Now, as I swung the T-bird through the open gate and past the high stone wall with its massive carved sign, Elk Park Preparatory School, a shudder went down my back. It was as if an invisible camera were filming my entrance: Get that woman out of here! She’s plummeted from the moneyed class to the servant class! It was not until I had wound halfway up the long driveway that I realized I had not yet come to the turnoff marked “Deliveries.”
The switchboard operator and admissions officer, my ad hoc helpers, were bustling about the school kitchen. With the elimination of the boarding department, the large kitchen crew of previous years was only a memory. In fact, the other staff person at the Farquhars, an eighteen-year-old named Julian Teller, was a casualty of this recent final closing. He had been one of the last boarding students and was now one of Adele’s charity projects. Since Arch and I had taken up residence, General Farquhar had kept Julian busy putting together state-of-the-art gardening equipment and doing other odd jobs. Julian had only eaten with us once, although Arch dutifully reported that Julian said my leftovers were the best he had ever tasted. Unfortunately, I had not had the chance to get to know the teenager.
But Arch had. He adored Julian. What Julian did, Arch wanted to do, what Julian wore, Arch thought was cool beyond words. Of course I longed to point out to Arch that Julian was cool but not rich, which was why the teenager had to take a live-in job for his senior year in high school. But I didn’t want to appear too preachy. And Julian was giving Arch diving lessons in the Farquhars’ pool. In the absence of Arch’s old neighborhood pals, Julian could at least be a friend.
I slipped on my apron and returned my concentration to cooking. A local restaurant had canceled out of doing the annual brunch only the day before. The headmaster had called me in a panic. Of course, I never said no to business. I had pulled sausage coffee cakes out of the freezer, then hastily prepared cheese strata and brought the cakes and the strata to the school. I had called Elizabeth Miller, who was not only Philip’s sister but also an excellent baker, and asked her to make half a dozen of her heavenly macadamia-nut coffee cakes.
My two ad hoc helpers had remembered to place the strata in the oven. The smooth egg-and-cream layers were beginning to bubble around lakes of melted English cheddar. We laid out thick slabs of bacon, made the coffee, and put the breads and sausage cakes in to heat. I was about to head out with the fruit when the switchboard operator announced that someone was waiting for me in the dining room.
I put the first batch of cantaloupe baskets on a large tray and swung through the doors to the vast space of the formal dining room. The darkness from outside loomed large through tall wavy-glassed windows. Three rows of crystal chandeliers shone brightly on polished cherry tables and cream-colored walls. How unlike Arch’s public school cafeteria it was. There, whenever there was going to be a meeting that included a fund-raising pitch, classroom banners with messages like We Can Do It! shrieked from every available inch of wall space. Here, all was elegance, with only a hint of what was to come from a slide projector and screen. Elizabeth Miller’s head poked out from behind the screen. She gestured at her array of cakes.
“Thanks for coming early,” I said to her head of golden hair that was so frizzy it always put me in mind of cartoons dealing with electrical sockets.
Elizabeth greeted me with a sideways smile and a toss of the head of frizz that revealed five-inch-long dangling silver earrings. She walked toward me in the toe-first stride favored by women whose only shoes are ballet slippers. Her casual outfit—black leotard, tights, midcalf-length Danskin skirt—clashed with the formal surroundings. But this was typical. Elizabeth Miller’s persona was more along the lines of Tinkerbell hits thirty.
“You can’t tell a soul I made these.” Her smile revealed slightly crooked teeth.
I said, “Your secret’s safe with me.” Elizabeth owned Aspen Meadow’s one remaining health-food store. She didn’t even sell white flour.
“Will we have a chance to visit before this thing begins? Once the headmaster starts his money pitch I just want to escape.”
I said, “I’ll bet.” The health-food store was not doing very well. The last time I’d been in for dried papaya, Elizabeth had tried to convince me I needed a fifty-pound bag of millet. When I told her she should switch to carrying gourmet items, she looked at me as if I’d suggested sex with an extraterrestrial.
Now she said, “Honestly. I have to pay for this meal, half of which I won’t be able to eat. Sorry, Goldy, nothing personal. It’s just that I’m into high-performance vegetarianism, and you know champagne kills brain cells.” She pointed one of her toes in front of her. “I just come to this thing to see friends. But, God! I hate to listen to six new ways we’re supposed to raise money for something the school just has to have. I end up leaving on a guilt trip. Have to unstress with coleus-leaf cocktail and chamomile tea for the next two days.”
“You could always give them a bad check,” I offered as I placed the last cantaloupe down with a flourish.
She said, “Not a bad idea,” and then regarded me with big blue eyes that reminded me of her brother’s. “Have you heard from Philip?”
I told her that I had and he would be late. I said, “Anything I can help with?”
She said, “No,” without conviction.
“Everything okay?”
She nodded. “Just fine.”
Now Elizabeth was pretending to center a cantaloupe. She said, “Did you have to cook a lot for this meal?”
“I made a multitude of goodies. Have the strata. It features high-performance cheddar.”
Silence.
I had a lot of work to do and could not visit when the guests’ arrival was imminent. Whatever it was Elizabeth wanted, I wished she’d get to it.
“Goldy—” she began. She tilted her pixie face, then pressed her lips together.
Something told me she was not here to talk about the school, or the food, or even to complain about the headmaster. I said, “Why don’t we sit down?”
“Oh, no,” she said as she bent down close to inspect one of the cantaloupe baskets. From the kitchen came the inviting smells of bacon and coffee. I knew I had to get in there and so did she. She said, “It’s just—”
“Just. . .”
“Oh,” she said with a grin, “I’m worried about Philip. I think he’s getting in over his head with some of his clients. I mean, are you all close enough to talk about this stuff? You know.”
People always say, You know, when you don’t have a clue. You know . . . fill in the blank. You know. . . make this easier for me by not having to say it.
The space of the dining room was intimidating. I leaned toward her in a confidential manner. “You mean,” I said, “does he tell me about his clients? Or are we sleeping together? Because the answer is no to both.”
She shrugged and said, “Oh no, that’s not what I was asking. You know.”
I still didn’t. I said, “You mean, like are we close enough to be thinking of getting married?”