by Shoshana D. Kerewsky (1729 words)

Butchie had saved my bacon. 

Mr. Ficino had showed up early on Friday for the writers’ thing. He said he had driven in overnight, eaten a big breakfast in town with his brother Dante, and taken an Uber to the hotel. He didn’t want to drive his fancy classic car up in the rain, and would meet his brother down in town at that new B&B, the Exall-Dailey House, on Sunday night. They were twins, but fraternal. I didn’t care, and I was busy. I was glad when he said it didn’t matter where I put him, just give him a room because he’d been doing international Zoom mentoring, whatever that was, or in the fancy-ass car driving for around 38 hours. I put him in the “Eurostyle” wing, which was less attractive, more Danish-like with yellow pine and no molding or knobs or anything, and had a shared bathroom, but we already had a room made up, intended for Mr. St. John. 

We had a fast turn-around, with a Boy Scout Jamboree checking out late at 2:30, Mrs. Peale and Mr. St. John in at 3:30 to set up their registration, the writer guests from 4:15. My kitchen gals set up the writers’ welcome buffet first, then ran to help me and Jennifer strip the beds.

There’d been a lot of food in the walk-in, including our groceries for the retreat weekend and my stuff, thank you very much, but the scouts got into it while we were turning over the guest rooms. Drunk up my beer, trashed my kitchen and the walk-in, and threw my good knives all over the place. I still hadn’t found my Wüsthof chef’s knife, and those things aren’t cheap. Then the boys had spilled into the Grand Salon and had a food fight with the writers’ buffet, shook up the cans of Spindrift and sprayed them at each other, knocked the dishes of cranberry-orange compote all over the table, flung olives and stuffed cherry peppers around, etcetera, etcetera. I came out on account of the noise and caught a bunch of them dueling with bones they’d pulled from the crown roast. I yelled at the top of my lungs and they froze, except for the baked brie that was already flung and hit a boy square in the face. Turned out he was deathly allergic to dairy, plus the cheese was still hot, so I shouted for Jennifer to call 911 and hustled him to the parking lot, the other food-smeared boys trailing behind, a couple still poking each other with the ribs. 

Their scoutmaster was hanging out in the rain, smoking a joint with the bus driver, but they both jumped up and hustled the boys onboard right quick when they saw the sobbing kid with the cheese all over. They raced down the road to meet the ambulance, and I ran back inside to have the gals clean up the Grand Salon pronto and set out the appetizers while I figured out dinner. 

The sky looked worse and worse, and the air smelled like snow, so I told the gals to head home as soon as they were done with the cleaning and set-up. Jennifer and I finished the rooms, though the boys had wrecked the flowers I usually set in vases on the vanities to give the place a homey touch. The weather radio said trees were coming down across Sidekick at the dam, so I sent Jennifer home to check on her grandma and bring in the animals. 

I peeked in the Grand Salon and saw the appetizers and wine set up—good girls. I tried 911 to see if the boy was okay, but the phones and internet were out. We had a couple big generators, so I wasn’t too worried about the hotel or house’s electricity. The barn might go dark. I was pissed off that I couldn’t text the scoutmaster to discuss the humongous bill they’d be getting. “Do a Good Turn Daily” my ass.

I headed for the galley to finish cleaning up and consider what I could pull together for dinner. With the main road blocked by downed trees and the Dwyer flooded over its banks, I didn’t have a lot of options for feeding the guests. I could make do for breakfast—the scouts hadn’t smashed all of the eggs, and I had pre-mixed scrambled, plus a few loaves of bread at the house, not much else. Other than that, it was mostly Boy Scout leftovers: Green-Apple Kool-Aid packets, a few bottles of something called “Cool Blue” Gatorade, plastic-wrapped 3-pound packages of carrot and celery sticks, three flats of canned corn, four flats of cafeteria-sized frozen peas, a Costco-sized pallet of dehydrated potato slices, a sack of onions, a few leftover monster chubs of 25% fat ground beef, an opened gallon jug of canola oil, off-brand oatmeal-raisin cookies, disgusting-looking pre-made S’mores, one open box of soy milk, a few quarts of milk in bags rather than cartons, and about 800 individually-sized boxes of Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch. Not what Mrs. Peale had ordered, though at least the trays of cut cheese and the boxes of crackers had been delivered on Wednesday. Out in the barn fridge, I had some bags of Caesar salad and a couple of big CostCo boxes of appetizers and entrees, cabbage mini-eggrolls, pupusa thingies Jennifer had chosen, paleo lime chicken thighs, frozen mushrooms, and pre-cooked rice with vegetables. I’d write up a little card calling it “We Are the World.” Writers would like that. We always kept what Jen called “emergency wine” in the cellar, a few okay bottles from Fred Meyer and a stack of boxed chardonnay that wasn’t half bad if it wasn’t your first glass. I got the food out in good time. It helped that most of the guests were late. Only a couple had made it all the way in their cars. Mrs. Peale had their room keys, so I kept working.

By the time I checked back at reception, the writers had gone through all the wine the gals had set up earlier. Bunch of lushes for the most part. No thanks from them for getting anything at all on the table in this storm and with the town road closed. Mrs. Peale said she had found some more wine and “the sandwiches.” Sounded like the boys had missed a tray in the Grand Salon, and the girls hadn’t found them—they’d had to clean and set up pretty quick. Fine, they could eat “the sandwiches,” whatever they were, and the salad and CostCo stuff. I wasn’t in a very good mood. 

***

I’d been resigned to cooking up the Boy Scout leftovers for Saturday night. That morning, I’d already pulled the orchard tractor and the Big Bud out of the equipment shed, got a good fire going in there under the high metal roof, and started to prep those scout things, a lump of burger in the middle with peas on one side and potatoes on the other, all wrapped up in foil and tossed in the embers. I figured to mix the meat with wine and oregano, throw carrot coins in the peas, chopped onions in the potato, and call it “Pique-Nique Rustique au Boeuf” or some such. French-like. Jennifer could shake down some apples and I’d make a fast apple crumble for dessert if the little monsters hadn’t gotten into my flour and brown sugar.

It was my good luck that Butchie had gone in his crazy truck to pick up a huge catering order for a wedding right before Cami Slough washed out the road that side of the mountain, too. He had took what he wanted and offered me the rest, smoked king salmon, lobster tail, canard à l’orange, razor clams, geoduck, shrimp and jicama salad, buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes with rocket and balsamic vinegar, that kind of thing, a bunch of different kinds of sashimi, little dishes of those colored candy almonds already wrapped up in lacy little bags with too many Mylar ribbons. There’d be insurance money for the spoiled wedding, but hell, I’d give Butchie a cut of what I’d get from the Boy Scouts due to their criminal children and pothead employees, seeing as how he’d rescued me. Maybe I’d give it to him on the condition he had that butt-ugly cybertruck painted like the shuttlecraft in the old Star Trek, which was sure what it looked like the most. 

Anyway, free food for the retreat, more like what Mrs. Peale had ordered, but even fancier. Tough luck for the happy couple, but it ought to get the writers to shut up about the fare.

I’d sent Butchie down to my place, above the blocked road, to grab a bottle of Jack for himself as part of his thank-you. He’d spend the night there and come back up to let me know when the road opened, or if any of the writers’ cars got washed into the drainage.

I’d seen Mr. Ficino up and more or less about, so I went to clean his room. I was horrified to discover that the girls had just rolled up the food fight mess in the area rug and stowed it in that wing. They probably didn’t figure anyone was staying there and that they’d be back to clean it up in the morning, roads permitting, which they hadn’t. I added the cost of a food cart, now dented, and the rug, stained with meat sauce and compote and piled up with the dinner intended for last night, including a whole chicken with chestnut stuffing, to my mental bill for the scouts. I fetched a tarp and carefully re-rolled the rug around the spoiled food and pulled it into another guest room. Jennifer could clean it up later, but right now, with the staff all at home, I had her back in the galley organizing the wedding food so we could set it up quick buffet-style later. I needed her help, and she hated kitchen work, so it was also a punishment for not watching that pig of hers. Wasn’t the first time, and we’d had words. It was also to keep her occupied while I took care of a little change of plans for my fire out back, thinking toward Sunday supper. Spitted suckling piglet.