Kaye Dacus - Menu for Romance

One of the staffers met them at the door to the flagstone terrace. “You should have called one of us, Mrs. O’Hara. You shouldn’t be pushing this by yourself.” The young woman took over and pushed Major behind his mother toward one of the farthest-away tables.

He loved being referred to as this, as if he were nothing more than a roasted turkey or sack of flour.

Ma’s card-playing friends all came over to examine the cuts and bruises on Major’s face, to poke at the ACE bandages covering the lower portion of his left leg, and to beg him to lift his T-shirt to show them the wrapping around his chest. Okay. Being called this wasn’t so bad, comparatively.

The chicken salad on croissants, fruit, and potato salad were a bit cliché for a springtime alfresco meal; but after the bland food at the hospital for the past two days, nothing had tasted better to him in a long time.

After everyone finished eating and dispersed to different activities, Ma pushed him over to a separate, somewhat secluded area of the patio, partially shaded by a pergola and magnolia trees at three corners. With a fireplace and the privacy the surrounding raised planters gave it from the terrace, he could almost pretend they were at a park instead of an assisted-living facility for the psychologically challenged.

Ma sat at one of the two small tables and fanned herself with a lace hankie. He flashed back to his childhood. For as long as he could remember, she’d always carried a handkerchief instead of disposable tissues. It was more ladylike to use a hankie than a piece of flimsy paper, she’d explained to him when he’d asked about it at age eleven.

“How did you do it all those years?” He manipulated the wheels of the chair until he faced her squarely.

“Do what, Danny?”

“Raise me. Put up with me. Support us. Hold yourself together until I was old enough to take care of both of us.” Emotion shredded his voice into hoarse shards.

She shrugged. “I just had to. You were a little boy.” She patted her forehead with her fingertips. “I had to think about things because you couldn’t do it and because I knew they’d take you away from me. That was the worst time, when they took you away from me.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to set the fire, Danny. I didn’t mean to.”

He stroked her arm until she started to calm down. “I know you didn’t. You couldn’t help it. Flame has always fascinated you. Like a moth.” He grinned. “You can’t stay away from it.”

“But I was supposed to because you could be hurt in a fire, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Of course not. You’ve always protected me, Ma. And I’ve never told you how much that means to me. How much I love you for that.”

“Fssh.” She waved her hand. “You tell me you love me all the time.”

“I may say the words, but I don’t always show it. I’m sorry I left you on your own when I went to New York, that I didn’t make more of an effort to get back down here and see you.”

She pushed wisps of white hair back from her cheek. “You were doing important work. That’s what I told all my friends at my jobs I had while you were gone. You were in New York becoming a famous chef. They were all jealous of me because my son was a famous chef in Manhattan and none of their children ever did anything important like that.”

“I wasn’t famous, Ma. I worked long hours in menial positions so that I could try to get better hours in less menial positions.”

Her eyes clearer than he’d seen them in a long time, she patted his hand where it still rested on her arm. “I didn’t want you to have to come back here. I wanted you to get out of this town, out of this state. I wanted you to have a better life than what you could have here. I wanted you to go away so you didn’t have to watch me become this crazy old lady who drools and doesn’t know what she’s saying half the time.”

He swallowed hard. “You don’t drool.”

“That’s how little you know.” She smiled vaguely.

They sat like that for a while, touching but not speaking, the warm spring breeze bringing the scents of early blooming flowers. Major used the time to compose his emotions. If there was one thing that sent his mother over the edge faster than anything, it was to see him in anything but a completely cool and collected state.

“This is a romantic spot, don’t you think?” Ma asked.

“It is.”

“You should bring her here sometime.”

“Who?”

“Mary Kate.”

He frowned, digging deep into the recesses of his mind for anyone by that name. “Ma, I don’t know anyone called Mary Kate.”

“Mary Kate—you know her. Mary Kate.” She frowned, her confusion and consternation clear. “Mary Kate — The Quiet Man, like the poster.”

He shook his head. She must have decided that if he wasn’t going to bring a real woman here, she’d set him up with someone from one of the Duke’s movies. “I don’t think that’s possible, Ma.”

She shrugged. “She’d come if you asked her.”

“I don’t think I can ask her.”

She patted his hand. “Never mind. I’ll ask her.”

“...which leads me to my final point.”

Meredith took Pastor Kinnard’s words as her cue and slipped out of the back row of folding chairs. The Easter Sunday worship service had gone off without a hitch—she again sent up a prayer of thanks that the forecast rain never materialized. Now for the hard part of her day.

She checked in with Pam to make sure the senior event planner had everything under control to start the Easter egg–related activities immediately after the worship service ended. Mrs. McCord hadn’t been too happy when she’d learned Meredith would have to be gone for the beginning of the event, but had changed her tune when Meredith told her of Major’s accident and her need to be at Lafitte’s to make sure that Easter brunch ran smoothly.

Meredith drove as fast as she dared over to the property just off the college campus but slowed when she reached the drive up to Lafitte’s Landing. The azalea bushes lining the road exploded with color—mostly deep fuchsia, but some white and some pale pink—which made springtime in Louisiana her favorite season of all. Though when the crepe myrtle trees that shared the sides of the road with the azaleas were in bloom in the late summer and early fall, they were pretty spectacular, too.

Under the tachometer, the SUV’s clock showed 10:30a.m. when Meredith pulled into a space in the shade of one of the heavy-limbed oak trees surrounding the parking lot. Half an hour until they would begin seating guests. Hopefully by eleven thirty, she’d be able to leave and go back to the park to check on activities there. With Major unable to work and Lori on vacation for the holiday weekend, Meredith’s supervisory responsibilities had increased tenfold, but she thrived on it. She just needed to keep telling herself that.

The porters and facilities staff greeted her when she walked into the cool interior of the converted and expanded antebellum mansion.

“Everything looks wonderful, y’all. Keep up the good work,” she called, crossing the ballroom to the kitchen in the back.

As she’d hoped, she was greeted by a dull roar of activity in the large room.

“Civilian in the kitchen.” The line cook greeted her even as he announced her presence.

“Oh, good. You’re here.” For the first time since he’d worked for B-G, Steven’s appearance betrayed his stress—his cheeks red, his jacket damp with sweat, his usually spiked hair limp and lifeless.

“What’s wrong?” Meredith dropped her keys and phone into her suit coat pocket, then stripped the jacket off and stepped into the staff room to lay it over the back of a chair.