Mistletoe Man - China Bayles 09

by Susan Wittig Albert

  Ruby and I exchanged startled glances. The tearoom had gotten off to a strong start because Ruby's friend Janet, an experienced cook, had helped us out in the kitchen. Two weeks after the opening, however, Janet had to go to Dallas to help settle her mother's estate. She'd only been gone a few days when we saw that, where the kitchen was concerned, we had definitely bitten off more than we could chew. Not that our menus were terribly complicated. We were open only for afternoon tea, which is pretty simple— scones, an assortment of sandwiches, a few cakes, some jam, and tea, of course. Lots of teas, herbal, black, green, flavored, you name it. Ruby and I knew we couldn't turn much of a profit with the limited hours and we were afraid that our customers would soon get tired of the restricted fare. But we rationalized the decision by reminding ourselves that we were just getting started. There was time to add a lunch menu when we had a bit more experience under our belts, when we gained a little more confidence in what we were doing. When we found a good cook to replace Janet.

  "Exactly how good are you, Ms. Kendall?" Ruby asked.

  "One doesn't wish to boast, of course," the woman said modestly, "but until quite recently, I worked in a splendid tearoom in Sussex called The Royal George. A lovely little place, right in the village High Street, owned by two very dear women. I did enjoy working for them. They were so very kind and attentive. Should you see fit to employ me, I'm sure you would find my work quite satisfactory." She paused and then added, "Although, as I said, one doesn't like to boast."

  "Oh, quite," Ruby said hastily. "Quite, indeed. Rather."

  Mrs. Kendall made a judicious survey of our newly renovated, newly decorated tearoom, with its stone walls, green wainscoting, chintz chair cushions and place mats, the baskets of ivy and philodendron hung from old cypress ceiling beams. Through the open doorway, she could see the sparkling, fully equipped kitchen installed at the behest of the Texas Department of Public Health. But from her look, it was clear that she was comparing Thyme for Tea with The Royal George and finding it wanting on several important counts. She sighed.

  "Well," she said matter-of-factly, "one has to begin somewhere, doesn't one? I've no doubt that we could work up a menu quite similar to the one we had at The Royal George, which enjoyed a brisk luncheon trade."

  I frowned. "I'm not sure a British menu would go over very well here. After all, this is Texas."

  "Just because one lives in Texas," Mrs. Kendall said loftily, "one is not required to behave like a barbarian. I'm sure that even Texans must enjoy a bit of civilized dining now and then, given the opportunity."

  Stung, I opened my mouth to retort, but Ruby interrupted. "Why don't we ask Mrs. Kendall, to make some suggestions about the menu," she said tactfully. "We can study them and decide whether we think they'd work." Her reproving look told me to stop behaving like a barbarian.

  "Whatever you want," I said, shrugging. I glanced at the woman. "You've got references, I suppose."

  'To be sure," Mrs. Kendall replied graciously. "But I expect you'd rather sample my culinary skills than read my recommendations. I should be delighted to prepare luncheon for you. At no charge, of course."

  "Luncheon!" Ruby exclaimed. "What a perfectiy delightful idea." She looked at me. "Isn't it, China?"

  "Well, sure," I said. I waved my hand carelessly. "Be our guest. Show us your stuff."

  "My ... stuff?" The woman frowned.

  "China means that we would love to sample your dishes," Ruby explained.

  "Well, then, I'll just have a look around." Mrs. Kendall turned and went into the kitchen, and we could hear the sound of doors opening and pots rattling. In a few moments, she was back. "It seems that you have most of the necessary equipment. I'll pop round to the market and pick up a few things. And if you have a moment, you might just step out to that lovely little garden and pick a few fresh herbs—basil and dill, please, and a bit of lemon thyme and parsley would be splendid." A watch was pinned to her sweater and she took it off for a look, exactly as Mary Poppins might have done. I almost expected her to click her heels and twirl an umbrella. "You may expect luncheon in... shall we say, ninety minutes." She turned and marched out the door.

  "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down," I said.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. "Pinch me. I think I'm dreaming."

  I grinned. "If she can't cook, maybe Sheila could use her on the police force."

  "She certainly has a managerial personality," Ruby agreed. "She'd take a bit of getting used to. But we need somebody experienced in the kitchen. If she can cook, she'd be the answer to our prayers. An angel from heaven, so to speak."

  "Rather," I said dryly.

  Exactly an hour and a half later, Ruby and I were sitting at a table in our tearoom, our lunches arranged attractively before us. I tucked into a savory sausage roll, creamy tomato soup with basil, and a dilled-cucumber salad. Ruby had soup and a garden salad, plus a shepherd's pie, made with ground beef, onions, and vegetables and topped with garlic mashed potatoes. We hardly spoke except to trade remarks like "Delicious" and "Superb" and (once, surreptitiously) "Supercaufragilisticexpialidocious." When we were finished, Mrs. Kendall, wearing a neat green apron over her tweed skirt, brought in a plate of cheese and fruit and three cups of Earl Grey tea. She sat down and spread two sheets of paper, neatly lettered, on the table in front of us.

  "For luncheon," she said, "I propose that we begin by offering Shepherd's Pie, served with soup and salad and crusty bread. We might also offer a sausage roll, also with soup and salad and bread. After a few weeks, I recommend the addition of a Quiche of the Day, smoked salmon on a roll, and a Ploughman's Lunch. Your kitchen is a bit small and will limit the menu, but these dishes are quite within its capabilities."

  "A Ploughman's Lunch?" Ruby asked. "What's that?"

  Over the tops of her gold-rimmed glasses, Mrs. Kendall gave Ruby a pitying look. "A Ploughman's Lunch traditionally consists of a hot roll, three slices of a good Stilton, mustard, a pickle, a pickled onion, and a salad."

  "I don't know about the pickled onion," Ruby muttered, but I could tell she was blown away by the woman's skill and experience. I was too.

  "And what about afternoon tea?" I asked, trying not to show how impressed I was.

  Mrs. Kendall referred to the other sheet of paper. "At tea," she said, "one can be quite creative without risking a great many resources. You're already serving the staples— tea sandwiches, scones and jam, cakes, and so forth. I propose to reorganize these same items around several traditional teatime themes. For instance, one might offer a Savory Tea—sandwiches and cheeses—or a Sweet Tea, which is miniature pastries with a fruit garnish. Both very simple but elegant. And for the youngsters, one might include a Mad Hatter's Tea." She folded her hands. "Alice, you know."

  "It's very British," I said to Ruby, sotto voce. "I don't know how it'll go over here in Pecan Springs."

  "But it's unique and different," Ruby said, also in a low tone. "I think our customers will love it. And they don't all come from Pecan Springs, of course." This was true. Tourism is the Hill Country's biggest business, attracting people from all over the world.

  "If you would like to talk it over privately," Mrs. Kendall said tactfully, "I should of course be glad to—"

  "No, no," Ruby replied. "We love your ideas. And your food." She gave me a meaningful look. "Don't we, China?"

  We hired her on the spot, of course. She had the required green card, so there was no problem with her papers. As an employee, however, Mrs. Kendall was a challenge, because she preferred to give orders rather than take them. What's more, she took only the suggestions she wanted to take, when she felt like it. But we had to admit that for all her highhanded ways, she was an eminently fair and reasonable person who did the right thing, at least as she saw it.

  And as a cook, she was indisputably without peer. She produced one tasty dish after another with aplomb, and she never looked ruffled or harried. In fact, her manner was so aristocratic and imperious that Ruby and I took to cal
ling her the Duchess—behind her back, of course. To her face, the only familiarity we were allowed was "Mrs. K." We knew from her employment application that her first name was Victoria, that she was forty-seven, and that she had been in the United States for four months. But that and her address (a small apartment a few blocks away) were the only facts we could ascertain about her personal life. Ruby had once joked that maybe she de-materialized when she left the kitchen and materialized again the minute she put on her neat green apron.

  But who cared what the Duchess did in her off-hours? She was exactly what we needed. We couldn't imagine what we had done before she showed up. We couldn't imagine what we'd do without her. Now, feeling grateful to her for agreeing to help me meet my obligations to the Christmas Tour, I asked about her holiday plans.

  "I have no plans," she said. "I have no family left, you see, and no one with whom to celebrate. I'm entirely alone in the world." She sighed heavily. "My husband is gone.

  My parents died when my sister Amanda and I were very young, and Amanda herself died ten years ago. I still miss her quite dreadfully." Another long sigh. "I brought her up, you know, after Mother and Father died."

  I could hear the sadness in her voice, and something else, as well. The Duchess, usually so crisp and precise, was uncharacteristically rambling, her words slightly slurred. Had she been nipping at the sherry, at two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon?

  "I'm sorry," I said, not knowing exactly what to say.

  She hiccupped so delicately that I almost didn't hear it, and I pictured her taking another sip of sherry. "My sister was so beautiful, and such a loving and generous person." Mrs. Kendall's voice became bitter. "Her death was an unspeakable tragedy."

  "I'm so sorry," I said again, with more feeling. I had a sudden vision of the Duchess sitting all alone in a drab, cheerless apartment, with nothing to do but sip sherry and mourn her sister's death a full decade ago. It was pathetic.

  I heard a sudden sharp intake of breath, as if Mrs. Kendall was trying to get hold of herself. "I apologize for having imposed my sadness and anger on you, Ms. Bayles." Her voice took on some of its customary briskness, and I could almost see her squaring her shoulders and putting on a stiff upper lip. "I'm afraid I must ring off now. I have an important engagement this afternoon."

  We said goodbye and I put down the phone with the feeling that Mrs. Kendall's afternoon engagement was with the bottle at her elbow. It must be terrible to lose a sister and even worse to live with feelings of grief and desperate longing for the rest of your life.

  • • •

  I tried calling Ruby again, but there was still no answer. So I spent Sunday afternoon doing the Christmas decorating in my usual haphazard, uninspired way, hanging wreaths and swags, arranging candles in trays covered with rosemary branches sprayed with fake snow, putting up a small artificial tree on the hutch in the dining room. I stood back to survey my handiwork, feeling that it all seemed— well, rather ordinary and unremarkable, hardly something you'd go out of your way to look at. I could imagine the Christmas Tourists shaking their heads and muttering critically to one another, and Rowena Riddle, frowning in disappointment. I sighed. Where was Ruby when I needed her? Where was Martha Stewart?

  Finally, in an act of desperation, I dragged in a pot of prickly pear cactus from the patio and looped it with miniature white lights. Then, on a whim, I put my cowboy boots—the ones I wear when McQuaid and I go dancing at the Broken Spoke—beside the fireplace and filled them with rosemary branches and some bright red chile peppers. When I stepped back to admire the boots and the cactus, I realized I'd accidentally discovered my theme. I took the pine-bough garland off the mantel and substituted a red-pepper ristra and a garlic braid from the kitchen, hung with a few ornaments. Voila! A Texas Country Christmas. A few miniature Texas flags, a ceramic armadillo wearing a Santa hat, Brian's toy gun and lariat looped around a grapevine wreath and hung with holly, and the picture would be complete. To go with the theme, I'd persuade Mrs. Kendall to try her hand at some Texas party foods—tiny tacos, red and green salsa, Fiesta pie, and tortilla snacks.

  When McQuaid and Brian got home, we put up the tree we'd picked out the week before and decorated it with the hodgepodge of ornaments we've independently collected over the years, half of which are broken and none of which match. When you marry a man, you marry his Christmas ornaments as well.

  And his dog. In the middle of the tree-trimming festivities, Howard Cosell, McQuaid's grumpy old basset, stumped in, sniffed happily all around the cactus pot, then lifted his leg. Of course, Howard has probably used that pot as a fire hydrant several times a day for as long as we've lived here, and nobody has ever said a cross word to him about it. But the cactus was under new management and Howard would have to do his doggy business elsewhere until the Tourists had come and gone. Explaining this to him wasn't easy, for while Howard responds with tail-wagging and eye-rolling enthusiasm to complicated sentences such as "Would you like to go for a ride in the truck?" and "It must be almost time for Howard's dinner," his vocabulary does not include the word no.

  But Howard Cosell's affinity for the cactus pot was a minor glitch in an otherwise merry Christmas-tree-decorating party, our first as a family. McQuaid and Brian and I ate popcorn and drank mulled cider as we worked, and told stories of Christmases past. When we were finished, Brian was given the honor of switching on the tree lights in the darkened room. "Awesome," he said when the tree was lit, and McQuaid and I, our arms around each other, had to agree. Everything was perfect—the cowboy boots, the lariat wreath, Howard's cactus, the Christmas tree. Even the ceramic armadillo looked right at home.

  "Good job, Mrs. McQuaid," my husband said, and kissed me. To the rest of the world I am still and always China Bayles, but McQuaid can call me Mrs. McQuaid whenever he likes and I won't complain.

  Just because my house was decorated didn't mean it was clean, however—especially after we'd dragged out the boxes of ornaments, tracked popcorn and tinsel across the carpet, and sprayed messy drifts of artificial snow on the windows. At eight on Monday morning, Brian went to school and McQuaid disappeared into his study to work on the book he's writing, a history of the Texas Rangers. At least that's what he's supposed to be doing with his sabbatical semester, although he's only produced about thirty pages of it. It's shaping up to be a controversial book, McQuaid tells me, and a great deal more difficult to write than he had originally thought. The only other important history of the Rangers is Walter Prescott Webb's 1935 book, The Texas Rangers, which J. Frank Dobie called "The beginning, middle, and end of the subject." Except that Webb's vision of his subject was colored by his admiration for these guys in white hats. He was a Ranger fan. He made them look good even when they were bad, even when their exploits included the murders of unarmed men and assaults against innocent citizens. If McQuaid actually finishes this revisionist history, he might be in for some serious flak from his law enforcement buddies.

  I tackled the vacuuming and dusting and straightening with enthusiasm. While I was working, I thought briefly about the bad old days, when I was still at the law firm. On Monday morning, I'd slap on my makeup, squeeze myself into a dress-for-success uniform, and tackle the Houston freeway system with all the aggressiveness of the Oilers right offense. At the office, still juiced from battling I-10, I'd bully the secretary into typing my brief ahead of anybody else's, then charge off for the rest of the day's confrontations before the bench or behind the desk. At the end of twelve hours, I'd still be at max warp. I rarely wound down, even on weekends. But I don't recall those litigious times with any nostalgia, believe me. I am physically and psychologically healthier now that I no longer have to torque myself up for my job as if I were heading into Desert Storm. I'd much prefer to be running the vacuum in stained yellow sweats and dirty sneakers than standing up before a jury in a power suit and high heels to defend a client who was probably guilty as sin. Household dirt is a whole lot cleaner than the other kind.

  After the downstairs
was as respectable as it was going to get, I took the vacuum and worked my way up the stairs and down the upstairs hallway. But when I got as far as Brian's bathroom, I found something that needed doing more than the carpet. There were at least three loads of laundry heaped on the floor, including (my nose told me) several moldy towels and maybe a dozen filthy socks. Take it from me—when you marry a man with a thirteen-year-old boy, the deal had better include a reliable washer and dryer and an ample supply of detergent and hot water.

  I was starting the second load when the phone rang. I went into the bedroom, picked up the cordless, and started back to the laundry room.

  "Mornin', China," Blackie said. "I've got a problem."

  "Haven't we all?" I asked, thinking that when I finished Brian's laundry, I'd better go over to Ruby's house. There was still no answer to my persistent calls, and I was getting a little worried.

  There was a click on the line. "Hello," my husband said cheerfully. "McQuaid here."

  "Ah, both of you," Blackie said. "That's good."

  "Excuse me, China," McQuaid said. "I didn't know you'd picked up the phone."

  "That's okay," I said, cradling the phone with my shoulder as I dredged one of Brian's muddy towels out of the laundry basket. "I'll get off the line and let you guys talk. I'm pretty busy just now." I shook out the towel and discovered one of Brian's large lizards. "Yikes!" I said, startled, and then, "Damn," because the silly thing had dived into the washing machine, which was half full of dirty clothes and soapy water. And then "Damn" again, louder this time, because there wasn't just one lizard, there were two, and the second was paddling around with his buddy in the soapsuds.