Double Shot

I said, “You shouldn’t have believed his lies, Courtney. He made his own life whatever it became.”

“That’s not the way I heard it. I loved him. We were going to get married. Then you screwed it up with your threats to cut off his visitations with Arch.”

“Is that why you sabotaged my food and attacked me?”

She turned scarlet. “You’re crazy.”

“How did you manage to steal stuff from my van?”

“I didn’t take anything of yours and you know it.”

“Right. But John Richard took something from you, didn’t he? Marla thought it was a hundred thou, but she was going to ask Cecelia Brisbane if it might have been more—”

“Shut up!”

“And while we’re at it, Courtney, where’d you go after the funeral lunch, exactly?”

That did it. In a cloud of bolero jacket and gold chains, Courtney wheeled around, whacked through the swinging doors, and was gone. By the time I’d picked up a crystal pitcher of iced tea and moved back into the dining room, Courtney had stalked out. The committeewomen snickered, exchanged murmurs, and gave me questioning looks.

Holly Kerr, looking only slightly revived, had returned to her seat. The women, unwilling to move to their agenda, tried to remember the last thing they were complaining about.

“I still haven’t heard a satisfactory reason for Ginger Vikarios to be invited on to this committee,” Priscilla huffed.

Holly Kerr looked earnestly around the table. “How can you say such a thing? She asked me to join so we would have time to work together and raise money—”

“I should think Ginger Vikarios’s time should be spent raising money for a better wardrobe,” Priscilla interjected. “Did you see what she wore to your husband’s memorial, Holly? She looked like an orange Popsicle!”

Holly Kerr gasped. I wasn’t sure she was going to make it through this meeting.

Priscilla continued, “Denver has any number of dress boutiques—”

“God dammit, Priscilla—” Marla interrupted.

“Now regarding swear words,” Priscilla threatened, “I announced at the beginning of our work together…”

I moved noiselessly around the table, serving seconds on rolls and butter, offering refills on coffee, sugar, cream, iced tea, and lemon. No more mimosas for these ladies.

Beads of perspiration were forming on Marla’s forehead. She glanced longingly at the flip chart Aspen Meadow Nursery had set up at the far end of the private dining room. When I leaned in to fill her iced tea glass, she whispered, “Can’t you do something to get these bitches onto their agenda?”

“Like what?” I whispered back.

“Announce that it’s time! Don’t you think this damn country club has a dinner bell somewhere?”

“Sorry. The only bell Coloradans use is for calling in cows.”

Priscilla interrupted by asking Sergeant Boyd how she was supposed to stir sugar into her iced tea if he didn’t bring her an iced-tea spoon? He swallowed, his expression somewhere between bemusement and dismay, and asked what an iced-tea spoon was. I quickly murmured to Priscilla that I would get one from the kitchen.

“Whitewash,” Priscilla was proclaiming when I returned. She waved with one hand and adjusted her glasses with the other. “We still don’t know what really happened. And Cecelia really is so odd, isn’t she? We invited her to this meeting, and yet she can’t be bothered to come. Maybe Walter wanted a woman who would be more like a real wife, not a silly gossip columnist.”

“Walter Brisbane was such a charmer,” another woman commented. “It must have been over another woman, don’t you think?”

“Maybe another man!” Priscilla squealed.

A sudden banging and rush of footsteps kept me from dumping the pitcher of iced tea on Priscilla’s head. The discussion came to an abrupt halt. Ginger Vikarios, her orange-red hair disheveled, her stockings askew, her appearance incongruously froufrou—she was wearing the same orange taffeta dress and matching orange heels she’d worn to the memorial lunch—stepped timidly toward the table.

“I’m terribly sorry to be late.” Her voice cracked as she eyed the leftover crumbs on the woman’s plates. “I hope…you haven’t begun to discuss our work together. I’ve been looking forward to it—”

Priscilla Throckbottom fidgeted with her fork and knife. “Of course we’ve been waiting for you, Ginger.” She eyed Ginger’s outfit. “You know, my dear, I can take you to Denver—”

“Priscilla!” Marla shrieked. The women jumped in their chairs, startled. Priscilla drew her mouth into a moue of protest.

“I…thought the meeting was at eight-thirty.” Ginger fidgeted with her too-large double strand of pearls and glanced apologetically around the table. “And then I looked at my calendar, and said to Ted, ‘Oh, no…’ ”

“We all make mistakes,” said Priscilla, with a knowing glance around the table. “In fact, some of us have made many mistakes over the course of our lives.”

Ginger blushed and slithered into a seat. Marla caught my eye, and in that awkward moment, hollered, “It’s time to get to our agenda!”

I headed for the kitchen.

Okay, there was one good thing that had come out of my divorce and involuntary demotion from the country-club set to the servant sector.

I’d been able to quit every committee I’d been on.

15

I ignored the scathing looks I received when I brought Ginger Vikarios a fresh plate of parfait, quiche, croissants, and rolls. She was almost pathetically grateful. As Boyd and I began to clear the rest of the dishes, Priscilla Throckbottom grabbed my elbow and pulled me down next to her.

With her mouth next to my ear, she whispered, “Ginger arrived too late to be served breakfast.”

Balancing two stacks of dishes, I tried in vain to release myself from her pincer grip on my arm and hot breath in my ear. It occurred to me that even though I’d quit my committees, and even though I’d learned to handle aggressive men, I was a tad behind the curve on handling aggressive women. I resolved to ask Tom about this.

My pal Marla, however, knew how to handle aggressive women because she was one. Sensing I was in trouble, she bustled around the table and grabbed Priscilla’s forearm. The dirty dishes in my released hand made a precipitous slide toward another woman’s frothy hairdo and pale pink suit.

Dear Lord, I prayed, help me out of this.

And He did, using my best friend as his instrument. Marla murmured a few choice words to Priscilla about exhibiting Pharisaic hypocrisy regarding feeding Ginger Vikarios. We didn’t want that to get out, now did we? Especially since one of Marla’s pals was the current editor of the St. Luke’s newsletter. Of course, there was no way Father Pete would allow Marla or anyone else to put a bitchy tidbit into the church newsletter. But the women had all seen the power of Cecelia’s gossip column, and Priscilla was properly intimidated, for once. She harrumphed and turned away. Boyd, again taken aback, cleared the rest of the dishes with miraculous swiftness.

But Marla was not finished with Priscilla, because she held on to her arm the way that Priscilla had held on to mine. She must have threatened something truly damaging, because Priscilla cleared her throat and stood up. Then she walked timidly in the direction of the flip chart.

For a moment, the women were stunned, as they seemed to think their leader was stalking out of the meeting. But Priscilla stopped abruptly, smiled nervously at her colleagues-in-gardening, and tapped the first illustration with her pointer.

“Root systems!” she gargled. The committeewomen frowned. Priscilla began lecturing apprehensively on the different trees’ adaptability to rugged climate, sunshine, and shade. I tiptoed away with my last load and pushed