Pour the mixture into the prepared crust and bake for approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until the filling is set and browned. Cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Serve with sliced fresh fruit and a green salad with vinaigrette dressing.
Makes 12 servings
Hanna opened and closed her fists as she chided the male model. The gorgeous fellow, whose hair might have been a tad too black to be real, argued back. I wondered how Hanna's exhibits on Cattle-Rustling Meets Cowboy Cooking and Gunslingers: Their Gripes and Their Girls had prepared her for ordering models to strip. In any event, I certainly wouldn't want her judging my body.
The woman next to her on the bench was a bit younger. Leah Smythe, small-boned and delicate-featured, wore her blond-streaked black hair in a shaggy pixie cut. She had jumped up and was now holding out her hands in a pleading gesture to the model. Andr‚ had confided to me that Leah was the big cheese here today, the woman with the power: the casting director for Ian's Images. Leah also owned the cabin. When Ian's Images was not engaged in a shoot, Leah allowed Merciful Migrations to use the space for elk-tracking, fund-raising, and salt-lick distribution.
The beautiful young man who wouldn't take off his shirt looked as if he could use a lick of salt, especially on the side of a glass of tequila. My heart went out to him.
The man seated next to Hanna and Leah, photographer Ian Hood, had a handsome, fine-boned face, wavy salt-and-pepper hair, and a trim beard. Ian's photos of trotting elk, grazing elk, big-buck elk, and mom-and-baby elk graced the libraries, grocery stores, post offices, banks, and schools of Aspen Meadow and Blue Spruce. My best friend, Marla Korman - the other ex-wife of my ex-husband - had sent Ian a dozen elk burgers when he'd criticized her fund-raising abilities. He hadn't spoken to her since.
"Do you want this job or not?" Hanna brusquely asked the model. Seeming to take no notice, Ian squinted through the lens of a camera.
No, as a matter of fact, my inner voice replied. I don't want this job. No matter how much I tried to deny it, my I heart was as blue as the gas flame on Andr‚'s old restaurant stovetop. Quit fretting, I scolded myself as I counted out glasses and lined them up.
I sneaked another peek at the male model still being appraised by Ian, Hanna, and Leah. He was in his mid-twenties, indisputably from the Greek-god category of guys. His ultradark curly hair, olive complexion, and perfectly shaped aquiline features complemented wide shoulders above an expansive chest, only slightly paunchy waist, and long legs. But his handsome face was pinched in frustration. Worse, his tall, elegant body-clothed in fashionably wrinkled beige clothing - didn't seem too steady on its feet. Hands on hips, Hanna looked intensely annoyed. Leah sadly shook her head. Ian gestured angrily and squawked something along the lines of You have to be able to compete. If you can't compete, get out of the business.
"I hate competing," I muttered under my breath. Apollo-in-khaki put his hands behind his head and scowled. He snarled, "We're having a few problems. So what? I'm the best guy for this job, and you know it."
I smiled in spite of myself. A few problems? "Didn't your agent tell you about the cruise section?" asked Leah Smythe, in a pleading tone. Ian Hood popped a flash, then stared quizzically at the camera, a Polaroid. When nothing happened, he lifted the apparatus and thwacked it loudly against the bench. I gasped.
"Spit out the picture!" Ian yelled at the camera, then lofted it back to his eye. Another flash sparked; no photograph emerged.
From the cabin's far door, footsteps and the clank of tools announced one of the workers who'd set up the scrim. Tall and gangly, this fellow traipsed into the great room hauling a load of bulging canvas bags. He writhed to get loose of his load, then dropped the sacks and thoughtfully rubbed a beard so uneven and scruffy it looked pasted on his ultrapale skin. After a moment, he picked up a framed picture and centered it on the wall. I broke out in a sweat and turned back to the buffet.
Please, I prayed, no hammering. Unfortunately, the crack of metal hitting log wall conjured up my commercial kitchen-retrofitted into our old house - as it was being destroyed by our general contractor, Gerald Eliot. One of the reasons I'd been interested in catering here at the cabin was that, apparently, Merciful Migrations had hired Gerald to do some remodeling, then fired him before paying him a cent. I wish I'd been that smart. I'd told Andre I didn't mind dealing with models; it was remodelers who'd made my life a living hell.
As the hammer banged methodically, I pictured Gerald Eliot, his yellow mane spilling to his shoulders, his muscled arms broadly gesturing, blithely promising he could easily install a new bay window-my ex-husband had destroyed the original - over my sink. Won't take more than three days, Eliot had vowed at the beginning of August, with a wide grin.
The pounding reverberated in my skull. Eliot had brandished his power saw, destroyed the window's casing and surrounding wall, then accidentally ripped through an adjoining cupboard. The entire cabinet, along with its load of dishes and glasses, had crashed to the floor. Just an additional day of work to fix that, he'd observed with a shrug. No extra charge. Start first thing tomorrow.
I groaned, checked my watch, and turned my attention back to the tray. Swiftly, I plugged in the electric warmer and moved the cheesecakes on top. I was here; I was working. I would even be paid. And I needed the money. Before Gerald Eliot had sliced into our kitchen wall, the new catering outfit in town had cut my business by thirty percent. And unfortunately, on Day One of the two days Gerald Eliot had actually worked for me, he'd pocketed the full seven-hundred-dollar down payment on the new window installation. On Day Two, he'd covered the gaping hole he'd made with plastic sheets, hopped into his pickup truck, and roared away.
I straightened the row of spring rolls bulging with pink shrimp. Focus. At least at this cabin there's a kitchen - although it wasn't in very good shape, either.
"What else?" I asked Andr‚ cheerfully when I strode back into his domain. He was fingering the plywood on the wall beside the oven.
"Drinks, serving utensils, and ice." He looked up from the wall, his wide blue eyes merry. "Guess what I just found out? They fired Gerald Eliot for sleeping with a model!" I sighed; Andre loved gossip. It was one of the reasons he'd despised retirement.
I swung back out to the buffet with my newly loaded tray. Sleeping with a model, eh? At least he was getting some sleep. This was not the case with my friends the Burrs, whose house was to be the site for the second part of this fashion shoot. Neither one of them was getting much sleep at all these days, thanks - once again - to good old Gerald Eliot.
In April, Cameron and Barbara Burr had been convinced the sun room Gerald Eliot was adding onto their house would be completed by August. That was when Ian's Images was scheduled to set up the P & G catalog's outdoor shots, using as a backdrop the Burrs's spectacular view of the Continental Divide's snow-capped peaks. Gerald Eliot had already been working on the sun room for eleven months - admittedly, off and on - but what was left to be done?
Ah, but the windows had been delayed; for some reason, the drywall couldn't go up until the windows were in; Eliot had had a cash flow problem; he'd sailed off to his next job. Mountain breezes swirling through the house at night had forced Barbara Burr into the hospital - with pneumonia. Cameron Burr had moved into their guest house. The last I'd heard, Barbara's pulmonologist had put her on a ventilator.
Maybe when the P & G catalog was done, all of Gerald Eliot's former clients could have lunch and form a chiseled-by-a-contractor support group. But not today. Today, I was catering with Andre, watching models undress, taking food to malnourished, depressed Cameron Burr, trying to think of new ways to make money, worrying about my husband's conflicts with an arrogant prosecutor, and calling down to Lutheran Hospital to see if Barbara Burr had died.
I admired the beautiful dishes on the buffet. That was enough for one day, wasn't it? Don't ask.
2
The angry voices on the far side of the room intensified; I glanced out the picture window above the counter. A hundred feet below the cabin, a crowd of young men and women streamed through a stand of white-skinned aspens profuse with lime-colored leaves. The waiting models had briefly taken their nervousness outside, apparently, but now they were coming back. Clouds of cigarette smoke obscured their faces as they ascended the stone steps. Behind them, the rippling creek glittered in the morning sun.
I hustled back to the kitchen. I was surprised that so many young people had even been able to find this turn-of-the-century cabin. The six-mile dirt road that led to it meandered beside a long-abandoned stagecoach trail. In summer, the narrow byway alternated between treacherous mud and sandstorm-thick dust. In winter, the road was closed.
When I returned with the knives and forks, the popping noise of a battery-operated screwdriver ceased abruptly. Hanna's enraged voice grated through the still air. "One last time, do you want to do swimwear or not? You know the rules! We have to see your body."
I glanced around to see the Greek god slowly unbuttoning his shirt. The faces of the three judges swiveled; their eyes drilled into me. Embarrassed, I whirled and clattered together a batch of serving spoons.
"Go away!" Andr‚'s strained voice rose from the kitchen. "No food until later! Guard my buffet, Goldy!" A door slammed.
My palms itched. I glanced at the spread on the marble, then back out the window. Guard the buffet? How? The models, massed at the cabin door, were filtering inside. Beyond the aspens, a warm August breeze wrinkled the dark expanse of the creek, which bent in a ragged V-shape around the cabin. Sunlight played over a huge boulder abutting the creek. I smiled and briefly wished Arch were with me: My son would have instantly pointed out how much the enormous rock resembled an elephant. And it did. I clattered the ice bath onto the marble shelf and topped it with the gold-rimmed china bowl of butter balls. Carefully, I smoothed plastic wrap over the bowl and unloaded the pewter bread-and-butter plates. Next to these I set the container of red wine-pear vinaigrette. I picked up the tray and tried to summon up some of the old resolve I felt so lacking these days.
"You know, Bobby, we don't really care that you were out partying last night," Hanna was saying earnestly to the Greek god. "We don't care why you've gained ten pounds. And we can't care that you drank a lot of coffee waiting for us. Your stomach's not flat and your eyes are bloodshot. Bloodshot and bloated don't sell swimwear."
"You're too damned hard to please!" Bobby-with-the-slight-paunch shrieked.
I sighed, checked all the foodstuffs one last time, and squared the cheesecakes between the spring rolls and breadbasket. With infinite care I turned back, determined to invite Bobby over for a bite to eat and a glass of sparkling water.
Too late. Bobby, his beige shirt open, was pulling up his trousers. Now his much-criticized stomach hung over his undies like a hot-water bottle; his thighs jiggled as he grappled with the pants waistband. Clasping his trousers closed with one hand and his unbuttoned shirt with the other, he pushed his way clumsily through the rustic furniture. Suddenly, he tripped and flailed wildly.
"What is this damn thing?" he yelled as he regained his balance and savagely kicked a piece of equipment resembling a cannister vacuum across the room.
"Sorry, sorry," muttered the screwdriver-wielding construction worker. He loped across the wooden floor and yanked at the cannister's cord. "It's not our air compressor," he apologized to Bobby, who ignored him. "It was left here by Gerald Eliot." As if on cue, everyone groaned at the mention of the infamous contractor.
Bobby's no-longer-handsome face was wracked with fury and humiliation. As he rushed across the room, his ebony curls whipped behind him and his khaki shirt flapped open. What is the deal with this guy? I wondered.
"Please - " I began, gesturing toward the array of food.
"Forget it!" Bobby barked as he swept past me. Across the room, Leah, Hanna, and Ian conferred. Hanna bellowed, "Peter!"
Beside the windows, the scruffy-bearded handyman pushed the air compressor aside and plugged in an ornament-bedecked Christmas tree. Sparkly lights flashed as a breathtakingly tanned male model, the presumptive Peter, strode across to the bench and the trio seated there. He was dressed in a snowy-white shirt and blue jeans. His very straight, very shiny brown hair swung forward as he bent to say a few words. When the judges responded, Peter's plump lips curved into a confident smile. He flipped the glossy hair out of his eyes and handed what looked like an oversized scrapbook to Leah. She leafed through it briefly while Hanna looked over her shoulder. Ian Hood murmured to Peter, who quickly started unbuttoning.
This time, the white shirt dropped swiftly past muscled shoulders, a well-built chest, and concave, washboard abs. While the shirt puddled noiselessly on the floor, Peter undid his pants and dropped them. He hooked a thumb around the side of dark, shiny bikini briefs and struck a pose. I hastened back to the kitchen.
"Did you keep the marauders away?" Andr‚ regarded me impatiently, then turned back to the stove.
