Immaculate Reception Read Free Page B

with us almost from the start. She assists at parties, helps keep the administration details of our business in order, and brings her own creative zing to our close-knit little team.
    â€œDo you think the pope likes Mexican?” Holly asked, deep in thought.
    â€œHe loves all people,” admonished Wesley. “And, my word, Mexico is predominantly Catholic.”
    â€œNo, junior!” Holly snorted. “Mexican as in food . Honestly!” She stood up and stretched. Holly is a tall one, nearly six feet without benefit of heels, and she seems to keep her astonishingly thin figure intact despite eating like a mastodon. Today she wore a pair of faded bell-bottom blue jeans with a cropped white T-shirt that came well short of covering her navel. Over that she wore a thin black sweater, because despite her devotion to her own wacky sense of fashion, this girl was always cold.
    â€œOh, Mexican ,” Wes said, thinking. “I like that. What do you think, Madeline?”
    â€œInteresting,” I agreed.
    â€œI’ll start gathering recipes,” Wes volunteered, heading upstairs where I have a library of cookbooks and files of menus.
    â€œAnd I’ll get my notes about the requirements,” I offered as I walked to my downstairs office.
    â€œMaybe we should pack a basket of baked goodies for the Popemobile,” Holly suggested, as she followed me through the house. “Papal food to go.”
    My old white stucco Spanish hugs the Hollywood Hills. Modest in size, it mixes graceful strokes of wrought iron with Art Deco flourishes and is topped with its original red tiles, typical of the homes built in the twenties in Southern California.
    But lovely as I find my house to be, you’d never mistake it for the suburbs. My nearest neighbor is a retaining wall that separates my backyard from the full blast of the Hollywood Freeway, eight lanes of congestion built in the fifties smack through the center of historic Whitley Heights.
    I’ve lived here for the past five years and converted the lower level of the house for work. The remodeled kitchen has been outfitted for commercial-size food preparation, while I use the former dining room, complete with chandelier and French doors that open onto a back courtyard, as my office. On my desk, I found the notes Xavier had written out with the requirements for the pope’s event. Across the room, on the wall over Wesley’s desk, a black and white photo of my home’s original owner stands guard.
    The house had been built by a silent film star, huge at the time, a comic famous for his “googley” eyes. Down from his silver frame, old Ben Turpin gave me his trademark “look” as I checked the notes.
    Standing there, on the polished hardwood floor, I felt the creative vibrations of my home’s former inhabitant. And, despite the urban snarl and freeway noise so nearby, the atmosphere around Whitley Heights was downright romantic. Throughout the years, it attracted the cross-eyed, oddest and spunkiest to reside in these hills.
    Wesley joined Holly and me in the office. We hunkered down in comfortable chairs, me behind my desk with Wesley and Hol opposite. A few hours blurred by as we came up with and rejected dozens of breakfast extravaganza scenarios. The sun was setting and we devised a plan to get creative and cook up some of our more interesting ideas right then and there.
    We turned on lights as we moved through the darkening hallways on our way to the kitchen. After hours of talking about morning food, we had worked up major cravings for eggs and cured meats and pastries. As each of us found a spot of counter space upon which to work, we fell into a companionable silence and began gathering our ingredients.
    When I’d been baking earlier, I did up several lovely fresh whole wheat loaves. There was something about their humble farmhouse simplicity that started me thinking. I was inspired to create an equally rustic