Tart of Darkness Page 5

  “Thank you.” Dani managed to resist the urge to roll her eyes at the girl’s pretentiousness.

  “Ivy tells me you’re a caterer.”

  “That’s one part of my Chef-to-Go business.” Dani nodded. “Are you planning a party?”

  “My annual SummerPalooza bash.” Regina curled her lip. “My regular caterer canceled on me at the last minute and it’s this coming Saturday.” Her voice was heavy with importance. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t dream of using someone without references.”

  “I see.” Dani hid her amusement at the young woman’s patronizing attitude. “I’m flattered you’re willing to give me a chance, but four days is too short notice even for a nobody like me.”

  “Dani!” Ivy yelped, abandoning her barista duties to dart over and tug on Dani’s hand. “Can I speak to you in private for a moment?”

  The panic in Ivy’s eyes was the only thing that kept Dani from refusing and kicking Regina out of her kitchen. Turning off the mixer, she followed the girl out into the hallway and crossed her arms. “What?”

  “Please, please, please cater Regina’s bash.” Ivy’s hands were clasped as if in prayer. “If you do it, she says that I can go.”

  “Do you really want to attend a party where you aren’t truly welcome?”

  “Hell yes!” Ivy screamed, then slapped her palm over her mouth. “An invitation to one of Regina’s events is like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. I’ll meet all the right people. Maybe even get to network myself into a good internship.”

  “I doubt that the CEOs of the companies you’re interested in will be at something called SummerPalooza.”

  “Maybe not,” Ivy said. “But their sons and daughters will be.”

  “Do you know how many are on the guest list?” Dani asked, weakening.

  “Regina likes to keep it intimate, so she limits it to a hundred.”

  “A hundred guests are an intimate gathering?” Dani snorted. “What kind of menu is she thinking about? I’m guessing something complicated?”

  “Not really.” Ivy stared at her feet. “It’s a Polynesian theme.”

  “I’m not roasting a whole pig in the ground.” Dani crossed her arms again.

  “That’s fine.”

  “The only way I could do it is if you, Tippi, and Starr give me a lot of time this coming week,” Dani warned. “Like double your normal hours. Will Tippi and Starr be on board with that?”

  “Absolutely. Regina said they could come too.” Ivy threw her arms around Dani and squeezed. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” A shiver of dread ran up Dani’s spine as she imagined working for an entitled, patronizing girl like Regina. “There’s a lot that could go wrong. And if it does, I bet Regina won’t be pleased.”

  “I know you.” Ivy tugged her back into the kitchen. “It’ll be perfect.”

  • • •

  Planning the luau menu had been more fun than Dani wanted to admit, although Regina’s constant micromanaging had been a challenge. The girl reminded her of star fruit. It looked pretty, but it didn’t bring much else to the platter.

  However, with the countdown to the party dwindling, Dani had the upper hand and, for the most part, Regina grudgingly backed off from most of her demands. Dani had refused to wear a hula skirt or a muumuu but had agreed to Hawaiian shirts for her staff. Tippi, Starr, and Ivy would serve appetizers for the first hour, but once the buffet opened, they would change out of the garish floral blouses into their own tops and could mingle with the other guests.

  Now that the big day had arrived and Dani steered her van between two brick columns and onto the private road leading to Regina Bourne’s home, her stomach fluttered. She ignored the excited chattering of Tippi, Ivy, and Starr, instead running the pre-party to-do list through her head. This event was her first big catering gig and could very well make or break that part of her business. At least, make it or break it with the high-end consumers in this part of town.

  Following Regina’s instructions, Dani turned onto an offshoot of the main driveway that led toward the rear entrance of the imposing brick house. Ivy was the first one out of the van, and she ran up to the back steps while the rest of them were still exiting the vehicle.

  Before she could ring the bell, the door swung open and a sweet-faced woman in her late sixties or early seventies skimmed Ivy’s bright-turquoise-and-yellow flowered shirt and said, “Hello. You must be with the catering company.” She glanced over Ivy’s shoulder and beamed at Dani and the others. “Oh my. You all are right on time. My name’s Mrs. Carnet and I keep house for the Bournes. Can I help you carry anything?”

  Dani walked up beside Ivy and introduced herself, then said, “Thank you, but if you could just direct us to the kitchen, we’re good.”

  They loaded supplies onto the four rolling carts Dani had purchased a few days ago, then followed the housekeeper down a hall and into a huge kitchen. As Regina had promised, the massive Sub-Zero refrigerator was empty, and Dani’s crew quickly stowed the perishables on the waiting shelves, then made several more trips for all the other food and equipment.

  Once they had everything inside, and Dani had tucked away the tray of desserts that Regina had requested be reserved for her private consumption, she turned to Mrs. Carnet, gestured to a pair of French doors, and said, “I take it those lead to the backyard.”

  “Yes.” The housekeeper twisted her fingers in her apron and added, “Miss Regina is out there with the men putting out the tables and chairs.”

  A local party rental company was handling the setup, and Dani was anxious to see how things were arranged and to make any necessary tweaks. Instructing her crew to start prepping the appetizers, Dani rushed outside.

  Dani took a few hurried steps onto the tiled patio and came to an abrupt halt. The stunning view of Hawthorne Lake was mesmerizing and she had to tear her gaze away from the dock bobbing on the beautiful blue water. Looking around, she realized that the Bournes’ enormous property was more like a resort than a backyard.

  There was an in-ground pool, a fire pit surrounded by gorgeous slate tile, and a multilevel deck that meandered around the house, garage, and hot tub. As Dani finished gaping at the luxurious surroundings, she noticed the luau decorations and rolled her eyes.

  Regina must have purchased or rented every inflatable palm tree, thatched umbrella cover, and tiki hut bar in Normalton’s city limits. There was enough netting, fake starfish, and plastic parrots to furnish a Hawaiian village. Not to mention the dozens and dozens of bamboo tiki torches scattered throughout the party area.

  Although Dani thought the decor was way overdone, it wasn’t her problem. She had been hired to provide the food, not the atmosphere. Glancing to her right, she saw Regina supervising two men attaching raffia skirts to several long tables set end to end in the middle of the open area. Dani shaded her eyes and mentally calculated the number of chafing dishes and bowls that the buffet could hold.

  Regina spotted Dani and waved her over. “Are you all ready to go?”

  “Yes.” Dani nodded, then added, “As I mentioned, my servers aren’t old enough to handle liquor. But as per your request, I made two hundred lime, coconut, and rum Jell-O shots this morning. If you’ll come with me, I’d like to deliver them to you. And we’ll need a witness.”

  Yesterday, when Regina had stopped by Dani’s house to add the shots to the catering contract, Dani had checked her identification. Once she’d been assured that the girl was twenty-one, Dani had outlined her conditions for making the drinks, which would ensure that she would not be held responsible if underage kids happened to get ahold of some of them.

  “Fine.” Regina tossed her long, blond hair and trailed Dani through the kitchen, where she ordered Mrs. Carnet to follow them. The three women marched out the door to where the Chef-to-Go van was parked.

&
nbsp; After placing four insulated chests containing ice and fifty shots each on a wheeled cart, Dani handed Regina an agreement stating that the client would assume responsibility and serve the drinks only to guests over twenty-one.

  Regina scribbled her name, thrust the sheet of paper at Mrs. Carnet to add her signature as a witness, then tossed it at Dani, who carefully attached the rider to the original contract. As Dani locked the file in the glove compartment, Regina instructed Mrs. Carnet to take the boxes into the pool house and store them in that refrigerator.

  Once the housekeeper had hurried away, Regina walked with Dani into the kitchen and, after looking at the wall clock, said, “The bartenders should be here any second. Mrs. C will take care of them. I’m heading upstairs to change. When my guests begin showing up, I expect you and your crew all to be out there serving the appetizers.”

  “Certainly.” Dani turned to Ivy, Starr, and Tippi. “Okay, girls. Let’s get ready for battle.”

  At first, people drifted in twos and threes, each selecting a lei from a table strategically stationed near the backyard’s gated entrance. But soon, larger and larger groups arrived and the flowered garlands began to be tossed out into the crowd like beads at Mardi Gras.

  By the time the appetizers of grilled sweet potato fingers with curry dip, mini Polynesian chicken salad sandwiches, and shrimp-and-coconut nachos were eaten, and Dani opened the buffet, the place was full of people. Dani sent Ivy, Tippi, and Starr to change out of their work clothes and prepared to handle the hungry hoards by herself.

  Between the conversations and the Hawaiian music, the noise level was earsplitting. Dani had asked Regina if there would be any problems with the neighbors and Regina had said that most of the owners of the houses nearest to the Bournes were away on vacation. Dani had briefly wondered if Regina chose the SummerPalooza date because of their absence, or if the neighbors booked their trips in anticipation of her party.

  As the first few waves of people hit the buffet line, Dani kept a close eye on the food. She saw that the side dishes and the sweet-and-sour pork were holding up well, but the barbecued steak was disappearing much faster than she’d estimated. Good thing she had another fifty rib eyes marinating inside.

  Dani hurried into the kitchen to grab the plastic bins of meat from the refrigerator. After putting the steaks on the nearby grills, she returned to her spot behind the buffet.

  It seemed as if most of the party’s attendees were more acquaintances of Regina than real friends. However, every single guest approached Regina to pay their respects. It was almost like a scene from a Godfather movie. The young men and women did everything but kiss the large engagement ring on their hostess’s left hand.

  When the feeding frenzy finally died down, Dani had a chance to study the guests, recognizing a few of her lunch-to-go regulars. Some attendees looked as if they weren’t sure if they were thrilled or scared out of their mind to be there.

  One of Dani’s customers, a muscular young man who had informed her he was the star pitcher on the college’s baseball team, had his arm around a cute brunette wearing a bright-pink bikini top. He shouted over the music to a guy busy pawing his own date, “Damn straight, I’m good in bed.”

  His buddy snorted and roared, “Yeah. You can stay there all day.”

  The girls both giggled and Dani turned her attention to Regina’s inner circle. For the past week, Ivy had been chattering about them, and Dani was curious to see them for herself.

  Regina’s clique had claimed the table nearest the buffet and thanks to Ivy’s briefing, Dani could identify them all. The young man Dani understood to be Regina’s fiancé, Laz Hunter, was tall, dark, and drunk. He’d turned his handsome nose up at Dani’s carefully prepared cuisine and had been silently pounding Jell-O shots since he sat down.

  Bliss Armstrong, a tiny redhead with a dusting of cute freckles across her nose, was Regina’s BFF. She picked at her food and seemed bored. Bliss’s boyfriend, Vance King, was one of NU’s starting football players. According to Ivy, rumor had it that he was hoping to make the NFL draft but probably wasn’t quite good enough. Although Vance had filled his plate three times, he was also knocking back bottles of beer as if he owned stock in Anheuser-Busch.

  Dani wrinkled her brow as she observed Vance’s repeated attempts to pull Regina away from the group. Granted, the girl was beyond beautiful and only wearing a coconut shell bra and bikini bottom covered by a short grass skirt, but had Dani misunderstood Ivy as to who was dating whom?

  Shrugging, Dani turned her attention to clearing the empty chafing dishes and bowls. The college crowd’s love life wasn’t her problem; the party’s desserts were.

  After a few trips back and forth to the kitchen, Dani was putting down the last trays of banana-coconut upside-down cake and dark chocolate truffle tarts when Vance spotted the sweets. He and Regina had been whispering a few feet away, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the food.

  As he lumbered drunkenly toward the cake, he stumbled against one of the bamboo torches that Regina had insisted bracket the buffet. The torch snapped in half and fell across the tabletop. The fuel canister’s lit wick touched the raffia skirt, which burst into flames.

  Dani’s pulse raced, and for an instant, she froze as the dried grass fiber blazed. Then instinct kicked in and she dropped to her knees. Searching under the table for the fire extinguisher she kept handy anytime she used Sterno to keep the food in her chafing dishes warm, she nearly cried in relief when her fingers brushed the metal canister.

  Yelling for everyone to stay back, Dani held her breath and sprayed the flames until the foam ran out. Shakily, she put the extinguisher down and sucked air into her starving lungs.

  Before she could catch her breath, Regina marched up to her and demanded, “Clear off this table, and get new trays of desserts out here right now.”

  Dani blinked. She’d been expecting Regina to thank her, not issue impossible orders. “I beg your pardon?” Drawing on her HR experience to help keep her cool, she calmly said, “I can bring out the selection that you asked me to put aside for you.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “All the other desserts were on the buffet. There are no more.”

  “You don’t have any backups?” Regina screeched. “What kind of incompetent moron are you?”

  “The kind who just saved your party from going up in an inferno.”

  “You…you…” Regina waved her hands in the air as if she were signaling a jet to land.

  One of the bartenders passing by with a tray of Jell-O shots stepped up to Regina and asked, “Are you okay, miss?”

  “Of course I’m not okay, you idiot.” Regina snatched the tray from his hands and dumped the contents over Dani’s head.

  Shocked, Dani stiffened, then grabbed a napkin and wiped her face. Turning back to Regina, she said, “That does it. I’m out of here.”

  Regina stomped her foot and screamed, “If you don’t come up with a hundred servings of dessert, I’ll ruin you. You’ll never get another catering gig.”

  Ivy, Tippi, and Starr rushed to Dani’s side and began to help load equipment onto a cart.

  Regina jerked her away from the others and said, “I should have known that a loser like you would hook me up with a worthless company.” Regina sneered, “Stick to math, because you certainly will never be anything but a nerd who the popular girls use to pass their courses.”

  “But…” Tears pooled in Ivy’s eyes. “I thought we were friends.”

  “In your dreams.”

  Ivy swallowed a sob and ran for the exit. Tippi, Starr, and Dani quickly followed. The last thing Dani heard as she shut the van’s door and drove away was Elvis singing “Blue Hawaii.”

  Chapter 6

  After the horrible way her first big catering gig had ended, Dani took Sunday off, attending church and going to brunch with some of the other par
ishioners. And by Monday, she was almost able to put the SummerPalooza disaster behind her.

  Still, Dani had been tempted to skip making the lunch-to-go sacks. But she knew her regulars had already started depending on her for a nutritious midday meal and the idea of letting them down had forced Dani out of bed.

  Chatting with her satisfied lunch customers had lifted Dani’s spirits. Several of her clients who had been at the luau told Dani that her food had been the best part of the party, and by the afternoon, her usual optimistic mood had returned and she resumed her quest to find the perfect trio of desserts for the garden club’s event.

  Now, stepping back from the stainless steel countertop, she sighed contentedly. After spending seven years working in a career to please her father, she was finally doing what she wanted to do, cook. No more routine. No more mountains of useless documents. No more suits and heels.

  Yes, she had to keep records of expenses, have clients sign contracts, and complete various tax forms. However, all of that was for her own business—not simply to comply with a busywork mandate from a faceless CEO.

  Smiling, Dani refocused on her next project and picked up the recipe for her latest culinary experiment. With her boarders sprawled around the kitchen table doing homework, she was about to try her hand at a croquembouche. The tower entirely constructed of cream-filled puff pastries and decorated with caramel and spun sugar was complicated to construct but would evoke a sense of elegance and sophistication.

  The chocolate-espresso dacquoise that she’d already put on the menu represented decadence and guilty pleasures. If the croquembouche was a success, she’d have to find a third dish that epitomized sunshine and innocent delights. However, the trick was that it couldn’t be something so down-to-earth and easy to make that the club members would feel like they could bake it themselves.