I began to rapidly dial one of the numbers on the screen while Evie tried to stop me. “Honestly, Donna, you don’t want us to make next week’s show, do you?”
“No way,” I said. “I’m calling to support Team Batter Up.”
“Hold it, everyone,” Lisa Leann said. “And hold your phone calls. I have more news.”
“Now what?” Evie asked.
“Did you hear what Gianne said? If we make it through this round, we’ll have a film crew from Stirring Productions in town on Thursday, that’s in two days. Kat, the producer, is going to call me here, in an hour, to tell us if we made the cut and to tell us what the showdown challenge will be.”
“Oh, dear,” Vonnie said. “Do you think we’ll make it through this round?”
“Maybe. And girls, remember, if we win this thing, Team Potluck can sponsor the church building fund. Let’s do this for a good cause. Agreed?”
The girls mumbled an agreement while Goldie said, “Well, Lisa Leann, I’m for supporting the church. Who knows? Maybe something good will come from this fiasco.”
Lisa Leann nodded. “That’s the spirit!”
Evie snorted, but before she could comment, I asked, “What now?”
Lisa Leann replied, “Now we wait for the phone to ring.”
It had been a full sixteen hours since my premiere on
The Great Party Showdown
, and I still could not get over Lisa Leann’s … what’s the word I want to use here …
bravado
at entering our small but successful company as contestants. Who does she think she is, anyway? The president?
Okay. She is the president. The president of the catering company, but not the Potluck Club itself. That puppy belongs to me. Well, the club doesn’t belong to me, but the presidency does. After all, I’m the one who—years ago—came up with the idea for the prayer group. A tiny little fact everyone seems to be forgetting, which I brought up to my husband Vernon on Wednesday.
He stuck his fork into some scalloped potatoes piled alongside the tuna salad sandwich on his plate. “Not that you’ve had a prayer meeting in a while,” he said, then quickly shot the fork of potatoes into his mouth.
I froze in my seat at the kitchen table across from him, my tuna sandwich halfway to my gaping mouth. Returning the sandwich to one of my everyday plates, I said, “Well, of course we haven’t. What with Lisa Leann starting this catering business, keeping us busier than fans on a hot July afternoon, and Michelle’s wedding not two weeks ago and Goldie’s daughter having her baby and the big Summit View Fourth of July bash we worked ourselves silly at. Who has time to meet and pray?”
Vernon took a long sip of iced tea before answering. “I just think you’ve let the core of your group get away from you.” Vernon’s baby blues widened, and he scratched his neck at the spot just under his full head of gray hair. “I’ve never been much of one for talking about my faith to the masses—you know that—but you women met every month no matter what for years. I can’t imagine anything getting between you and prayer.”
I had to ponder that for a minute. We had let things come between us and our prayer group, and I, for one, thought it was time to get some things back on track.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Vernon said with a wink.
“You do no such thing.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, popping the last of his sandwich into his mouth.
“Okay, smarty. What?” I mocked him by popping the last of my sandwich into my mouth as well, then got up from the table and headed over to the coffeemaker to make a fresh pot. Hopefully the caffeine would get me through the rest of the day.
“You’re thinking it’s time to get the girls back on the straight and narrow.”
Okay, so he can read my mind …
“But,” he added with flourish, “now you’ve got the added problem of a new venture. You’re going to be a movie star.”
I turned from the counter where I’d scooped just the right number of spoonfuls of aromatic grounds into the filter and slapped the top of the coffeemaker shut before pressing the “on” button. “I am not going to be a movie star.” Then I grinned at him. “I’m going to be a television celebrity.”
It was true. I—we—were going to be featured on The Great Party Showdown the following Tuesday. The call had come in about an hour and a half after the show ended. Lisa Leann was sitting on the sofa, her cell phone in her hand. Fred and David, who’d come in from bowling, sat next to her and talked about their game. The rest of us sat in stunned silence and waited.
Occasionally one of us would speak. Vonnie said, “If we win, I don’t know how I’ll tell Mother I’m going to New York City. She’s never liked me leaving the state of Colorado much … not since … I was younger.”
I knew what Vonnie was referencing, of course. Her collegeyears marriage to David’s biological father and subsequent life in Los Angeles.
Lizzie said, “At least I don’t have to be back at school until some time in August.” Lizzie is the high school media center specialist. In our day, we called them librarians, but I suppose that’s not fancy enough anymore.
Goldie was, out of all of us, in the biggest pickle. “Oh, Evangeline,” she said, leaning over and whispering in my ear. “I just took off time from work for the Fourth of July events and Michelle’s wedding. Seems to me all I’ve done since I started working at Chris Lowe’s law firm is ask for time off. What will I do if we get voted clear through to New York?”
“What do you mean, Goldie Dippel? What will any of us do but go along with this harebrained idea of Lisa Leann’s. How in the world that woman has managed to get us into so many fixes …”
I could say more on the topic of Lisa Leann Lambert’s “fixes.” Why, she hadn’t been in Summit View even a year, and so far she’d managed to turn our lives into one wild ride. But, I have to be honest here. She’s growing on me, and I’m finding myself as intrigued with her antics as Vivian Vance was of that other redhead, Lucille Ball.
When Lisa Leann’s cell phone finally—and I do mean finally— rang, she threw it up in the air as though tossing a hot potato, then caught it and stared at the glowing screen. “It’s Kat Sebastian,” she squealed.
“Well, for crying out loud, Lisa Leann,” I said, sliding to the edge of my seat on the sofa, “answer it. And don’t make a ninny of yourself.”
And be sure to tell her my name is
not
Evil Evie, while you’re at it
.
Lisa Leann took a deep breath, then exhaled out her nose. She flipped open the phone and chirped, “Lisa Leann Lambert.”
Not a soul in the room moved. Heaven help us, I’m not sure we even breathed, for that matter.
“Yes, hello Kat … yes, we did … yes, we are … yes … no, I don’t think so … yes, yes! Oh, really? … We did? … We will? … Oh, my goodness, yes … okay … I understand … got it. Yes, talk to you tomorrow then. Good-bye.” She slapped the phone shut.
Donna frowned. “I take it we made it to the next level.”
Lisa Leann stood, threw out her arms, and said, “Ms. Donna Vesey! Come on down! You’re the next contestant …”
From that moment on, nothing has been the same. The phone calls poured in, including requests for interviews from Denver radio and television stations and the
Denver Post
. Of course, our very own Summit View ace reporter, Clay Whitefield, made it over to Vonnie’s house before any of us even had a chance to come back to earth. I suppose he wanted to make sure he was the first to know if we’d made it to the next level, but Kat had informed Lisa Leann— and she us—that we were not to say a single word and contracts were to be faxed the following day.
Of course, Clay wasn’t the only one dashing to Vonnie’s doorstep. Neighbors and friends and church members came, but Fred and David stood on the front porch and made apologies, saying we were unable to come to the door and they needed to go home and leave us to our business. On the other side of the door, we were gaga with plans and ideas for the following week’s show. We were, as Fred later said to Vonnie, fluttering like hens in a coop with one rooster.
Well, Lisa Leann has had us hopping. We had less than twentyfour hours, she told us—if we count that we can’t work while we’re asleep—before the film crew was to arrive. According to Lisa Leann, we’d been given a few guidelines, a budget of two thousand dollars, and the orders to throw a themed party. “And what great plan do you have for us now, Lisa Leann?” Donna asked. “What will we do to win the hearts of America for our next catering caper?”
“I think,” she said, pointing a finger in the air, “we should throw a surprise birthday party for … girls, any of you having a birthday?” She looked from one to the other of us.
We all shook our heads.
She turned to Fred and David, but they both claimed they wouldn’t be getting older any time soon.
Then she looked at Vonnie. “I know. We’ll have a surprise birthday party for your mother.”
“My mother?” Vonnie pressed her palm against her chest. “My mother’s birthday isn’t for another two months.” She blinked. “And why my mother?”
“Because,” I said, “she’s available.”
“Well … yes, but …”
“Perfect,” Lisa Leann said, as though that settled it. “So, she’ll have it a little early. She won’t mind; I’m just sure of it. Call her and tell her whatever you need to tell her to get her to the church. She’ll have a birthday bash she’ll not soon forget and she’ll love you for it.” Lisa Leann paused momentarily. “Or at the very least, she’ll love me for it.” She turned slightly, then swung around again to face us, her little soldiers. “Okay, girls. Tomorrow morning. Zero-eight-hundred hours. Be at the bridal boutique, and we’ll start to plan.”
We left Vonnie’s in a flurry. The July air was crisp and inviting as we each slipped into our own vehicles, anxious to get home to our respective families.
My family is my husband of nearly seven months, Sheriff Vernon Vesey, who I’d secretly loved since I was twelve years old. I would have married him a long time ago had it not been for Donna’s mother, Doreen, who we now call Dee Dee. Doreen had been one of my best friends, but with her wanton ways she managed to slip Vernon from my naïve prepubescent fingers. They dated off and on through school until they married, leaving me loveless and forlorn.
Naturally the marriage didn’t last; not with Doreen’s—Dee Dee’s—insatiable appetite for men. She left Vernon and four-yearold Donna and ran off with our church’s choir director. They lived in California until she ran off with someone else and then someone else, and on and on it went. Then, last year, she returned home, so to speak. Between her and Lisa Leann, Summit View has become a little Peyton Place.
But even with her arrival and the disruptions it caused, Vernon and I managed to finally find true love in each other’s arms and, as the end result, matching wedding rings on our left third fingers. At nearly sixty years of age, we now were as complete as could be, except that neither of us had ever starred in our own reality show.
As soon as I finished rinsing off the lunch dishes and slipping them into the dishwasher, I dashed to the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my short, wavy hair, then added a slick touch of gloss to my bottom lip. I rubbed my lips together, spreading the sheen, then frowned. I’d never worn lip gloss until Lisa Leann had come into my life and insisted it would give me “color.” Now I vainly wore it every day. I told my friends— the Potluck girls—that it was because Vernon seemed to like it so much. He said it gave me—and I quote—a “sexy edge.”
Men.
But the truth is, I wear it now because I like it. I like the way it brings out the natural pink to my cheeks and helps me to feel more feminine. Not that I’d ever tell Lisa Leann or anyone else, for that matter.
With a cup of coffee to go in hand, I dashed out the front door a few minutes later. I gave a quick wave to my husband, who’d already stretched out on the sofa for an afternoon nap. Vernon knows I prefer that if he is going to do this, he does it on the den sofa or— better still—in our bed. But with bare minutes to spare before I was due back at the boutique for more cooking and planning, I didn’t have a second to nag. I called a heartfelt good-bye and then scampered to my awaiting car parked in the driveway.
I arrived back at work with no time to spare. I ran in via the front door, through the front rooms and into the back, where we did the majority of our catering. Lisa Leann glanced down at her watch as though in scolding, to which I replied, “What? I’m not late.” I reached for my apron and, tying it around my narrow waist, said, “Where’s Donna?”
“Donna,” Lisa Leann answered, “has run down to Denver. We’ve found a Hollywood memorabilia shop, and they have exactly what I’m looking for.”
Lisa Leann had decided that because Vonnie’s mother had been born in 1930—during the golden era of Hollywood—we should go with one of 1930’s most beloved films,
Animal Crackers
. Lizzie had been on the phone all morning calling a select group of townspeople to tell them about the party, of its hush-hush nature, and that they had less than twenty-four hours to find a Marx Brothers costume (if they were male) and a lacy black dress, long strand pearls, and feathered hat (if they were female).
Lisa Leann wanted the feel of the party room to be that of Mrs. Rittenhouse’s gala, an important setting in the plot of the movie. Vonnie and Goldie had been shopping at some of our downtown stores earlier but, before lunch, had moved on to Silverthorne’s outlets. Goldie had called in at one point that morning to inform us that her husband Jack, also our high school’s coach, had contacted the drama instructor, who had contacted several students on the drama team, and that they were now preparing to perform several of the more memorable lines and scenes from the movie.
“Like what?” Donna had asked.
I looked at Lisa Leann and she at me. In an unusual moment of unity we simultaneously and with dramatic flare said, “Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” We pretended to waggle cigars near our grinning faces, then doubled over in laughter.
Ah, to be older …
I dragged myself home near midnight. Everything was ready. Remarkable but true. The social hall of our quaint church was decorated to the nines, looking more like Mrs. Rittenhouse’s parlor than Mrs. Rittenhouse’s parlor ever did. In the kitchen adjacent to the hall, the food was in the refrigerator or in sealed containers, and our workstations were well prepared for the next day. Back at the boutique’s kitchen, every inch of stainless steel shone under newly applied polish, and the countertops were wiped down spotless. There was nothing left to do but pray.