Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

I pressed the rewind button on the Walkman, took the headphones off, put on my catering apron, and made my first trip through the side door. A cleaning crew of four-two men and two women-were buffing the highly polished wood floor and gently dusting the tables and displays. At my van, I slipped the Walkman and bag of tapes into my apron pockets. Then I hauled in my second box of supplies. When one of the cleaning women happened to glance up at me, I quickly turned away. I would listen as I worked. After schlepping my boxes into the empty kitchen, I laid out all the ingredients. I slipped in the next tape, marked “Shelton,” and began to layer vegetables over the shrimp.

Ralph and Suz exchanged a cold greeting before getting down to business. “You can’t hurt me like this, Suz.” Ralph Shelton’s frightened voice shook.

“Excuse me, Ralph, but I can. Know what a group of people from a California church congregation did? Drove two hundred miles to tell another congregation not to hire the priest they were firing. These folks didn’t trust the bishop to tell the church considering their old priest that this was a cleric with a credit-card problem. Thirty thousand in debt, to be exact.”

There was a pause, then Ralph spoke. “If you… if you… go to MeritMed with these complaints about me, which are totally frivolous, I’II tell everybody about your unauthorized use of patient files. Confidential files, mind you.” He tried to sound more confident. “And that’s not a frivolous complaint.”

“You helped me get some of those files. You wouldn’t dare go public. If I go under for using files, you’re coming.”

“I don’t care.” His voice was on the brink of tears. “You have no reason to be so cruel.”

This was followed by the sound of a door slamming.

Wow. I put in the tape marked “Corey.”

Suz’s voice began. “… you know I’ve told you how being so fat is unprofessional. And being ungrateful to me isn’t going to get you anywhere, either.”

Chris Corey’s voice rumbled, “I’m a physician. I don’t appreciate being humiliated in meetings. I’m tired of it.”

“Really?” said Suz. “You think complaining behind my back is going to do any good?”

“That wasn’t my idea,” intoned Chris.

“Don’t bring Brandon into this. What do you think, that if this job doesn’t work out, you’ll go back to being an orthopedic surgeon? You can’t just waltz back into being a doc, Chris, you’re as rusty as an old knife. Face it, you’re finished as an M.D.”

“I am so unbelievably tired of listening to you – “

“Something else. You don’t think I know all about your sister? Multiple-personality disorder, goes into trances when she’s stressed? Tell me, is she Tina when she’s taking care of stray animals and dressed up like a doll? Or is that Mary Louise, so prim and proper, who goes to church and doesn’t know a thing about dolls? You know I have access to her files. I know everything. Think the school where she works wouldn’t like to know about her long history of emotional instability? Think about leaving this job, or criticizing me again to Minneapolis, and your sister’s secret is all over the place.”

Chris’s voice quickly pleaded, “Don’t do that. Tina has only shown two personalities. She’s not violent. She’s no danger to anyone. She’s suffered so much… and now her personality’s fragmented… I take care of her. Please don’t hurt her.”

“I just want a fair shake,” Suz said firmly.

“You’ve got a problem, come to me, got it.? Those are the rules.”

End of tape. Multiple-personality disorder, good Lord. Actually, I should have suspected something at church. There, I’d asked Tina about a doll outfit and the cat. She’d acted as if she hadn’t known what in the world I was talking about. I’d put it down to stress over planning Suz’s funeral. But I hadn’t been talking to Tina; I’d been talking to Mary Louise. I shuddered to imagine the humiliation that Tina Corey would undergo if the administration at Aspen Meadow Preschool, much less the rest of people in town, found out about a history of psychological problems. For starters, she’d lose her job. Then she would be shunned. Whatever Tina’s problems were, if she was functional and her brother j was taking care of her, they were certainly none of Suz Craig’s business. I placed the Camembert slices over the vegetables, slipped in the fourth tape, and began on the last layers of the pie.

“You called them.” Suz Craig. “You set up the appointments. You got people to betray me. How do you think I’m supposed to feel?”

Brandon Yuille’s voice was the clearest yet.

“Suz, I had to, I had people coming to me day and night complaining about working with you. I couldn’t just ignore them.”

“Brandon, you could have talked to me – “

“I tried to talk to you. Before and after – “

“Before and after we broke up?” Suz’s laugh was sour. “Maybe I didn’t notice, what with all that passion.” Brandon said nothing. “Look, I know you’re hurt that I started going out with Korman, but he and I are right for each other. You’re too young.” Suz made young sound like a dirty word.

No wonder Brandon had blushed when he’d told me how caring Suz could be. I suddenly realized why Brandon wasn’t talking on the tape. He was crying.

“Brandon! Why did you call Minneapolis in? To punish me? Because it worked.”

I heard a sob. “I was trying to do my job

“Well, don’t do your job so well, okay?”

“I am going to do my job,” he said defiantly. “I’m in charge of Human Resources. Don’t tell me not to do my job.”

“Your job? Your job? You drag your sorry ass into this office late, day after day, looking more tired than a nomad lost six weeks in the desert. You’re not doing your job! And you don’t find me complaining about you, do you?”

“You’re the only one… who seems to mind that I don’t look good” I heard him blow his nose. He cleared his throat. “And I thought you didn’t care about how I looked anymore.”

Her voice was cruel. “Listen. If you call the Minneapolis people again, you’ll be very sorry. I’ll fire your ass and have your records altered so they say you have cancer. You’ll never get another HR job in Denver. You won’t be able to stay near your father. Something else. You don’t think I know your father supported a blond nurse down in Denver while your mother was sick? You think people in Aspen Meadow would wont to know their beloved pastry-shop owner two-timed his wife who was terminal with cancer?”

Even on the tape I could tell Brandon was startled. I could imagine his sparkling dark brown eyes and enthusiastic smile dimmed with pain. “My mother… ” – his anguished voice was just above a whisper – “was barely conscious for the last three months of her life. That other woman was her nurse.”

“An ACHMO nurse. Your father slept with her.”

“You’re insane.”

“He’s lonely, Brandon. During the day I’ll bet he’s lonely all the time.”

And that was the end of that tape. Sheesh! Again I was stunned that Suz Craig had had the audacity to make these tapes. And to threaten people like that? Incredible. I could certainly see why she’d felt she had to hide the tapes from July 14. These cassettes were much more incriminating of her than they were of the people she was attempting to blackmail. Although someone hadn’t thought so. Were there any tapes of the Jerk visiting her office?

Exhibition Salad with Meringue-Baked Pecans

Pecans:

1 egg white

ź teaspoon cinnamon

ź teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

4 tablespoons melted butter

2 cups (˝ pound) pecan halves