Killer Punch (13 page)

Actually it smelled like something fantastic was cooking in here right now . . . was there a
casserole
in the oven? I love casseroles! They're big around Bryn Mawr, and this one was emitting delicious aromas of chicken and cheese throughout Holly's art-­gallery-­looking house. Maybe Howard was coming home and Martha was baking said cheesy, carb-­filled dish for him. This would be great news, since Holly's a lot calmer when Howard's around.

I quickly lost focus on the scent of baked goodness when I got upstairs to the guest room. There were three awesome dresses hanging on the closet door for me to choose between.

“I'd go with the slinkiest one,” Sophie advised me. “ 'Cause I tried to tone down my outfits for Joe, and where did it get me? Exactly nowhere!”

With this, Sophie did a foot stamp and added a toss of her piled-­up blond hair. “Plus all the Versace I had in my closet is back in business, starting tonight!”

T
WENTY-
­
FIVE MINUTES
LATER,
Sophie had aimed Holly's megawatt blow-­dryer at my hair with surprising skill, and was applying some kind of super-­thick mascara that extended my eyelashes about two inches.

Holly, who had on an amazing white silk caftan, waved aside my protests about borrowing her clothes and told me that Gianni had insisted we get to his restaurant by six-­thirty, and to hurry up and put on her pick for me, which was a Tibi yellow silk halter number.

“That dress is perfect for you,” she told me. “On me, it looks like an omelette.”

“It looks expensive—­maybe you can return it!” I told her, feeling guilty about wearing her clothes for the millionth time. “I can take it to the Pack-­N-­Ship when I work next Sunday.”

“Thanks, but I don't do returns,” she told me airily. “Also, I've tried mailing things back at the Pack-­N-­Ship, and it never works. Last week, I ran into Leena at the Pub wearing a Phillip Lim cropped blouse I tried to send back weeks ago.

“She looked good in the shirt, though.” Holly shrugged.

W
E ARRIVED
AT
Gianni's restaurant to find two party buses idling outside and a crowd of well-­dressed Gianni customers and investors climbing aboard.

No one was excited about the buses, especially since we didn't know where they were going. What if a two-­hour schlep awaited us? I noticed that Gerda looked particularly leery as she tromped over in her BCBG jumpsuit and pair of Birkenstock sandals.

“I don't like buses,” she announced.

“Come on, Gerda!” Sophie told her. “This is gonna be fun!”

“I don't like fun,” Gerda said grimly.

“Sophie!” yelled Gianni, giving the Versace-­clad girl a hug and managing to grab her tush in the process. “Holly! I got a fabulous night ahead for you girls. We going to special location for a fabulous dinner. Gianni has new business venture—­out in the campagna!”

“Am I late?” said Bootsie, suddenly popping up at my elbow and scaring me.

“Don't sneak up like that!” I told her.

“I see trays of crab puffs being carried onto those party buses,” Bootsie told us.

Just then, I noticed waiters carrying big silver buckets of iced champagne onto the idling vehicles.

“Let's go!” yelled Bootsie.

 

Chapter 20

F
ORTY MINUTES LA
TER,
the tipsy crowd piled out of the two buses and onto the stone walkway of a beautiful, tiny stone farmhouse.

We'd headed west for two exits on the Turnpike, then due north on a winding country road that also headed to my fave Chester County flea market, Stoltzfus's.

Luckily, Gianni himself had jumped onto the first bus, while Bootsie, Sophie, and I rode in the second vehicle. Luckily, just a few miles off the Turnpike, the buses turned right and braked to a halt on the long, oak-­lined driveway of a pretty stone farmhouse. The sun was setting, but a few artfully placed spotlights illuminated the tall trees around us, and dozens of strings of white party lights hung from branches above two long white-­clothed tables set with Mason jars filled with white roses and peonies, and about seven hundred white votive candles.

“Hey everybody, I going to make a speech now!” said the chef, who was waiting at the head of the driveway, the waiters and party staff assembled in black and white outfits behind him.

All the guests looked askance at the prospect of a monologue by Gianni, who isn't known for brevity. However, things looked up when four waiters started quickly handing everyone glasses of tasty-­looking red wine. Thankfully, the speech itself was on the short side.

“
Benvenuti
to Gianni's new business venture!” said the chef, his bald dome glinting in the glow of the candles. “And hey, look back there, past that rose garden behind me.” He indicated some buoyant bushes in full pink and red bloom about twenty feet in the direction of the little stone house and a barn. “The Colketts put those roses in today, and by the way, Colketts, you mess up! That's not enough bushes, I told you to do like four hundred roses, you guys fucked up again! Anyway,” he continued, while the Colketts' faces turned from proud to crestfallen, “Gianni got big announcement. Already I having a great year with new restaurant and hit show on Food Network, and I meet a lot of celebrities and probably gonna join Leonardo DiCaprio's posse on his yacht next summer! But tonight, I got different news.

“Behind the rose garden is pasture, and you see animals in it?”

We all peered through the dusk, and small faces with wide-­set eyes, huge ears, long noses, and a sweet and slightly sleepy expression were visible, lined up along a wood fence. They resembled in stature a good-­size dog, but appeared to be . . . Wait, were those . . . They kept nibbling the grass, munching the wood of the fence, and were sticking their heads through to try to eat the roses . . .

“Gianni is starting an artisanal goat cheese farm,” shouted the chef. “These little suckers gonna make thirty-­eight-­dollar-­a-­pound goat cheese for Gianni. Gonna be my greatest moneymaker yet!”

“
S
OPHIE!
K
RISTIN!
O
VER
here,” sang out Tim Colkett, who was adjusting some huge orange trees in terracotta pots over by an outdoor bar. The fresh cocktail in his hand had apparently numbed the sting of the chef's diss about his rose garden, and the Colketts looked back to their usual upbeat selves.

And honestly, the setting was so delightful that it immediately lifted the mood. A jazz trio was playing under a grove of birch trees, sous-­chefs were hovering over a grill that was currently occupied by huge hunks of fragrant meats, and waiters were passing tiny crab-­and-­chevre puffs.

The scene was honestly pretty spectacular. I had to hand it to Gianni—­the man knew how to throw a party.

“Did we do an amazing job with this place or what?” said Tom Colkett, giving us all hugs. “There was nothing here this morning but grass and goats. Seriously, we've outdone ourselves—­again!”

“Did you notice the orchids and lanterns suspended from the sycamores in the manner of a free-­form sculpture?” added Tim. “It's the newest thing in flower design. Fruits, vegetables, candles, you name it—­if you can wrap it in twine and dangle it from a branch, or a fence, you've basically nailed that whole
InStyle
back of the magazine, celebrity party thing. I mean, would Sofia Vergara have a party without orchids
à la branche
? I don't think so.”

“The other genius trend we've basically invented—­well, maybe we weren't the absolute first to do this, but we were early adopters—­is the party shed,” Tom informed us.

“Voilà!” He pointed to what seemed like a place to store rakes—­a cute wood and stone structure that might have been a spring house in an earlier incarnation—­and flung open the door. “You're welcome!”

The shed was also lit entirely by candles and lanterns, and was totally adorable, if something of a fire hazard. A long barn table had been turned into a bar with charming antique glassware and pots of herbs lining shelves behind it, where a hot bartender flashed a handsome grin as he muddled mint in a glass pitcher. The party shed had its own Latin soundtrack, and a sexy, stylish vibe, as if Martha Stewart, J. Lo, and one of the Iglesias family of singers were cohosting a barbecue.

“The only problem is the actual goats,” said Tim, turning more serious. “My aunt in Vermont kept goats, so I know a lot about ruminant animals. I tried to explain to Gianni that goats eat
everything
. Roses, fences, hydrangeas, tires, furniture—­they'll mow it right down.”

“We discouraged him from investing a lot in flowering plants, which are pricey,” Tom agreed. “But he didn't listen, and he insisted on a twenty-­eight-­hundred-­dollar outdoor sofa from Restoration Hardware.” He shrugged nervously. “We put an eight-­foot deer fence up between the pasture and the house, but I already saw a few goats starting to chew it.”

“Hi there,” said a familiar voice. We all turned to see a girl wearing beige and a smug expression, with a notepad and pencil in hand.

“We just did a forty-­five-­minute interview with her,” whispered Tom, grabbing Tim and taking a left turn toward the bar. “See ya!”

“Hey, Eula,” said Bootsie. “I didn't see you on the party bus.”

“That's because I'm here working,” Eula informed her. “On a
Gazette
story about Gianni's chevre business! When you guys were redoing my living room today, I stopped by the newspaper office and the press release had just come in about this place. So here I am! Look for my byline tomorrow,” she added breezily, turning on her heel to go interview the Binghams.

“When is that Powerball drawing?” asked Bootsie, grabbing another drink from a passing waiter. “Because I'm starting to think if Eula doesn't win and leave town, I might need to do something that will land me in prison.”

“Hey, there's Abby from the club,” Sophie said, pointing out the long blond curls of the cute waitress, who was out of country-­club uniform tonight and into a sexy black knit dress topped with a tiny white apron. She was passing a tray of crab salad on a grilled polenta round topped with—­what else?—­goat cheese.

“Abby!” Bootsie called out, beckoning the girl over. “You're working for Gianni now?”

Abby looked distinctly uncomfortable, and a guilty expression appeared on her pretty face.

“Um, just for tonight!” she said, handing Bootsie a cocktail napkin along with the polenta. “And I might do some part-­time waitressing for him, if I can make it work with my club schedule.” She looked poised to take off, but she was too late, because Bootsie was aiming a laserlike stare at her that I was all too familiar with.

“You're not, you know, getting horizontal with Chef Gianni, are you?” Bootsie asked Abby.

Bootsie's got a weirdly accurate radar for even the most unlikely romantic entanglements, but in this case, I was worried about the same thing. Abby was far too cute for Gianni to have hired for her food ser­vice skills.

“No!” said Abby, looking embarrassed. “We just, you know, had some wine the other night, and he, um, asked me out to dinner. And to work at this party!”

“How old are ya?” asked Sophie. “Is it legal for him to date you, because that's super creepy if you're a teenager, and your parents would be real upset.”

“I'm twenty-­one,” said Abby proudly. “But we haven't . . . you know.”

Bootsie raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Okay, I kissed Gianni the other night, but that's all we did, and then he told me he could get me on his TV show!”

She paused for a second, looking nervous. “You won't tell my parents, will you?” she said to Bootsie. “Plus I have a boyfriend at school!”

“We won't say anything,” Holly told her. “But let me save you some trouble. Within three weeks, Gianni will be dating at least two other girls who work at his Beverly Hills restaurant, and he'll have you down at the airport bribing customs officials to bring in illegal salami. You need to go back to school and forget the TV show.”

“Okay,” said Abby, looking relieved. “I was getting stressed out about moving to L.A., anyway. It's really expensive there!” She paused nervously. “I guess I'll tell Gianni tomorrow night that I can't see him anymore. We're supposed to have dinner at his restaurant.”

“You might want to cancel that,” Sophie advised. “Take it from me, and I had to pay a life coach ten grand to figure this out, once you realize you're in a toxic relationship, you need to take the nearest exit ramp. I mean, I'm friends with Gianni and everything, but he's too old for a nice girl like you.”

“I hear what you're saying.” Abby nodded earnestly. “But it's just one meal, and to be honest, I've never been to Ristorante Gianni, and I'm dying to go! Gianni wants me to try some new spicy lobster pasta and some fancy one-­hundred-­fifty-­dollar bottle of wine. I mean, I'm in college. When am I ever going to get to try something like that? I'll dump him right after dinner!”

“
S
OPHIEEE!
”
SANG
OUT
Lobster Phil.

“Phil!” Sophie greeted her old friend, “What are you doing in Amish country?”

“I'm here as both guest and business partner,” he told us, munching a cucumber-­radish-­goat cheese hors d'oeuvre. “My associate Sweet Freddie McDonald and I are minor investors in Gianni's business empire.

“You're all looking beautiful tonight,” he added. Phil did have excellent manners, and a certain gallant style that was very endearing.

“Thanks!” Sophie told him. “I wouldn't have pictured you putting your money into goats.”

“This is just between us, but Sweet Freddie wants to take the Vegas hotel and restaurants in a new direction,” Phil said. “We're going less Jersey, and more upscale foodie. In fact, we're sponsoring the Fall Food Classic in Vegas, which gets all the celebrity chefs and is huge for prestige! Freddie says he wants the place to be more than just a drinks-­and-­slots kind of place. I mean, obviously we'll still be both of those, but we're determined to take our place to the next level.

“We're going to launch our new restaurant in September during the Fall Food Classic, and wait till ya hear the concept.”

We all fell silent, thinking. Holly and Sophie have invested in restaurants before, but honestly, none of us knows much about culinary trends, and as a group, we can't cook.

“Is it some kind of fusion food, like Southern cuisine meets South of France?” guessed Sophie. “Like, grits and cheddar biscuits combined with, like, steak frites?”

“Fusion would be fun,” offered Holly. “There's that one place in Vegas that combines Asian and Spanish cuisines, and it's got really cute lacquered red walls and delicious tequila drinks. Is your new restaurant, um, Moroccan meets Mexican?”

“I'm guessing all smoothies,” said Gerda. “Everything is vegetable or fruit in a blender. That would be new in Las Vegas.”

“Maybe the food gets delivered by Magic Mike guys,” said Bootsie. “That's what I would do if I were you, Phil. Or how about this: Strip on the Strip. And you get girls in bikinis to serve strip steaks!”

“I like where you're going with that,” Phil told Bootsie, “but what Freddie wants to do is way more upscale.” He paused for effect.

“It's gonna be organic! And Gianni's goat cheese is going to be the theme of the Food Classic's opening night! That's a three-­day event kicked off with a party for twenty thousand ­people at the Vegas Convention Center!”

He beamed at us proudly as we all pondered this silently. The Food Classic did sound like a really big deal. I mean, I had heard of it only because Sophie had pointed it out in the magazine at Le Spa, but still, they had promoted the weekend in a prominent spread, and any event that attracts that many ­people is obviously popular. Still though—­organic? Given my minestrone-­from-­a-­can level of kitchen prowess, I'm not one to judge current food trends. It seemed, even to me, that organic fare wasn't the newest culinary trend around.

“Organic food is gonna be everywhere at the Classic,” Phil added helpfully. “You know, organic chickens, organic meats, arugula and shit like that grown without chemicals.”

“Organic's been done to death,” Bootsie told him, chugging her drink. I gazed at her with some alarm. Probably dissing a possible Vegas mafia casino owner's big idea wasn't a great idea, especially out in Amish country, where there are thousands of acres under which a six-­foot-­tall blond tennis player's body could disappear forever, sowed into a field of pumpkins.

“Not in Vegas!” Phil told her, seemingly unoffended. “And not in my and Freddie's place.”

“It sounds real awesome!” said Sophie kindly. “And a real crowd-­pleaser. I mean, even in Vegas, ­people like to think they're doing something healthy.”

“I approve,” seconded Gerda.

“How about I meet you after the party tonight, and you show me where the Wine Mart is gonna go?” Phil suggested. “Nine p.m. back at the restaurant?” Sophie agreed, and Phil excused himself and headed to the bar.