Progressive Dinner Deadly

Chapter One-2-2

Jill smiled. “So many people have told me the same thing, Miss Myrtle. They look forward all year to our light and music show. It’s just not Christmas for them until they drive past our house, they say.”

“Do the lights and music go on all night?” Myrtle was scandalized. This was definitely cause to revise her thoughts on Jill’s suitability as a next-door neighbor. “I can’t see your house from here since it’s right around the bend in the road.”

“Only from five to midnight. Everyone is simply crazy over it. They’ve told me our display is such a blessing. Jill, they say, when the Twelve Days of Christmas starts playing, we get tears in our eyes.”

Especially Sherry Angevine next door, guessed Myrtle. “So you string all these lights and speakers and things up yourself? Doesn’t Cullen help you?” That dog.

Jill suddenly glowed with an almost spiritual, evangelistic radiance. “Not with his disability. He couldn’t, could he? No, I’m honored to put them up for him. Really. Then he has a Merry Christmas and doesn’t have to worry about the decorating.”

She clearly loved this Jill-the-Martyr act. Myrtle said, “Would you like some sweet tea, Jill? I think I need something sugary to bolster me after my encounter with my next door monster.”

“No thanks, Miss Myrtle. I’m getting ready to finish up. I’ll see myself out, okay? And then I’ll be back tomorrow for the club meeting. Did you read the book?” Myrtle looked at Jill blankly. “Jennifer’s Promise? Remember?”

Myrtle’s skin prickled with irritation at the thought of subjecting herself to Jennifer’s Promise. “No. No, I didn’t get around to it, Jill.”

“Well, don’t worry about it, dear. These books get so complicated. I only read the first few pages, myself. I wish they’d choose a really quick read—you know?”

Clearly Jill was not going to be on the side of great literature during the book club coup. Myrtle took her tea into the living room to think a little more about Jill. She wouldn’t just have been in her medicine cabinet for an aspirin. No, she was after something. Not that she’d found it there. The cabinet was crammed with ancient amoxicillin bottles, dated over-the-counters, some blood pressure meds, and an old bottle of witch hazel.

Was Jill’s snooping the reason Blanche Clark fired her? Did Jill discover something about Blanche that made it impossible for her to keep her on?

When book club morning dawned, Myrtle climbed out of bed with high hopes. Minutes later, she was already devising what novels might be a good introduction into the world of books. Because, Myrtle thought, the stuff that the book club had been focusing on definitely couldn’t qualify as books.

Milton might be a little ambitious for the group, she admitted as she boiled grits and threw in a liberal amount of butter into the spitting, spattering mixture. Dickens would be an easy adjustment. Everyone was familiar with his books anyway and it would be a popular place to start. Yes, maybe David Copperfield instead of Paradise Lost. Milton’s masterpiece was too richly worded—book club might get ill on the richness of the imagery after starving themselves on beach rot for years.

Hours later at the meeting, though, Myrtle had given up hope of proposing Dickens as a book club selection. The coup was not going well. Everything had actually started out just fine with the ladies trickling into Myrtle’s living room like little lambs and lining up sweetly for their muffins, cookies, and iced tea. Both Blanche Clark and Jill Caulfield were there and successfully keeping apart from each other. The entire book club membership was actually very well represented, considering it was late summer and prime traveling time. There were about fifteen ladies in Myrtle’s living room and kitchen.

Miles stood next to Myrtle’s fireplace, looking uneasy. He clutched a copy of Absalom! Absalom! and fingered the knick-knacks on the mantle. Myrtle had cleverly designed new end tables by several of the chairs by stacking large books from her personal library on top of each other. Each book was a masterpiece, of course. “What a fun idea, Myrtle!” chirped one of the ladies. Myrtle beamed. If the members were surrounded with excellent literature, Myrtle knew they wouldn’t be able to resist.

Finally, Tippy Chambers, the well-heeled club president, called the meeting to order. After the minutes to the last meeting were read (Tippy being a stickler for Parliamentary Procedure, even for a book club), she asked if there was any new business. Myrtle straightened in her chair, then rose carefully to her feet. She noticed that, like a seesaw, when she stood up, Miles sank down into a chair. He looked pasty white and a bit of perspiration trickled down the side of his head. How had he survived the dog-eat-dog world of business?

Myrtle cleared her throat and used her best retired-teacher voice. Even after all these years of retirement, it still had a weighty pitch that carried to the corners of the room. The right kind of voice to make an important announcement.

“I’ve been thinking,” she intoned, “about ways to improve our book club. What has brought us together is our mutual love for literature.” There were nods of agreement and Myrtle soldiered on, taking a deep breath.

“But I don’t think that the books we’re been focusing on,” here she lifted up a copy of Jennifer’s Promise in illustration, “are worthy recipients of our leisure time. I think,” Myrtle said sternly, “that our time could be better spent.”

There was a small pause. Then Erma Sherman piped up, bobbing her head emphatically. “You know, I was thinking the same thing, Myrtle.” Myrtle doubted it. “The books we’re picking only take a little bit of the meeting to review.”

There was a chorus of agreement.

Myrtle said quickly, “So what I was thinking ... ” she bent to reach for a handy volume of Charles Dickens.

Erma jumped in again from the floor. Why did Tippy’s Parliamentary order nonsense never occur when it needed to? “So why don’t we change the club?” she demanded loudly. She was warming up to the subject and seemed to be on a roll. “Instead of reading books, we could turn it into a ... supper club!”

There were oohs of agreement and stomach rumblings among the ladies. Even Tippy was caught up in the fervor. “We could,” she suggested, “make it a progressive dinner supper club. You know—one house for the drinks and appetizers, another for soups and salads, a third for the main course, and dessert at the end.”

Now the room was buzzing. “That way it wouldn’t be too much for just one person!” said Jill Caulfield.

“Our husbands could even participate in it,” said Blanche.

Erma proudly surveyed the room, which had become electrified with her idea. Myrtle stood there, open-mouthed, clutching Dickens. Miles looked torn between amusement and horror. What would he care? thought Myrtle viciously. He was a foodie just as much as a reader. It would work out well for him no matter what.

It was time to abort this plan and head into Emergency Plan B. Myrtle rose abruptly and walked toward the hall. She looked behind her. Her entire library was animated with discussion, and Miles just soaked it all in.

Myrtle cleared her throat. But Miles was absorbed in watching Erma. He had a revolted expression on his face as she blathered on, off-topic as usual, about her cousin who shot deer and stored the carcasses, whole, in a huge freezer in his garage. Myrtle again cleared her throat and walked, exaggeratedly, toward the bathroom. No response from Miles.

“I think,” said Myrtle in her former-schoolteacher voice, which had the power to silence the room, “I will go to the bathroom!” She glared at Miles, who looked flustered.

Tippy looked concerned. “Are you sick, Myrtle?”

“No. I just think I’ll go to the bathroom.”

“Well,” said Tippy in a puzzled tone, “of course. Anyone is free to visit the restroom at any time.”

The room remained quiet until Myrtle was out of sight. Then Erma said, “No wonder she’s feeling sick! She’s the worst cook in the history of the world. She probably ate some of her own chicken salad sandwiches.” Erma pointed to indicate the full and untouched platter of sandwiches.

“Good point,” said Tippy in a low voice. “Does anyone know if Myrtle made the chicken salad or bought it?”

Myrtle listened, fuming, in the hall. “Although her chicken salad is excellent, I know for a fact that she ran low on time and purchased this batch,” Miles said. His voice sounded pained.

Myrtle peeped around the side of the door. The women looked at Miles curiously as there was suddenly a run on the chicken salad sandwiches.

“And while we’re talking about Myrtle,” said Miles, in what was apparently a desperate attempt to wrestle the wayward conversation back on track, “I think she had an excellent idea.”

“I do too,” said Tippy warmly. “It was so clever of her to think up a supper club. She was absolutely right that book club was getting stale.”

Myrtle gritted her teeth.

“I meant her suggestion that the book club start reading some different kinds of books.” Miles tugged at his collar.

“Was that her idea?” Tippy sounded dubious. “Well, her supper club idea is much sounder.”

“Now, if we can only convince her not to cook!” said Erma. She gave a sneering laugh.

Jill Caulfield said, “I’ve got a great recipe for pulled pork for the slow cooker. How about if I cook the main course for our first supper club?”

The room was soon buzzing again with ideas for how the supper club would run, who would provide what, and who would host the various courses. Sullenly, Myrtle came back in and sat down with the others. She drummed her fingers on her copy of The Sound and the Fury as Tippy efficiently organized the details of the supper club. Miles offered to host the hors d’oeuvres and drinks. There was a clamoring over different recipes and whether they should have a theme for each event.

Myrtle replayed the last few minutes in her head. Everything had gone wrong when Erma had piped up. She instinctively seemed to know what to do to mess up Myrtle’s plans.

Myrtle straightened up in her chair. She wouldn’t let it happen. She was going to regain control of this meeting. “Actually,” she said in a booming voice. “I had another idea completely. We could certainly have a parallel club that meets for suppers. But giving up on book club just because the selection has been weak ... ”

Amazingly, Erma stepped in again. “Weak is right,” she agreed. “I never did get what the writer was trying to say with that Bo and the Boy Scout book we did that one time.”

Myrtle said through gritted teeth, “You mean To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“Which you‘d think would be about endangered birds! When I read, I want to be able to understand the point! But there aren’t enough books like Jennifer’s Promise, so we end up reading about Boy Scouts. But food ... we all understand food.”

Myrtle stared at Erma’s protruding tummy and figured that some people understood it better than others. She opened her mouth again to explain that To Kill a Mockingbird was real literature and that there were many others where that came from—but then snapped her mouth shut again. Because where would she start with that argument? How could you argue with someone as dense as Erma Sherman? “Mockingbirds are not endangered,” was all she could muster.

Tippy Chambers pushed a strand of blonde hair off her forehead. “I think the point really is,” she said, “that we’ve been doing book club for a long time and we’re ready for a change. A supper club would be fun, and we can even get our husbands involved.” Myrtle opened her mouth to argue and Tippy injected quickly, “Would you be interested in having the desserts at your house, Myrtle? I remember your blackberry cobbler was the best I’d ever had.”

Myrtle puffed up a little in her chair. Miles smiled. Diplomacy was the reason why Tippy was the perfect president of anything. Miles clearly recalled Myrtle’s blackberry cobbler as a soggy, undercooked disaster. But Myrtle was already planning her dessert menu, happily putting the unkind comments about her cooking out of her head.

“Y’all, I’ve got to run,” said Jill Caulfield, picking up her pocketbook. “I’ve got a house to clean. So I’ll host the main course, and we said two weeks from today? I’ll have it all set up.”

When Jill walked out, Tippy said quickly, “I’m a little concerned about Jill having to provide all the food for the main course. I think that’s ... well, it’s a lot to ask.”

“Why did she offer to provide the main course?” Miles quietly asked Myrtle. “Didn’t you say that Jill just cleaned your house? Providing a barbeque dinner for a house full of people is kind of a pricy proposition, isn’t it?”