Killer Pancake

“Goldy?” queried Julian. “Are you going to steam that sole up here or down there?”

“I’m going to start it here and finish it there,” I said. “It’s the last thing I have to do.” The steamer was full of water. I flipped on the burners, lowered the vat of asparagus soup into a box, and packed up the crudités. Within moments, steam bloomed plentifully and I laid the sole fillets close together on a rack above the bubbling water. When I turned around, Julian and Claire had disappeared. “What the—”

I knew Julian couldn’t, wouldn’t leave without helping me pack the supplies into the van. Buffet for forty was still just that, and it was not possible for one caterer to do all the hauling, setting up, and serving. But, I reminded myself as I vaulted out the back door to check the van, love had made Julian forgetful in the past few weeks. First he’d neglected to bring two out of three desserts to a fund-raising picnic for the ACLU. As a result, I’d survived endless jokes about no freedom of choice and had given the ACLU a hefty discount on their final tab. Julian, embarrassed, had offered to take the docked pay off his own. Of course I wasn’t heartless enough to do that. The kid was saving money to take to college, But I did promise him the next time he screwed up for the ACLU, I’d punish him with a John Birch Society barbecue.

I checked inside my detached garage. Julian’s Range Rover—inherited from former employers—sat stolidly next to my van, but neither Julian nor Claire was in evidence. I peeked around the back of the garage and remembered another example of Julian’s recent spaciness. Just last week he had managed to get into a car accident with a new client, Babs Braithwaite. Three days after Babs had booked me for her Fourth of July party, she and Julian had crashed into each other. Usually a careful driver, Julian had managed to be rear-ended by Babs in her Mercedes 560SEC. Babs said he’d stopped in the middle of an intersection. Julian said he thought he had his turn signal on. He admitted he’d been only half watching though, because moments before the collision, a giggling Claire had tried to cool off by putting her shapely feet out the window of the Rover. But it had been no joke when Julian had been judged at fault. The Mercedes had sustained a thousand dollars worth of damage, and Julian’s savings would be sorely depleted paying the deductible. It seemed that even when I tried to save him money, he ended up losing it anyway.

I touched the Rover’s bruised bumper, left the garage, and stepped onto a new flagstone path laid down by Tom. Even if finances were a little tight for proud, independent Julian, he would manage. He was rich in love, I reflected as I walked down the path. It led through a lush garden of perennials that Tom was somehow managing to coax out of what had been my barren yard. Julian had enthusiastically helped Tom compost, rototill, and plant. And owing to relentless spring snow, we were having a one-in-ten growing season. The magnificent show of yellow columbine, tiny blossoms of white arabis, and sky-blue bellflower campanula were Tom’s pride. But at the moment it was a floral display empty of Claire and Julian.

I pushed through my back door and ran upstairs. Julian really wouldn’t have brought Claire to his room, would he? I knocked gently and then peeked into the boys’ bedroom. Empty. Where in the world were they? I felt sweat bead my brow. Julian was becoming so forgetful that I was considering reneging on my promise to let him take over the catering business for the next few days while I prepared for and ran the booth at the food fair. But if Julian continued to mess up bookings, the catering business would be kaput. And I’d worked too hard for financial autonomy to allow my business to be threatened. No matter how blissful we were as newlyweds, I was not about to start depending on Tom’s paycheck. I clattered back down the staircase, removed the steamer cover, and turned off the burners. The sole had just begun to change color, but was not yet done. I headed down the front hall.

Julian and Claire were entwined on the living room couch. They were wrapped in a deep, silent kiss. Longer and leggier than Julian, Claire did not so much hug him as drape herself around his body. Embarrassed to be witnessing such passion, I hastily retreated to the kitchen.

“Okay!” I hollered diplomatically once I’d lifted out the steamer basket filled with sole fillets. “Let’s get this stuff into the van and see if we can avoid Speh the Hehs!”