maybe Arthur Quinn, maybe Poppy Morris.
“You better watch out . . .” The Salvation Army Santa’s tape was starting from the beginning again.
This time, Faith put the money for the check on the table and they put their coats on.
When she passed him, Faith shoved a five-dollar bill in the pot.
They were rolling out pecan shortbread cookies for an office party at one of the publishing houses when the phone rang. Faith grabbed it, hoping it was her grandmother, with whom she’d been playing phone tag since receiving the plaintive message about the closing of 106
B. Altman’s—or “Baltmans,” as Hope had called it when she was little.
But it wasn’t Granny; it was Emma. Emma sounding more frantic and flat-out terrified than Faith had ever heard her.
“I don’t know what to do! You’ve got to help me!”
“What’s wrong! Where are you! Emma, if you’re in any danger, you have got to call the police!”
“No, no! Faith, I’m at my wit’s end!”
“What! What is it!”
“The caterer I hired for the Stanstead Associates holiday party tomorrow night has been shut down by the Board of Health!”
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Five
This was serious.
“Michael thinks everything’s all set, and besides people from the firm, he always invites extras—people he wants to impress, important people. I’ve been calling every caterer in the city and everybody’s booked.
I’m desperate!”
Trying extremely hard not to feel slighted as a caterer, Faith worked to sound sympathetic. The important “extras” would no doubt be people essential to Michael’s political ambitions, and a wife who muffed a simple thing like an office party was not going to present herself as a strong candidate for pulling off state dinners.
“I know Have Faith won’t be able to do it. Of course you’re booked, but do you know anyone who could possibly step in? It could even be an outfit from Jersey.” Emma’s voice trembled.
Faith was enormously relieved. She should have had more faith. Emma assumed she was busy, as all the hot—and even not so hot—caterers in town were. And 108
Faith was busy. She was doing a lunch tomorrow and an after-theater dessert buffet in the evening. Saturday night, she had two dinners and a cocktail party.
“What time is it scheduled for, and is it dinner?”
“Six o’clock, supposedly after work, but no one’s going to be working much on a Friday this close to Christmas. What we’d arranged was hors d’oeuvres, then a buffet of more substantial food and desserts. But it can all be scaled down. The most important thing is to have a lot to drink. At least that’s what Michael always says.”
“I have a job, but not until later, and I think we can do both.”
“You! But that would be heaven! I never dreamed you might be able to do it. Come over and take a look at the place. I don’t think you’ve seen it. I’ll give you a key and then you can come and go when you want.
Oh, this is too good to be true! We’ll keep it simple—
things everybody likes: foie gras, caviar, festive things.”
Foie gras and caviar with toasted brioche and blinis being the Triscuits and Wispride spread of this crowd, Faith reflected. Obviously, money was no object, and it certainly did make things easier. She took down the number of expected guests and a few other details from Emma, then began calling her suppliers. By the time Josie returned from a lunch break of Christmas shopping, Faith had the Stanstead party pretty much under control. She was happy to be helping Emma out, but even happier to have the opportunity to get a good look at some of the guests.
Emma and Michael Stanstead’s rich young urban professional apartment, up in the Eighties between Fifth 109
and Park in a grand old prewar building, owed more to Mark Hampton than Pottery Barn. Faith looked around the spacious living room. The walls had been covered in heavy damask silk with a slight woven stripe that was the color of bittersweet in autumn. In addition to the grouped collections of botanical and architectural framed prints, there was a striking modern oil by Wolf Kahn over the fireplace. The seating was chintz, but comfortable. Couches to sink into and curl up on.
Large easy chairs next to skirted round tables piled with books. The lighting from the ceiling was soft and supplemented by table lamps. Another painting, a por-trait of Emma as a child by Aaron Shikler that Faith recognized from the Morrises’ living room, hung between the front windows. The entire apartment had been tastefully bedecked for the season. Swags of white pine and holly and pots of deep crimson cyclamen trailed across the mantel. More pine was fes-tooned over the doorways with shiny red ilex, gauzy silk ribbons floating from the boughs. There were flowers everywhere. She went to adjust one of the blooms—a white amaryllis, faintly edged with red—
that had fallen slightly to one side, away from a profu-sion of blossoms and greens in a large silver Georgian wine cooler. The flowers were replacing a Dale Chihuly glass bowl, normally on the pedestal. “Too horrible if someone knocked into it,” Emma had declared, cradling the fragile piece in her arms and putting it in one of the cabinets under the wall of bookshelves, which contained burnished leather-bound volumes, complete with an antique mahogany library ladder.
There were small white French lilacs in the arrangement and their fragrance suggested spring sunshine, not the slate sky outside. Looking up, searching the 110
heavens anxiously for signs of more snow, Faith pushed one of the drapes farther aside. The pale gold silk fabric was so fine, it slipped through her fingers like molten metal, not woven threads. She let it drop back into place.
The room was perfect. There wasn’t a single jarring note. Usually, she thought of rooms as backdrops for the food, settings in which a meal, the main event, was served. This room refused to be relegated. Soon it would be filled with people. You wouldn’t be able to see the intricate pattern of the huge Oriental rug almost covering the parquet. The bowls of Christmas roses and other more elaborate bouquets would be shoved to one side, displaced by plates with scraps of food, empty glasses. Yet, the room would still dominate.
Josie came in with a pyramid of fruit and stopped in the doorway.
“Yes, I could live here. Oh yes. Wouldn’t ever have to leave. Could sleep on the sofa. I’m definitely going to have to get me a place like this.” They both burst out laughing.
“Where do you want this?” She held the fruit on top of her head and did a passable Carmen Miranda.
“On the buffet, next to the fruit knives. It’s meant to be consumed. The comice pears are perfectly ripe—
delectable. I had one for lunch.” Besides the foie gras, caviar, and champagne, Faith had added a buffet with roast sirloin of beef with two sauces—creamy horseradish and portabello mushroom—garlic mashed potatoes, roasted winter vegetables, a pesto pasta frittata, and the obligatory salad of mixed baby greens. The desserts, an assortment of cheeses, the fruit, champagne, and dessert wines were at one end of the table; the main course occupied the rest. Howard, bless his 111
heart, would tend the bar, set up in Michael’s study.
Jessica, a graduate student at Columbia who was on Faith’s list of part-time help, would take care of serving the buffet. Josie and Faith would alternate keeping an eye on things in the kitchen and circulating with a few platters of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres. Josie had offered to do all the serving, knowing that Faith preferred to stay in the background, but Faith had refused. This was one party where she planned to circulate.