But Victor Lane had not allowed me to take the processed cheese out of his mouth so quickly. He’d wormed his way into the affections of two food critics—one at a Denver newspaper, the other at a glossy magazine,
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you this behind-your-back stuff isn’t personal,” Jack had told me. “It’s as personal as it can be. But if you keep doing the work you were hired to do by clients who love you, then this new creep can blow his despair over you driving him out of business out his ass.”
Like most lawyers, Jack did have a way with words. I’d refused to give up my catering business, which had continued to thrive, thank you very much. And Victor Lane had bought the Creek Ranch Hotel…and turned it into Gold Gulch Spa. The most delicious irony of all was that he’d hired a woman to run his kitchen. Yolanda, my friend, had confided that Victor was an absolute pain in the behind, but the spa clients, 99 percent of whom were women, were as addicted to Gold Gulch Spa as crack smokers were to their pipes. Even though Victor never, but ever, gave her any credit, she knew she deserved it…and, she said, the women who slipped hundred-dollar bills into her apron pocket at the end of their stays seemed to agree.
I finished molding the last crab cake, and counted them. I figured Billie could invite an extra seventy-five people to her guest list and we’d still be in good shape. I covered the platter and placed it in the walk-in, just in the nick of time, as it turned out. The doorbell rang: Jack and Marla.
Through the peephole, Marla waved at me with crazed, teen-type enthusiasm. I wondered how much of that scotch and bourbon they’d had time to ingest.
“Finally, finally!” Marla shrieked when I let her inside. The two of them stomped inside in a cloud of whiskey scent. “We’re starving, do you have anything cooking?”
“Crab cakes or pork ragout? I’ve got plenty of extra crab cakes for the Attenborough reception, and the pork ragout is yummy—”
“Both, then!” Marla replied.
I took their coats while they ushered themselves into the kitchen. Marla’s joviality was forced, while Jack, who had tightness around his eyes and wore a strained expression, looked as if he’d just lost his best friend. Which, of course, he had.
What, oh what, could I do to help my dear, sweet godfather recover? He had been uncompromisingly generous and kind to me my entire life, and I had no idea—none—how to help him.
6
I thought you were having the churchwomen over for dinner,” I said to Marla as she dug into a crab cake I’d sauteed for her.
“Dessert. You made my pie, didn’t you?” When I nodded, Marla lifted her chin in Jack’s direction. He was rubbing his forehead. He’d refused any food. Marla caught my eye and shook her head.
“Jack,” I said gently, “let me call Craig Miller for you. He’s a doctor, maybe you should have a tranquilizer or something.” When Jack grunted, I went on, “Look, maybe Craig knows a psychologist or a psychiatrist or someone professional, anyway, someone who could come out to the house to talk to you. Will you let me, please?”
“Absolutely not,” said Jack. He took a deep breath. “No doctors, please. I’m a big boy. I can handle this.”
“Jack!” I exclaimed as Marla shrugged. “How about Father Pete?” I persisted. “Or Lucas? I know either one of them would want to be with you, if that would somehow make you feel better—”
Jack managed a wan smile. “Gertie Girl. I’m fine. Just tired.” He frowned and looked around the kitchen, as if noticing for the first time that it was only the three of us there. “Where’s Tom? Arch?”
“Arch is at his half brother’s house. Tom’s coming home late.” I checked the clock: almost 6. “When are the churchwomen arriving, Marla?”
“Seven, but I have to be back home by half past six. The car-service guy is coming back for me. Do you have any more crab cakes? And how about a bowl of that ragout?”
I fixed her both. Since Marla had had her heart attack, I automatically prepared most of my main dishes with low-fat this, low-carbohydrate that, or reduced-calorie the other thing. If she ate dessert, I figured that was her problem. Jack, who’d had two heart attacks, had no desire to have me lecture him about anything, as he said he already got plenty of “that kind of tripe,” as he called it, from his son, Lucas.
I didn’t want to bring up Doc Finn’s death, and it was clear that neither Marla nor Jack did either. But since Jack’s conversations with me usually centered on the issues he was having adjusting to life in the West, or where he and Finn had just gone fishing, we suddenly had a cavernous space in our conversation. When Marla hopped up to heat another crab cake, I finally grabbed at a conversational straw.
“You’re going to get sick of those before Billie Attenborough’s wedding,” I commented. “It’s day after tomorrow, remember?”
Marla and Jack groaned in unison.
Marla said, “I got a call today from a secretarial service that Charlotte is using. All the guests are being notified of the new venue for the wedding. Gold Gulch Spa? Please. What are we supposed to do, stuff ourselves silly at the reception, then go work out, then relax in the hot springs pool?”
“How ’bout,” Jack interjected, “we just pig out, then go rest in the hot pool?” After asking that question, though, he went back into the daze that had enveloped him since he’d arrived at the house.
“Sounds good to me,” replied Marla. “But get this—directions are being e-mailed, faxed, or delivered by messenger to each and every wedding guest, depending on how technologically current you are. Changing where the festivities are being held must mess up your plans somewhat, eh, Goldy?”
“I don’t even want to go there,” I replied. “I mean, I’ll go to the spa, but I sure don’t want to talk about how Billie’s addition of fifty more guests is screwing up my life. Charlotte’s coming over to night so we can hammer out the details. I have to drive to Gold Gulch tomorrow morning, to see what our flow is going to be, where the tables will be set up, all that jazz.”
“And then there’s the dreaded Victor Lane to deal with,” Marla added. She knew all about my dealings with the man who thought women couldn’t cook.
“Victor Lane?” Jack suddenly seemed to come out of his stupor, and his gray eyebrows knit in puzzlement. “Victor Lane? Why does that name sound depressingly familiar?”
Oh, dear. I found it hard to believe that Jack, the man who’d been going out with Charlotte Attenborough virtually since he arrived in town, would not have heard of Victor Lane and his vaunted Gold Gulch Spa. Charlotte was well known as a Gold Gulch fixture. To forestall discussion of a subject that could upset Jack even more, I offered Jack and Marla something else to drink. When they declined, I poured myself another glass of sherry.
But Marla didn’t take to forestallment. “Don’t tell me Goldy hasn’t told you about Victor Lane of Victor’s Vittles. Victor Lane told Goldy that women don’t know how to cook!”
Jack nodded at me appraisingly. “That son of a bitch? That same guy from all those years ago?”
I nodded and took a large slug of sherry.
“All those years ago?” Marla asked in puzzlement. “This is the guy from all what years ago?” Marla shook a bejeweled finger at me accusingly. “Goldy, did you have a fling with Victor Lane and not tell me?”
I laughed so hard sherry shot out of my nose and I started to cough. Marla took that as confirmation that I had
“I wonder why he would ever say that women don’t know how to cook,” Jack said. “Tell that to all the women across America who find themselves standing over a stove for much of their lives.”
“Look, Jack,” I said soothingly, “if you hadn’t helped me see that Victor was as full of crap as he was of himself, there might well be no Goldilocks’ Catering here in Aspen Meadow.”
