Prime Cut

destroyed by our general contractor, Gerald Eliot. One of the reasons I’d been interested in catering here at the cabin was that, apparently, Merciful Migrations had hired Gerald to do some remodeling, then fired him before paying him a cent. I wish I’d been that smart. I’d told Andre I didn’t mind dealing with models; it was remodelers who’d made my life a living hell.

As the hammer banged methodically, I pictured Gerald Eliot, his yellow mane spilling to his shoulders, his muscled arms broadly gesturing, blithely promising he could easily install a new bay window—my ex-husband had destroyed the original—over my sink. Won’t take more than three days, Eliot had vowed at the beginning of August, with a wide grin.

The pounding reverberated in my skull. Eliot had brandished his power saw, destroyed the window’s casing and surrounding wall, then accidentally ripped through an adjoining cupboard. The entire cabinet, along with its load of dishes and glasses, had crashed to the floor. Just an additional day of work to fix that, he’d observed with a shrug. No extra charge. Start first thing tomorrow.

I groaned, checked my watch, and turned my attention back to the tray. Swiftly, I plugged in the electric warmer and moved the cheesecakes on top. I was here; I was working. I would even be paid. And I needed the money. Before Gerald Eliot had sliced into our kitchen wall, the new catering outfit in town had cut my business by thirty percent. And unfortunately, on Day One of the two days Gerald Eliot had actually worked for me, he’d pocketed the full seven-hundred-dollar down payment on the new window installation. On Day Two, he’d covered the gaping hole he’d made with plastic sheets, hopped into his pickup truck, and roared away.

I straightened the row of spring rolls bulging with pink shrimp. Focus. At least at this cabin there’s a kitchen—although it wasn’t in very good shape, either.

“What else?” I asked Andre cheerfully when I strode back into his domain. He was fingering the plywood on the wall beside the oven.

“Drinks, serving utensils, and ice.” He looked up from the wall, his wide blue eyes merry. “Guess what I just found out? They fired Gerald Eliot for sleeping with a model!” I sighed; Andre loved gossip. It was one of the reasons he’d despised retirement.

I swung back out to the buffet with my newly loaded tray. Sleeping with a model, eh? At least he was getting some sleep. This was not the case with my friends the Burrs, whose house was to be the site for the second part of this fashion shoot. Neither one of them was getting much sleep at all these days, thanks—once again—to good old Gerald Eliot.

In April, Cameron and Barbara Burr had been convinced the sun room Gerald Eliot was adding onto their house would be completed by August. That was when Ian’s Images was scheduled to set up the P & G catalog’s outdoor shots, using as a backdrop the Bum’s spectacular view of the Continental Divide’s snow-capped peaks. Gerald Eliot had already been working on the sun room for eleven months—admittedly, off and on—but what was left to be done?

Ah, but the windows had been delayed; for some reason, the drywall couldn’t go up until the windows were in; Eliot had had a cash flow problem; he’d sailed off to his next job. Mountain breezes swirling through the house at night had forced Barbara Burr into the hospital—with pneumonia. Cameron Burr had moved into their guest house. The last I’d heard, Barbara’s pulmonologist had put her on a ventilator.

Maybe when the P & G catalog was done, all of Gerald Eliot’s former clients could have lunch and form a chiseled-by-a-contractor support group. But not today. Today, I was catering with Andre, watching models undress, taking food to malnourished, depressed Cameron Burr, trying to think of new ways to make money, worrying about my husband’s conflicts with an arrogant prosecutor, and calling down to Lutheran Hospital to see if Barbara Burr had died.

I admired the beautiful dishes on the buffet. That was enough for one day, wasn’t it? Don’t ask.

Chapter 2

The angry voices on the far side of the room intensified; I glanced out the picture window above the counter. A hundred feet below the cabin, a crowd of young men and women streamed through a stand of white-skinned aspens profuse with lime-colored leaves. The waiting models had briefly taken their nervousness outside, apparently, but now they were coming back. Clouds of cigarette smoke obscured their faces as they ascended the stone steps. Behind them, the rippling creek glittered in the morning sun.

I hustled back to the kitchen. I was surprised that so many young people had even been able to find this turn-of-the-century cabin. The six-mile dirt road that led to it meandered beside a long-abandoned stagecoach trail. In summer, the narrow byway alternated between treacherous mud and sandstorm-thick dust. In winter, the road was closed.

When I returned with the knives and forks, the popping noise of a battery-operated screwdriver ceased abruptly. Hanna’s enraged voice grated through the still air. “One last time, do you want to do swimwear or not? You know the rules! We have to see your body.”

I glanced around to see the Greek god slowly unbuttoning his shirt. The faces of the three judges swiveled; their eyes drilled into me. Embarrassed, I whirled and clattered together a batch of serving spoons.

“Go away!” Andre’s strained voice rose from the kitchen. “No food until later! Guard my buffet, Goldy!” A door slammed.

My palms itched. I glanced at the spread on the marble, then back out the window. Guard the buffet? How? The models, massed at the cabin door, were filtering inside. Beyond the aspens, a warm August breeze wrinkled the dark expanse of the creek, which bent in a ragged U-shape around the cabin. Sunlight played over a huge boulder abutting the creek. I smiled and briefly wished Arch were with me: My son would have instantly pointed out how much the enormous rock resembled an elephant. And it did.

I clattered the ice bath onto the marble shelf and topped it with the gold-rimmed china bowl of butter balls. Carefully, I smoothed plastic wrap over the bowl and unloaded the pewter bread-and-butter plates. Next to these I set the container of red wine-pear vinaigrette. I picked up the tray and tried to summon up some of the old resolve I felt so lacking these days.

“You know, Bobby, we don’t really care that you were out partying last night,” Hanna was saying earnestly to the Greek god. “We don’t care why you’ve gained ten pounds. And we can’t care that you drank a lot of coffee waiting for us. Your stomach’s not flat and your eyes are bloodshot. Bloodshot and bloated don’t sell swimwear.”

“You’re too damned hard to please!” Bobby-with-the-slight-paunch shrieked.

I sighed, checked all the foodstuffs one last time, and squared the cheesecakes between the spring rolls and breadbasket. With infinite care I turned back, determined to invite Bobby over for a bite to eat and a glass of sparkling water.

Too late. Bobby, his beige shirt open, was pulling up his trousers. Now his much-criticized stomach hung over his undies like a hot-water bottle; his thighs jiggled as he grappled with the pants waistband. Clasping his trousers closed with one hand and his unbuttoned shirt with the other, he pushed his way clumsily through the rustic furniture. Suddenly, he tripped and flailed wildly.

“What is this damn thing?” he yelled as he regained his balance and savagely kicked a piece of equipment resembling a cannister vacuum across the room.

“Sorry, sorry,” muttered the screwdriver-wielding construction worker. He loped across the wooden floor and yanked at the cannister’s cord. “It’s not our air compressor,” he apologized to Bobby, who ignored him. “It was left here by Gerald Eliot.” As if on cue, everyone groaned at the mention of the infamous contractor.

Bobby’s no-longer-handsome face was wracked with fury and humiliation. As he rushed across the room, his ebony curls whipped behind him and his khaki shirt flapped open. What is the deal with this guy? I wondered.

“Please—” I began, gesturing toward the array of food.

“Forget it!” Bobby barked as he swept past me.

Across the room, Leah, Hanna, and Ian conferred. Hanna bellowed, “Peter!”

Beside the windows, the scruffy-bearded handyman pushed the air compressor aside and plugged in an ornament-bedecked Christmas tree. Sparkly lights flashed as a breathtakingly tanned male model, the presumptive