Beyond Midnight by Antoinette Stockenberg

Author:Antoinette Stockenberg [Stockenberg, Antoinette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Antoinette Stockenberg
Published: 2011-10-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

For the fifth straight year, the weather for the Ice Cream Social was perfect. Blue skies, puffy clouds, enough warmth to make the ice cream worth eating—it couldn't get any better than that.

At twelve-thirty Helen Evett and Candy Greene were in the basement kitchen of The Open Door, wrapping full length aprons around their sundresses to protect them from the drips and stains of flower arranging. The work was fun, the fragrance, divine. But that's not why Helen volunteered for the job. Her ulterior motive—her only motive—was to pump Candy about her late friend Linda Byrne.

With the easy intimacy that gardening promotes, they chatted for a bit, and then Helen began a roundabout approach to her goal. "We'll miss Astra at The Open Door," she said. "She was such a delight."

Expertly stripping a rose stem of its thorns, Candy said, "She loved every minute she spent here. Today I had to practically bribe her to stay at home with Henry until two o'clock. I hope she's as happy in kindergarten. Will you ever offer that level, do you think?"

Helen sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "I've thought about it, but the school keeps me flat out—and away from my family—as it is. The fall term is completely booked, and the waiting list keeps getting longer."

"Marvelous. And you don't even advertise," Candy said as she tucked magenta roses among blue-black delphiniums in a parian vase. "Word of mouth—it's so effective."

"Speaking of which," Helen said, seizing her chance, "I wanted to thank you for referring Katie Byrne here; she's a real sweetie."

"Oh—Katie. Yes. She's an angel."

Implying that somebody else wasn't? Helen didn't know what to make of the remark. She was mulling a response when her assistant Janet Harken, coordinator of the affair, marched in.

Janet took one look at the stainless-steel counters covered with iris and lupines and lilies and said, "What? You're not done with the flowers yet? For goodness' sake. I need those counters. I need the sink. I need the kitchen, and I need it all now."

She brushed aside the women's protests that you couldn't rush art. "If you wanted to make a Broadway production out of this, ladies, you should've come earlier," she said, sweeping some of the stems and scraps into a waste can.

"Janet, you're a bloody tyrant when you want to be," Helen said, scowling. The timing was infuriating.

Janet wasn't intimidated in the least by her employer. Fitting a hair net over her curly gray hair, she said, "It's an ice cream party, not a New Orleans cotillion. Mrs. Greene, you can just go ahead and finish what you're doing over there," she said, pointing to a small freestanding table out of the flow of traffic.

Then she turned to Helen and said, "As for you, you'd better hand in your apron. You have parents to greet—you do realize that some eager-beavers are already out there, don't you?"

"What! It's only one-fifteen!" Helen made an exasperated remark about early birds and what she'd

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