Diane Davidson - Killer Pancake

Grateful for the quiet, I started to rinse dishes and place them in the dishwasher. It was half past eight So much for Tom making it home for dinner. But as soon as I had that thought, the front-door latch popped.

Tom strode in, stood at the kitchen threshold, opened his arms, and said, “You look beautiful.”

Hard to ignore my runaway, bleach-splotched hair, my face streaked with makeup, Pete’s oversize Virtues of Coffee sweatsuit. “Is that a joke?”

He circled me in an enormous hug. “Never,” he whispered in my ear. For the first time that day, I relaxed. But then I tensed, trying to think of how to explain my appearance.

“Some … bleach water spilled on me today.” It was sort of the truth. Half of the truth.

“Well, I wasn’t going to ask. How’s Marla?” His mouth close to my ear sent shivers down my spine.

“Surviving. Want to taste some of the lowfat food I’m teaching myself to cook for her? Want to hear how I got into trouble today?”

“Do I have to? I’d rather do something else,” he murmured.

“Incorrigible.”

“Beautiful.”

“Later.”

On that hopeful note, he reluctantly pulled away from me. I poured him a glass of red wine, started the fettuccine reheating, and asked if he’d listened to the voice mail.

“Oh, yes,” he replied with a broad smile. “Yes, yes. And I listened to my other messages too. Had a little visit with the horticultural powers that be. Seems Charles Braithwaite, Ph.D., is in the process of getting the blue rose patented, which takes quite a while. One thing you have to do when you’re patenting a flower? You name it.” I put a plateful of the steaming pasta in front of him. He wound up a spoonful of the fettuccine and downed it. His bushy eyebrows arched upward. “Gosh, Goldy, this is delicious. Lowfat?”

FUDGE SOUFFLÉ

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ cup confectioners’ sugar

1 cup skim milk

⅓ cup semisweet chocolate chips

5 egg whites

¼ cup sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract Lowfat whipped topping (optional)Whisk the cocoa powder, confectioners’ sugar, and milk in the top of a double boiler over boiling water until smooth. Add the chocolate chips and stir until the chips are melted. Stir and lower the heat to simmer.In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold the vanilla and ½ cup of the chocolate mixture into the egg white mixture.Bring the water in the bottom of the double boiler back to a boil. Stir the chocolate-egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture in the top of the double boiler. Using and electric beater or a whisk, beat this mixture for a minute or until it is well combined. Cover the double boiler and continue to cook over boiling water for 25 to 30 minutes or until the soufflé is puffed and set. Serve with lowfat whipped toping, if desired. Serves 4

“Don’t act so surprised. What’s Braithwaite going to name the rose? And did you do any research on Hotchkiss?”

His green eyes twinkled. “Charles Braithwaite was naming his blue rose the Claire Satterfield.”

“Good Lord!”

Arch stuck his head into the kitchen, waved to Tom, and announced he was going up to bed early. I must have looked stunned. At the beginning of July, Arch was rarely willing to hit the sack earlier than he did during the school year.

“But—” I began.

Arch pulled his mouth into a tight scowl. “I just don’t want Julian to think I’ve abandoned him.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t think you’ve—”

But he was gone. I didn’t go after him because the phone rang. It was Tony Royce. While Tom savored the fettuccine and polished off the salad, Tony informed me that Hotchkiss Skin & Hair was a privately held company that didn’t have to report its profits and losses to shareholders, so the information he’d been able to get for me was sketchy.

“That’s okay,” I told him. My pencil was poised. “Sketchy is better than zilch.”

“Hotchkiss Skin & Hair needs a face-lift, Goldy. We’re talking major surgery.”

“Skip the puns, Tony—”

But he was on a roll. “I mean,” he persisted, “we’re talking a company that puts a new wrinkle on financing!” I know Tony and Marla had fun together, and that she thought he was brilliant with money. But the substance of their relationship, I had to admit, I just didn’t understand.

“And their financial status is …?” I prodded.

“Who are you talking to?” Tom suddenly wanted to know.

“Just a sec, Tony.” I covered the phone. “Marla’s boyfriend. He’s an equities analyst, and he looked into Hotchkiss Skin & Hair for me.”

Tom was incredulous. “Doing the financial check on the company is our job. What are you doing?”

I said defensively, “I just happened to run into Tony at the hospital. Ill tell you all about it.”

“You’d better.”

“Okay, Tony,” I said back into the phone, ignoring the expression on Tom’s face, “what’s their financial status?”

Tony Royce snorted. “Terrible, terrible. Hotchkiss has been giving facials for years, when women thought they needed them and would line up out the door to get one. But from a business standpoint, facials aren’t exactly a big growth industry these days. They’re labor-intensive. Which means expensive, and you can’t do a huge markup on them. And , unless you’ve got a steady demand from the carriage trade to sustain your business, you’re out of luck.” He paused to sigh, taking deep satisfaction from being the man in the know. “But baby-boomer women … now, there’s an interesting demographic group. The ones who have money mostly work outside the home, and they don’t have time for facials. Or,” he said with a chuckle, “no advertising genius has yet convinced these women that they need to have facials. So Mama Hotchkiss, sensing she needed to change with the times, decided to launch a new set of products designed for these very same baby-boomer women. It was called Renewal. Didja ever buy any Renewal, Goldy? I mean,” he chuckled, “not that you need it or anything.”

“Can’t say that I made that purchase, Tony.”

Another lugubrious sigh. “Neither did anybody else. Renewal flopped. Big-time. Mama Hotchkiss went to the bank for a loan. Nobody was biting, even when she offered free facials. Bankers don’t like facials, Goldy. They prefer to look intimidating and ugly inside their expensive suits so that customers will bow down, scrape, and lick the floor.”

Speaking of licking and scraping, I checked on the soufflé that I was trying to keep warm for Tom. It was still dark and puffed. I removed the double-boiler top from the heat. I’d found that working with food often helps when listening to arrogant people on the telephone.

“So,” he persisted, “what do you think happened?”

“Renewal flopped, just as you said,” I replied. “But the business didn’t go under. So … if a cake I’d staked my reputation on flopped, and I didn’t lose the business, I’d develop a cookie. Or a torte. You have to sell something.”

“Take you out of that apron and put you in a banker’s suit, Goldy.”

High praise indeed, considering the source. “Thanks. So Hotchkiss started to look for new products? But they needed more money for that, so they went to some pal of yours.”

“Hey. I know everyone in the Denver financial community, and I’ve lived here for only a little over a year.”

“You’re marvelous. Forget the cookies, I’m going to have to pay you in brownies.”

Tony made a long hmmm noise. “So they got a loan to develop new products. Their business plan was drawn up by none other than—”