The Groaning Board

easy,” A.T. said. Without Wetzon’s having to ask,
she brought her a glass and one for herself. Now they were all drinking wine.
Smith had driven them bonkers. Take Smith, fold in A.T., salt with Minnie Wu,
Wetzon thought. Recipe for hives.
    A camera crew of two women in combat
boots and one man with dangling earrings had arrived with a mass of cameras and
equipment. They dropped everything in the middle of the room and went out for a
smoke and to wait for Minnie. Minnie was late.
    The sort-of country French table
Smith, Wetzon, and A.T. were sitting around was as big as a bed. It was piled
with platters, earthenware pots, and bell jars of every size, filled with every
variety of beans, couscous, and rice, and mysterious pickled things.
    Smith said, “What about a pâté for a
first course?”
    “I think perhaps a pumpkin risotto...
or”—A.T. pursed her thin lips—“a chicken liver pâté with cilantro would be
lovely.” Detaching the pencil from her hair where she’d parked it earlier, she
touched the lead point to her tongue.
    “Absolutely not,” Micklynn said.
She’d divided her dough among three bowls and set them aside. Now she came over
to the table, wiping her hands on her voluminous apron, scattering flour and
dry flakes of pastry like confetti.
    “Really? And what would you suggest?”
A.T.’s tone would have made a polar bear shiver.
    “A vegetable terrine. Several. We
could use beets, white beans, black beans, and leeks. It’s much lighter and
will complement the veal roast.”
    “I’m not wild about beets. Stains
everything bloody,” Smith said.
    “Then eggplant. It’s the color more
than anything. Will you be wanting a soup course?”
    Smith frowned. She looked at Wetzon.
    “I can just see me standing around
with a cup of hot soup in my hand getting jostled by tall people,” Wetzon said.
“Your carpet will never be the same.”
    “It’s going to be sit-down,” Smith
said.
    “You’ll have an unforgettable chorus
of slurpers.”
    “No soup,” Smith said.
    A loud thump came from above them.
They all looked upward.
    “Having some work done upstairs,”
A.T. explained hastily. “Workmen are so careless... they drop things, you know.
It’s so hard to find a contractor—”
    “Isn’t Ellen out front?” Micklynn
said, severing A.T.’s babble. Without waiting for an answer, she swept back the
drapery separating kitchen from shop, only to be greeted by delighted shoppers.
Her response was a distracted “Hello. Yes. So nice to see you. Try the quail
salad. I’m sure you’ll like it. Excuse me. Tom, I thought Ellen was here with
you.”
    An exaggeratedly female/male voice
responded, “She went upstairs to study. Said she’d be back.”
    “...mesclun with a raspberry
vinaigrette,” A.T. was saying.
    “Fine,” Smith said. “Now for
dessert.”
    Wetzon watched her partner for some
reaction to what was happening around them unrelated to the menu for Smith’s
dinner party. It was amazing that Smith didn’t seem ! to have
absorbed any of it.
    “She’s upstairs with him,” Micklynn
cried in an anguished voice. She began wringing her hands obsessively,
wandering one way a few steps, then another.
    “Excuse me a moment.” A.T. jumped to
her feet. “Mickey is letting everything get to her today.” She caught hold of
Micklynn. “Come on now. Ellen’s a good girl. You know that.”
    “I don’t know that at all. I told her
she wasn’t to have. him in the apartment.”
    Wetzon, the voyeur, was jolted from
her rapt attention to the scene by a swift, sharp kick. Elaborately, Smith
handed her a printed list of desserts. Wetzon had been wrong; Smith was as
fascinated as she was by the combustion.
    “Come on, Mickey. Ellen’s an A
student, she’s not into grunge, she helps us out after school. Lighten up.”
    “You’re buying into her fiction,”
Micklynn said hotly. She twisted from A.T.’s grasp and flung her long braid
behind her, scattering flour, and disappeared up a flight of stairs Wetzon
hadn’t noticed because it was half hidden by lush hanging plants.
    A.T. cast a worried look after her
partner, then came back to the table, where Smith and Wetzon were pretending to
be absorbed in the dessert menu.
    “Nothing serious, I hope,” Smith
said.
    “No. Not really. We made an important
business decision today, and of course she’s worried about Ellen.”
    “Well, I can certainly understand a
parent’s problems in dealing with adolescent behavior,” Smith