“I think I need to get to the kitchen to meet with the chef,” I said quietly.
“You’re not going into that spa kitchen without me!” Billie cried. “I want to hear what you two talk about!”
YOLANDA GARCIA LOOKED up in surprise when an unexpected trio of women—yours truly, plus Billie and Charlotte Attenborough—invaded her culinary space. Yolanda, who was Cuban, wasn’t just pretty, she was beautiful, with creamy brown skin, lots of dark hair that she had pulled up under a hairnet, liquid brown eyes, and a smile that would break your heart. If the smile didn’t do it, her cooking would. Her homemade Cuban Bread, which she served with a Tomato-Camembert Salad, made even Julian swoon.
“Yolanda,” I said apologetically, “is this a good time for us to talk to you about the wedding plans for Sunday?”
“Goldy, sweetie,” Yolanda said, “so good to see you! It’s a fine time for you to come. Come whenever you want.” She wore a brilliant white, starched uniform and apron, and moved quickly to embrace me in a hug. “I’ve got some flan that you’re just going to love, and none of the women here—”
“Who the hell is Yolanda?” Billie Attenborough demanded. I was pretty sure Billie knew full well exactly to whom I was talking.
Yolanda drew herself up straight. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she was imposing nonetheless. “I am Yolanda. Who are you?”
Aw jeez, I thought. Was there anyone Billie Attenborough came in contact with whom she did get along? I wished Craig Miller would come back.
“Wait, wait,” I said. I felt in my purse for the flash drive with the menus and recipes. On the counter on the far side of the sink, there was a computer, thank goodness.
“Are you the cook?” Billie demanded, pointing a finger in Yolanda’s face. “Because we have a very big wedding coming in here tomorrow!” Billie cast a derogatory look all around. The other kitchen workers, sensing fireworks, had made themselves as scarce as Craig Miller. “This is your kitchen? How in the hell can you work in such a small—”
“Hey, chica!” Yolanda retorted, one hand on a hip, the other picking up a frying pan that she held in a somewhat, ah, aggressive manner. “This is my space! My kitchen!”
“Do you know who I am?” Billie demanded, pointing a finger in Yolanda’s face.
Yolanda frowned in mock horror. “Do I look like I care who you are? Do you know who I am? Now, if you don’t mind, I need to talk to Goldy—”
Billie turned to her mother and fell against her chest. “I can’t work with this woman!” she wailed. “And I can’t call everyone again and have the wedding changed one more time, to some new place!”
“Now, Billie dear,” said Charlotte, patting her daughter on the back, “you know perfectly well who Yolanda is, and you’ve told me how well you do with the diet here, so this is no time—”
Oh, dear, I thought, when’s the next flight to Anchorage? Maybe Julian could handle the whole Billie wedding. No, I wouldn’t do that to him.
Craig Miller burst into the kitchen. “What in the world is going on in here? What’s all the yelling about? What is wrong, for heaven’s sake?”
I waved in Billie’s direction, and managed not to say, “Craig, if you want to keep your mental health, you should cancel your wedding.”
Craig Miller eased Billie’s heaving body away from her mother and onto his own chest. “There, there, dear,” he soothed, patting Billie’s back. “Everything’s going to be all right. We probably shouldn’t have come here and worried your pretty head about details. Let’s go out in the hall.”
Great idea, I thought as Billie allowed herself to be led into the hall. In fact, forget the hall and just get Billie out of here, period.
“I think we should probably go,” Charlotte said to me.
“Will this flash drive work on your computer?” I said quickly to Yolanda.
She scowled at it. “Yeah. Sure.”
“All the menus and recipes are on it. I’ve made extra crab cakes and sauce already, and my assistant is doing more of the other dishes. But we’ll need to be set up for a hundred and fifty, and we’ll probably need an extra, oh, eight to ten servers, if that’s okay.”
“No problem,” said Yolanda.
“Goldy?” said Charlotte.
Yolanda rolled her eyes at me. I wanted to tell her she should get out while the getting was good, as in, before this wedding started the next day. But I didn’t have a chance.
Once Charlotte, Craig, Billie, and I were out in the pine-paneled space, I wondered what we were supposed to do next. We hadn’t yet done the walk-through, and with Victor off somewhere, I doubted we were going to get to it. Billie was still sobbing. Were we having fun yet?
Craig finally said, “Billie dear? Why don’t you let me ask Victor to fix you a nice smoothie? Peach?” Billie kept sobbing, but nodded against what had been Craig’s clean polo shirt. When Billie lifted her head to take a tissue from her mother, a great wet blob indicated where Billie had lain her head. Lovely. “There now.” Craig kept his tone comforting. “A peach smoothie that’s sweet like you? Does that sound good? How about you, Charlotte?”
“Oh, I’d love a strawberry one, please!”
“Goldy?” Craig asked.
“If they have coffee flavor, I’d love it.”
Craig ruefully shook his head. “Victor’s rules. No coffee in the whole place. Sorry.”
“Not to worry,” I replied. “Thanks for asking.”
“Now,” Craig said to Billie and Charlotte, “we just need to go find Victor, to get the key to the Smoothie Cabin—”
I turned away. Actually, what I really wanted was another iced latte, preferably with two or three big scoops of coffee ice cream jammed on top, and a spiral of whipped cream on top of that. I doubted Gold Gulch Spa offered such a treat, so I decided to go in search of my godfather instead.
I didn’t want to bother Yolanda again, not when she was probably still upset about our last intrusion, and anyway, Jack hadn’t gone by us. Billie, Charlotte, and Craig were moving down the hall away from me and speculating among themselves as to whether there would be any other place where the wedding could be held at this late date. Aspen Meadow Country Club? A country club in Denver? Would all the dates in August have been booked long ago?
Charlotte, hearing me, turned back. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, “we’re having the wedding and reception here. I’m just letting Billie ventilate.” She frowned. “Could you go see if you can find Jack?”
“Sure.” I walked away and pushed through the swinging doors. After a moment of indecision, I chose the path that led to the hiking trails. Boulders had been placed along the way, and late-blooming bushes of pink muskmallow and perennial daisies hugged the crevices between the rocks. All the recent rain we’d been getting had left swaths of puddles along the trail, and as I hopped, skipped, and jumped along, I almost missed the sign that said smoothies! with an arrow pointing toward the very last section of the building, which also housed the kitchen, dining room, and TV and living rooms.
The woman who had been shepherding the ladies along on their walk—the twenty-something Isabelle—was nowhere in sight, but the ladies themselves were lolling about on freestanding porch-style swings. And they were all sipping pastel-colored drinks from large clear plastic cups.
“Best thing about this place,” one was saying to another.
“I’m so glad Isabelle said we could skip the hike. This smoothie is yum. I can’t believe it’s low fat.”
“Me either. I wanted to have two yesterday, even offered to pay, and Victor said I couldn’t, that it was too many calories. Mean!”
I asked first one, then another gaggle of women if they’d seen a dapper fellow in his fifties walking past, maybe smoking a cigarette. I worked my way through the groups of women, and they all replied in the negative.