One Foot In The Gravy (2 page)

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Authors: Delia Rosen

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I didn’t say anything. Once we’d hit the road, Thom had gone from griping about the party itself to the outfits we’d worn. I had prepared my defense in advance, figuring I was bound to hear her squawk about it at some point on the way out to Belle Meade. And same as when I’d seen the band logo on the van, I frankly understood her exasperation—although I wasn’t about to let her know that.
Uncle Murray had wanted the atmosphere at the deli to be what he’d always called Western casual. As long as the staff dressed neatly, he was satisfied. But it was easy to distinguish diners from servers in a restaurant, where the customers stayed put at tables while the waiters and waitresses came around and took their orders. At special events, it was different. Because partygoers moved around and circulated, they had to be able to identify the servers in a crowd. That meant uniforms.
I’d opted for basic black. Shirts and trousers for the guys, skirts and blouses for Thom, A.J., and me, pairing them respectively with honey gold silk neckties and feminine scarves of the same color and material. I told everybody they were free to choose their own footwear and tweak their outfits with whatever jazzy personal touches they chose, as long as they didn’t stray from the color combo.
It still didn’t go over well with the staff. Forget what I said about personal touches. They’d responded like I was forcing them into Sunday school outfits. And I admit their unhappiness surprised me. I didn’t see what was wrong with wearing black. In fact, I thought it was kind of cool. Johnny Cash wore it. The E Street Band. Angelina Jolie in
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
.
Anyway, after seeing how disgruntled they were, I’d decided to set a positive leadership model in catering couture. Besides adding a wide retro patent-leather belt to my getup, I’d squeezed into a pair of black sky-high heels that made my feet look sexy, my legs longer and my hips swingier . . . not to mention adding four or five sylphlike inches to my height. So what if they bunched my toes together and left them swollen red radishes? I’d had confidence in my ability to keep from screaming in pain till I got home and took them off. And bear in mind, I
was
trying to prevent a full-scale staff mutiny.
Unfortunately, A.J. had pushed—or maybe I ought to say pushed
up
—the bounds of professional attire a little too far south of the modesty line, wearing her blouse half unbuttoned from the top, getting plenty of lift from the alluded-to bra, and guiding the eye down the Major Cleavage Expressway with a string tie straight out of a Dallas Cowgirl pinup.
One thing, though. With the party barely under way, my tootsies were already sore from rubbing together. And since that probably
wasn’t
true of A.J.’s twin peaks, I felt it was just plain stupid of me to stand in judgment of their exposure level. Or even to stand, period.
I looked through the entry into the wainscoted parlor, where A.J. was offering hors d’oeuvres to the guests, including a short, roly-poly man who was taking in a choice view of her personal scenery.
“The girl doesn’t watch herself, she’s gonna spill out into his food,” Thom said. “That’s
got
to violate some health code or other, Nash. Don’tcha think?”
I kept quiet. At first, it was because I didn’t want to spur her on. But then I realized I knew the man.
“Hey,” I said. “That guy over there’s Hoppy!”
“Sure does seem to be,” Thomasina said. “Could a fella take any more time reachin’ for his weenie-wrap?”
I frowned. Being the perennial church bakeoff queen of Nashville—I kid you not—Thom knew everybody’s wife and mother and was consequently as plugged into the city’s social scene as anybody. “Quit playing dumb. You know as well as I do it’s Hoppy who owns the chocolate shop over on Charlotte Avenue.”
“Uh-huh. And so what?”
“I just wouldn’t have expected Lola to invite him,” I said, lowering my voice to a hush. “I’m not saying she’s a snob. But most of her other guests
are
kind of upper-crusty.”
“And what makes you think he ain’t?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, at a loss for words. Hoppy was a well-known penny squeezer. He would give away chocolates if it helped him socially, but that was it. He wouldn’t part with an extra shopping bag if a customer begged and pleaded for one, it didn’t matter that you were walking around his store with chocolates spilling from your arms and containers of dipped strawberries balanced on your head. I shouldn’t have needed a reminder that the world was full of rich, cheap jerks. As a former forensic accountant on Wall Street, I’d specialized in following the money trail of financial hotshots who were cooking their books on the way to their second or third or fourth billion.
I looked at Thom. “Okay,” I said. “What’s Hoppy’s story?”
“Hapford’s, you mean. His full name’s Hapford Hopewell Jr. The inventor of Hopewell’s chocolate patties.”
The ice cream treat that looked like frozen cow patties. They were a local sensation, especially among teens . . . or anybody with a juvenile sense of humor. “Wow, no
sh
—”
“Mind your cussin’ tongue.” Thom speared me with a reproachful glance, forget that I’d been speaking in a whisper.
“Sugar,” I said. “Wow, no sugar!”
Thom went on. “Downtown rents and overheads bein’ what they are, ain’t no way Hoppy could make ends meet without sellin’ a lot of them.”
“I thought there was a family fortune—”
“I heard that too.” Thom nodded, squaring her jaw. “That would explain how come he thinks he can treat customers the way he does. It’s the same to him if he gets one or a hundred walking through the door every day.”
“Sounds like you’ve had some run-ins?”
“I take my nieces in there for chocolate lollies, only place you can get ’em. He looks at us like we only carried Canadian money. He’s an a-hole, to put it bluntly.”
I have no patience for someone who’s entitled
and
arrogant, but I let it stand. Who knows what goes on inside anyone’s skull, even your own? Meanwhile, I wasn’t too sure that
I
could go on standing much longer. My toes had cramped up like I’d just run the River Kwai Half-Marathon.
Thom noticed me shifting uncomfortably. “What’s the matter?” she said. “You got quiet all of a sudden.”
“So?”
“So quiet ain’t your regular M.O.”
I shrugged. Couldn’t argue. “It’s my feet. They’re killing me.”
She stared down at them. “Wah-wah. I could’ve told you wearin’ stripper shoes was a bad idea.”
“Strip—Thom, these are dress pumps,
not
. . .”
She chopped her hand through the air to cut me off again, wiggling her foot to showcase her square-toed orthopedic flats. “Stop with the whiny excuses. Whatever happened to people takin’ responsibility for themselves?”
I raised my eyes from the black bricks she was passing off as shoes and looked her in the eye. “Same thing that happened to taking pride in their appearance.”
“Oooh, snap. I should’ve expected that’d be your attitude,” she snorted. “Well, I worked hard my entire life. After thirty years in the restaurant business, I know what to put on my hush puppies. I’d rather
be
professional than just look the part.”
I kept looking at her, caught by surprise. She seemed really aggravated and upset, as opposed to being just her usual intentional pain in the neck. “Thom, what’s wrong?”
“Forget it,” she said. “I just don’t appreciate people gettin’ all judgmental about my choices or my footwear.”
“Hang on . . . that’s unfair,” I said. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“You want to stick a label on me so you can feel superior, go right ahead and knock yourself out.”
“I wasn’t—”
Since there probably isn’t much chance our squabble would have devolved into an out-and-out catfight, I won’t exaggerate and claim we were saved by the bell. But we
were
interrupted by a glassy little tinkle from the parlor.
I turned toward the sound and saw Lolo Baker holding a glass dinner bell on the other side of the entryway. A slender, silver-haired woman in charcoal trousers and a paler-than-pale pink silk blouse, the mystery bash’s hostess sported a pearl necklace with an appropriately Sherlock Holmesish magnifying glass pendant, and stood ringing the bell amid a lively crowd of guests.
“Excuse me, friends!” She beamed a smile. When she didn’t immediately get everyone’s attention, the eyes narrowed thin as threats and the smile became a shrill piccolo trumpet. “Your attention
please
!” That did it. “Dinner will be served in ten minutes . . . and then our criminal mischief begins!”
Delighted murmurs swarmed around Lolo as Thom returned her attention to the goulash. She gave it a stir with her spoon, closed the lid, checked the burning Sterno underneath it, then sidled over to the tray of mushroom-and-carrot-stuffed flank steak.
A moment later, she cocked her head at an angle, scrunched up her face like a puzzled bulldog, and began looking around the buffet table for something.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“The gravy terrine,” she said. “I don’t see it anyplace.”
I didn’t either. But I did remember Luke carrying the gravy from our borrowed
CreepLeeches
van in its insulated container and promising he’d fill the terrine with it. “Hang on, I’ll be back in a jiff,” I said, and turned toward a hall off the dining room.
“Where you going?”
“The kitchen.” We’d pulled our vehicles up around one side of the house to its entrance and lugged everything inside. “Bet you the gravy’s still there.”
“All ri-i-ighteeo!” The faintly familiar, drawling male voice, as well as the lip-smacking that went along with it, had come from right behind me. “I do so love to have nice, thick, piping-hot gravy with my steak.”
Hoppy,
I thought, facing him unhappily. It hadn’t been more than ninety seconds since Lolo’s tenminute dinner alert. But there he was with his strong, craggy face, eager eyes, thick lips, and the word “Hoppy” embroidered on the handkerchief tucked in his blazer. At least it wasn’t accompanied by a rabbit or a picture of a cowboy.
“We’re just finishing our preparations,” I said, and struck my best professional pose. “Give us a few minutes and we’ll have everything ready for you . . . and the rest of the guests.”
I’d hoped Hoppy might take those last words as an unsubtle hint to scram. Instead, he leaned forward to study the flank steak, then straightened with a cringe-worthy wink. “No tastes? For a good neighbor in the downtown business community?”
I stared at him. Putting aside that he’d never offered me a professional discount at his shop, it was the first time Hoppy had let on that he knew me from a hole in the wall. “How about I give you the same kind you give me?” I said.
Hoppy’s mouth twisted in thought. “Well, now, I can’t quite recall—”
“Exactly,” I said, swinging into the hallway.
The gourmet kitchen was at the end of the hall past a door to a storage or linen closet. I heard guitar-playing from inside as I rushed closer, and then saw Luke, dressed in a black Western shirt and matching skintight slacks, strumming away on his Gibson acoustic beyond the entrance.
“You mind if I ask what you’re doing?” I said, stepping through.
He looked at me from where he stood beside a countertop. “I’m workin’ out tonight’s theme song, Nash.”
“Theme song?” I hesitated. “News flash! This is a catered party. It is
not
one of your nightclub gigs.”
I wasn’t nearly old enough to be Luke’s mom. But his baby-blue eyes always brought out my maternal instincts. He smiled, all innocence. “I just figured that if we’re gonna do these parties as a regular thing from now on, I could provide some special musical touches. Here, let me show you.”
“Wait a sec, Luke. I need to find the—”
Too late. He was already plucking out a chord. And singing along to it.
“It’s a deadly deli mystery, killer could be you, victim could be me. Time will tell, we’ll have to see, what happens when the clock strikes three . . .”
I held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Luke, please. Do me a favor and hit the pause button a sec.”
He blinked a little woundedly and aborted the tune. “Sorry. I figured you’d love it.”
“That day may come,” I said. “I mean, I think it’s really good.” Talk about feeling guilt-tripped. “But it’s way past three o’clock . . .”
“Right. That’s how come I was smoothin’ the kinks in here. I need a different word to rhyme with ‘see.’”
I cleared my throat. “Maybe we ought to discuss this later,” I said. “At the moment, I’m looking for the flank steak gravy. Have you seen it?”
Luke nodded and swung the guitar strap from his shoulders. He stood the instrument up against the counter and went over to a large stainless-steel sauce pot on the range.
“I was warming it while I composed,” he said. “Ought to be about ready.”

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