Tough Cookie (4 page)

I pushed through the doors and looked around hopefully.

"Hello?" I called into the gloom. No answer. No Eileen Druckman and Jack Gilkey chopping egg roll ingredients. A single fluorescent bulb cast a pall over the cavernous space. Rows of steel counters lined with cutlery, pans, and bowls, alternated with shelves burgeoning with foodstuffs. My footsteps echoed and re-echoed on the metal floor.

Through the kitchen's swinging doors, noisy hustling and shouting was suddenly audible. I stripped off my snow-coated jacket and boots, opened my backpack, and slipped into the sneakers I wore for the show. Then I whipped past the walk-in refrigerators and deep sinks and pushed through more swinging doors to the restaurant.

The glare of TV lights blinded me. Mysteriously, the lights did not diminish the intimate feel of the dining room. Chandeliers elaborately twined with fake deer antlers, stucco walls stenciled with painted ivy, plush forest-green carpeting, a moss-rock fireplace with a glowing hearth - all these gave the bistro the air of a ritzy hideaway. Silk roses and unlit candles topped pristine white damask tablecloths. Along one wall, a blond woman was hanging an arrangement of artworks. Elegant Gourmet Restaurant at Eleven Thousand Feet Above Sea Level." No problem!

About five and a half feet in height, wearing his usual black shirt and ski pants, Arthur Wakefield tucked his clipboard and ever-present bottle of Pepto-Bismol under his arm and barreled in my direction, leaning forward at an acute angle. His taut, no-nonsense air made him look older than the twenty-nine I knew him to be. The director, Lina, a paraplegic woman who rarely left the production van, I had only met once. She gave her cues to the two cameramen and to Arthur via headsets. I had a full plate dealing with Arthur himself: He worried and complained enough for three people.

Clean-shaven down to the cleft in his dimpled chin, Arthur wore his ultracurly black hair combed forward, Roman-emperor-style. Dark circles under his eyes made me wonder about the hangover quotient. I braced to hear the latest crises.

"Here you are, then. Four minutes late." He tsked, then added, "Rorry Bullock was supposed to be here at seven. Nobody's seen her. Eileen Druckman should have arrived with her chef. So we're in a bit of a pickle. A gherkin, maybe."

"Just tell me what I need to know so I can get ready." I hesitated. "No Rorry?" Again, I felt guilt. I should have called her, maybe offered her a ride. . . .

"Do you know her?"

"She and Nate used to live near us. Rorry and I taught church school together." Glancing around at the chaos in the dining room, I had a sudden memory of the fun Rorry and I had had with our fourth-grade class, as we acted out the story of the Valley of Dry Bones. All of us had leaped wildly around the narthex floor once the boy playing Ezekiel prophesied. . . .

Arthur asked, "Did you know she was pregnant when the avalanche happened? They'd been trying for ages. Right after Nate died, she lost the baby." He sighed, and I wondered if the miscarriage, with all its attendant physical and emotional pain, was the reason Rorry had not responded to my letter. Why hadn't I followed up? "Everybody at the station loved Nate. And his shows were popular with the granola set." Arthur searched his pockets fruitlessly for an antacid. "So every year we do a memorial fund-raiser for him. The Federal Communications Commission only lets us raise money on air for ourselves. Sad, because Rorry needs money." He raised a black eyebrow at me. "I was hoping you, Goldy, could introduce Rorry. I wanted her to say a few words at the beginning of the show. She said no to me."

"I haven't seen her in a long time - "

He smoothed the top of his curly hair. "Just ask her yourself, will you? Do you have your script?" I nodded; he glumly assessed the top page of his clipboard. "Live fund-raising is not that different from taping. Just crack a joke if something goes wrong. Most important: If the phones stop ringing? We've got zip. If that happens, the camera will focus on the silent telephone bank. I'll cue you. Watch your screen. Be out here and ready to go at quarter to eight. Got it?"

I nodded compliantly. Arthur again consulted his clipboard. I gazed at the far wall in search of dark-haired, slender Rorry Bullock. What would I say to her? Why hadn't I known about the baby?

Arthur waved at the row of grills and stovetops along the back wall of the restaurant. Called the hot line, this was where I did my work before the camera. Then he pointed to a row of empty chairs against the far wall of the bistro. "That's where the phone bank will be. We'll get you wired when you come out."

I nervously made for the hot line. Five weeks earlier, Arthur had impatiently explained that broadcasting from! Killdeer presented too many technical problems to go live for all six weeks. But we were doing it today. Although the term for my persona on camera was "the talent," this talent was definitely afraid of committing more bloopers. I suspected I was the cause for Arthur changing from Rolaids to an extra-large bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Did that affect his taste buds, I wondered?

I When I finished arranging plates on the hot line's tile bar, I whisked back to the kitchen. Thank heavens: Eileen and Jack had finally arrived.

"Goldy!" Eileen Druckman called and rushed to hug me. "You made it." She had newly short, newly blonder I hair and was wearing a clingy royal blue turtleneck and black ski pants. She looked terrific. "Think the boys will be able to snowboard in this mess?"

"When did snow ever stop two fourteen-year-olds?" In the background, Jack Gilkey smiled bashfully as he looked up from chopping scallions. Jack was pale and thin, and possessed craggy good looks, sort of French Cro-Magnon man. His dark eyes were earnest, and his long, mahogany brown hair was woven into hundreds of thin braids pulled into a ponytail.

"Thanks for helping, Jack," I said sincerely. He nodded, and I wondered again why Arthur had been adamant that I should do the show alone, without help from the bistro's excellent chef. Jack had fixed a stupendous dinner for Eileen, Arch, and me at Eileen's condo, so I knew he was a great cook. Plus he was much cuter than I was.

Ah, well, who was I to decipher the mysteries of PBS? The three of us set to work filling glass bowls with black beans, shredded cooked chicken breast, grated cheddar cheese, and egg roll wrappers. I fished out my script, peered into the dark interior of the larger of two walk-in refrigerators, and retrieved a bag of delicate frisée greens and a head of crisp radicchio. Because I prepared only two longer or three shorter recipes per show, I wouldn't actually be tossing the salad today, although I would talk about it. Arthur had told me to instruct folks to use the meal's wine, rather than lemon juice or vinegar, as the acidic ingredient in the dressing. Easy enough, as were the crab cakes, which I had urged Arthur to include. They were made from pasteurized crab, and sent my clients to heaven. Make that my former clients.

"Any progress on getting your business reopened?" Eileen asked, once we'd set up the ingredients so they didn't obscure the large portable screen where I watched the camera's movements. The babble of voices from the telephone bank almost drowned her out.

I mumbled, "Not yet," and scanned the row of chairs set up behind the two cameras. I was startled to see the face and shoulders of Rorry Bullock emerge from just behind the screen. Now that I saw her, what should I say? I didn't know.

I sighed and turned my attention back to my work. Fifteen minutes to showtime. I still needed to be wired. A bubble of panic rose in my throat. Arthur nodded to me, then in Rorry's direction. While Jack and Eileen leafed through the script to make sure I had every single ingredient, I hurried over to the screen.

"Rorry?" I asked nervously. "Remember me? Goldy? Fellow church school teacher? Supervisor of kids carving clay tablets of the Ten Commandments?" One of our more memorable projects, the tablet-making had been surpassed only by the blowing of horns to bring down the Sunday school walls, a la Jericho.

Rorry turned and faced me. She was wearing a sagging gray sweatshirt, and looked uneasy and out of place. She was dunking a tea bag into hot water. Her look was unexpectedly defiant.

"I'm sorry," I stumbled on, wishing I hadn't tried to be funny. "This day must remind you of Nate - "

"Long time no see, Goldy." Rorry's face was unreadable, her tone bitter. She slurped some tea. "Don't feel sorry for me."

"I'm so sorry," I repeated, in spite of what she'd said. "Didn't mean to upset you - "

"I'm not upset," she interrupted. "Just puzzled."

. "About what?" My question sounded stupid, even to me. I shakily wired the microphone Arthur handed me through my double-breasted chef's jacket.

"Two minutes," he warned. "Mrs. Bullock, I don't suppose we could convince you to say a few words for PBS - "

"No!" Rorry's reply was nearly a shout. The hand holding the plastic cup trembled; pale green tea slopped out. Arthur rushed away.

"Rorry," I murmured. "I just heard about the, your, other loss. I didn't know about the baby, and I know you loved Nate - "

"Nate is the only man I've ever loved," she cut in fiercely.

Why the rudeness? I didn't get it. My cheeks reddened. Why did I always make things worse when I was nervous? "I know you did - "

Rorry lifted her chin. "You don't know a thing, Goldy."

She walked away from the screen, toward the spectators' seats. Slowly, she seated herself. I gasped, stunned. During my years of marriage to my first husband, Doctor John Richard Korman, a.k.a. The Jerk, I'd seen plenty of his ob-gyn patients. I could read them pretty well. Why had no one told me about Rorry?

Three years after the death of the only man she swore she'd ever loved, Rorry Bullock was nine months pregnant.

I didn't have time to reflect on Rorry and her condition, though. Arthur raced back and sternly ordered me to test my mike. I nodded, swallowed, and rasped, one, two, six. My tongue was dry. When Arthur moved away, I poured myself a glass of water from the hot line sink. Had Rorry remarried? Did she have a lover? What was going on?

Don't be preoccupied while you're on TV, everyone will be able to tell something's wrong, Arthur had warned when we'd first begun shooting. After the turkey-boning and sauce-spilling incidents, I'd concentrated harder. Now Arthur - clutching Pepto and clipboard-murmured into his headset about the sequence of shots. He rechecked the audio for the six-person phone bank. Then he trotted over and delivered a last set of directorial laws: "Never admit you've made a mistake. We'll break at the halfway point to show a clip from one of Nate's old shows. Watch the screen, watch your time, but don't be obvious. I'll signal you."

Finally he backed away. I blinked into the bright lights, forced myself to clear my mind, and shuffled through my notes. Do the egg rolls first. On the counter, the delicate wrappers lay next to the glimmering bowls of stuffing. Quickly, the crab cokes. Talk about how satisfying a hot, succulent shellfish dish is after skiing.

On the hot line's closest stovetop, a finished set of crab cakes was waiting for the final shot of the entree. Lost, do the dessert. I would have preferred a chocolate treat, but Arthur said chocolate was too tricky with dessert wine. So I was making gingersnaps. The wine Arthur had paired with them cost seventy-five dollars a pop.

Arthur morosely called for silence, then counted down loudly from five to one. The red light on top of Camera One blinked on. I took a shaky breath.

"Greetings from Killdeer!" I began, and hoped I was the only one who could hear the wobble in my voice. "A very special show today commemorates the loss of a dear friend of the Front Range Public Broadcasting System. . . ." And I talked on about how we remembered Nate, how special his show had been to those of us who'd been regular viewers. Then I gave the phone number where folks could call in, and segued into a cheerful review of the show's menu.

My screen showed the visual for the egg rolls. When the camera returned to me, I mixed the cheeses with the other south-of-the-border ingredients and swiftly rolled them into the wrappers. I slid the egg rolls into a deep-fat fryer that Chef Jack, hovering on the sidelines, had set to the proper temperature, and we were on our way. If I could only ignore the two cameras intimately focused on me, I thought, I'd be fine. I'm never happier than when I'm cooking.

I launched into my patter about buying crab and mixing it with easy-to-find ingredients. I smiled at the camera, mixed the ingredients for the sauce, and patted rich cracker crumbs on both sides of the soft, luscious cakes. Then I dropped them into the hot sauté pan with a tantalizing splat. The phones rang; I gabbled on about food and love going together.

Standing beside Jack Gilkey, Eileen grinned crazily when I commented that the Summit Bistro was a cozy, romantic spot to enjoy lunch during a day of skiing. Arthur shot Jack a dark look and swigged Pepto-Bismol. I rolled on.

You could offer a rare, old-vine zinfandel with the appetizers, and a sauvignon blanc with your main course, I sang out gaily. At this, Arthur, bless his heart, finally cracked a smile. Then he guzzled more Pepto. The camera panned to the phones, where three of the volunteers were chatting with donors. Off-camera for a moment, I scanned the crowd and bit back my second gasp of the morning.

Doug Portman, buyer of Tom's historic skis, had arrived. Looking older, pudgier, and balder than the last time I'd seen him, he waggled his fingers at me, despite the fact that I'd forgotten his free-food ticket. Just then all the phones rang. I made Rorry Bullock's face out in the crowd. Her eyes were slits, her face tormented.

Why? The fund-raiser was going well. Why was she so upset? Arthur wrote on his clipboard: 10 seconds to BREAK! I quickly moved the crab-cake pan to the sink and introduced a clip from one of Nate's programs.

Once the five-minute spot was underway, I sat, drank more water, and reviewed my script. A live show. While the audience shifted in their seats, my palms sweat and my heart jogged in my chest. Still, I was beginning to think I might survive this ordeal. I had just finished readying the dessert ingredients when Arthur waved his clipboard. 30 SECONDS!