"So?"
"So," the chef purred, "I suspect we can agree that our guests would be less than delighted if Mr. Purvis, Mr. Rand or Mr. Jensen leaped from a cake tonight, hmm?"
Lucinda said nothing.
"Can we agree, too, that the venerable Miss Robinson would surely get hurt trying to extricate herself from anything other than an armchair? And that Mrs. Selwyn would never fit inside a cake unless it had the dimensions of Cheops' pyramid?"
"What you're asking me to do is a barbaric, sexist, disgusting custom."
"So are half the things done on this planet, but we are not anthropologists, we are caterers." The chef moved closer. "Our catering contract calls for roast beef, barbecued pork, filet of sole almondine, assorted salads and breads, coffee, beverages-and a giant cardboard cake that contains a young lady. Is that clear?"
'A very strange contract for a catering firm, if you ask me." "I'm not asking you for legal advice, Ms. Barry. I am telling you that you will put on that costume and do what must be done."
"I paid my tuition to be taught to cook."
The chef had smiled slyly at that, and Lucinda had, for the first time, felt the ground slip, ever so slightly, beneath her feet.
"Which you have not learned to do very well."
He was right, but what did that have to do with anything?
"I attended the specified number of classes," she'd said coolly. "I passed all the exams. I earned my certificate."
The chef, damn him, had laughed.
"All your exams but the last," he'd said. "And you won't get your certificate, if you fail tonight's test."
Meaning, Lucinda thought as she looked into the mirror, meaning, she would have to pop out of that miserable cardboard creation or walk away from Chef Florenze's culinary school without the piece of paper she so desperately needed.
With it, she'd be a woman with a skill. She could parlay the cook's job the school had lined up for her into a job as a souse-chef at a restaurant, and go from that into being a full-fledged chef with her own restaurant someday, or her own catering firm ...
Without it, she'd be back to waitressing.
"That's blackmail," Lucinda had protested, and Chef Florenze had shown his teeth beneath his skinny excuse of a mustache and said yes, yes, it was, and she was welcome to try and prove any of this conversation had taken place because it hadn't.
"Just think of this as your fifteen minutes of fame," he'd purred. "Your once-in-a-lifetime moment in the sun-" "Just give me the miserable costume and shut up," Lucinda had snapped, and startled the both of them.
And now, here she stood. In the wings, as it were, dressed in little more than a handkerchief and two halves of a diaphanous, spangled eggshell.
"Lucinda," she said aloud, "are you insane?"
She had to be, even to have contemplated doing this thing. "Ridiculous," she said, and quickly gathered her hair at the base of her neck.
The audacity of Chef Florenze. The nerve! How dare he do this to her? She was a Barry, and Barry's had stood firm on their principles for more than three hundred years. Well, except for her father, of course. But other Barry's had always Done The Right Thing. Hepzibah Barry had been burned alive in Salem, rather than say she was a witch. Could she, Lucinda Barry, do any less in the face of misfortune?
"Lucinda?" The doorknob rattled. "Lucinda, open this door at once!"
The voice was faint but unmistakable. Miss Robinson was demanding entry.
Oh, Lord. Miss Robinson. Eighty years old, at least. Tiny, ramrod-straight Miss Robinson, with her permed silver hair, her black dresses buttoned to the throat and wrist, her parchment-paper skin ...
"Lucinda! Open the door and let me in."
Lucinda undid the lock and cracked the door an inch. "Miss Robinson." She took a breath. "I'm, uh, I'm kind of busy in here. If you need to use the, uh, if you need to use the facilities, I'm afraid you'll have to-"
"I've come to talk to you. Stop babbling and let me inside."
Lucinda grabbed a guest towel from the vanity, clutched it to her bosom and opened the door just wide enough to let the old woman enter.
"Now," Miss Robinson said briskly, "why are you hiding in here? What is this nonsense about?"
Lucinda's brows arched. "Miss Robinson," she said politely, "I appreciate your concern, but this, ah, this situation has nothing to do with~"
"Why are you stumbling all over your words? And why are you holding on to that towel as if it were the last life jacket on the Titanic?"
"Well-well, because what I'm wearing is-is-" Lucinda frowned, took a deep breath and dropped the towel to the tile floor. "This is why," she said coolly. "As you can see, I'm not exactly dressed for company."
The expression on the old woman's face didn't change as she looked Lucinda up, then down, then up again.
"Skimpy," she said at last.
Lucinda managed a tight smile. "Indeed."
"But I've seen bathing suits as revealing on the beach."
Miss Robinson shook her head. "The things young women wear nowadays ... "
"Yes, well, not this young woman!" Lucinda swung back towards the mirror and plucked a bobby pin from the counter. "Would you believe that Chef Florenze actually expects me to wear this thing? To scrunch down under a serving cart and ... " Her eyes met the older woman's in the mirror .. "Never mind. It doesn't bear repeating. Suffice it to say, I'm not going to do it."
"Don't be ridiculous," Miss Robinson said irritably. She reached out and snatched the pins from Lucinda's hair as fast as Lucinda anchored them. "Of course, you'll do it."
"Miss Robinson," Lucinda said patiently, "you have no idea what the chef wants."
"He wants you to jump out of a cardboard cake so those silly boys in the ballroom can clap their hands, whistle like banshees and generally make asses of themselves."
Lucinda stared at the other woman in the mirror. Then she turned and stared at her some more.
"He told you?"
"He told everyone. He also told us you've locked yourself in here and refuse to emerge."
"Did he mention that he's threatened to blackmail me? That he won't give me my certificate if I don't cooperate?" Lucinda smiled tightly. "Well, that nasty little man is in for a surprise. He doesn't believe I'll bring charges against him, but I will. I'll take him to court. I'll sue. I'll go to the papers ... What?"
"That 'nasty little man' has expanded the scope of his ultimatum. Either you do as he's ordered, or none of us will get our certificates."
"But-but he can't do that."
Mrs. Robinson stamped her foot. "Don't be so naive, Lucinda! Of course he can do it. He can do whatever he likes. And you can do whatever you like about fighting him, but by the time the problem's resolved, it will be too late."
"That's not so," Lucinda said stubbornly. "The chef will still have to hand over those certificates, whether it's tonight or next week or next month."
"Yes, but that will be too late for Mr. Purvis, who's already accepted a restaurant position, and for the Rand lad. Did you know he took a student loan to pay for this course?" Miss Robinson put her bony hands on her hips. "And definitely too late for me. A woman my age has little time to spare."
"Don't be silly. Why, you don't look a day over-" "Don't patronize me, girl."
"I'm not, I just. .. " Lucinda huffed out a breath. "Miss Robinson, now you're the one who's trying blackmail!"
"It's reality, not blackmail. Is your pride so important you'd ruin things for the rest of us?"
"Pride has nothing to do with this. It's a matter of principle."
The old lady snorted. "Better to concern yourself with the sort of principal that pays bills. ' , Her eyes fixed on Lucinda's face. "How much has that horrid little man offered to pay you?"
"Pay me?"
"For this cake-jumping business."
"Why-why, nothing. He said he wouldn't give me my cerrtificate unless-"
"Tell him you'll do it for two hundred dollars."
Lucinda stared at the old
woman. "There's not a way in the world I'd do this, not even for-"
"Three hundred, then." Miss Robinson lifted a brow. "Unless, of course, you don't need money any more than you need that job you told us about, the one you're supposed to start tomorrow morning."
Lucinda glared at Miss Robinson. Old people were supposed to be sweet-natured and kindhearted but this one looked as if she had the disposition of an alligator.
"Of course I need money," she said coldly. "And the job, too." -
"Then let down your hair, put on some lipstick, and get this over with." A sudden, wicked glint lit the old lady's eyes. "At least, you'll have a bra to wear. I didn't, back in the days when I was a showgirl with the Folies Bergere."
Lucinda's jaw dropped. "When you ... "
"Indeed. When the heating system went on the blink at the Folies, the entire audience could tell you were cold."