Killer Pancake (3 page)

"Okay!" I hollered diplomatically once I'd lifted out the steamer basket filled with sole fillets. "Let's get this stuff into the van and see if we can avoid Speh the Hehs!"

After a moment the lovelorn pair sheepishly reappeared. Claire's makeup, I observed, was miraculously intact, although Julian looked a trifle rumpled. He handed Claire a covered bowl of (lowfat) hollandaise, then hoisted the first box containing the soup. I suppressed a grin and picked up the container of turkey with hoisin. Ten minutes later the three of us started out for the forty- minute trip to glorious, newly refurbished Westside Mall, still nestled, as the recent advertisements relentlessly screamed, at the foot of the Rockies!

Children were already out riding their mountain bikes and kicking soccer balls against the curbs when our vehicles chugged out of my driveway. When we reached Aspen Meadow's Main Street, windblown dust shimmered in the morning light, forming a translucent veil between the town and the peaks of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. The snow on the mountaintops had shrunk to uneven gray caps that would not completely melt over the summer. As Julian and I followed Claire's white Peugeot in the direction of Interstate 70, we passed stores whose entrances were clogged with summer tourists seeking

Aspen Meadow's higher altitude, cooler temperatures, and claim to quaintness. Enterprising merchants had landscaped the area between the sidewalks and the street with a tangle of dianthus, daylilies, and bleeding heart. Below the stores' intentionally rustic signs swayed hanging baskets of white petunias, red ivy geranium, and delicate asparagus fern. Nearby Vail had used this

Garden-in-Disneyland-type decoration to great effect in attracting tourists, and our little burg was following suit. The Chamber of

Commerce seemed to feel that the less our place looked like a real town, the less tourists would feel they were spending real money. Still, it was home, and I loved it. I usually do not enjoy heading "down the mountain," which is how Aspen Meadow folk refer to the physical and spiritual descent into Denver and environs.

As the van lumbered eastward behind Claire's little Peugeot, a Flight-for-Life helicopter thundered overhead going west, toward Aspen Meadow. I braked automatically and pulled into the right lane in front of a pickup truck. The driver had to swerve to avoid me. Julian and I exchanged a glance. Paranoid, overprotective mother that I was, I felt my heart race as I mentally placed

Arch. My son had spent the night at a friend's house. He was due back home this morning. As soon as we arrived I would call from Hot Tin Roof and make certain he was all right.

Forcing my mind off the helicopter and its rescue mission, I sped up again and imagined all the gorgeous women who would be attending the day's banquet. The nightclub would be filled to bursting with blondes, brunettes, and redheads. All would be impossibly thin, impeccably made up, and fashionably dressed in suits with skirts shorter than what I used to wear when I played tennis, back when I was a doctor's wife. Thinking of my caterer's uniform and scrubbed face, I had a sudden attack of feeling inappropriate. Was that the real reason I resented doing this banquet - there would be all those stunning women, and then there would be me?

Disheartened, I glanced in the van mirror and gave myself another pep talk. The helicopter had droned away and was no longer visible. The pickup driver had changed lanes. My own face looked the same as always, my uniform, equally drab but serviceable. Later, I realized I'd made a mistake by not checking my reflection more closely. But at the time I was saying to myself:

Relax. Nobody ever notices the caterer.

Also a mistaken assumption.

2

So are we supposed to follow her, or not?" I asked Julian as Claire's car spewed a cloud of inky exhaust while passing the silvery- gray marble exterior of the Prince & Grogan store building. No demonstrators stood outside the entrance to the upscale department store. I hoped this was a good sign.

The Peugeot darted into Westside Mall's parking garage. Julian craned his neck to see where Claire had gone. "Let's stay separated, the way she said. In case the activists are waiting at anyone place. The salespeople aren't even supposed to wear their Mignon Cosmetics uniforms. Claire's going to park by the crepe place because she has some stuff to bring in. She told us to go on over by Stephen's Shoes. She'll take her things in while we start to unload."

I wheeled the van past the majestic hemlocks and short, lush aspens that formed the mainstay of the expensive new mall landscaping. After a moment of confusion, I headed into the far end of bottom-level parking spaces. Hopefully we were going in the direction of empty parking spots near the chrome-and-glass garage entrance to the mall near Prince & Grogan. The space inhabited by the department store, as opulent and inviting a shopping environment as one could ever hope for, had formerly housed a Montgomery Ward. r d come to know Montgomery Ward well during my lean divorce; years, but the refurbishment and enlargement of Westside Mall had been so ambitiously undertaken that at the moment I felt completely turned around.

Not so Julian, who pointed to the garage entrance to the mall. I strained to catch a glimpse of police cars or activists waving signs, rabbits, or Lord knew what-all. I saw only gaggles of gorgeous women, presumably the sales associates and top customers who'd been invited. They threaded through the rows of cars on their way to the Hot Tin Roof Club. Near us, a stunning hermaphroditic blonde dressed in blistering lemon yellow strutted alongside a Porsche with an empty parking place on the row just behind it. Beyond that line of cars glowed the neon sign for Stephen's Shoes. I waited for the woman in yellow to move away, then quickly swung the van past Prince & Grogan, around the end of the row, and into the vacated spot. I checked my watch. So far we were exactly on schedule.

Guarding the doors to this level's impressive glass prismed mall entrance was an older-looking man in the process of instructing a couple of muscular fellows sporting slicked-back hair, matching charcoal suits, and gleaming black shoes with pointed toes. The muscular two stood nervously, feet braced, hands clasped behind their backs. As the older fellow addressed them, they rolled their massive shoulders and tilted their heads overattentively. I was pretty sure the three weren't policemen. For the threat of riots, the Furman County Sheriff's Department would certainly send officers in plainclothes as well as uniforms. But no matter what they were wearing, sheriff's department deputies; never acted so obviously like hired goons.

I glanced at my watch again: ten-thirty. "The mall's'open, right?"

Julian's cap of blond hair fell sideways as he tilted his head to get a better look at the suits. "Actually, yeah. It opens at ten usually, but earlier day after tomorrow because of the food fair. Most of the stores don't get busy until the afternoon, Claire says.

Those dudes look like they're from Mignon Cosmetics or Prince & Grogan. Or maybe they're from some private security company."

"I guess they're supposed to look tough." I turned off the ignition and pulled up the parking brake. "Maybe they figure they'll be a deterrent if they act like they're wearing shoulder holsters. That ought to tick off the Beastly Bulletin folks." I couldn't remember what the law regarding carrying a concealed weapon was in this gun-loving part of the country. Coloradans don't like to conceal their weapons. In fact, they seize every opportunity to be exhibitionistic about them.

Outside the van, the foul, overheated garage air hit us like a slap. We'd have to hustle to get the food into a cool spot. In this heat, anything could wilt or grow bacteria. I opened the van doors, surveyed the undisturbed array of spa dishes, and wondered if the muscle-bound security men in the matching suits would go for the roast hot pepper, If I laid a few Jalapenos on top and Sprinkled them with cayenne.

As we began to unload the vegetables, shouts erupted from near the garage entrance to the mall. Julian and I exchanged a worried glance, hoisted our loads, and began to walk rapidly toward Stephen's Shoes. Twenty feet away, the security guys were hollering at several demonstrators who had suddenly appeared, waving large placards. Laden with trays of broccoli, I couldn't see if the activists were carrying anything else. From my vantage point, the demonstrators' ages and gender were indeterminate. They uniformly sported long, unkempt nests of hair above their logo'd T-shirts, torn blue jeans, and sandals. I couldn't hear what everyone was yelling, but I could guess it had to do with preserving small gnawing mammals with cute tails.

"Feel all right?" Julian murmured as he whacked open the service-entrance door with his sneaker and held it for me to pass through.

"Yes," I said uncertainly. The shouts had increased in volume. "Maybe the security guys, or whoever they are, can run interference while we bring in the supplies." I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

Julian moved to the shoe-store door and opened it wide. We quickly carried our culinary burdens past rows of brightly colored pumps and air-cushioned cross-trainers. Curious customers and gaping store employees allowed boxes of sandals and sailboat shoes to drop from their hands as we hustled past. They acted as if they'd never seen a catering duo lugging eighty pounds of food past them before.

The store manager, a tall fellow with sandy-red hair, came to our side quickly and murmured conspiratorially, '1 know about the routing for the banquet."

I wondered if he was going to ask for the password to cross enemy lines. "Sorry," I whispered from behind the broccoli.

"This'll just take a few minutes."

As the manager moved across the store's carpeted floor to reassure his customers, Julian said, "I don't know if those security guys will be able to protect us going back and forth." He glanced back at the garage. "Just for safety, we'd better make all our runs in tandem instead of alternating." He nodded knowingly to show how much he was learning about food service.

I didn't return the nod. It looked as if more people had joined the altercation outside. Julian was right, though. When two caterers work an event, one usually hovers over the delivered food while the other brings in the rest of the supplies. If you leave platters out anywhere before serving time, people will take the mere presence of edibles as a sign it's time to start consuming them, no matter how impenetrably the food is wrapped. Perhaps there would be a bar at the nightclub where we could stash all the courses below eye level.

We came out the main entrance of the shoe store and turned to enter the august beauty of the renovated main hall of

Westside Mall. In the late sixties, when it opened, Westside had been a splashy, hugely successful shopping center. But Westside

Mall had gone bankrupt like an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero: gradually and then suddenly. The Denver papers had been full of accounts about stores going out of business during the first phase of the oil recession. It wasn't long before the whole mall ended up repossessed as part of the savings-and-loan mess. After several years of vacancy, the management of Prince & Grogan, a department store chain with its headquarters in Albuquerque, had agreed to provide the anchor for a redone, upscale mall. A complete face-lift of the old shopping center and construction of the multilayered garage had transformed the former shopping haven into a glitzy series of fancy stores and chic boutiques.

But Arch had mourned the loss of the old Xerxes' Magic Shop. As I stepped across the threshold of the Hot Tin Roof Club,

I imagined my son would be awed at the unquestionably magical transformation of the old store he'd loved so much. Gone were the rows of masks, the shelves of top hats, the glass counters filled with tricks. The walls of the enlarged space were painted silver and black. Under high-intensity spotlights, chrome buttons and table edges glistened. An array of overstuffed furniture had been upholstered in black leather. A slender woman with elaborately teased hair and a sheath as diminutive as Claire's nodded in our direction and motioned us past the hostess stand.

We moved uncertainly out of the service entry and through the new foyer. Despite the fact that it wasn't quite eleven in the morning, a palpable air of excitement filled the place. Lively music pumped out of overhead speakers. About thirty women had already arrived and were bustling about. One was setting up a slide projector. Another pulled down a screen. Two more checked on the audio system and the podium. Whether the high-pitched voices and feverish rushing around were the result of nervousness over the upcoming event - the unveiling of their fall line - or the presence of the demonstrators outside was impossible to determine. I saw Claire briefly. She seemed to have forgotten us as she giggled and squealed and moved from group to group of chattering females. On one long table, three rows of brightly colored corsages were arrayed. Some women already had them on.

Others were in the act of pinning them to their stylish outfits. My guess was that the flowers had something to do with the fall colors we were about to see. I wouldn't have minded having a corsage, I thought absentmindedly as I moved toward the bar with the heavy tray of broccoli. On the other hand, was there such a thing as a bittersweet-chocolate-colored orchid? With raspberry- colored roses to complement it? Probably not.

A sudden banging and shouting outside caused a momentary hush to fall on the bevy of scattered women. Launching into a new song, the music from the speakers blasted into the silence, overwhelming any sounds of a disturbance. I cursed silently when I thought of all the food Julian and I still needed to bring in past whatever had erupted outside.

Julian read my mind. "Stay put," he ordered firmly. "I'm making another trip."

"No, let me do it. I'm used to moving around with heavy containers of food."

"No, no, I'm much faster than you," he replied without apology. "If some demonstrator started yelling at you, you'd get into a big argument, the way you always do. You want the food in here fast? Let me get it."

"Well," I said reluctantly, "why don't you see if you can get those security guys to help you?"