Virtually Perfect by Paige Roberts

Author:Paige Roberts [Roberts, Paige]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Thirty minutes passed. Then another fifteen. By the time fifty minutes had elapsed, Lizzie wanted to vomit.

“Where are they?” she cried. She held a hand over the shellfish. No steam. Nothing. Was it even safe to let shellfish sit out like this? Probably not. Great, she thought. Not only will everything be cold; they’ll also get food poisoning.

“Help me take everything back inside,” she told Renata.

Renata looked at her watch. “They could be here any minute.”

“They could also be another hour, at which point nothing will be edible. At least now I can salvage some of this. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure how.”

“Can’t you reheat it?”

“Shellfish?” Lizzie ran her eyes over the perfectly arranged pile of lobsters, shrimp, clams, and crabs. She wanted to cry. “No. It’d be rubbery and disgusting.”

“Oh. Oh, dear.” Renata pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Then what will you do?”

“I don’t know. Just help me carry the platters inside, and I’ll figure something out.”

Renata helped her shuttle the bowls and platters back into the house, laying the seafood, corn, and tomatoes on the counter in the butler’s pantry. Lizzie stuck the snap pea salad in the refrigerator and turned around to face the surfeit of food. She blinked back tears.

“Perfect,” she said, holding her head in her hands.

“Ah, so this is where all the food is.”

Lizzie looked over her shoulder and saw Nate standing in the doorway. She couldn’t even muster a smile.

“Whoa, if looks could kill . . .”

“Not now,” Lizzie said. She wasn’t in the mood for banter.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . I was just hungry and came looking—”

“If you are going to ask me to make you a pizza right now, I honestly might start crying.”

“I wasn’t. But now that you mention it . . .”

Lizzie felt the blood rush to her face. “Seriously?”

Nate raised his hands apologetically. “No—I was kidding. But apparently the joke didn’t land.”

“Not even a little.”

“Apologies.” He glanced at the food on the counter. “What’s the problem? Everything looks great.”

“Too bad it’s all cold.”

“Cold? Why?”

“Because Kathryn told me to have everything ready at seven o’clock sharp and it’s now eight.”

Nate shook his head. “Classic.”

“Classic? As in this happens a lot?”

“Not this specifically. More like . . . Kathryn lives in Kathryn land and doesn’t always think about how her actions impact others.”

“Well, this time it’s going to affect her because she isn’t going to have any dinner.”

“Sure she will. Assuming you want to keep your job for the rest of the summer—which, by the way, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

“No, I do.” She took a deep breath. “I just don’t see how I can save this sorry excuse for a clambake.”

“I wouldn’t call it a ‘sorry excuse’—”

“It wasn’t an hour ago. An hour ago, it was perfect. But now? It’s basically a pile of room temperature seafood that, in a few more minutes, will be borderline dangerous to eat.”

“Are you suggesting you could poison Kathryn? Because if so, I have to say—”

“No.

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