Michaela and Eliot. The figures on the screen swam. At a Saint John?s Day feast five years before the death of Henry VIII, the offerings included venison pies… .
Was I overreacting, or had that courtyard conflict struck a bit too close for comfort? If Eliot was physically explosive with his female staff, did I even want to consider a long-term job for him? I frowned and tried to think. My screen dimmed. I wanted to report their skirmish to the cops. But Tom had told me to stay out of it, and that’s what I would do. For now.
I tapped a button; the screen brightened. In addition to consuming venison pies, the folks at Hampton Court had enjoyed a Saint John’s Day first course of beef in vinegar sauce, carp baked with wine and prunes, bread, butter, and eggs. For the second course, the courtiers had dug into boiled mutton, swan, peacocks, roast boar with pudding, wafers, and marzipan. Ah yes: The high-protein, high-fat, high-sugar diet. No wonder their teeth had fallen out.
I browsed forward to 1588, when an Elizabethan feast had included joints of venison roasted in rye, sides of beef, boars’ heads,. bacon, calves’ feet, game pies with cinnamon,. peacock, herons, blackbirds, larks,. salmon, eels, turbot, whiting, sprats, oysters,. sweetmeats, syrups, jellies, candied roses and violets, grapes, oranges, almonds, hazelnuts,. cakes and syrup-soaked confections.
Well. Eliot and I had already agreed that calves’ feet and spicy elk pie wouldn’t go over big with the youthful fencing team. Not to mention that any plan to serve herons and larks would ensure wrathful demonstrations from every environmental group in Aspen Meadow.
So we’d come up with compromises. “Sides of beef” had metamorphosed into veal roasts; already ordered from my supplier. Current seafood prices precluded offering oysters, salmon, or turbot, and I’d told Eliot the kids wouldn’t touch eels. I’d been delighted to tell him, though, that a recipe from Roman Britain had included prawns. There was the Roman Empire, and then there was the British Empire, which had included India. So we had decided on a shrimp curry. That had left only dessert. In the end, we’d agreed the fencers would enjoy a real Elizabethan plum tart. And then Eliot had decided on tucking in the zirconia. Sara Beth might not be the only client for the dentist.
All this had left one uncharted territory: Side Dishes. Americans would not eat a meal composed only of meat and sugar. I clicked on a file marked Potatoes, Corn, and Tomatoes, all exotic European imports in Elizabeth’s time. Sir Walter Raleigh, according to one source, had brought back potatoes from Virginia, and raised them on his estate in Ireland. Eliot had told me to be creative, so I would test-drive a potato concoction that night. If everyone liked it, I would serve it to the fencers and their families.
I closed down the computer, dressed, and knocked softly on Julian’s door. After squinting at the carved wood, I extracted a note wedged between the frame and the brass doorknob. Am doing 50 laps of crawl in the indoor pool. Meet you in the kitchen at 8.
My shoulders hurt just thinking about fifty laps of anything.
It was quarter to eight. I snagged an extra cardigan in case someone had left the kitchen window open again, quietly closed our door, and reminded myself to act grateful toward our hosts, regardless of the argument I’d witnessed. I would find out what was going on between Eliot and Michaela one way or another. Meanwhile, we had a meal to fix. My banged-up body ached with each step down to the kitchen. So I focused resolutely on the” breakfast Julian and I could whip up. Ricotta-stuffed pancakes. Poached eggs smothered in steamed baby vegetables. One of the joys of the first meal of the day is that it can melt away most pain.
When I banged into the kitchen, I saw Sukie first. Bent over the double sink, she was wearing rubber gloves and viciously scrubbing a suds-filled coffeepot. Behind her, the errant window was closed. Michaela and Eliot sat at the kitchen table, sullenly eyeing a plate of frosty prepackaged strudel. Beside the pastry lay a dozen boxes overflowing with fabric swatches and paint chips.
Uh-oh, I thought, too late. Standing by the hearth with her arms crossed, Charde Lauderdale gasped when she spotted me. She wore a dark green pantsuit with a fur collar that set off her pretty features. Two red spots flamed on her cheeks. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting to see me. Or was she? I held my chin high and gave her an even look.
Buddy Lauderdale, standing by one of the windows overlooking the moat, turned slowly to face me. He touched the lapels of his camel’s-hair coat, narrowed his glassy eyes, then straightened his swarthy face into a passive, self-consciously blank expression. Next to his father, sixteen-year-old Howie Lauderdale shifted his feet. Howie wore de rigueur shabby-chic khaki shirt and pants, along with his fencing jacket. He was short for his age, with a chubby, angelic face, dark curly hair, and a smile I had always found endearing, especially when he encouraged Arch with his fencing. How such a great kid could have been produced by Buddy Lauderdale was beyond me. Then again, I hadn’t known the ex-wife Buddy had dumped to marry the lovely Charde. Probably she’d been a great mother.
“Hi, Goldy,” said Howie in a low voice. He colored when his father touched his arm.
“I am very sorry to hear you’ve moved yourself in here,” Charde spat in my direction.
“Now, Charde,” Eliot began soothingly. Today he wore tweed pants and a smoking jacket. Did the man even own a pair of jeans? He said, “You and Buddy and Goldy have merely had an unfortunate misunderstanding. Howie, chap, come on over here and help me figure out how to defrost this thing in the microwave.”
Charde snorted; Buddy crossed his arms and didn’t budge. Michaela set her lips in a scowl. Howie and Eliot busied themselves with the microwave while Sukie ran the faucet full blast to rinse out the coffeepot. When the microwave beeped and Eliot pulled out the strudel, poor Howie looked from one adult to another, probably hoping someone would somehow break the tension.
“Uh,” Howie said to me, his face crimson, “Arch is doing real well with the foil. The whole team is amazed at how he’s come along.”
“I’m glad,” I said. Since no one had told me what they were doing in the kitchen at this hour, I ventured, “Do you all have an early practice today?”
“No, no,” Howie replied, as Eliot handed him a piece of pastry that looked like iced cardboard. “I was just working with Michaela in her loft. My dad and Charde wanted to watch. We’re going to school as soon as Charde leaves her stuff … and then I guess we’ll see you, uh - “
Sukie finished drying the coffeepot and wiped her hands on her apron. “Buddy, Charde, Howie,” she murmured. “Goldy and her family and her friend are staying with us through the fencing banquet.”
“That’s a mistake,” Charde announced. I turned away and searched in the Hydes’ refrigerator for unsalted butter and eggs. When I headed for the mixer, Charde cocked her head at Eliot. “I hope she’s paying you rent, Eliot.”
Michaela interrupted to say it was time for her to leave. After she clomped out, Eliot slumped at the kitchen table, looking as chilled as the strudel. I pulled a loaf pan out of a cupboard and glanced at Buddy, who was stroking his dimpled chin and frowning. Should I ask him where little Patty was? With a nanny? Better off with a babysitter than with her parents, right? I rummaged in the cupboards and pulled out two types of dried fruit: pineapple and sour cherries. I found a cutting board and a knife, and placed everything on the kitchen table across from Eliot. Just concentrate on the cooking.
Buddy Lauderdale sauntered forward and pulled a fat catalog out from under the mountain of paint chips. With annoying deliberateness, he laid it on top of the cutting board. Then he asked in that oily voice 1 knew only too well, “Ever heard of Marvin, Goldy? They make windows.”
Taken aback, I stared at the catalog jacket for Marvin Windows, casements and bays floating against a background of blue sky.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Mr. Lauderdale?” I managed to say. “Or would you rather tell my husband, upstairs?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Buddy, as he tapped his cheek in mock thoughtfulness, “how is your husband?”
I turned to Sukie, who was standing in front of the microwave cabinet. “I need to make a call. Someplace private.”
“Don’t you dare call the police again,” Charde Lauderdale shrieked at me as she began gathering up her swatches and chips. She stopped only long enough to stab a scarlet-painted nail in my direction. “I am a good person. I don’t want you to get in my way anymore. I don’t want to run into you at Elk Park Prep, I don’t want to run into you here, I don’t want to see you at the luncheon tomorrow. You stay out of our lives, do you understand?”
“Please, people - ” Eliot faltered. He had a pained expression on his face, like a king whose courtiers’ conflicts
