A Catered Christmas

by Isis Crawford

  “That’s a lie,” Brittany told Libby as Reginald walked away. “Everything he said is a lie. He’s just jealous because he can’t get any business.” Then Brittany’s phone started ringing.

  “Shut that off,” Reginald bellowed as Brittany stepped away to answer it.

  The hell with the phone. Libby wished she could shut Reginald, Brittany, and La Croix off with the press of a button. She couldn’t remember when she’d been in a place with so many disagreeable people.

  Libby closed her eyes and massaged the nape of her neck. She hoped that Bernie had some aspirin on her because between the heat and all the arguing, she was getting a terrible headache. Maybe she should go to the bathroom and splash some water on her face—at least it would be quiet in there. She was trying to decide when she heard Pearl calling her name.

  She opened her eyes. Pearl was standing beside her, wringing her hands.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “Oh dear. I don’t want anyone to fight on my account.”

  “They’re not,” Libby tried to assure her.

  “But I think they are. And now I have to cook, and I’m so upset I can’t concentrate on anything.”

  Bernie leaned over and patted her on the back. “It’ll be fine,” she assured her.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to make,” Pearl wailed.

  “You’ll figure it out,” Libby assured her. “We did.”

  Pearl bit her lip. “I need to find my knives. Where did I put my knives?” And she wandered off.

  When she was out of earshot, Libby turned to Bernie and whispered in her ear, “This is the person you think is guilty of murder? Get real. She couldn’t kill a cockroach without apologizing.”

  “You should know that just because someone is mild on the outside doesn’t mean they can’t have an explosive temper,” Bernie whispered back. “Appearances can be deceiving.”

  “I never thought I’d hear you admit that,” Libby said.

  “You know what I mean. And let’s not forget what O’Brien told me.”

  “That’s his opinion. Just because he said it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “Given his job, I think you have to assume he knows what he’s talking about.”

  Libby shrugged. “Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. But as she watched Pearl scurry around looking for her knives, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t see her for this. “Anyway, we still don’t have any proof.”

  “No, we don’t,” Bernie agreed. “But that isn’t our job. Maybe Lucy will get her to spill her guts by rearranging all the silverware and not letting her straighten it up until she confesses.”

  “Ha-ha,” Libby said. “Very funny.”

  “I thought it was.”

  Libby was about to tell her sister that sometimes her sense of humor was way off base when Eric Royal and Estes came through the green room door.

  “They don’t look happy,” she said to Bernie instead.

  “They never do,” her sister replied.

  Estes blew his nose. Then he clapped his hands together and everyone quieted down.

  “All right,” he said. “Everyone listen up. We have ten minutes to airtime, and I want to go over some things with you. First off, Consuela and La Croix will be cooking against each other—”

  “But I thought I was supposed to be on,” Pearl cried.

  “You were, but we’ve changed the roster,” Estes said.

  “But you can’t do that,” Pearl protested.

  “Of course I can,” Estes said. “I can do anything I damn well please. I’m the producer.”

  “But I got myself ready to do this today.”

  Estes smiled. He’s like a dog baring his teeth, Libby thought.

  “Eric and I decided that La Croix and Consuela will make a more interesting pairing showwise.”

  “But that’s not fair,” Pearl cried. “I’m ready now.”

  Estes glowered at her. “I don’t care what you’re ready for. This is the way it’s going to be,” he informed her. “Understand?”

  “But—”

  “I mean it.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “This has nothing to do with fair. This has to do with what’s good for the show.”

  “But I expected—”

  Estes pointed to the clock on the green room wall. “We don’t have much time, okay? I have to go through a number of things. Now I want you to shut up. Go even out some things, empty some ashtrays, dust the floor moldings. I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t say another word to me until I’m done talking to everyone. Do you understand?” Estes spoke the last three words in such a loud voice that Libby wanted to cover her ears with her hands.

  “Well, do you?” Estes yelled.

  Pearl nodded. Libby tried to figure out the expression on Pearl’s face. Was it hate? Rage? Embarrassment? All of them? She couldn’t be sure.

  “What did you say?” Estes said to her.

  “I said yes,” Pearl whispered.

  And then Libby heard her mutter something else as well.

  She turned to Bernie. “Did she say what I thought she said?” she asked.

  Bernie nodded. Libby was not pleased to see that she had an I-told-you-so expression on her face. It would be weeks before Bernie stopped talking about this one.

  Estes pointed a finger at her. “Hey, you be quiet too.”

  Libby bit her lip. “Sorry,” she said as she contemplated what she thought she’d heard Pearl say. Maybe Pearl meant “I’ll kill you” as a figure of speech.

  Or maybe Bernie was right after all. She watched as Pearl walked over to the Christmas tree. A few of the lights were obviously askew. She just can’t resist, Libby thought as Pearl put her hand up toward the lights. It must be such a burden to be like that. She was bad, but she wasn’t that bad. At least she didn’t have to have her bagels in neat little rows and her coffee cup handles facing the same way.

  She was half listening to Estes yammering on about adhering to the schedule as she watched Pearl reach over and grab one of the Christmas lights. She shrieked and started twitching. Sparks flew.

  “This is not good,” Libby heard herself saying as Pearl collapsed on the floor. “This is not good at all.”

  Chapter 28

  “I’d say that ‘not good’ is a massive understatement,” Bernie muttered to herself as she pushed her way past Consuela, La Croix, and Brittany to get to Pearl. “Move,” she yelled. But no one budged.

  Consuela was screeching, La Croix was muttering, Reginald was shaking his head, and Brittany was already talking on her cell.

  Unfrigginbelievable, Bernie thought as she listened to Brittany saying, “You’ll never guess what just happened.” Just unbelievable. She’d almost reached Pearl when Eric Royal stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “What is your problem?” she demanded. “Let me through.”

  Eric Royal pointed toward the floor. “That’s my problem.”

  “Oh,” Bernie said as she spotted the puddle of water by the base of the Christmas tree.

  “Oh indeed. I don’t need you getting electrocuted as well.”

  “Maybe you should pull the plug.”

  “I don’t want to get shocked.”

  “You won’t get shocked.”

  “We should wait for the police.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” Bernie said, and she stalked over to the outlet and pulled the plug out. “See,” she said, turning to Eric Royal, “nothing happened.”

  She hurried over to Pearl. The poor lady still had the string of Christmas lights clutched tightly in her hand. She clearly wasn’t going to be worrying about evening up the silverware anymore. Bernie bit her lip as she surveyed the scene. The puddle of water might have come from someone accidentally overwatering the Christmas tree, but somehow Bernie didn’t think so.

  As her eyes moved over the scene, she noticed a ring of keys lying almost underneath Pearl’s body. Hmm, B
ernie thought as she caught sight of the initials PW on it. Pearl’s keys. Who else’s could they be?

  She must have had them in her hand and dropped them, Bernie thought as she reached over and picked them up. She expected someone to say something, but no one did. That’s because they haven’t noticed in all the confusion, Bernie concluded. Then before she realized what she was doing, she found herself slipping the keys into her pocket. As her father would have said, “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  She was patting her pocket when her sister joined her.

  “Maybe Eric’s right. Maybe we should leave this for the police,” Libby suggested.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Bernie said as she pried Pearl’s hand open.

  “What do you call that?” Libby asked.

  “I call it trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  The bulbs on the string of lights seemed intact. There wasn’t a loose wire. And then she saw it.

  “Look,” she said to Libby.

  “What?”

  “There.” And she pointed to the bare wire on either side of the bulb. “See. Someone cut the protective covering away. No insulation.”

  “Nice,” Libby said.

  Bernie was just about to agree with her when Estes came charging over.

  “This is terrible, just terrible. I feel as if this set is cursed.” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Bernie said.

  Estes glared at her. Bernie glared back. If they were going to have a staring contest, she was damned if she was going to be the one to turn away first. Finally Estes did.

  “This is an extremely unfortunate accident,” Estes growled.

  “I think someone did this on purpose.” Between the condition of the wire and the water on the floor, Bernie couldn’t see any room for doubt.

  Estes rubbed his nose with the back of his hand again.

  “Always with the accusations. Do you do this because it makes you feel important?”

  “That must be it. It’s nice to know that in addition to your other talents you’re a shrink too.” She pointed to the cord. “If you bother to look, you’ll see that someone cut the protective covering off the wire.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Estes scoffed. “The cord was frayed. Like I said, this show is cursed. Maybe I should get an exorcist in here.”

  “An exorcist. What a good idea.”

  “Sometimes these things help.”

  Bernie was about to tell him that the knife marks on the wire were clearly evident when Eric Royal tapped Estes on the shoulder.

  “We’re going live soon,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get everyone on the set,” Estes told him.

  “You sure?” Eric Royal asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Estes clapped his hands. “Everyone take your places, please.”

  Libby pulled Bernie aside as she was walking out of the green room. “I can’t believe we’re going on the air,” she told her.

  Bernie snorted. “Obviously you haven’t worked in the industry.”

  “But—” Libby began.

  Bernie put up her hand to stop her. “If you had a dinner for seventy-five and one of your workers died, what would you do? Exactly,” she said when Libby didn’t answer. “You’ve heard the expression, ‘The show must go on.’ Well, this is what it means.”

  Bernie looked around the set. The show was not going well. Actually, that was an understatement. Maybe this was a bad luck show after all. Maybe they needed to get a feng shui master in here.

  So far, Consuela had jammed the knife she was using to open oysters with into the palm of her hand. Blood had spurted out everywhere, including into the oyster stew she was preparing, which in Bernie’s humble opinion didn’t help its appearance any, but then Bernie had never been a big fan of oysters, or clams either, for that matter. Never had been, never would be.

  You could dress oysters up all you wanted, but they still looked like mucus to her, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, they had an unpleasant slippery texture going down. And as for cooked, the only good thing about oyster stew was the cream. Cream always made things taste better, and in this case it made the stew look better too. Of course, it didn’t look better with spots of blood floating around in it, but that was a different matter.

  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Consuela had spilled oil over the front burner of the Viking stove she was using and started a small fire. It wasn’t anything that big, but one of the crew had had to run in and put it out with a fire extinguisher, which ruined the mushrooms she’d been sautéing in the pan on the front burner. No. Life had not gone well for Consuela.

  La Croix hadn’t faired much better. He’d scalded the back of his hand when he took the Oysters Rockefeller off of their bed of salt, after which he’d dropped the plate, tried to catch it, and got hot rock salt on his pants and hands.

  Bernie decided his scream must have discombobulated the viewers out there in TVland. But maybe they liked that sort of thing. She noticed that most people liked to watch disasters, and this show was shaping up as one gigantic one. She wondered if Estes was sorry he’d insisted the show go on. He certainly didn’t look very happy.

  But then he really didn’t have much choice, Bernie thought as she watched Brittany get up from her seat. Now that’s odd, Bernie decided as Brittany started to sashay down the stairs. I wonder what the hell she’s doing. Then she looked at Estes. He was red in the face again, kind of a purplish red. Not good. Better to watch Brittany instead, Bernie decided. Watching Estes just made her nervous.

  By now Brittany was between the two prep tables. She paused to smile at the camera, then half-turned to Eric.

  “My dear man,” she trilled. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m just dying to see how Consuela’s Rock Cornish game hens are coming.”

  Given the circumstances, dying was probably a bad word choice, Bernie decided as she watched Eric summon up a twitch of a smile. He cocked his head and came out with a nervous whinny of a laugh.

  “But, Brittany,” he said, “you know the judges aren’t supposed to go down to where the contestants are cooking.”

  He’s doing fake-reasonable, Bernie decided. She wondered if he was fooling the viewers. Because he wasn’t fooling her.

  Brittany shrugged and kept going.

  Eric directed his gaze at camera two.

  “I guess the excitement’s gotten to her,” Eric said. “Isn’t that right, Bernie?”

  “Oh yes,” Bernie replied. Taken by surprise, she came out with the first words that came to mind. “The excitement here is palpable.”

  She could hear Libby tittering next to her. She kicked her shin. Libby jumped.

  “What was that for?” Libby said out of the corner of her mouth.

  Bernie covered her mike with the palm of her hand. “Behave,” she told her. “Dad is watching.”

  Libby covered her mike with her hand. “I am. What the hell do you think has gotten into Brittany?”

  Bernie thought about that for a moment. “Maybe she’s drunk,” she finally suggested.

  “Or in shock.”

  Bernie moved her ring up and down while she watched Brittany weaving back and forth as she walked. Her mother’s expression, “drunken sailor,” came to mind. “I think I’m going with my suggestion,” she told Libby, although after she’d said that she realized that Brittany hadn’t had time to drink anything, so maybe Libby was right after all.

  Finally Brittany got herself over to the table Consuela was working on. She leaned over her, ignoring Estes’s frantic motions from the production booth to get back to where she belonged. As Bernie watched, Estes started gesturing to Eric Royal to do something, but he seemed to be frozen. He just nodded and smiled and ran his fingers up and down his jacket lapels. Bernie went back to watching Brittany.

  She was gesturing at the Rock Cornish game hens. “Those look nice,” she told Consuela. �
��Are you planning to glaze them?”

  “It’s none of your business,” Consuela snapped as she elbowed her way by her.

  Consuela must be frantic, Bernie thought. She certainly had been yesterday and that was without someone dying ten minutes before they had to go on the air. Actually, put in that context, it was a miracle they were doing as well as they were.

  Brittany arched her back and fluffed her hair. “No need to get rude,” Brittany told Consuela. “I was just hoping you’d have some tips for our viewers.”

  “Who died and made you El Jefe?” Consuela demanded. And with that, she took a big bunch of parsley and a cleaver and started chopping.

  Brittany smiled. “Everyone gets nervous around this time,” she confided to the camera.

  Bernie groaned. If she were Consuela, she’d be doing something with that cleaver right about now, and it wouldn’t be something nice.

  “Is this the way they do it in New Jersey?” Brittany asked.

  Consuela didn’t reply.

  Brittany leaned against the table. Somehow her hip knocked against the platter that the Rock Cornish game hens were resting on. Everything went tumbling to the floor.

  Consuela picked up her cleaver and advanced on Brittany, who was walking backward. She banged into La Croix, who unfortunately was carrying his second attempt at Oysters Rockefeller.

  As Bernie watched, the metal platter flew out of his hands, went airborne, did a spiral, and came down. Suddenly there was rock salt and Oysters Rockefeller sliding down Brittany’s shoulders.

  Consuela started laughing. Brittany gasped and ran off the stage. Bernie turned to Eric. She was interested to see what he was going to say to try and rescue the situation, but he had apparently been rendered speechless. He kept opening and closing his mouth, but nothing came out. Well, Bernie thought, this is certainly turning out to be a night to remember.