The Groaning Board

because
traffic through it was constant. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to make personal
contact with Micklynn, whose genius was in the original preparation. A.T., who
had at one time managed a food shop at Bloomingdale’s, handled the business,
the sales and marketing, as well as (A.T. herself often said) some of the
cooking—“just a few special things.”
    When Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon
arrived that afternoon, A.T. had been summoned. She’d appeared after a short
delay, slightly disheveled, her hair, which obviously had started the day
pinned up, standing out from her head in great kinky gobs. Flinging back the
curtain, A.T. had ushered them into a huge country kitchen infused with the
scents of lemon and sugar and melted butter. Impressions of chocolate hovered,
beguiling, in the air while the Grateful Dead sang the subtext.
    And then there was the odoriferous
garlic that underscored the entire opus.
    Doubles of everything lined the
walls: sinks, dishwashers, food mixers and processors, stoves, refrigerators,
freezers, ovens.
    Micklynn, in a long, loose dress and
cross-training shoes, was kneading dough on a wooden board, up to her
unfettered bosom in flour and bits of dough. Her arms were fleshy and muscular,
and she seemed to be handling the dough like an attack dog with an intruder’s
coat in his jaws.
    “You know Micklynn, of course.”
    “Of course,” Smith had replied. “This
is my partner, Leslie Wetzon.”
    Micklynn gave a half turn and nodded.
    “And this is Minnie Wu.”
    How odd, Wetzon thought. She hadn’t
noticed the other woman until Minnie moved away from the table on which rested
a harvest of red, yellow, and green peppers, white and purple eggplants, and
vases of deep green basil. Minnie was wearing camouflage of like colors that
had made her virtually disappear.
    Minnie Wu was Chinese, a short,
thick-waisted woman in pants and a shapeless overshirt. She fairly oozed
hostility.
    “I’ll be back in an hour,” she’d
said, not acknowledging the introduction. “My camera and sound people will be
along sooner, so let’s not have these...” She shrugged a rounded shoulder at
Smith and Wetzon.
    A.T.’s smile was a twitch. “Minnie, I
think our clients would like—wouldn’t it be nice to see us interacting... ?” To
Smith and Wetzon she said, “We’re doing some TV promotion for our cooking
show.”
    Flicking her eyes back over Smith,
then Wetzon, then back to Smith, Minnie pronounced, “Too old.”
    Wetzon’s cough barely covered the
laugh that burbled in her throat. Someone was making a choking noise. She
sneaked a look at Smith. Smith’s mouth was hanging open.
    The choking noise came from Micklynn
as she slid the veal roast into the nearest oven. She caught Wetzon’s eye for a
moment, then slammed the oven door.
    “Minnie, really—” A.T. began.
    “Maybe we should leave now,“ Smith had said, seething.
    “No, no, please,” A.T. pleaded.
“Minnie doesn’t mean—”
    Minnie shifted the curtain and
stepped into the shop, calling back. “I mean it. Get rid of them.”

Chapter Three

     
     
     
    “Coffee?
Wine?” A.T.’d begun to flutter, moving back and
forth, picking up mugs, glasses. “I am so sorry. It’s one of those things...
you know how it is, I’m sure—”
    “That’s the rudest whi—woman I have
ever met.”
    “Decaf,” Wetzon said. A.T.’s penchant
for rambling overexplanation was setting her teeth on edge. The atmosphere in
the otherwise pleasant room was making her itch. And Smith had been about to
say “white woman” when she realized that Minnie Wu was Chinese.
    “Wine,” Smith said. "White.“
    There. She’d gotten it out, “Nice,
Smith.” Wetzon couldn’t smother her laugh and got an outraged glare from her
partner.
    “Open another bottle,” Micklynn said.
    A.T. took a bottle of Chappellet
pinot blanc from one of the huge refrigerators, peeled away the jacket, and
plunged a corkscrew into the cork, folding the wings back. The cork gave an
infinitesimal sigh as it left the bottle. A.T. poured a glass for Smith, then
replenished Micklynn’s.
    The bottle was empty and another
opened by the time Smith made her choice of main course, picking her way
through the dense descriptions A.T. attached to everything. Wetzon was
beginning to contemplate a switch away from coffee, and decided not for the
first time that Xenia Smith would drive a teetotaler to drink.
    “Now that we’ve settled on the main
course, the rest should be