The Last Suppers Read Free

offending someone. But I can’t look, it’s bad luck. Is he here yet?”
    Arch torqued his head back. “Who?”
    “Tom Schulz, silly. Please come back in here.” I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror. My hat was undeniably still crooked.
    “All I can see is some guys Tom introduced me to from the SWAT team,” Arch answered. “And back in the open area where you first come into the church? What did you say that was, the columbarium? I think it’s going to be on my confirmation test.”
    “Arch, please. A columbarium is a place where they put the ashes of cremated dead people. We’re building one next to St. Luke’s now. The open area in the back of the church is called the narthex. Confuse them and you will have a mess on your hands, not to mention probably flunk the confirmation test.”
    “Yeah, okay, well, back in the
narthex,
Marla and her friends are yakking away. And there are thousands of guests, it looks like. Uh-oh, here comes that mean lady from that committee that takes care of the altar linens and money and bread and wine and stuff.”
    “The Altar Guild? Who is it?”
    He quickly slunk out the door without answering. I wanted to tell him that someone should load the cake in the van and drive it over to Hymnal House. Filled with resolve to check on doings in the kitchen, I reseated the hat, stalked after Arch, and promptly collided with Lucille Boatwright.
    She glared up at me. “Goldy! Where do you think you’re going? Your hat isn’t even on straight. And your hair is a disaster.”
    “I’m going to check on the cake and—”
    “You are doing nothing of the sort—” The pealing of the church phone cut short her scolding. “Oh,
why
hasn’t someone turned on that fool answering machine? Contraptions! Father
Pinckney
never even would have
allowed
…” Lucille stormed off, muttering.
    I nipped down the hall, past the Sunday School rooms and the oil portrait of the greatly missed former rector, and finally slipped into the kitchen. Any haven in a storm. Besides, if the churchwomen dropped the hotel pans of pasta or scorched the beef, they’d have to wait until the Apocalypse before I catered another of their luncheon meetings.
    Happily, the volunteer servers were doing a superb job.Two women pushed carefully out the kitchen’s side door carrying bacon-wrapped, brown sugar-crusted artichoke hearts. Another team picked up the pans of creamy Parmesan-sauced fusilli and flaky phyllo-wrapped spinach turnovers. Crystal bowls brimming with jewellike slices of kiwi, fat strawberries, and thick bunches of black grapes would be next. The smooth, layered terrines, all six of them, were snuggled into coolers and set on wheeled tables next to the juicy tenderloin and sherry-soaked Portobello mushrooms.
    Come to think of it, I was kind of hungry. No time for breakfast, so much to do, and … where was the cake? It was supposed to be set up on a special wheeled table already….
    “What
are you doing here?” gasped a shocked voice. Arch was right: Agatha Preston did look like an Episcopal Pocahantas. Her beaded, sheath-style salmon-colored dress boasted a foot of knotted fringe at the hem, and she wore a needlepointed blue-and-coral headband horizontally across her forehead. Her long braided hair had been dyed into unattractive streaks. At the moment, Agatha’s pretty face had the hidden, sour look of someone who had been passed over for a prize. Perhaps she didn’t enjoy being one of Lucille’s henchwomen. The volunteers whisked platters around us out the kitchen door and gave our little confrontation sidelong glances. Stuttering, I backed up into the refrigerator.
    “Checking on the cake,” I said lamely, then whirled to open the refrigerator door before Agatha could question me further. And there it was—the shimmering four-layer creation of ultra-cool, ultra-talented Julian Teller. Julian, in addition to boarding with us and helping with Arch, was an apprentice caterer and ace pastry chef,