Prime Cut

She sat serenely at our kitchen table, her chestnut ponytail loosened to soft waves that fell just to the straps of her black sport bra. She appraised a hillock of glistening grated daikon on the platter Julian offered her. When she crossed her legs, her skintight black leggings made a silky, rustling sound. I gripped the file and tried to look delighted that Julian was making friends. The former lover of Gerald Eliot, no less, although she probably wasn’t in the mood to chat about that.

“Hey, there …” I faltered. “Welcome, Rustine. Julian? Thanks for saving the torte.” When he nodded, I asked, “Any idea where Arch is?”

“He’s with my sister Lettie on your front porch,” Rustine supplied smoothly, before Julian had a chance to answer. “Lettie and your son and I all go to Elk Park Prep, as it turns out.”

“How nice,” I murmured inanely.

“It was okay, wasn’t it?” mumbled Julian. His brown eyes crinkled in puzzlement. “Bringing people home?”

“Of course.” I was aware that Rustine was staring at me. Did I look as if I’d just committed a burglary? I wondered if any of the identifying numbers on the file tucked under my arm were visible. “So,” I asked her, too brightly, “you all just ran into each other?”

“Yep.” Rustine lifted a tiny handful of Julian’s meticulously grated carrots and inspected it.

“Are you looking forward to school starting?” I asked politely.

“Not really.” She popped the carrot shreds into her mouth and munched thoughtfully. “Our dad is supposed to get back from Alaska right after Labor Day, so the only thing Lettie and I are looking forward to is seeing him. We’ve been so busy with the shoot we haven’t been able to think about much else.”

“We’ve been so busy with the shoot?” I prompted.

Rustine shrugged. “Lettie models, too.”

Julian plunged in with: “Rustine thinks Goldilocks’ Catering might be able to book the rest of the Christmas catalog shoot. She said Litchfield’s already been out to the cabin, nosing around to pick up the assignment. Why don’t you sit down, Goldy, have some coffee with us?”

I headed across my wrecked kitchen, stepping over a hammer, two saws, and a nail gun abandoned on the floor. Cater the rest of the shoot where my teacher just died? No thanks. Julian sprang up beside the espresso machine. I said, “I’d love some coffee. I’ll be back in a sec.”

“We should call Ian or Leah just as soon as possible, Rustine says,” Julian persisted. “Want me to get a bid together? For the photo shoot?”

I stopped in the kitchen doorway, still clutching the file. Wait a minute. Litchfield had been out there. I gave Rustine a sharp look. “When exactly did Craig Litchfield go out to the Merciful Migrations cabin?”

She bent back her slender wrist in nonchalance. “Late afternoon, yesterday.” I calculated: Litchfield had gone from Andre’s condo, where he’d confronted me, directly to the cabin? Rustine went on, “Leah told me this other caterer named Litchfield offered to fix hors d’oeuvre to serve at the end ofthat day’s shooting.”

“And did he?”

She flicked a wisp of carrot off her fingertip with her tongue, then nodded. “Ian had had to send Rufus in for sub sandwiches, and they weren’t very good, so Leah told Litchfield he could heat up whatever he wanted. They were just egg rolls and spinach turnovers, but everybody liked them.” She chewed the strand of carrot. “Leah thinks Litchfield’s really cute. She offered to give him an audition for the cruise section. But it would be great if you guys did the food. Your stuff was better.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “So, Goldy, should I put a contract together for coffee breaks and lunches for Prince and Grogan? They should be shooting through Labor Day.” He twinkled as he mouthed: More work.

“We already have catering jobs for this week,” I replied matter-of-factly. “There’ll be a huge amount to do that will take up most of our time.” I fidgeted and gripped the file. Upstairs, I could hear Tom’s low tones: He was probably on the phone. I hated to feel on the spot, but here I was. Plus, had Rustine and Julian really just run into each other in town? Why the sudden urge to have us cater at the site where my teacher had died? Did I really want this chance to be out there, as I’d thought half an hour ago?

“Whatever feels right to you. But as I said, your stuff was better,” Rustine commented sweetly, and turned her smile back to Julian.

“I’ll think about it,” I muttered before heading down the hall. I pulled open the drawer of Tom’s antique buffet and dumped the Homestead file inside, then stepped out the front door.

On our porch swing, my son was sitting next to an impossibly lovely blond girl dressed in a navy blue shirt and shorts. Freckles splashed over her tanned cheeks as she chatted brightly, blinked thickly lashed eyes, and twirled a French braid dotted with tiny navy blue bows. Arch sat beside her, entranced. I teetered, wondering briefly about the availability of shock medication. Arch glanced up when he felt my presence. Crimson flooded his cheeks.

“Oops—Sorry.” I cleared my throat. Lettie turned enormous questioning eyes to me. Good Lord, she was pretty. “I’m Arch’s mom. Would you two like some lemonade?”

Arch’s expression turned instantly thunderous. Miss Sparkle-Plenty scuffed at the porch floor with the toe of her sandal and gave the swing a forceful nudge. “Sure. Can you make lemonade with artificial sweetener?”

“Absolutely.” Would a snack be appropriate so close to dinner? Should I invite Lettie and Rustine to stay for dinner? When did the library close? I tried to think. Arch caught my hesitation.

“You can go now, Mom.”

Ten minutes later, a cowardly mother to the core, I sent Julian to the porch with a pitcher of lemonade and a platter of chilled poached shrimp with cocktail sauce. I averted my eyes while mixing more lemon juice with generic aspartame, and invited Rustine and her sister to dinner. Rustine replied that they could stay, if the two of them could only have shrimp and salad. She was scheduled to model on Friday. She and her sister needed to watch their figures, she reminded me. And what do you think Arch and Julian are doing, I couldn’t help thinking, but asked instead, “How long has your dad been in Alaska?”

“Since mid-July,” she said. “He’s looking for a job in Juneau. I’ve been taking care of Lettie. Our mom lives in Florida with her new family.”

“And … will you both withdraw from Elk Park Prep if your dad finds work in Alaska?”

“Well, I guess. I’m taking a year off from school anyway, and Lettie won’t start eighth grade until after the P and G shoot’s finished.”

“Why?”

“Be-cause,” Rustine replied in a you-moron tone, “we each clear a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars every day we work. We make as much as our dad, and he’s an engineer.” She slipped out of the kitchen, presumably to join the other young people on the porch. That girl did have a way of making me feel aged.

I gratefully swigged the iced latte—made with fatten ing whipping cream—and brought water, seasonings, and the lemon skins to a boil so I could poach more shrimp. With a plentiful salad, the Mexican torte, and a frozen rice pilaf quickly defrosted in the microwave, we’d be okay. I needed to talk to Tom and start prepping Weezie Harrington’s party. But most of all, I knew I absolutely had to copy the Smythe cookbook file and get it back to the museum before it opened in the morning.

“Look,” I said when Julian returned to the kitchen, “I can’t think about going out to work at the cabin right now. If you want to put together a proposal for them, I’ll look at it tonight. But right this sec I really need to do an errand in town.” I took out the frozen pilaf and pointed to the salad ingredients. “Can you defrost the pilaf and make a salad for the rest of the dinner? I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

“Sure,” he said enthusiastically as Rustine glided back into the room. I snagged the file, sprinted out the front door, and waved a hasty good-bye to the occupants of our front porch, who ignored me. In a cloud of dust, I reversed the van down the driveway. I doubt they noticed.

At the Aspen Meadow Public Library, I laid out crisp dollar bills on the copier farthest from prying eyes, and flipped through the file. The Practical Cook Book, written by Elizabeth Hiller—whose stern cameo was featured opposite the tile page—had been published in Chicago in 1910. Only two or three recipes were printed on each of the small pages. Although I’d determined to work as quickly as possible, I was puzzled by a note