“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 not rolled in the hay with Victor.
“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.”
The doorbell rang, and Marla groaned.
“Just as I’m about to get some truly juicy gossip about Aspen Meadow’s renowned asshole spa owner,” she said, “my car-service guy arrives. Dammit! Now you two need to hold that thought, because I want to hear all about Victor Lane when we get together next.” She eyed the platter. “May I take a couple of crab cakes, Goldy? I’m so hungry.”
“Yeah, sure. I made lots extra for Billie Attenborough’s shindig. And don’t forget your pie.”
I loaded her down with goodies, and she took off for the front door, where whoever was there was persistently knocking.
“Oops, it’s not my guy,” said Marla, as she checked the peephole. “It’s an Attenborough,” she singsonged, “incoming!” She put her platters of food down on the hall table.
“Already?” I asked.
“Yes yes,” Marla singsonged again.
“I haven’t called her all day. She’s going to be angry,” Jack said dejectedly.
“Charlotte, darling!” Marla swept the front door open. “Don’t tell me you’re not coming to the dessert fund-raiser to night at my place? Don’t break my heart.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Charlotte trilled. “What are you doing here, Marla? Don’t you have guests to get ready for? You smell like liquor. Where’s Goldy?”
Jack uttered a swear word under his breath.
“In the kitchen!” Marla sang. “Oops, there’s my car service!” She picked up her food platters and sashayed out. “See you later, everybody!”
I knew I should have been more ready for Charlotte, but I wasn’t. The thought occurred to me that maybe she should tend to Jack. Charlotte Attenborough had been a nurse in her previous life, before her well-insured husband died of his bleeding ulcer. According to Marla, Charlotte had used the insurance money to buy a struggling local magazine with the uninspiring name Aspen Meadow Monthly. She’d transformed the publication into a glossy, widely read and admired lifestyle rag, Mountain Homes. Charlotte herself was owner, editor, and chief pooh-bah, and as such was greatly admired around town. She’d offered me free monthly full-page advertising for a year as an added incentive for doing her daughter’s wedding. I’d joyously accepted…but that had all been nine months ago, and since then, I’d had second, third, fourth, ad infinitum thoughts telling me that no advertising was worth getting a bleeding ulcer myself.
“Goldy, do you have my new contract?”
“No. Sorry, Charlotte,” I said. I didn’t offer any excuses, such as having my godfather’s best friend found dead in a ravine, dealing with a combative biological father at a wedding, or even actually having had another wedding reception to cater today. “I’ll get right on it.” I turned to my computer, booted it up, and began typing changes to our contract that would reflect additional guests and a change of venue. “Would you like a drink, or some food?” I asked as I pressed Print. “We have lots of everything.”