“OK, now we need to be quiet and quick,” he warned, as he creaked open a door that bore a floral-bordered needlepoint sign:
“You’re going to take the ring out of your wife’s room?” I asked, incredulous. I looked around the room. Page’s Place was as disheveled as Pam’s Audi. Clothes spilled out of drawers of white-and-gold French Provincial furniture; open closet doors revealed a heap of discarded coats next to a heap of shoes; the plush cream-and-floral carpeting was so paved with discarded stockings and rejected lingerie that it was like a Victoria’s Secret obstacle course.
Like her sister, Page was a dedicated slob.
Shane put his finger to his lips, then paused to listen. Page and Pam were now squabbling over who Aunt Linda would have wanted to have the cobalt.
“I bought the ring for her birthday next month,” Shane told me. “But she always goes through my stuff, and she found it and took it.” His nose wrinkled. “See, one time I had to take one of her presents back and she’d already gone through my stuff to find out what she was getting. When the bills came in, I decided to return one gift, an emerald bracelet. She was furious and…well, you’ve seen how Page is when she’s furious. So now, no matter how good I get at hiding stuff, she gets better at finding it, and she takes her presents, so I won’t decide I’ve been too extravagant and return them. What she doesn’t
“You said we needed to be quiet and quick.”
Shane took long, zigzagging steps across the large room, avoiding discarded outfits as if they were piles of elephant dung. Since my legs weren’t quite as long as his, I had a hard time following him.
“Here we go,” Shane announced, pulling open a drawer dripping with slithery nightgowns. He groped in the back of the drawer for a silk sachet of potpourri. “This’ll just take a sec,” he promised.
He untied the lace drawstring of the sachet, sending bits of dried rose petals fluttering to the floor. His stealthy behavior was making me so nervous that I averted my eyes hastily and looked around the room. Four lacy bras, black, beige, white, and pink, were laid out on the chaise lounge. Clearly, Page hadn’t been able to decide among them. All four were of the amply padded variety. Page Stockham may or may not have been a thief, as her sister claimed, but there was no doubt the woman stretched the truth.
“Here we go,” declared Shane, as he extracted something shiny from the potpourri. More dried petals fluttered to the carpet. He handed me the ring—it was a dazzling trio of jewels: sapphire, diamond, and ruby—and told me to try it on.
“It looks like something for the Fourth of July,” I commented, as I obeyed. The ring was a tad big for me. Not that it mattered, because this was collateral. I took it off and slipped it deep into my skirt pocket.
“Yeah, well,” Shane muttered, as he hastily reassembled the gutted potpourri bag, tucked it back into the drawer, and picked at the dried bits at his feet. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t go looking for it before her birthday.”
“Shane,” I protested, as he hustled me down the hallway. “I really don’t think this—”
“Aunt Linda never
“You mean, visiting her when you were
The doorbell rang. Peeping through the hole, Shane gasped. “It’s four of my investors!” he said, trying to be heard above the yelling. “Can’t you do one of those distractions you mentioned?” he begged me. The ringer bonged again: Page and Pam raised their hollering a notch. “Just do something, will you?” Shane implored desperately.
I zipped into the kitchen, where Liz was spooning out juices and melted fat from the standing rib roast pan. The roast wasn’t quite done, of course, but I really needed to start on the gravy from the drippings Liz was gathering. The doorbell chimed again. OK, first things first.
Within seconds, the pealing of the alarm made me think I would go prematurely deaf. But the alarm certainly had the desired effect. I heard Pam screeching to Shane for her car keys. Shane, his face stricken, appeared at the kitchen door, while I imitated one of the Broncos’ razzle-dazzle plays by doing a one-handed toss of the keys to him, while keeping my little book of matches held high.
Over the racket Liz cried, “Goldy, what the
Next Page’s voice shrieked at the kitchen door, accompanied by her pounding on same. Liz cried, “Please go to a separate part of the house, Mrs. Stockham! We don’t want the smoke smell to wreck your—uh—cobalt stuff! Not to worry! We’ve got the situation under control!”
Page stamped away. I hoped it was not in the direction of Page’s Place, where she might want to try on some of her jewelry to calm herself down. But I had no time to worry about that: The chatter from arriving guests was unmistakable. My mind chattered, too, when a volume on an upper bookshelf snagged my attention. Unfortunately, it was then that the fiery matches reached my fingertips. I yelped and flung the ball of flame toward the sink. It hit the roast, landed in the pan, and ignited. Without thinking, Liz grabbed an open bottle of Burgundy and poured it over the flames, and a genuine explosion rocked the kitchen. I screamed, jumped down from the chair, nabbed an extra-large bottle of Evian, and dumped the contents on our beautiful, blazing, twenty-dollar-a- pound prime beef.
Ad Guys’ Roast Beef and Gravy
4-to 5-pound standing rib roast, prime grade
? teaspoon salt
? teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Melted unsalted butter, if necessary
? cup high-quality Burgundy
? cup all-purpose flour
3? cups homemade beef stock or 2 tablespoons beef bouillon granules dissolved in 3? cups boiling waterPreheat the oven to 450°F. Take out a roasting pan with a rack and line the bottom (underneath the rack) with either a very large piece of foil that completely covers the bottom of the pan and can be folded up over the sides or two pieces of foil that have been rolled tightly in the middle to form one large piece. The bottom of the pan should be completely covered with an airtight piece of foil.Use a paper towel to pat the roast dry, then season the roast with the salt and pepper. Place the roast, bone side down, on the rack. Insert an instant-read digital thermometer into the roast so that the sensor is in the middle of the roast.Place the roast in the oven and immediately reduce the oven heat to 325°. Roast until the temperature reads 115°F. (At this point the beef is quite rare, and the cooking is not done yet.) Remove the roast to another pan (even a large pie plate will do) and return it to the oven. (To obtain medium-rare, the roast should be removed when the thermometer reaches 125°F to 130°F; for medium, 135°F to 145°F.) If the thermometer reaches the desired temperature before the gravy is finished, remove the roast to a serving platter and tent it with foil.Drain off the fat in the bottom of the foil-covered pan and measure it; you should have ? cup. If you have more, discard it. If you have less, add melted butter until you have ? cup. Place this in a saute pan over low heat.Pour the Burgundy directly into the bottom of the foil- covered roasting pan and let it sit while you start on the gravy.Raise the heat under the saute pan to medium-low and whisk the flour into the fat. Whisking constantly, cook the flour in the fat until the mixture just begins to bubble and turn color, less than 5 minutes.Using a heatproof plastic spatula, scrape the flavorful brown bits adhering to the foil into the wine. Stir this wine mixture into the cooking fat–flour mixture. Whisking constantly, add the beef stock in a slow stream. When all the stock has been added, taste the gravy and correct the seasoning.Over medium-low to medium heat, whisk and cook the gravy until it thickens and bubbles. Serve hot with the roast beef.
The smoke alarm was still squealing as Liz, now splashing a second bottle of Evian over the still-flaming roast, yelled, “I don’t think they’re going to hire us again!”
