A Catered Wedding Read online

  Leeza Sharp, the daughter of the late Monica G. and Lawrence D. Sharp, of Kentworth, Missouri, is to be married today to Jura Raid, a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Raid of Brooklyn. Minister James will officiate at the ceremony, which will be taking place on the fabled Raid Estate in upper Westchester County.

  A beauty pageant winner,—Leeza decided she was glad she’d insisted that go in despite the PR person’s objections. She didn’t think it was tacky—the bride, 27, graduated from the University of Missouri with a liberal arts degree in marketing. Working for Raid Enterprises was the first job she acquired upon her move east.

  Mr. Jura Raid, 53, completed a year at Wharton Business School before going to work in the family business, a move made necessary by the untimely death of his parents in an automobile accident. He is popularly credited with expanding the business, Imperial Caviar, into the successful enterprise that it now is.

  Jura noted, “I actually saw Leeza in the lobby her first day of work and was instantly attracted to her, but I didn’t approach her. Imagine my delight when she turned up in my office two months later.”

  “Actually,” Leeza confided, laughing, “turning up in his office wasn’t an accident. I was really attracted to him, too, and so I arranged to swap jobs with one of the women who worked for him. At first she didn’t want to, and I had to bribe her with a month’s worth of free coffee and bagels.”

  Not bad, Leeza thought. Not bad at all. She had just gotten to the part about how the couple was planning a three-week honeymoon on Bali when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of the pocket of her robe.

  “Yes?” she said.

  She frowned as she listened to the other person on the line.

  “I don’t know why I have to meet you. Why can’t it wait? No. We’ve already discussed that.”

  Leeza tapped her fingers on her thigh while she listened some more.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong,” she told the person on the other end who, judging from the expression on Leeza’s face, was saying something she didn’t like.

  “My make-up and hair people will be coming soon and I have a million little details to attend to before the ceremony. Surely you know that.”

  As she listened to the answer two little spots of red appeared on her cheeks.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “I can give you five minutes. At the most.”

  The person on the other end of the line said something else and Leeza replied, “Hey, be glad I’m giving you that.”

  “What an idiot,” she muttered to herself as she pressed the off button on her cell.

  As soon as she had she was sorry she’d agreed to the meeting. It was going to be unpleasant, and she didn’t want anything to mar this day, but not going might potentially make the situation even worse. And if there was one thing she’d learned working for Jura it was that it was better to take control of the situation then let the situation take control of you.

  She slipped her phone back into the pocket of her white silk robe, slid on her satin mules, and walked out of the room. Hopefully she wouldn’t meet anyone on the way to the tent. She didn’t want to have to lie about where she was going. It would just be a needless complication and Leeza believed in keeping things simple when she could. Fortunately, no one was around. Jura, Jura’s brothers, and his executive secretary, Esmeralda Quinn, who was also Leeza’s maid of honor, were all in the main wing of the house preparing for the big day.

  “This had better be good,” she muttered to herself as she opened an umbrella and stepped out into the rain.

  Even though the downpour had become a drizzle, Leeza’s feet and ankles were soaked by the time she’d walked down the embankment to the tent. She was so angry she didn’t even see the ruts in the grass the tent people had made when they’d delivered the tent yesterday.

  What was the matter with people anyway? Didn’t they realize how busy she was? Two little dots of color appeared on Leeza’s cheeks as she realized the person she was supposed to meet wasn’t even here yet. If they were, she would be able to see a silhouette through the tent.

  Leeza couldn’t believe she was being kept waiting. She tapped her nails against her thigh. This would be the last time something like this would happen. When she was Mrs. Jura Raid things were going to be very different. Very different indeed. And people better start getting used to it now.

  On that note she pushed the tent flap open and walked in.

  She didn’t have time to scream when the arrow hit her, much less get out of the way.

  Chapter 1

  Libby Simmons stifled a yawn as she regarded the wedding cake that she and her sister Bernie had stayed up almost all night making. She had to admit they’d done a great job. Even if the cake did lean a smidgen to the right, which, hopefully, no one would notice.

  The croquembouche was beautiful, a tall, intricate tower of profiteroles, glazed with caramel, decorated with candied almonds and white roses, and balanced on a columned base of nougatine. Leeza would love it. Of that Libby was sure.

  As Libby contemplated the cake she thought about how her life had changed since her sister Bernie had returned home. PB, as Libby had come to think of the years before Bernie moved back from L.A., Libby would never have attempted this cake. And she certainly wouldn’t have attempted making it while drinking Cosmopolitans.

  But, although she’d never admit it to her sister, Libby admitted to herself that it had been fun staying up all night with Bernie, sipping cocktails, and giggling while they worked. It had been totally worth it—even if she did feel as if she’d crawled out from under a rock this morning.

  “The reputation of A Taste of Heaven,” she’d pointed out to Bernie after her sister had mentioned baking the cake, “is founded on cookies, muffins, scones, and cheese and carrot cakes, not fancy French wedding cakes.”

  “So what?” Bernie had countered. “That’s like saying Prada can’t make shoes and handbags at the same time.”

  Trust her sister to mention Prada, Libby had thought. But then she’d always been a fashion magazine junkie, unlike Libby and her mom who’d bought their clothes at J.C. Penney.

  “You know I’m right,” Bernie had continued.

  “No, I don’t. Maybe Prada can diversify, but we can’t. We’re a shop, not a multinational company. Catering Leeza’s wedding is enough of a stretch.” Which was true. Between Leeza’s constant demands, running the store, and the high school graduation parties they’d picked up, she and Bernie were working twelve-hour days as it was.

  “Anyway,” Libby had continued, “she’s got Jacques Bonet to make the cake. She doesn’t need us.” Jacques Bonet being the celebrity pastry chef of the moment.

  “Not anymore,” her younger sister had gleefully informed her. “You should read the Post. He got busted for selling Ecstasy.”

  “Terrific,” Libby had said. “Okay. So, Leeza will find someone else.”

  “She wants us to do it. I mean how hard can it be?” Bernie asked as she’d whipped out a picture of the cake Leeza wanted. “All the thing is, is tiny custard-filled cream puffs, glued together with caramel, wrapped with some spun sugar and plunked down on some nougatine.”

  “I know what a croquembouche is,” Libby had snapped, offended. “I’m not a culinary idiot.”

  “I didn’t say you were,” Bernie had retorted.

  Which mollified Libby slightly, even though she suspected Bernie was just saying that so they wouldn’t get into a ‘thing’. “It’s not the degree of difficulty that concerns me,” she’d harrumphed. “It’s the fact that we’re on overload as it is.”

  Bernie had rolled her eyes, something that never failed to piss Libby off. “You know the trouble with you?” she’d asked.

  “No. And I don’t care,” Libby had responded.

  Not that that had stopped her sister Libby reflected because she’d continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “The trouble with you is that you’re kakorraphiaphobic.”

  “What?” Libby had asked.
“That’s not a word. You made that up.”

  Bernie had raised her right hand. “Swear it is. It’s in Roget’s Thesaurus. It means fear of failure. Look it up if you want.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “You know I’m not.”

  Looking at her sister’s expression Libby knew she was telling the truth. This, she reflected, was why she’d stopped playing word games with her.

  “Okay,” she’d told Bernie, “let’s get back to the matter at hand. First of all for your information, I don’t have a fear of failure. I have a realistic view of how much we need to do. What concerns me about the cake is that it has to be made at the last minute. It can’t stay. Which means we’ll be up all night making it, and then we still have the reception to get through.”

  Bernie had grinned. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Yes, it will. Come on. Remember the all-nighters we used to pull in high school. We haven’t done anything like that in a long time.”

  “I don’t know if I still can,” Libby had admitted. Much as she hated to say it, one o’clock was late for her now.

  Bernie laughed. “Of course you can.”

  “Well, you should have asked me first,” Libby had persisted, trying to keep control of the situation even though she could tell that Bernie knew she was winning the discussion.

  “Sorry,” Bernie had replied. “I just assumed you’d see this as an opportunity to branch out. Not to mention the fact that we’ll be making an extra twelve-hundred dollars.”

  “Twelve-hundred dollars?” Libby had asked.

  “Yes. Which we could use to get new ovens.”

  “You have to deduct food costs.”

  “So we’ll clear eight-fifty,” Bernie had said. “That’s still not bad. None of the components are that difficult to make.”

  Which Libby admitted was true. She ran through the facts in her head. Okay, the ingredients were cheap enough. They had the room and the equipment, except for a decent candy thermometer, which she could really use anyway. And the cream puffs were certainly easy enough. Pâte à choux was nothing more then flour, boiling water, butter, and eggs. And the vanilla crème patissiere wasn’t a big deal either. They could make that in advance and store it in the fridge.

  Libby looked at the illustration more carefully.

  “They have cones you can buy to fit the profiteroles around,” Bernie had told her as she helped herself to one of the strawberries in the strainer in the sink. “Not that it matters because Leeza wants the cake constructed freehand.”

  “Considering she wanted a custom-made tent,” Libby had answered, “I would have expected nothing less.”

  “Me either.” Bernie popped the strawberry into her mouth, then licked her fingers. “I did some research on the net. A large cake, which is about sixty centimeters wide, is made up of between 240 and 280 cream puffs. That’s not so bad.”

  Libby had to agree that 280 cream puffs were doable.

  “Did you know,” Bernie went on, “that the traditional way to serve the cake is by hitting it was a sword, with the bridesmaids catching the pieces in a tablecloth. Can you imagine the mess with the custard going all over the place?”

  “No. I honestly can’t,” Libby had replied. Where did her sister get this stuff from anyway, Libby asked herself as she pointed to the base of the cake. “The trick is going to be molding the nougatine into columns.”

  Bernie had drummed her fingers on the countertop. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Libby wasn’t so sure about that, but the more she thought about it the more she was sure that as much as she hated to admit it, Bernie’s instincts probably were correct. This was a good business opportunity, and the truth was they were so far over their head already that one more thing probably wouldn’t matter.

  “Okay,” she’d finally told Bernie. “Tell Leeza we’ll do it. Except we’re not using spun sugar. We’ll decorate the cake with sugared almonds and flowers.”

  “But . . .” Bernie had begun.

  Libby had held up her hand. “If she insists on the spun sugar we can’t do it. I won’t take a chance on the weather.”

  “Fair enough.” Bernie had popped a third strawberry into her mouth. “Sugared almonds are the traditional decoration anyway.”

  She’d been right to insist, Libby thought as she continued looking at the cake. Given the fact that it was raining, the spun sugar would have dissolved into little droplets by now. The only thing she hadn’t factored in was transportation. The cake had to go from the kitchen of A Taste of Heaven to the van and from the van to the temporary kitchen she and Bernie had set up on the Raid Estate and from there to the tent where the reception was taking place.

  Just the thought of having to move the cake not once but three times—in the rain no less—made Libby reach for one of her chocolate chip cookies. She was supposed to be on Atkins, but there were times when only carbs would do and this was definitely one of those times. Libby was taking a bite of her cookie when Bernie walked in to the kitchen.

  “We have to go,” Libby told her. “It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  “I’m ready,” Bernie said handing her a cup of coffee from the pot she’d brewed for the store. “Here. You’re going to need this.”

  Libby looked at what her younger sister was wearing. She could understand the black hip-huggers and the tank top, but not the shoes.

  “You’re wearing pink wedges to stand in the kitchen? Are you nuts?”

  “Hey,” Bernie told her, “I don’t comment on your Birkenstocks and you don’t comment on these. How’s the coffee?”

  Libby took a taste.

  “Sumatran?” she guessed.

  Bernie nodded. “Good isn’t it?”

  “Very,” Libby agreed. The way the day was going she was going to need several pots of the stuff and a bottle of aspirin. She glanced down at her sister’s feet again. “How can you wear those to work in?”

  Bernie shrugged. “Some people wear flats and other people wear heels and wedges. I am one of the other people.”

  “I just hope you don’t trip when we carry the cake out to the van.”

  “Have I ever tripped?”

  “No,” Libby conceded.

  “Well, then don’t worry about it.”

  “But I do.”

  But then Libby admitted to herself, if truth be told she worried about everything. But if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have a successful business. Or at least that’s what she told herself. She finished the coffee and took a deep breath. It was time to move the cake.

  They’d just finished loading it into the van, when Libby heard her dad calling her name. She looked up. Her father was leaning out of his bedroom window on the second floor.

  “You be careful out there,” he told her.

  Libby laughed. He’d been saying that to his daughters as long as she could remember.

  “We’re catering a wedding Dad, not executing search warrants.”

  “I’m talking about the aunts.”

  Libby sighed. “Oh them.”

  How could she have forgotten about Eunice and Gertrude Walker? They weren’t really her aunts; she and Bernie just called them that. They were distant relations, old friends of one of her mother’s cousins. Or something like that. Libby could never remember.

  It wasn’t that they weren’t nice. After all, if it hadn’t been for them A Taste of Heaven never would have gotten this job. No. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that they were nuts. Until she’d met them Libby had thought that Marxists were something that only existed in history books. And if that wasn’t bad enough they did things like dye their hair magenta and go back to school to study entomology.

  Libby still remembered the time their locust collection had escaped. That had been bad. But their driving was worse. Both of them had gotten their licenses when they were sixty-two. Libby remembered drawing straws with Bernie. The loser got to go with the aunts. “It’ll be fine
,” her mother always said. “They never go over thirty-five miles an hour.” To this day Libby could still remember the curses from other motorists as the aunts toddled down the highway. Amazingly, they’d never got any tickets. Finally, it was her father who’d put his foot down. Libby realized he was talking to her now.

  “If they ask about me,” he was saying, “tell them I’ve gone to Nepal.”

  “That wouldn’t help. They’d find you there. Courtney will be here if you need anything.”

  “I’ll be fine,” her father said.

  “Because . . .”

  “Just go,” her father ordered. “I’m not a total invalid.”

  “I know,” Libby said. And she did know. It’s just when she left him like this she got worried. But there was Courtney. And Rob’s mom was going to give him lunch so everything would be fine. Libby gave her father a thumbs-up sign and got in the van. A moment later she and Bernie were on their way to the Raid Estate.

  “I hope this goes well,” Libby said as they headed out of Longely. At this hour of the morning, the only people out on the town street were runners.

  “Well, it’s got to go better than the high school reunion,” Bernie pointed out.

  When they’d catered their seventeenth annual high school reunion last year the guest of honor had been poisoned on the dais, which in Libby’s humble opinion was not a good advertisement for the shop.

  Libby groaned as she remembered. “God was that awful.”

  “Yes it was,” Bernie agreed. “Especially for the poisonee.” Then she pointed to a slim woman jogging down the block to the left of them. “There’s Bree.”

  Libby glanced over. “I wish my thighs looked like hers.”

  “If you didn’t eat anything and ran five miles a day they could.”

  Libby grunted. She couldn’t even manage running half a block. She kept on saying she was going to get in better shape, but somehow it never happened.

  “You know she’s invited to the wedding, don’t you?” Bernie said as Bree turned the corner.