“I don’t know. Ask me tonight. Oh crap,” Lori repeated. At Simone’s utterly confused look, Lori explained. “I’m pretty sure I left my bag at the job last night. I got it out of the car because I needed my laptop to check a recipe.” She shook her head, frustrated. “I know it’s there. I’m positive.”
“How far is it? To go back to get it?”
“It’s not that far. He lives in one of the big houses on waterway.” Lori paused, not really sure how to go on.
When the silence lengthened, Simone prompted, “What is it?”
“The last thing I want to do is go back there. It was sort of weird when I left last night.” Normally, Lori would not have shared something both professional and personal with the twenty one year old young woman, but so odd had the events of the previous night been that she found the words tumbling out.
Simone popped a granola bar from the cabinet into her backpack. “Weird?”
“I don’t know,” Lori paused as she pictured the scene. “Yeah, weird. Out of the blue, he just asked us to leave. Walked into the kitchen and asked us to go. We hadn’t even served the dessert.”
Simone digested this. “Was he mad?”
“No. Not really. He just wanted us gone.” Lori replayed the scene in her head, trying to come up with a better answer, then shook the train of thought away. “It doesn’t matter. Obviously, I have to go back. It’s my wallet, my computer, everything.” Lori looked at the table. Brandon was still crying and Lori knew when it was time to throw in the towel. “Brandon would you like to go to McDonald’s with Simone?”
“Can I come home after?”
Lori’s heart sank. “No. No, Bran, you have to go to school.”
He stared at his waffle plate. “I don’t like school,” he whispered. “My tummy hurts.”
Lori sank down into the empty chair next to her son. “Bran, tonight, how would you like it if you and I, just the two of us, went to Charlie Cheese and maybe you can tell me why you don’t want to go to school. And whatever it is, honey, I promise I’ll fix it.” She paused. “Sound good?”
Grace looked up, her lip already moving into full-on pout position. “Not fair!” she stated, with all the outrage a ten year old could muster. “Why does he get to go to Charlie Cheese and I don’t?”
Normally, Lori was not quite so indulgent, but she had to solve this problem and the last thing she needed was Grace having a meltdown. Lori brought out one of the big guns. “You and Simone can go for pedicures. How does that sound?”
Problem solved. “Okay.” Grace beamed up at Simone and Simone beamed back.
“Can I stay home from school forever?” Brandon asked.
“No, Brandon, no. We’ll talk about it. Tonight. For right now you go to McDonald’s with Simone and then be a good boy at school today, alright?”
In the days, weeks and months to follow, Lori would think about that morning, and about Brandon’s request to stay home from school forever and she would realize that at least one of them had gotten something they wanted.
Lori checked her watch as Simone hustled Brandon and Grace into the little Toyota she drove, trying to put her schedule together. It was already 8:30; there was no way she could get out to Raoul Saldata’s house and back to the vet by nine. So she’d have to go to the vet first, then on to the Saldata’s, then back to the house to drop Sasha off, then on to her home visits, the first of which was scheduled for eleven. It would be tight, but she could make it.
Twenty minutes later Lori was in her Range Rover, speeding towards the vet. Thank God she’d had her phone in the pocket of her apron last night, so at least that had not been left behind. Suddenly she realized she might have made a miscalculation: Would anyone even be home at the Saldata’s? Lori knew for a fact that Mrs. Saldata was not there; her absence was, allegedly, the reason that Mr. Saldata had hired Lori’s catering company, Top Hat Catering, to do the dinner party. Lori had in fact never met a Mrs. Saldata and wasn’t sure she even lived in the U.S. As much as she didn’t want to talk to Mr. Saldata, she knew she couldn’t just show up unannounced, and reluctantly she brought up the number in her phone and hit dial. However, sixty seconds later, she was no better off, because no one had answered at the house, neither Mr. Saldata nor the housekeeper. Now what?
Sitting in the vet’s office, Sasha obediently curled up at her feet, Lori suddenly remembered that she’d put the housekeeper’s cell number in her phone as well. But what was her name? Lori thought for a moment, frustrated, because of course the notes for the job were in her laptop, which were in bag, but maybe Rodriguez? She scrolled through her numbers until … yup, Maria Rodriguez. She hit the number and breathed a sigh of relief when the woman’s voice came over the line on the first ring.
“Mrs. Rodriguez, it’s Lori Dovner.” Silence. “Top Hat Catering? I did the party last night at Mr. Saldata’s.”
“Oh, si, si. Miss Lori, how are you? How did the party go?”
“It went well. It was fine, but, are you at the house?”
“Oh, no señora. No, no. I am off Sunday and Monday.”
“Do you know if Mr. Saldata is there? I left something at the house. I called and he didn’t answer.”
“He no like answer telefono.”
“Do you think he’s there?”
“No se. He come and go and never say de nada to me.”
“Is there any way, I hate to ask, but could you meet me there? I wouldn’t ask but it’s my wallet. I don’t even have my driver’s license.”
“Oh, Señora, I am so sorry but I am visiting my daughter in Orlando. I am four hours away. I cannot help you.”
“Well, thanks anyway,” Lori spoke slowly, trying to think of a plan. “I’ll just go over there, and hopefully Mr. Saldata will be there…”
There was a long pause. “Miss Lori, I no should do this but if he no answer the gate buzzer, here is the code. The code for the gate is 7-2-7-2-9. And the back door is 1-9-7-5.“
“Hold on.” Lori hurried up to the desk and grabbed a pen and a post-it note from the secretary. “Tell me those numbers again.”
Maria Rodriguez repeated the codes. “Don’t tell no one I give you. He say I never give anyone the code, but if he not there, what can you do?”
“Thank you. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Buenos dias, Senora.”
“Buenos dias, Senora Rodriguez.”
Twenty minutes later Lori was winging her way towards the Saldata residence. The vet visit, just routine yearly shots, had gone quickly. Lori was hopeful she could get in and out of Saldata’s in just a couple of minutes. That would give her nearly an hour to get home, drop Sasha, change into business clothes and get to her first visit.
Top Hat Catering specialized in private dining, high-end seated dinners served and usually prepared in the clients’ own homes. For that reason, an essential part of Lori’s workday was what she cynically referred to as “location scouting.” What dishes, pots and pans, and kitchen set-up did the client have? More than once in her early days she’d been assured by a client that “we have everything,” only to arrive and discover that “everything,” was a couple old frying pans, and grandmother’s china for eight that the hostess thought Lori, using her super powers, could somehow magically stretch to serve twelve.
That certainly had not been the case at the Saldata’s. It had been a beautiful, fully-equipped kitchen in a lovely residence, all top-notch. Everything had been perfect - until the moment last night when Mr. Saldata had