Diane Davidson - Killer Pancake

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!”

After a moment the lovelorn pair sheepishly reappeared. Claire’s makeup, I observed, was miraculously intact, although Julian looked a trifle rumpled. He handed Claire a covered bowl of (lowfat) hollandaise, then hoisted the first box containing the soup. I suppressed a grin and picked up the container of turkey with hoisin. Ten minutes later the three of us started out for the forty-minute trip to glorious, newly refurbished Westside Mall, still nestled , as the recent advertisements relentlessly screamed, at the foot of the Rockies!

Children were already out riding their mountain bikes and kicking soccer balls against the curbs when our vehicles chugged out of my driveway. When we reached Aspen Meadow’s Main Street, windblown dust shimmered in the morning light, forming a translucent veil between the town and the peaks of the Aspen Meadow Wildlife Preserve. The snow on the mountaintops had shrunk to uneven gray caps that would not completely melt over the summer. As Julian and I followed Claire’s white Peugeot in the direction of Interstate 70, we passed stores whose entrances were clogged with summer tourists seeking Aspen Meadow’s higher altitude, cooler temperatures, and claim to quaintness. Enterprising merchants had landscaped the area between the sidewalks and the street with a tangle of dianthus, daylilies, and bleeding heart. Below the stores’ intentionally rustic signs swayed hanging baskets of white petunias, red ivy geranium, and delicate asparagus fern. Nearby Vail had used this Garden-in-Disneyland-type decoration to great effect in attracting tourists, and our little burg was following suit. The Chamber of Commerce seemed to feel that the less our place looked like a real town, the less tourists would feel they were spending real money. Still, it was home, and I loved it. I usually do not enjoy heading “down the mountain,” which is how Aspen Meadow folk refer to the physical and spiritual descent into Denver and environs.

As the van lumbered eastward behind Claire’s little Peugeot, a Flight-for-Life helicopter thundered overhead going west, toward Aspen Meadow. I braked automatically and pulled into the right lane in front of a pickup truck. The driver had to swerve to avoid me. Julian and I exchanged a glance. Paranoid, overprotective mother that I was, I felt my heart race as I mentally placed Arch. My son had spent the night at a friend’s house. He was due back home this morning. As soon as we arrived I would call from Hot Tin Roof and make certain he was all right.

Forcing my mind off the helicopter and its rescue mission, I sped up again and imagined all the gorgeous women who would be attending the day’s banquet. The nightclub would be filled to bursting with blondes, brunettes, and redheads. All would be impossibly thin, impeccably made up, and fashionably dressed in suits with skirts shorter than what I used to wear when I played tennis, back when I was a doctor’s wife. Thinking of my caterer’s uniform and scrubbed face, I had a sudden attack of feeling inappropriate. Was that the real reason I resented doing this banquet—there would be all those stunning women, and then there would be me?

Disheartened, I glanced in the van mirror and gave myself another pep talk. The helicopter had droned away and was no longer visible. The pickup driver had changed lanes. My own face looked the same as always, my uniform, equally drab but serviceable. Later, I realized I’d made a mistake by not checking my reflection more closely. But at the time I was saying to myself: Relax. Nobody ever notices the caterer .

Also a mistaken assumption.

So are we supposed to follow her, or not?” I asked Julian as Claire’s car spewed a cloud of inky exhaust while passing the silvery-gray marble exterior of the Prince & Grogan store building. No demonstrators stood outside the entrance to the upscale department store. I hoped this was a good sign.

The Peugeot darted into Westside Mall’s parking garage. Julian craned his neck to see where Claire had gone. “Let’s stay separated, the way she said. In case the activists are waiting at any one place. The salespeople aren’t even supposed to wear their Mignon Cosmetics uniforms. Claire’s going to park by the crêpe place because she has some stuff to bring in. She told us to go on over by Stephen’s Shoes. She’ll take her things in while we start to unload.”

I wheeled the van past the majestic hemlocks and short, lush aspens that formed the mainstay of the expensive new mall landscaping. After a moment of confusion, I headed into the far end of bottom-level parking spaces. Hopefully we were going in the direction of empty parking spots near the chrome-and-glass garage entrance to the mall near Prince & Grogan. The space inhabited by the department store, as opulent and inviting a shopping environment as one could ever hope for, had formerly housed a Montgomery Ward. I’d come to know Montgomery Ward well during my lean divorce years, but the refurbishment and enlargement of Westside Mall had been so ambitiously undertaken that at the moment I felt completely turned around.

Not so Julian, who pointed to the garage entrance to the mall. I strained to Catch a glimpse of police cars or activists waving signs, rabbits, or Lord knew what-all. I saw only gaggles of gorgeous women, presumably the sales associates and top customers who’d been invited. They threaded through the rows of cars on their way to the Hot Tin Roof Club. Near us, a stunning hermaphroditic blonde dressed in blistering lemon yellow strutted alongside a Porsche with an empty parking place on the row just behind it. Beyond that line of cars glowed the neon sign for Stephen’s Shoes. I waited for the woman in yellow to move away, then quickly swung the van past Prince & Grogan, around the end of the row, and into the vacated spot. I checked my watch. So far we were exactly on schedule.