They all sat on pillows covered with Royal Stewart plaid, the tartan Moira claimed she was entitled to use since her grandfather’s name had been Stewart. The pizzas were arranged on the living room table, a huge, round knee-high slab of black marble and the only furniture in the room. The walls were still white, the windows bare, but Moira had lit a cheerful blaze in the black marble fireplace and the cavernous room was a perfect place for games. When Paul had inquired, Moira had called the effect her Terminally Lazy Look and sworn she’d finish with her decorating just as soon as the roads were clear.
Laureen and Alan sat at one end of the table, passing slivers of pizza back and forth. There were the standard varieties: Jayne’s sausage and cheese, Ellen’s Canadian bacon and pineapple, Moira’s was Italian meatballs and fresh tomato, and Walker’s was pepperoni and onion. There were also some very unusual creations like Paul’s sardine and cream cheese, Hal and Grace’s feta cheese and Greek olive, which they’d made together in Grace and Moira’s kitchen because Hal hadn’t wanted to wake Vanessa, and a strange concoction which Marc refused to name. When they’d tasted them all, Laureen looked at Alan with a question in her eyes. He took another bite and nodded.
“And the winner is . . .” Laureen paused for dramatic effect. “Marc’s braunschweiger and Swiss cheese with pesto sauce. It’s the most unusual thing we’ve ever tasted.”
“Pesto sauce?” Marc looked surprised. “I thought it was green onions, all ground up.”
Laureen laughed. “Why did you use it if you didn’t know what it was?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t have any tomato sauce and I had to use something. It looked kind of interesting when I opened the jar, so I just spread it on the top.”
“Then it was a lucky accident.” Laureen nodded. “Tomato sauce would have been horrible. And Paul gets an honorable mention. I don’t know anyone who ever tried to put sardines on a pizza before. Moira? Bring out the prize.”
Moira got up to present Marc with a long, narrow package wrapped in newspaper.
“Uh, oh.” Marc accepted it gingerly. “Is this one of your father’s things, Grace?”
“Open it and see,” Grace ordered with a grin.
Ellen studied Marc carefully as he started to unwrap the package. Why on earth would he buy pesto sauce if he didn’t know what it was? Of course, she’d bought tofu ice cream once, and she hadn’t been sure what that was. She guessed it wasn’t so strange, after all.
Everyone leaned forward as the wrapping fell away from a large stuffed rattlesnake.
“Just what I needed!” Marc lifted it up, taking his unusual prize in stride. “I’ll put it on my desk when the roofer comes in with his bid. That way he’ll feel outnumbered.”
“Let’s eat.” Moira passed out plates and napkins. “Will you open more wine, Gracie?”
“I’d be glad to, but we’re out and I was going to pick up some on the way home, but then there was the avalanche and I forgot all about it and we couldn’t have brought it up on the snowmobile anyway because there was barely room for the two of us in all those bulky . . .”
“Never mind, Gracie,” Hal interrupted her. “I’ve got a jug, if no one minds drinking jug wine. Vanessa bought it and she doesn’t know much about wines.”
Grace nodded. Vanessa didn’t know much about anything, but it would be uncharitable to point it out. “If you don’t mind getting it, that would be nice. And if Vanessa’s still awake, why don’t you ask her to join us? There’s plenty of pizza.”
After Hal had left, Laureen turned to Grace. “Why did you have to be so polite? Nobody wants Vanessa down here.”
“That’s precisely why. She’s got feelings after all, plus we have to live in the same building with her so we might as well make the effort because we all like Hal and . . .”
“Okay, Gracie.” Moira patted her arm. “We understand.”
Hal was back in a couple of moments, carrying the jug of wine. “Is Vanessa here?”
“We haven’t seen her. Did you stop at the spa?” Hal nodded and Grace frowned slightly. “Don’t worry, Hal. Maybe she went out for a tramp in the snow.”
“A tramp in the snow!” Laureen burst into laughter. “Sorry, Hal. Do you want us to help you find her?”
Hal looked concerned. “It’s just that she always wears those ridiculous high-heeled boots, and she could have slipped or something.”
“If you will all excuse me, I will get my parka.” Paul stood up and bowed. “A brisk walk will stimulate the appetite.”
As the other men got to their feet, Hal looked doubly concerned. “But the pizzas will get cold.”
“Don’t be an as . . . idiot!” Moira patted his shoulder. “Laureen knows how to reheat pizza.”
Laureen nodded. “Of course I do. You guys go look for Vanessa and we’ll take the pizzas to my place. They’ll be even tastier if I heat them on bricks. It’s the only way to get the crusts properly crisp.”
It didn’t take long to cart the pizzas to Laureen’s kitchen, where she stuck them in her huge, restaurant-size oven. Ellen had brought down her thirty-cup coffeepot and the five women sat around Laureen’s butcher-block work island on bar stools. A full array of copper pans and kitchen utensils hung above their heads, suspended by hooks on a revolving frame, and Ellen pointed up at a big slotted spoon with prongs around the circumference of the bowl. “What’s that?”
“A spaghetti separator,” Laureen informed her. “I have two. One here and one in the bedroom.”
Jayne giggled. “Some days you step in it, other days you don’t, but I have to ask anyway. Why do you have a spaghetti separator in the bedroom?”
“Because Alan uses it for a back scratcher. He says it’s a lot better than those little plastic ones you buy in the store.”
“I wonder if they found Vanessa yet.” Grace looked worried.
“Oh, who cares?” Laureen sighed deeply. “Remember how much nicer it was before Hal married her? Personally, I wish she’d take a hike for good. We’d all be a lot better off.”
“True enough.” Grace admitted, pouring herself a cup of coffee before it was quite through perking. “But not tonight. I saw a pack of wolves right next to the building and I know they don’t attack humans unless they’re starving, but the avalanche may have cut off their food supply and my dad told me stories of how hungry wolves band together and if they see any kind of prey they . . . okay, Moira, I won’t go into details.”
Laureen said snidely, “Wolves wouldn’t bother Vanessa. She’d just invite them up to her bedroom for a drink.”
“Come on, Laureen, honey.” Jayne reached out to take her arm. “You’d be a lot better off if you could just put that whole mess behind you.”
Laureen gave a bitter laugh. “I still wish she’d rot in hell! And I don’t think you’d be quite so charitable if she’d taken off after Paul.”
“Well . . . maybe that’s true.” Jayne smiled slightly. “That’s the only good thing about our fight. It took Paul out of the lineup.”
“So how may scalps did she actually get?” Moira wanted to know.
Laureen counted them off on her fingers. “Marc, and Clayton, and Alan, for sure. I’m not sure about Johnny or Jack.”
Ellen winced at the mention of Johnny’s name, but this wasn’t the time for confidences. “I know that Jack managed to keep his distance.”
“How about Walker?” Jayne changed the subject before anyone could notice that Ellen hadn’t mentioned Johnny.
“Oh, she counted Walker out from the beginning.”
“She did?” Moira was amazed. “But Walker’s a handsome man, and single.”
“Vanessa’s a Southern girl. She might not have many scruples, but black is one of them.”
“Well, she’s got a fu . . . screwed-up sense of priorities, that’s all I have to say. I can’t believe she left Walker alone and tried to pick up on me.”