by Doyle, Mae
I was going to lie to my gorgeous, sexy, handsome, kind, incredible boss and hope that he never found out.
“They’re new, so they probably didn’t know how it all worked.” The words slipped out of my mouth so easily that even I was surprised, but I did my best to hide it. No covering my mouth with my hand. No flushing. Certainly no surprised eyebrows shooting straight up onto my forehead.
He frowned. “You fully vetted them, I’m sure? This is an important luncheon and I need the money from these guests to help fund my research.” He was looking at me like he wasn’t really sure if he could trust me or not, and I didn’t blame him.
His investors were about to walk in here, expecting a delicious meal, and they were going to be served my infamous cinnamon stew. Infamous, not because it was great, but because I was pretty sure that it had the ability to land at least one person in the hospital.
Or the bathroom.
Or both.
I gulped. There felt like there was a rock sitting squarely in the middle of my stomach. Never in my life had I been a good liar. My grandmother had told me that my ears turned red when I lied, and even now, I reached up and lightly touched one.
The turkey earring I had in swung a little, and I noticed that Nick glanced at it before looking back at my face.
“Of course I vetted them. I’ll just…make sure that there aren’t problems in the future, but how about this — today I’ll serve. I really want this to go off without a hitch for you.”
Besides, you know, the hitch about the stew having a whole container of cinnamon in it. That was probably what some people would refer to as a hitch.
His eyes narrowed and I immediately remembered why he’d inspired such fear in me just a few days before. Nick was kind and friendly and helped pick up runaway pumpkins. Dr. Marshall, on the other hand, wasn’t someone to be messed with, and he was looking at me like he didn’t quite believe me.
“That’ll be fine, Katie,” he said, and my heart soared.
He. Knew. My. Name.
Before I could rejoice about the fact that my name had passed his lips, he continued. “But make it clear to them that next time they need to come serve it themselves or they won’t be hired, you understand? I’m sure that you’re busy and the last thing you need to do is stand here and serve stew and mousse for the next two hours.”
Two hours? I managed to keep a smile on my face and gave him a little nod. “Yes, sir.”
He gave me a nod, and just like that, the man who had helped me pick up pumpkins was gone. In front of me stood a rich, jet-setting, in demand doctor in a perfectly tailored suit. This suit was black, but he had a small pink and silver pocket square poking out of the jacket that matched his tie. His thick black hair was pushed back from his face, showing off his perfect features.
Again.
If I kept staring at him like that, I was pretty sure that I’d be able to, one day, draw him from memory. Nevermind that I couldn’t draw. I’d figure it out and then win a prize for having the most gorgeous model.
“My guests are arriving now,” he said, looking at his watch. “Linda will bring them back and you’ll serve when I give you the sign. Make sure to serve me last, and serve from the left. For the love of God, don’t spill, you understand?”
My eyes widened and I gave him a nod. “Yes. I got it. Don’t worry, Dr. Marshall.” Calling him Nick right now didn’t seem totally appropriate. I could definitely think of some inappropriate times that I’d like to call him by his first name, but I shook my head, trying to clear out that mental image.
He glanced at me like he wasn’t sure that he could believe me.
I didn’t blame him.
I wasn’t sure if I could do what he asked without messing up, but I was going to give it my best shot.
Chapter 8
Everything went fine up until it was time for me to serve the stew. I’d put the basket of bread out on the table, assuming that his guests were adult enough to serve themselves some bread without me handing it to them all, and I was pleased to see that I was right.
I wasn’t sure when people started feeding themselves and learning how to pass food at meals, but I was pretty sure that it fell somewhere between potty training and going to college.
At any rate, if this group of people had enough money to fund experimental medical research then I really hoped that they’d mastered sharing at the lunch table.
I stood in the back corner, trying to make myself look as small and ordinary as possible, and it seemed to work. The guests all came in and mingled before sitting down, but none of them really looked at me.
Their eyes slid over me like I was invisible, and for once, I didn’t mind. For two hours I had to stand there and be helpful, but I really just wanted to disappear. The sooner this was over, the sooner I could pretend that it never happened.
“What cute little pumpkins!” A woman near my end exclaimed, lifting up her pumpkin and turning it around like she’d never seen one before. “And look, our names are on them! Such great handwriting.”
She had to be a teacher. Nobody else would ooh and ahh over someone’s handwriting, and I made a mental note to tell Tiffany how much her hard work paid off.
“It’s nice,” the man to her left agreed, hardly looking at his pumpkin as he reached for his wine. Linda had brought in a few bottles as she walked the guests to the back room, and since Nick hadn’t told me to pour them, I’d just stayed in the corner.
Now he was talking about all of the ways that their most generous gifts would be able to help. It sounded like he was looking not only to fund a trip back to someplace in Africa, but some equipment that he was planning on leaving there when he came home.
So not only was he going to help out with surgery, but he was going to train some doctors there to continue working when he left? Yeah, he was a good guy.
Well, most of the time. I’d definitely seen some of his curmudgeonly side, and it wasn’t one that I really wanted to see again.
From time to time the guests would ask questions and Nick would fill them in, explaining and re-explaining everything that he’d already gone over. I kept my eyes on him, even though I didn’t understand everything he was saying, just because I was waiting on his signal.
And then it came. If I hadn’t had my eyes locked on his perfect face and the way he bit his lower lip when he was thinking hard about something, I might have missed it.
But I didn’t.
He glanced up at me, his eyes locking onto mine, then raised one finger.
No, not that finger.
His pointer finger. He raised it and then flicked it over to the crockpots, obviously clueing me in to the fact that it was time for me to stop being a statue and start serving the stew.
I jerked into motion, feeling like I’d been standing there for too long, and walked over to the table, acutely aware of how loud my heels were on the tile. I had a sneaking suspicious that if Alexis hadn’t flaked on me, she’d be in some kind of rubber soled orthopedic shoe so she wasn’t a total distraction.
As it was, my feet were too loud, too obtrusive, for the conversation to continue, and when I turned around with two bowls of stew in my hands, I was face to face with everyone staring at me.
And, let me tell you, twenty people is a lot of people. I felt my palms grow slippery, and I swore to myself, praying immediately afterwards to not only ask for forgiveness for saying the F word at work, but also praying that I wouldn’t drop the stew.
“This is a delicious,” I began, but my voice was cracking, so I cleared it and started over. “Sorry. Um, this is a delicious fall stew that goes great with the bread on the table. I hope you enjoy.”
It took me ten trips, two bowls at a time, to carefully carry all of the stew over to the table. I served from the left, like I’d been told, except for once when I forgot and then immediately corrected myself, almost smacking a very severe looking man in the face with the bowl.
He grunted and leaned back, just as I jerked
the stew away. It sloshed up the side of the bowl and I felt my stomach flip, but whether it was thanks to gravity or Jesus, none of it splashed out onto him.
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, quickly putting it down from the left. “Sorry about that. I really hope that you enjoy it.”
He grunted and I glanced up to see Nick’s eyes locked on me. I gave him the best smile I could, grabbed the last two bowls, and remembered to serve him last. Once everyone had a bowl I stepped back into my corner, trying to disappear into the walls.
“Thank you, Katie,” he said, looking up at me. “Why don’t you go get the mousse from the refrigerator so that it’s ready when we are?” His voice wasn’t unkind, not really, but I could tell that he thought that I was, at the bare minimum, a little dim.
“Of course,” I said, giving a little curtsy before dashing out of the room. As soon as the door shut behind me, I leaned against it, my heart pounding.
There were so many things for me to pick apart about that.
For starters, I almost smacked that man in the face with my cinnamon stew. Then I curtsied. Who the hell curtsies if they’re not on Broadway?
I wanted to stay in the room so that I could hear if anyone was going to die from a cinnamon overdose, but the good doctor had spoken. For just a moment, though, I leaned my head against the door, praying that I’d be able to hear through it.
Nothing.
Either everyone was already dead or they were loving the stew. I honestly couldn’t see much of an in-between.
“Okay, Katie, you got this. The hard part is done. You’ve either totally poisoned your boss and some of the richest people in the area, or you’re going to make them think that you’re not a totally incompetent baboon.”
That little peptalk helped, and I smoothed my skirt down before walking over to the refrigerator. The mousse was the only thing in there. Nobody else brought snacks or lunch to work, although I had been sneaking in a small bag each morning with a sandwich.
If I’m going to save enough for an apartment, I couldn’t keep spending money on lunch. My plan was was to start sneaking things into the fridge little by little until Linda just gave up and accepted the fact that there were going to be some food smells at work.
Now, though, I had mousse to hand out. They were all in fancy little martini glasses that made it look like they came from a restaurant straight out of the 90s, but they were cute, and the only type of glass that Tiffany and I had that many of.
Carefully, I pulled them all out, putting them on a tray I’d found on top of the fridge. It was heavy and solid wood, probably dating back to neanderthals, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the glasses tipping.
I’d covered each glass with plastic wrap and threw that all away before carefully sprinkling some of the crumble on each one. I thought that they looked great, even though they could have done with a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Too late now.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, I grabbed the tray and walked back to the door, leaning on it with my butt to push it open. For a moment, I thought that the glasses were all going to to tip, but I steadied the tray, breathing hard.
It was heavier than it looked. And I hadn’t exactly been hitting the gym recently, so already my weak little arms were trembling a bit.
The room was still silent when I walked in, and I avoided eye contact with everyone at the table as I slid the tray carefully next to the crockpots. I didn’t want to turn around, so I fiddled with the martini glasses, trying to look busy while ignoring the oppressive silence coming from the table.
Never in my entire life had I been a room with so much silence and so many people. My face burning hot, I slowly turned around to see what the damage was.
How many people had I killed?
Most of them weren’t looking at me. The teacher, the one who really liked Tiffany’s handwriting, though, was staring right at me. Her bright blue eyes looked even more icy and cold thanks to the white sterile room we were in, but she didn’t have a mean look on her face.
Holy cow, she was smiling.
“Dear, are you the caterer?” She asked, reaching out for me.
Like a little kid unable to stay away from the playground, I slowly walked towards her. “The caterer?” I shook my head. “No, ma’am, I’m not.”
She grabbed my arm, giving me a little squeeze. “Well, it’s a shame that they’re not here, let me tell you that. I’ve always told Nick there that he needs a little more spice in his life and not to serve food that was so bland, but he never believed me, so kudos to you, sweet child.”
I risked a glance down at her bowl and was shocked, not just to see it empty, but that she had actually wiped it clean with her bread. My mouth fell open and I looked back at her.
“It was good?”
I caught Nick frowning at me out of the corner of my eye and remembered that I had promised him that I’d vetted the catering company. “I mean, of course it was good. It’s a bold new company, just getting started, but known for wild flavors and incredible spices. I’m so glad you liked it.”
“Loved it. I’ll admit, I was a little surprised at the choice of cinnamon at first. It’s a bit of an unconventional spice to use in a stew, but it all worked out perfectly.” That was the man who I’d almost creamed in the face with the bowl of stew, and my eyes widened when I looked at him. “I hope that the dessert is just as flavorful.”
“I’m sure it is,” I promised them, backing away to grab the mousse. Before I could, though, Nick tilted his head at me and pointed down at his bowl. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing, but I was pretty sure that the bowl was empty.
Grinning at him, I nodded, then walked back to the table and started to clear the bowls. Most everyone had eaten everything in it, but there were a few people who hadn’t.
I guess cinnamon isn’t for everyone. Maybe they’d like the mousse better.
“So this is a pumpkin mousse with a graham cracker crumble on top. Don’t worry, those of you who aren’t a huge fan of cinnamon, this doesn’t have any. It does have delicious brown sugar, though, so enjoy.”
With a flourish, I set the last mousse down in front of Nick. He glanced down at it then up at me, his mouth quirked up a bit in a smile. “I’m sure that most of us here will want to know the name of the caterer, Katie. Do you mind telling me who exactly you hired?”
There it was.
How many times was this man going to back me into a corner and force me to lie to him? I didn’t want to keep lying to him, but he was making it impossible for me to tell the truth if I wanted to keep my job.
“Like I said, they’re really new,” I said, trying to think fast, “so don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard of them. I only knew about them thanks to my friend, Tiffany. She’s in real estate, so she knows everyone.”
They were all looking at me, all waiting on me to stop blathering and tell them who made the cinnamon stew. I hated being the center of attention, hated everything about having people looking at me, and I felt sweaty.
But only around my hips and thighs. Maybe the wool skirt wasn’t the best option when I was going to be front and center. Wiping my palms on it, I tried to think fast.
“Like I said,” I began, but Nick cut me off.
“You said that they’re new, Katie, we know. And, as your boss, I want to know the name of the catering company, so please tell me. Right now.”
Chapter 9
“You told him what?” Tiffany shrieked, launching a pillow at me from across the room. It hit me square in the chest, but only because I flung my arms open at the last possible second to keep her from knocking the glasses of wine I held out of my hands.
“I told him it was Tasty Foods Catering Company,” I repeated, stalking across the room to hand her her wine before settling down next to her and pulling my legs up to curl up on the sofa. “I panicked, okay?”
“Tasty. Foods. I thought that Marshall Medical hired you as a creative director, and the best y
ou could come up with on the spot was Tasty Foods?” Tiffany laughed and took a sip of her wine. “At least you won’t have to worry about him suspecting you of lying to him, because nobody in their right mind would name their catering company that, and you are, obviously, in your right mind.”
“Am I though?” The wine was a merlot that she’d stored in the cupboard for so long that she’d forgotten about it, so it wasn’t exactly vintage, but it was a lot older than most of the stuff we drank. I let the flavor spread across my tongue while I thought about the look on his face when I’d told him the made up name.
Surprise, sure. Shock, definitely. There may have been a bit of disbelief on his face, but I couldn’t quite tell. I hoped not.
She looked at me over her glass and I continued. “I mean, really. I lied to him about the existence of the catering company, almost killed everyone there with cinnamon, and then dropped half of your martini glasses.”
“I’m still angry about that, you know,” she said, raising her eyebrows at me to let me know that she was not really angry. Not really.
“I did you a favor by cleaning out more space in your cupboards. I’m basically helping you Marie Kondo your place before I go.”
“Does Katie bring me joy?” She asked, tilting her head as she looked at me. “Not really, not right now.”
“Mean!” I took a gulp of my wine and leaned against her, resting my head on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry about the glasses. And crashing here for so long. And using your cinnamon, although I checked the bottle and it expired like…two years ago.”
“Cinnamon doesn’t expire,” she said, waving her hand in the air. “And it’s all in the past, don’t worry. You have nothing to apologize for, but when your new catering company takes off, I do want you to replace my glasses.”
I scoffed. “There is no catering company, and you know it. That was my Hail Mary, my only way to save my butt. The next time I have to hire someone for him, I’m going to make sure that I hire a real company.”