will be able to protect us going back and forth.” He glanced back at the garage. “Just for safety, we’d better make all our runs in tandem instead of alternating.” He nodded knowingly to show how much he was learning about food service.
I didn’t return the nod. It looked as if more people had joined the altercation outside. Julian was right, though. When two caterers work an event, one usually hovers over the delivered food while the other brings in the rest of the supplies. If you leave platters out
We came out the main entrance of the shoe store and turned to enter the august beauty of the renovated main hall of Westside Mall. In the late sixties, when it opened, Westside had been a splashy, hugely successful shopping center. But Westside Mall had gone bankrupt like an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero: gradually and then suddenly. The Denver papers had been full of accounts about stores going out of business during the first phase of the oil recession. It wasn’t long before the whole mall ended up repossessed as part of the savings-and-loan mess. After several years of vacancy, the management of Prince & Grogan, a department store chain with its headquarters in Albuquerque, had agreed to provide the anchor for a redone, upscale mall. A complete face-lift of the old shopping center and construction of the multilayered garage had transformed the former shopping haven into a glitzy series of fancy stores and chic boutiques.
But Arch had mourned the loss of the old Xerxes’ Magic Shop. As I stepped across the threshold of the Hot
