“Because I’d prefer the mall,” Bernie said to the back of his head. “They have a sale on there at E.J’s.”
E.J.’s was a funky little shop that sold T-shirts and the odd sweater or two.
Marvin’s father grunted.
Bernie tried again. “I have a friend that teaches the chemistry of embalming.”
Nothing.
“Do you use pomade on your hair?”
“I don’t think you’re funny,” Clayton replied.
“Most people don’t,” Libby commented.
“Nice answer,” Bernie told her.
“But true,” Libby said.
Bernie sighed, sat back, and watched the trees going by. At least I’m not in the front seat with him, she thought. Things could always be worse. That was what her mother had always said. But then, they could always be better too. She glanced at her watch.
They had another hour to go before the repairman arrived at the shop. She hoped they’d make it back to A Little Taste of Heaven by then, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t. Whatever this was about had to be pretty serious, and in her experience pretty serious always meant time-consuming—extremely time-consuming. Of that she was sure.
Otherwise Marvin’s father wouldn’t be doing this. Normally, he didn’t even talk to her or Libby. She’d heard through the grapevine that he still wanted Marvin to marry Emily Funkenwagel. Her dad owned a chain of funeral homes. She was the heiress of the Funkenwagel Mortuary Places. Everything with Marvin’s father was all about the business. She felt bad for Marvin. There hadn’t been any goofing off time for him when he was growing up.
Bernie twisted her silver and onyx ring around her finger while she tried to figure out what this was about, but for the life of her she couldn’t. Oh well. She guessed she’d just have to wait and see. She bent down and readjusted the strap on her blue suede stiletto. The dratted thing kept slipping. But one thing she did know. Walking in the Oaks in these things was not going to be fun. If she had known where the day was going to take her she would have chosen a different pair of shoes.
The Oaks was the oldest cemetery in the surrounding area. It had been built almost a hundred years ago by a famous landscape architect and conceived of as a place where the dead could be buried and the living could come and visit them on weekends.
People did things like that a hundred years ago—linked the dead and the living. Unlike now, when people moved all the time and families, let alone communities, were fragmented. As a consequence, the old part of the cemetery had loads of winding paths that were way too narrow for cars. You had to hike up and down hills.
Bernie leaned forward and tapped Clayton on the shoulder again.
“What?” he snapped.
“Are we going to the new part?” she asked.
“The new part of what?” he demanded, turning back to look at her again.
“Car,” Bernie yelled as a Toyota came toward them. She could hear Libby shrieking up front.
“I see it,” Clayton told her as he turned his eyes back to the road.
Another person who couldn’t drive and talk at the same time, Libby reflected. At least she now knew where Marvin got his driving ability from, but that was the only thing he had in common with his dad. Bernie leaned her head back against the seat and decided that the only talking she’d be doing in the limo from now on was with her sister.
“So,” she said to Libby, “how are the chicken breasts coming?”
The chicken breasts were supposed to be made into a salad by now, but when she and Libby had left they were still marinating in their bath of yogurt, lime juice, cumin, and coriander. Some shops would just use precooked, prepackaged chicken breasts, but that wasn’t Libby’s style. Bernie smiled as she remembered the look of outrage on her sister’s face when the food salesman from Sysco had suggested it. You’d have thought he was asking her to use vanillin instead of vanilla or margarine instead of butter.
“I could call Amber and ask her to get the salad started,” Bernie suggested.
Libby didn’t answer. She probably hadn’t heard her, Bernie reflected. That’s because she had her nose pressed against the limo’s window. Bernie was just about to repeat her offer but decided against it. For some reason she had no desire to talk to Libby or anyone else in Clayton’s presence. He was, she reflected, like some negative force that just sucked the fun out of things. She’d noticed that Marvin was even more nervous than he usually was when he was around him.
The silence was beginning to get oppressive. Bernie decided it would be better to concentrate her energies on other things, so she sat back and closed her eyes and thought about how she and Libby were going to set up for the benefit at Just Chocolate.
Just Chocolate was obviously supplying the chocolate and they were doing the wine, but she and Libby were responsible for the food part of the operation. At latest count Bree Nottingham had sold over three hundred tickets out of a possible five hundred, but Bernie was sure that by the day arrived the event would be sold out. It was the perfect Valentine’s Day event.
She and Libby had the menu loosely worked out, but they had to refine it. And then they needed to figure out the numbers so they could phone their orders in. The benefit was only two weeks away and they needed time to prepare.
Of course they were doing the tried and true. Platters of strawberries and tangerine sections as well as baskets full of grape clusters and melon and mango slices. They were serving three different types of chocolate cake, not including cheesecake, all of them baked in heart-shaped pans, as well as eight varieties of chocolate cookies, among them chocolate cookies with black pepper and chocolate cookies with ginger, a combination she was particularly fond of, as well as a takeoff on a Linzer tart cookie.
Then they were making six different kinds of brownies, among them rocky road, cashew, mint, and double fudge. Just thinking about all the baking they had to do made her tired. But at least they weren’t doing pies or tarts. Those took forever.
Less obviously, she and Libby were doing figs stuffed with almonds and chocolate, a Portuguese delicacy. They were also doing chicken mole, a Mexican chicken stew made with about twenty ingredients, including chocolate, as well as a South American beef stew that used dark chocolate as a thickening and flavoring agent. With the stews, Bernie was thinking they should serve some sort of stretch bread to sop up the sauce.
Bernie thought again about what a tremendous amount of work they’d undertaken. They really did have to order and start baking now in order to be ready in time. At least they should. Fortunately, a lot of the stuff could be baked in advance and frozen, not that Libby would agree. Unfortunately, what with the oven and the building inspector and the construction, Bernie didn’t know how they were going to do that on top of their usual stuff, at least not if they didn’t want to work until three in the morning.
Bernie felt a stab of panic. What if the building inspector said they had to stop working until the exhaust system was installed? He had the ability to shut them down. Maybe she could bribe him. Ha. She wouldn’t know how to even start. Or maybe Bree could talk to him and plead their case. That would work better.
