The Flaming Luau of Death Read Free Page A

moment. But don’t worry. I’ll figure this all out.”
    “Okay,” she said, giving me a helpless look. “Isn’t this awful?”
    “Don’t worry. It will be fine,” I said. I have spent much of my professional life saying these same words to hundreds of hosts and hostesses. No matter what the trouble—from opening a mislabeled crate of truffles, which turned out to contain live earthworms, to discovering one of our part-time waitresses was also a part-time hooker—these magic words always work. “Everything is going to be just fine.”
    “I knew you’d help me,” Holly said. Her confidence was touching. “Thanks, Mad.”
    I checked my watch. Nine o’clock on the dot.
    “Hey, Holl. Why don’t we go see what Wes is up to in the kitchen?”
    “Sure.”
    Holly popped her pink sailor’s cap back onto her head and rose from her desk chair to her full height, which is about half a foot taller than me. I followed this cute, willowy giantess back through my office and on through the original butler’s pantry. The little hall is lined, floor to ceiling, with lighted, glass-fronted shelves and cabinets where we display our serving platters and partyware. And on past the butler’s pantry is the kitchen, remodeled several years back to the specifications required for a professional chef.
    “It’s awfully dark,” Holly was saying as she reached for the switch to the kitchen’s overhead lights.
    “SURPRISE!”
    As the halogen fixtures flashed white light across the stainless-steel and butcher-block kitchen, the sudden blazing brightness also revealed five screaming women and one bellowing man jumping up from behind the kitchen’s center island. And they were throwing confetti. Instantly, someone punched on a boom box, and Snoop Dogg music began blaring.
    Holly turned to me, her mouth a perfect pink O.
    “Surprise.” I smiled at her. “We’re kidnapping you for a bride-to-be party.”
    “You are? Get out of town!” Holly yelled, taking in the scene.
    Boogeying down to the loud rap music were Holly’s younger sisters, all four of them. Marigold, Daisy, Azalea, and Gladiola Nichols were almost as excited as Holly, as was Holly’s best friend from high school, the tiny, darling Liz Mooney. They were all doing the bump, yelling “Surprise! Surprise!” and crowding around, giving hugs to the guest of honor.
    “We have no idea what’s up,” Marigold said. She was the next in age after Holly and worked at the L.A. Zoo.
    “All Madeline told us was to pack our bags for the weekend and just show up here this A.M., ” Gladiola added. Gladdie was next in line agewise, about twenty-two now, I realized, and she worked as a makeup artist for Nickelodeon, accounting for her pronounced mascara and extra rosy cheeks.
    I looked at them all as they hugged one another. Holly’s sisters were clearly bred from the same stable—all of them fair-haired, lean, and long of leg. I could tell I’d be spending the weekend trying to remember who was who.
    “We don’t even know where we’re going yet,” Azalea pointed out, lifting a glass of orange juice and champagne. “We were thinking maybe Thanta Barbara.” Both Azalea and her twin, Daisy, lisped a little when they were drinking.
    “Or Than Diego?” Daisy guessed. I noticed Daisy had skipped the orange juice altogether and was taking her champagne straight up. The twenty-one-year-old twins, I remembered, were in junior college. Daisy was also big into astrology and earned money giving tarot-card readings, while Azalea taught a yoga class.
    “Or maybe Palm Desert,” Gladdie suggested, batting her heavily made-up eyelids while handing Holly a crystal-stemmed flute.
    “You’ve all been great sports,” Wes said as I refilled their glasses, “so I’ll reveal this much: we’re going to go spa-hopping, chickens.”
    “We’re going to a thpa!”
    This is the sort of pronouncement that was guaranteed to bring whoops of girlish glee to our half a dozen beautiful