The Secret's in the Sauce (3 page)
“Darling, I know you’re anxious to get home, but a day, that’s all I’m asking. You can wait another few days.”
That was all she waited. Before I knew it, it was a week later and Henry was driving us all to DIA.
Little Kyle slept peacefully in his car seat, a gift from the Potluckers, while I sat beside him, gently stroking his silky head as his rosebud lips spread into what almost looked like a grin.
“He smiled!” I crowed to Mandy, who sat just on the other side of him. She giggled. “He’s glad to be going home.”
“I’d wish you’d let me come with you, to help.”
“No,” Mandy and Ray chirped in unison.
I looked at the back of Ray’s head, then at Mandy. “But how will you manage?”
Ray’s announcement almost stopped my heart. “It’s not that we don’t want your help, it’s that we don’t need it. My mother is meeting us at the airport.”
I fumed the rest of the way to the departure drop-off. I could just imagine Ray’s mother, Sandy, with my grandbaby all to herself.
The next thing I knew, we were at curbside with the trunk of the Lincoln popped open. Was it good-bye already?
“Let me go into the terminal.”
Mandy held the baby in her arms and kissed me on the cheek. “No, Mom, we’ll be okay. Besides, you’re not a ticketed passenger; they won’t let you through security.”
I reached for the baby and kissed his forehead. “Oh little one, your Mimi will miss you so much.” I looked back up as Mandy reached to retrieve Kyle. “Listen, I’ve decided. I’ll be down in a couple of weeks. I can stay as long as you need me.”
The kids exchanged glances, then Ray cleared his throat. “Appreciate the offer, Mother Lambert, we really do. But that just won’t be necessary. We’re going to need some time to ourselves.”
“To settle in,” Mandy said.
Ray nodded. “Yeah, we’ll call you when we’re ready for company.”
My heart lurched. “How long will that take?”
Henry opened the front passenger door. “Time to go, Lisa Leann.”
I could feel the color drain out of my face. “But . . .”
Mandy and Ray turned to leave, but Mandy paused. “I’ll call you when we get home, love you!”
I wanted to run, to hold her and little Kyle one more time, but Henry was ushering me inside the car, almost as if I was under arrest. All I could manage to do was wave before my vision blurred my family away from me.
Upon arriving back at our condo in Summit View, I needed a slice of chocolate cheesecake, which I vowed to myself to burn as Jane Fonda workout fuel, and half a box of tissues before I could calm down.
Despite my tears, I knew God had used this move from Texas to Colorado. I mean, if I hadn’t arrived in town when I did, the Potluck Club would have fallen apart, Goldie might have left Jack for good, Donna might not have ever found herself in Wade’s arms, and I doubt Evie could have made it to the altar with Vernon. Yes, God was using me right where I was, but how I missed my grandbaby.
After the kids’ departure I sat with Henry as I knitted a pair of booties. I looked up at my husband, who had not that long ago retired from a Houston oil company. “Henry, just out of curiosity, would you ever consider moving back?”
Henry glanced up from his paper. “Not a chance, Lisa Leann. This is our time.”
I felt my heart skip a beat. There was something about the way that he said “our time.”
I murmured, more to myself than to him, “Yes, our time.”
The Lord knows that through the years we’d let our marriage fall into shambles. We were just now beginning to rebuild. I studied Henry carefully as he said, “It’s been nice, you and me growing closer, as a couple, I mean.”
I suppose it was only my guilty conscience, but something in his eyes made me catch my breath. Does he know?
I smiled. “Yes, I’m glad for that.”
I returned to my knitting, my heart beating a little faster.
Secrets, I’ve always found, are so difficult to carry. But sometimes they’re a necessity.
I noticed Henry watching me. I put my knitting aside and stood up. “Ready for a slice of cheesecake?”
He nodded.
I practically bolted for the kitchen, but called over my shoulder, “Coming right up.”
Once behind the swinging kitchen door, I braced myself against the kitchen counter. No, in my heart I knew he couldn’t know the real reason I’d agreed to this move, and if I could help it, he never would.
I had to smile then. Who would have thought that I, Lisa Leann Lambert, would be so good at holding my tongue?
I was putting the dessert dishes away when I was, once again, struck by my own genius.
Of course, I had inspiration. You see, amid the congratulations I’d received about my new grandbaby, I also was getting a few calls congratulating me on the wonderful spread at the Vesey wedding that the Potluck Club had prepared. Come to think of it, I’d heard that Lizzie, the local school librarian, had teased about opening a catering business. Vonnie told me she’d even called it a catering party.
Joking aside, this was a great idea, and I always have a knack of not only claiming but implementing all great ideas that come my way, whether original or not.
This idea, though inspired by my friends, I would claim as my own, for not only did I have a commercial kitchen at the wedding shop, I had the know-how and I had the team. At last, I had a way to organize the Potluckers as their once-and-for-all leader. I quickly dialed Lizzie to tell her my plan.
After I spilled the details, Lizzie said, “Ah, great minds think alike, Lisa Leann. And I must say, your timing is remarkable. Just tonight, Samuel and I were talking about my retirement. My early retirement is, blessedly, not too far off, and I’ll certainly want something to keep me busy and supplied with mad money. Count me in. Let’s call a meeting with the girls. How about tomorrow evening?”
“What about Evie? Shouldn’t we wait and hold the meeting when she returns?”
“Not this time. Who knows where her head will be when she gets back from her honeymoon. For all we know, she may want to spend all her spare time with
Ver-non
.”
I giggled, very pleased to bypass the Potluck Club president. “You can never predict honeymooners,” I happily agreed.
The next evening, the Potluckers, minus Evie, met at my wedding shop to discuss the possibilities.
We were seated around my cozy front room, and I’d just put another log on the fire. I poured everyone a cup of Celestial Seasonings apple tea from my bone china teapot.
I, wearing a camel-colored cashmere turtleneck with matching wool pants, was beside myself with excitement.
It had been a slow day at the shop, so I’d spent the afternoon making a PowerPoint presentation, which now played on my laptop placed atop my marble coffee table. The girls watched, perched on the sofa and my wing-backed chairs, as I’d flipped through the slides.
The last of my bulleted points and pie charts faded as I pressed a button. A pink background with the words “Potluck Catering Club” splashed across the screen.
“Girls, we’ve got a name, we’ve got a kitchen, and we’ve got a plan,” I told them. “Who’s in?”
Vonnie, a retired nurse, raised her plump hand, looking so sweet in her oversized pink sweatshirt embroidered with hearts and butterflies, which I’m sure she purchased at Wal-Mart. Her graying blonde hair was swept up in a do that was held together with a clear plastic banana clip. Soft ringlets of stray curls framed her face. “But do we have a reason?” she asked.
Donna laughed. “Because we can?”
Vonnie lowered her hand and shook her head. “No, what I want to know is, what are we doing this for? This looks like a lot of work. I can’t make this kind of commitment without a reason. It’s not that I couldn’t use an extra buck, but I’m comfortable with the way my life is now. Why bother?”
I felt my brows knit together, mainly because I hadn’t tried Botox yet, though I was certainly thinking about it. “What about using our little business as a ministry fund-raiser? I mean, we could give 10 percent of our profits away to a good cause, and the rest could be divided among us.”
Lizzie got so excited I thought she would spill her tea on her gray velveteen pantsuit. She had a way of looking elegant without even trying. That soft gray had remarkable powers for bringing out the blues of her eyes while highlighting the silver in her short hair.
“Samuel says the church is looking at hiring a youth director. They even have a few candidates in mind, though the budget’s a bit tight. What if our new venture was able to help support the church’s youth program?”
Vonnie actually applauded. “The youth are our future,” she crowed just before taking another sip of tea. “I always say a church is only as strong as its youth program.”
The other Potluckers nodded in approval while I beamed. “Why don’t we test the waters?” I suggested. “Run a little ad in the paper to see if we get any calls?”
Goldie, still dressed in her work clothes, a light tan dress with a matching blazer with gold buttons, seconded my idea. “Yes, let’s test the waters. I mean, I wouldn’t dream of quitting my job with the law firm, but I love this possibility of helping the kids at church. I know Chris will help us with the legal paperwork.”
“That will save us a buck or two,” I gushed. “Wow, this is exciting. We have so much going for us, what could possibly go wrong?”
A few days after Vernon and I returned home from the paradise of the Bahamas, where we’d honeymooned for eight days, I had the girls over for some leftover wedding cake (still moist and delicious thanks to Lisa Leann’s freezing method) and coffee over at the house. Vernon wisely took off for the afternoon.
“I’m going to get in a round of golf.” Vernon shoved his arms into his leather sheriff’s jacket he’d retrieved from the foyer coatrack.
I placed my hands on my hips. “You don’t play golf.”
He smiled and then winked. “I don’t eat wedding cake and cluck with hens either.”
I’d barely kissed him and sent him out the door when Lisa Leann came swooping in, waving a DVD of what I assumed to be the wedding in one hand and carrying the thawed cake, protected by a bakery box, in the other. “Look what I haaaaaaave,” she sang as she crossed the front door threshold of my home.
I took the cake from her. “Are you singing about the cake or the video?”
Lisa Leann gave me a “ha-ha” and then followed me into the dining room, where I placed the cake box on the cherry dining room table that at one time belonged to my grandmother. It shone with the patina of time and Pledge and was adorned with soft linen, fine china, and polished silver.
I pulled the cake from the box while Lisa Leann fingered the tablecloth. “Lovely,” she said with a pat to the linen. “Always lovely.”
I looked at her. As usual, her red hair was styled to perfection and her makeup, which she would never leave the house without, was applied as though by an artist of Hollywood caliber. “Thank you.”
She gazed at me full-on then. “And look at you.”
I stood upright. “What about me?”
Before she could answer me, the doorbell rang. And before I could answer it, Lizzie and Goldie stepped into the house.
“Hello, hello!” Lizzie called out. “It’s us, Goldie and Lizzie.”
Lisa Leann leaned in to whisper, “You and Goldie pretty much have the same look about you, I’d say.”
I didn’t have to wonder what she meant by that; Goldie and her husband Jack have recently reunited after a brief, albeit long-timecoming, separation. However, I do believe that certain elements of marriage are best left unspoken.
I headed for the foyer. “Good afternoon, girls,” I called back.
They were coming out of their heavy sweaters, and I reached for them as Lisa Leann came up behind me. “Never fear, ladies! I brought the cake and the DVD.”
“The DVD?” Goldie asked, just as the front door opened and Donna walked in. Since my marriage to her father, I have insisted that she not knock when we know she’s coming. If we don’t know that she’s coming, that’s another story. After all, we are still in the honeymoon phase.
“What DVD?” Donna asked. She was as cute as always, her pixie blonde hair pushed away from her pretty face and—as always— dressed in comfortable yet tasteful clothes. Today’s attire was a gray long-sleeved tee tucked into what appeared to be new black jeans. She wore a multicolored belt with flecks of black and gray mixed in with red, pink, and turquoise.
“The DVD of your daddy’s wedding to Miss Evie, here,” Lisa Leann answered.
“What I want to know,” Lizzie said, “is if there is a DVD of the honeymoon.” There was a twinkle in her eye I’d never noticed before. What is it about . . . ahem . . . married coupling that brings out the devil in a group of women?
Church ladies, no less.
Donna blushed as hot as I felt. “T-M-I.” She threw her hands up in surrender. She nodded at me. “I don’t smell coffee.”
“I haven’t started it yet,” I answered, hanging up the sweaters I still had gripped in my hands.
“Allow me. Anything to get away from this topic of conversation.”
“Where’s Vonnie?” Goldie asked.
Lisa Leann raised her chin just a bit. “Oh. She’s going to be a tad late. She and”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“D-A-V-I-D were having lunch today.”
D-A-V-I-D, as Lisa Leann called him, is Vonnie’s birth son and— at one time—Donna’s love interest. Or, at least, Donna was his love interest.
“I heard that,” Donna called from the kitchen. I could both hear and smell the coffee beginning to perk. She walked back into the foyer, where the four of us seemed to be glued. “And . . . I can spell.” She gave Lisa Leann a cross-eyed look. “Since I was near-bout in the first grade.” She sounded like a mixture of Elmer Fudd and Jethro Bodine.
“Let’s go into the living room.” I motioned toward the opened doorway leading into the Victorian setting. As the hostess I needed to stay in control of my guests, two of which apparently needed to be kept under control.
As we moved into the room Lizzie spied the opened photo album I’d strategically placed on the coffee table before they’d arrived. “Oh, what do we have here? Why, girls, I do believe we have honeymoon pictures!” The others began to cluck around the book.
