Lucas said, “with all your crying and moaning about your ex-husband. Then, when he decides to move out here, you convince him to buy a decrepit house across the street from you, not near me.”
“I didn’t!” I protested. “I didn’t even know Jack was leaving New Jersey until he was practically here.”
But Lucas had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. “You feed him food full of stuff he shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t,” I tried again. “I try to give him heart-healthy meals.”
Lucas pointed his right index finger at my nose. “And if all that weren’t enough, you tell the cops that I was involved in the death of Doc Finn—”
After my years with the Jerk, I’d learned to stand my ground. “You are exaggerating, Lucas,” I said evenly. “You’ve got problems with your father? Or with law enforcement? Those are your issues, Lucas. Not mine.”
But Lucas was going to have his say. “This past Thursday night, I happened to be at Southwest Hospital checking on a patient on my own time, not calling Doc Finn to set up…eek!”
Sergeant Boyd had come up quietly behind Lucas, circled the young man’s chest with his powerful policeman’s arms, and lifted him off the floor. Lucas’s feet flailed wildly, and he was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe, much less bawl me out.
“Listen up, pal,” Boyd said huskily into Lucas’s ear. “You don’t belong in this kitchen, understand? It’s for food workers only. Got it?”
When Lucas did not reply, Boyd loosened his grip a tiny bit.
“Put me down!” Lucas managed to squeak.
Boyd retightened his hold on Lucas. “Got it?” the sergeant repeated. Yolanda and two of the servers were frozen, their mouths open, staring first at Boyd, then at Lucas, then back at Boyd again. I wasn’t doing much better. I wanted Lucas out of the kitchen, but I certainly didn’t want to alienate the young whippersnapper any more than I already had.
Into this unfortunate scene Marla happened to appear. She breezed into the kitchen wearing a rosy pink satin designer dress with a matching shawl; in her hair and ears and around her neck were barrettes, earrings, and a necklace constructed of masses of pink sapphires. She smiled at our little tableau.
“Well, well, Lucas Carmichael!” she exclaimed, as if she ran into cops holding physician’s assistants in death grips every day. “When I saw you slip in here, I knew you weren’t coming for another crab cake. Now, Sergeant Boyd,” Marla scolded mildly, “what ever it is you want from Lucas Carmichael, I can guarantee he’ll give it to you. Right, Lucas?”
Boyd released Lucas, who despite his light weight dropped heavily onto the kitchen floor.
“C’mon, Lucas,” Marla spoke down smoothly to where Lucas was kneeling on the floor, coughing, panting, and rubbing his eyes. “It looks as if they want you out of the kitchen. Am I right or am I right? Okay, I’m right. And anyway, I want you to dance with me.”
“I, I—” Lucas struggled to his feet, narrowed his eyes to give me a dark look, then glanced over at Boyd. Boyd crossed his arms and raised his thick black eyebrows in a threatening manner. “Okay,” Lucas said grudgingly, straightening his pale blue tie. “But I was just trying to—”
“Don’t start with the excuses, buddy,” Boyd said. “Or I’ll lift you up by your ankles.”
Marla tapped her foot. “Lucas? I’m waiting.” She leaned over and whispered in Boyd’s ear, I suspect to say she was going to take Lucas off Boyd’s hands instead of asking Boyd to dance. “Lucas?” she asked again. “Are you going to dance with me?”
“God, Marla,” Lucas said, recovering himself, “dance with you? You’re old enough to be my mother.”
“Take it easy, dear boy,” Marla said, taking Lucas’s arm. “Does your mother have a ten-million-dollar slush fund?”
Lucas gazed at Marla with sudden interest. “Do you?”
Marla’s expression twinkled as brightly as her sapphires. “Well, I suppose you’ll have to dance with me to find out!”
Yolanda, her coworkers, and I hadn’t worked more than ten more minutes when Julian stuck his head in the kitchen.
“Boss,” he said to me, “you’d better come have a look at this.”
“Oh, hell, Julian, if it’s Lucas Carmichael again, then I’ll bring Boyd with me, and we can—”
“It’s not Lucas,” Julian replied. “It’s Jack.”
“Oh, crap,” I muttered under my breath. Jack and Lucas fighting? Jack and Billie fighting?
When I sidled into the dining room, which had been skillfully turned into an enormous dance floor, I tried to focus on the crowd, to look for Jack. It was a slow dance, which was unusual for a wedding, and made distinguishing people via their backsides somewhat challenging. Finally, though, I saw him. He was dancing, very close, with Isabelle. Again. Oh, hell. She was supposed to be there in a server capacity, not a guest capacity. Yes, the serving was over, but I could imagine the kerfuffle if Victor saw Isabelle with Jack again.
Aw, jeez, now it looked as if Jack was whispering something in Isabelle’s ear. When she turned away to laugh and shake her head, I noticed she wore a red lace dress with lots of decolletage.
So Isabelle was breaking all kinds of rules here. First of all, nobody at a wedding was supposed to wear lace except the bride. And no one, no woman anyway, is supposed to look sexier at a wedding than the bride. Take it from me, I’d heard from plenty of mothers of the brides who were outraged at the provocative dresses some of the female guests had turned up in, that this was a huge no-no. Worst of all, Isabelle was dancing and flirting with a man—okay, my godfather—who was old enough to be her father, and he had come with Charlotte Attenborough. Plus, Isabelle was a server, not a guest…
Which all might have been okay in this day of relaxed standards. But leaning against a nearby wall, Charlotte Attenborough was ostensibly talking to a friend—someone I recognized from a
Would he never learn?
15
I repaired back to the kitchen, where any crisis was worth dealing with as long as it didn’t actually involve the wedding. Boyd and Julian were engaged in a conversation that was important enough that they’d stopped washing the cake dishes. Julian finally faced me with the bad news.
“Four guests have come in saying they smelled pot smoke coming from the area of the Smoothie Cabin,” he announced.
I glanced at Boyd. “Do we have to do something about it?” I said, ever one to duck responsibility when it came to law enforcement at catered functions.
“You don’t,” he said simply. “How do I get to the Smoothie Cabin?” I told him. “Keep an eye on her,” he ordered Julian, “don’t let her out of your sight.” Then he checked that his cell phone was working and marched out the back door of the kitchen.
I eyed the remains of Julian’s cake. There wasn’t much left. “What should we do with this?”
“Charlotte came in and said we were to wrap it well and put it in our van. She didn’t want any hungry spa guests delving into it, and she wants to save some for a magazine staff meeting tomorrow morning.”
I sighed. “Of course.”
Five minutes later, Boyd had not returned, but Julian and I had wrapped the lowest cake layer in plastic.
“I can take this to the van,” I told Julian.
“The hell you say. I’m sticking to you like, well, what? Epoxy? Cement?”
“Dried royal icing.”
“Fine,” he conceded. “Let’s boogie.”
We, too, marched out the back door, with Julian holding the cake and me being, well, his escort. There was indeed a strong scent of marijuana drifting from somewhere, but it was hard to tell from where. Where was Boyd? Had he decided to get stoned with the party? Unlikely.
After we’d stowed the cake, Julian and I were walking back to the main house when we heard a soft, low moaning.
“Somebody having sex?” Julian whispered to me. “They needed the grass to get them going?”
“Wait. Listen.”
