With a weary sigh, the aforementioned intrepid deputy marked his place in his novel with a parking ticket and listened to Wesley’s dramatic reading. “I wish he hadn’t run that story,” he said.
Wesley chuckled. “Why not? It’s a corker. Deputy Taylor did not draw his gun as he crept slowly down the concrete steps toward the Halliburtons’ washing machine. He heard the menacing noise they had told him about. It was then that he informed them that bloodshed would not be called for.” The sheriff rattled the paper, too overcome to continue.
“All they had to do was change the battery on their smoke alarm and the noise would stop,” said Clay, supplying the story’s punch line. He shrugged. “Can I go back to my book now?”
Wesley took a sobering sip of black coffee. “What do you want to read that thing for anyhow?” he asked.
“It’s a modern parable of good and evil, full of riveting authenticity about the deadly game in the inner cities,” said Clay, consulting the back cover for blurbs.
“Oh crap,” said the sheriff. “It’s a male romance novel is what it is.”
“It’s reality,” said Clay, looking earnest as usual.
“This is reality!” said Wesley, waving the Chandler Grove Scout. “Killer smoke alarms. Two years without firing a shot in the line of duty. That thing you’ve got is what a lot of humorless people hope is reality. Because if the world is grim and sordid, then it means they’re not missing anything.”
Clay Taylor shrugged. It wasn’t easy working with an incurable optimist when the world was going to hell in a Central American handbasket. When the phone rang a few moments later, he found himself wishing that it would be someone reporting an axe murder. That would show Wesley.
Amanda Chandler downed the last of her grapefruit juice with an expression suggesting that she would refuse the offer of an antidote. Normally, she had orange juice, hot chocolate, and sweet rolls for breakfast, but an unhappy interview with her dressmaker the week before had changed her regimen. She would not wear an empire waist to “hide her tummy,” and that was that. Perhaps no one else at the wedding would know her dress size, but she would. A new note of austerity crept into the menus at Long Meadow Farm, prompting Geoffrey to inquire if this was the anniversary of the Bataan Death March. Amanda was not amused.
“I have to go and get my hair done this morning, Elizabeth,” she announced, frowning at her niece’s plate of bacon and eggs. “I have asked the caterer to stop by this morning, and I shall leave that detail of the wedding to you.” Her tone suggested that the mere discussion of petits fours and pound cake could be fattening.
Elizabeth took a swallow of black coffee. “All right, Aunt Amanda,” she said meekly. “Is there anything in particular that I should ask for?”
The words melba toast hovered on Amanda Chandler’s lips, but she said, “Draw up a list of things you like, and ask if they can do them, and for how much. If that doesn’t work, see what they recommend. I will, of course, check with you when I return.” And change everything to suit myself was the unspoken message.
“Who are the caterers?” asked Elizabeth as an afterthought. “Anyone I know?”
“No. They are a new business. I haven’t used them before, either. They are called Earthling. Charles recommended them.”
As a reflex, Elizabeth looked around for her cousin, but Charles was gone, of course. With the wedding frenzy increasing exponentially by the hour, the Chandler men had taken to fleeing the house as early as possible each morning to avoid the day’s disruptions. Even Geoffrey, who normally kept bat’s hours, managed to wrest himself out of the house and down to the community playhouse before nine.
“I will be back in time for lunch,” said Amanda, who was changing from her reading glasses to her driving glasses. “Will you be here?”
“No. I promised Jenny Ramsay that I’d meet her for lunch.” Seeing her aunt’s look of stone-faced resignation, she added, “I’m having a salad.”
“Right. I’ll be off then. You might make a list of questions for the caterer while you wait. Goodbye.”
Elizabeth found a notepad beside the telephone. She wandered off into the parlor, muttering, “Carrot sticks… cheese cubes… onion dip…” The prospect of interviewing a caterer made her uneasy. The word conjured up visions of a heavyset older man with an Olivier accent with a rosebud in his lapel. And he would know what kind of rose it was. Elizabeth shuddered, knowing that she was not equal to the task of directing such a being.
Her list was going badly. She had changed the flavor of the wedding cake six times-mostly from chocolate to something else and back again-when she heard the doorbell chime. “Why am I so nervous?” said Elizabeth as she walked toward the door. “I’m sure he’ll be very polite-in a condescending sort of way.”
Summoning her brightest smile, she flung open the door. “Good morning!” she called out. “I am the bride.”
“Far out,” said the visitor.
Elizabeth stared at the apparition on Aunt Amanda’s personalized Orvis doormat. It was a gaunt, bearded man in his late thirties (or forties, or fifties). He was the type that made it difficult to tell. He reminded her of somebody-matted black hair, gaunt triangular face, and burning black eyes. A photograph from her world history book back in high school. She had it now! Idly, she wondered what he was doing on her doorstep in thongs and a Rainbow Sweat Lodge T-shirt.
“Er-uh?” said Elizabeth, trying to adjust to the fact that the Admirable Crichton she had been expecting had defaulted in favor of the mad monk Rasputin. She was trying frantically to invent conversation, but nothing in English or Russian or even sign language occurred to her.
“You called for a caterer?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, but she managed to say, “Yes, of course. And you must be the director of Earthling.”
He shrugged. “I’m one of the group. Anybody who’d claim to be the head of the company would have to be on some kind of domination trip, and I’m not into that, but, yeah, I’m the caterer you asked for.”
“I’m Elizabeth MacPherson. Won’t you come in, Mr.-”
“Josh.”
“Come in, Josh.”
“Actually, that’s my last name,” he said, strolling into the newly waxed front hall. “Some of the members of our New Age community decided to adopt Indian names a few years back to show solidarity with the people of Bhopal, and I changed mine to Rogan Josh, because I’d seen it written somewhere. After I found out what it meant, I was going to change it, but everybody said that that would be an act of unspiritual arrogance, so I kept it. You can call me R.J.”
“What does it mean?”
He frowned. “It’s a menu item in Indian restaurants. Spiced lamb.”
Elizabeth nodded with what she hoped was polite interest. “I have this list,” she said.
“List?” He was looking around the living room.
“Yes, of some things I thought we’d have at the reception. Won’t you sit down?” She motioned him to the velvet love seat, and retrieved her notepad of scribbles and crossed-out items. “I’m afraid it’s hard to decipher. I changed my mind several times. Maybe I’d better read it to you.”
R.J. leaned back in a pose of studied meditation: eyes closed, head thrown back. He signaled for her to begin.