Rocky Mountain Getaway

by Cindy Myers

  Her mother’s floral dress looked surprisingly stylish, needing only a few pins at the bust to adjust the fit. The flat iron Faye Anne sometimes used to smooth her wigs added a little shine and body to Cassie’s short locks, and a few judicious snips of the scissors—another argument Faye Anne won—shaped her hair into a modish cut instead of a military helmet.

  But it was with the makeup brushes that Faye Anne proved a true artist. She chose soft neutrals and pastels to highlight Cassie’s surprisingly good skin, adding roses to the librarian’s pale cheeks and depth to her somewhat small, deep-set eyes. The result was no beauty queen, but a passable female, nonetheless.

  Faye Anne waited until she was done before she surrendered the mirror to the librarian. Cassie stared for a long moment, her jaw clenched, gaze fixed. She looked . . . well, furious. “Don’t you like it?” Faye Anne asked, when she could stand the silence no more. “I think you look wonderful.”

  “I don’t look like myself,” Cassie said.

  What could she say to that? Telling someone that not looking like herself was a good thing could hardly be taken as anything but an insult. “That’s all you,” Faye Anne said. “All I did was bring out your best features.”

  “No one will recognize me,” Cassie said.

  Again, Faye Anne didn’t necessarily believe this was a bad thing, but she couldn’t say it and not sound insulting. “They’ll be blown away,” she said. “You’ll be the center of attention. A true star.”

  Maybe it was this last sentiment that swayed the librarian, or maybe she’d had enough time with the mirror to grow used to the transformation. She shifted her gaze to Faye Anne. “Thank you,” she said solemnly. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me.”

  Faye Anne swallowed the lump in her throat. She could count her own true friends on the fingers of one hand, but at least she had fond memories of childhood slumber parties and evenings in college dorms when she and her pals had fussed with each other’s hair and makeup. As an adult, she’d shopped with other women, trying on clothes and sampling makeup at the beauty counters in department stores. Had Cassie truly done none of these uniquely feminine things? She patted the older woman’s shoulder. “I had fun,” she said. “And you look great. Are you ready for your big debut?”

  Cassie stood, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of her pink-stained mouth. “Make sure that cameraman of yours films my best side. And maybe, before you go, you could tell me where to buy one of those flat irons for my hair.”

  “You can have mine.” After all, it would be one less thing for the tax men to take if they caught up with her. And Faye Anne could leave town knowing she’d done at least one good thing during her stay in Eureka.

  “I thought I was ready for this, but now I’m not sure.” Danielle peeked out of the kitchen at the volunteers readying the dining room for this evening’s festivities. Lucas Theriot spread white linen cloths on the tables, and his mother, Olivia, came behind him and arranged little bouquets of silk flowers in a collection of mismatched cream pitchers she’d gleaned from her mother’s store. Others dusted the pictures on the walls or stacked menus or arranged place settings.

  “Think of it like any other busy night.” Janelle rubbed Danielle’s shoulders. “Do you think Faye Anne will be angry that we invited so many people?”

  “She said she didn’t care about the guest list. And we’ve got plenty of food, though everyone won’t get the same thing. She doesn’t care about the food, either—only the impression it makes.” That remark still stung. Why had she and Janelle worked themselves into the ground for the last few weeks if the food didn’t matter? Of course the food mattered! It was the only thing that did matter.

  “Everything’s under control in here,” Janelle said. “Let’s take a break outside.”

  “Good idea. A little fresh air would do me good.” She’d been in the kitchen since five-thirty, baking cinnamon rolls. They weren’t on the menu for this evening, but the combination of rich, vanilla-y dough and exotic cinnamon did more to soothe her frazzled nerves than any tranquilizer.

  Some of that soothing effect wore off when she stepped outside the restaurant, where more crowds of volunteers swarmed. “What is everyone doing?” she asked, unable to keep the horror from her voice.

  “We’re doing our best to turn winter into spring.” Barb Stanowski, her blond hair wrapped in a silk scarf and a pair of flowered gardening gloves protecting her manicure, gestured from the top of a small stepladder. “We’re wiring silk blossoms to the bare shrubs, and of course other people are shoveling away the last of the dirty snow. D.J. and some buddies from the road crew are going to lay some artificial turf, for a touch of green, and then we’ve got blooming roses from a nursery in Montrose, to plant along the walkway.”

  “But this is ridiculous.” Janelle scowled at the workers. “Roses don’t bloom here in April—and the grass isn’t green this time of year, either.”

  “And these aren’t even lilac bushes.” Danielle fingered one of the purple blossoms. “I think they’re privet. In any case, they don’t bloom.”

  “As soon as the sun sets tonight, the roses will freeze,” Janelle said. “And who is paying for this?”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Faye Anne Reynolds, her face half-hidden by oversized sunglasses, her blond wig covered by a straw sun hat, came around the corner of the restaurant. “This is a legitimate expense for the show.”

  “But you don’t need to do this,” Janelle said. “We’re not eating outside.”

  “The show always features exterior shots of the restaurant,” Faye Anne said. “We have to get the right look.”

  “But the look is all wrong,” Danielle said. “It’s a lie.”

  “You’re not going to make me believe you never told a lie.” An older woman in a matching straw hat came to stand beside Faye Anne.

  “Cassie, is that you?” Danielle stared. The librarian would never be a beauty, but with a new hairdo and flattering makeup, not to mention a pretty flowered dress, Cassie looked, well, almost normal. “You look very nice,” Danielle said.

  “I don’t like to dress like a librarian all the time, you know,” Cassie said. “I can have a life.”

  “Of course you can,” Danielle said, still dazed. She focused on Faye Anne once more. “Please stop this,” she said. “I don’t like how you’re portraying the Last Dollar.”

  Faye Anne’s smile never wavered. “Remember what I told you—it’s all about perception. If you can fake it well enough, you can control any situation.”

  “Some things don’t need to be faked,” Janelle said. “We have a real restaurant, with real, good food. And this is a real town, where we have snow on the ground in April, and where privet bushes don’t have lilac blooms.”

  Faye Anne shook her head. “You worry about dinner and I’ll take care of the production aspects. Everything will be fine.”

  Danielle, who considered herself the most nonviolent of people, had never wanted so much to slap someone in her life. But before she let her anger get the better of her, a red rental Jeep came around the corner and slid into the last available parking spot in front of the restaurant. The cameraman, Jack, climbed out of the driver’s seat, but the bigger surprise was his passenger. Cassie’s assistant at the library, Gloria, a woman so shy Danielle mostly thought of her as invisible, slid out of the other side of the Jeep and came around to stand beside Jack. She slipped her hand into his, and he smiled down at her in the fond, slightly possessive way of a man in love.

  “Now that’s interesting,” Janelle whispered in Danielle’s ear.

  “There you are! I’ve been calling you for hours!” Faye Anne spotted the couple and hurried toward them, her scarf flying out behind her as if in a gale. “I need you to shoot the exterior shots, but be sure to avoid photographing any of the mud or snow or bare branches, or anything that doesn’t shout ‘spring.’ And when you’re done with that, help clear out all these cars, and make sure the lighting is righ
t for the interior scenes, then you can fetch my luggage from Cassie’s house and—”

  “Faye Anne, stop.”

  She froze, mouth hanging open, and stared at him. “Jack, we don’t have time to waste, here. I need to leave town as soon as this dinner is over, so if you’ll just—”

  “No, I won’t just. Not ever again. You’re being ridiculous.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and for the first time she noticed Gloria, clinging to Jack’s hand. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Cassie echoed. “Gloria, what do you think you’re doing? Who’s at the library?”

  “No one,” Gloria said. “I quit.”

  “You can’t quit.” Cassie turned to Jack. “What is going on?”

  “You tell me.” He gestured toward the silk flowers in the shrubbery. “Why are you wasting time trying to control the weather when your own life is in such chaos?”

  Faye Anne stiffened. “My life is fine. I have a plan and everything is under control.”

  “Everything is not under control. Sneaking out of your hotel room in the middle of the night is not ‘control.’ Being in debt up to your eyeballs is not ‘control.’ Wiring flowers to shrubs isn’t control. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I am not being ridiculous.” She swept off her sunglasses and glared at him. “Or if I am, it’s only because television is all about the ridiculous. The over the top. The fantasy. That’s what people want.”

  “It’s not what I want. Not anymore.” His expression grew more stubborn. “I quit.”

  “You can’t quit! We have a show to film.”

  “Then find someone else to film it. I’m leaving.”

  “But your contract!”

  “My contract doesn’t require me to wire flowers to shrubs or risk my life hurtling down mountains in the back of a truck. It doesn’t include running from the IRS or lying to people. I’m done.”

  Her expression crumpled, anger replaced by confusion. “What will you do?”

  “Gloria and I are going to start our own business.” He pulled the library assistant closer. “We’re going to make travel documentaries, maybe visit refugee camps, or highlight small businesses in emerging countries. Work that’s interesting and meaningful.”

  “People don’t want interesting and meaningful,” Faye Anne said. “If they did, lowest-common-denominator reality TV wouldn’t sell so well.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” Jack said. “Worry about yourself. Take care, Faye Anne.”

  She looked like she was about to cry, but the moisture she wiped from her cheek wasn’t tears. “Is that rain?” she moaned, and turned her face up to the sky.

  “It isn’t rain,” Gloria said. She pulled her coat closer around her. “It’s snow. I think our blizzard is finally here.”

  CINNAMON ROLLS

  Ingredients:

  Dough:

  1 small potato, about 4 ounces

  ¼ cup milk

  1 large egg

  1 tablespoon sugar

  2 tablespoons melted butter

  One packet (approximately 2¼ teaspoons) active dry

  yeast

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 cup whole wheat flour

  3 cups white flour

  Filling:

  ½ cup white sugar

  ½ cup brown sugar

  2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

  1 stick butter, melted

  Frosting:

  ½ stick butter, softened

  4 ounces cream cheese, softened

  2 cups powdered sugar

  ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

  Peel potato, cut into 1-inch pieces and boil in salted water until soft. Mash the potato, adding a little milk or water from boiling the potato to achieve a smooth consistency.

  Stir milk and egg into the mashed potato. Add butter. Stir in salt and yeast. Add flour a cup at a time, beating to mix well. When all the flour has been incorporated, turn dough onto a floured board, or attach dough hooks to mixer, and knead for ten minutes.

  Rub some butter into a clean bowl. Turn the kneaded dough into the bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until double, about 1 hour.

  Punch down dough, turn out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle that measures roughly 9 by 12 inches.

  Combine brown and white sugars and cinnamon in a small bowl.

  Brush melted butter over the rectangle of dough. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

  Starting with one of the long sides of the rectangle, roll the dough up as tightly as possible.

  Slice rolled dough into 1-inch pieces and arrange, cut side up, in a buttered baking dish.

  Cover rolls with plastic wrap and let rise until double, approximately one hour. Or, put them in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, remove them from the refrigerator and let them sit about 20 minutes before baking.

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  Bake rolls 35 minutes, or until lightly browned.

  While rolls are cooling, combine softened butter, cream cheese, and vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar to form a smooth frosting.

  Drizzle the frosting over the still-warm rolls and serve.

  Chapter Eight

  “Was I a really awful person in another life?” Faye Anne stared out the window at the snow coming down in great drifts, as if someone had split open a feather mattress and was shaking the contents down over the town. “Is that why I have such terrible luck—to punish me for something I don’t even remember doing?”

  “It’s snowing on everyone, not just you.” Janelle refilled Faye Anne’s coffee cup. “You’re lucky enough to be here inside, where it’s warm and dry and there’s plenty of good food.”

  “Food I can’t film, because I don’t know where my cameraman is.” She slurped black coffee. She hated the taste, but all the things that made coffee taste good—cream and sugar and chocolate syrup—were too fattening to indulge in. “Jack left with the rental car and the camera and that woman.”

  “Gloria was my assistant.” Cassie, who sat across the table nursing her own cup of coffee, looked as morose as Faye Anne. “How am I going to run the library without help?”

  “You’ll find someone else to take the job,” Janelle said.

  “No, I won’t. No one will work for the wages I can afford to pay. And besides—no one likes me. I’m a terrible boss.”

  Janelle shook her head and moved on to the next table. Faye Anne went back to staring out the window at the snow. “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said. “I had everything planned to work out perfectly.”

  Danielle set a plate of cinnamon rolls between the two women. The mouthwatering aromas of cinnamon and hot sugar made Faye Anne feel faint. “What is this?” she asked.

  “A peace offering,” Danielle said. “Try not to be upset, but we won’t be able to film the dinner. The highway is closed because of the blizzard and we’ve got a ton of stranded travelers who need to eat. We don’t have time to worry about a fancy party.” She hurried away to see to other customers.

  Faye Anne stared at the pinwheels of sugar-cinnamon and pastry, thick white icing oozing down the sides. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t do the show without a cameraman. Jack was right. My life is out of control.”

  “At least you can have a cinnamon roll.” Cassie pulled off one of the colossal, gooey cakes. She broke off a piece and stuffed it into her mouth and closed her eyes. “I still don’t approve of those two,” she said after a moment. “But they do know how to bake.”

  Faye Anne’s stomach cramped. When was the last time she had something as rich and sweet as those cinnamon rolls? She couldn’t remember. She’d always been proud of her self-control, but where had that gotten her?

  The front door of the café opened, letting in a gust of cold-damp air and swirling snow—and two men in black suits and overcoats. They surveyed the crowded café. “Is Faye Anne Reynolds here?” one asked.

  Half the people in the room swiveled in Faye Anne’s direction
. She sighed. The back door was too far away, and the agents were blocking the front door. She’d never get far in these heels anyway. “I’m Faye Anne,” she said.

  The two agents strode to her table. One laid an official-looking sheaf of papers in front of her. “Faye Anne Reynolds, under authority of the United States government, we are here to take possession of certain personal property in payment of taxes owed.” He droned on about writs and laws and obligations. Faye Anne nodded glumly. When he fell silent, she said. “Bottom line—what are you leaving me?”

  “You’re allowed to keep your clothing and your wedding ring.”

  “I don’t have a wedding ring. What about my wigs?”

  The agent consulted his list. “I’m to take possession of any custom-made wigs valued at more than three hundred dollars each.” His gaze shifted to the top of her head. “You can keep the one you’re wearing.”

  He probably didn’t want to see her without the wig; she didn’t blame him.

  The agent consulted his list again. “I believe you have a Rolex and a diamond bracelet and earrings. I’ll need those.”

  Faye Anne unfastened the watch and jewelry and handed them over. “Fine,” she said. “The rest of them are boxed up at Cassie Wynock’s house. She can give you the address.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Cassie said. “I don’t want you touching any of my things.”

  They left, and Faye Anne sipped her cooling coffee and stared at the plate of rolls. The smell really was intoxicating. Danielle slid into the booth across from her. “You should eat,” she said. “You’ll feel better.”

  Mechanically, Faye Anne broke off a piece of roll and slipped it into her mouth. The flavors of cinnamon and wheat and vanilla exploded on her tongue. She moaned.

  Danielle pinched off a piece of roll, too, and nodded. “This batch came out really good. I used extra vanilla. And good butter—that’s key.”

  Faye Anne took another bite. The pastry slid down her throat, welcomed by her stomach. The food filled an emptiness she hadn’t even known was there.