Jackie Dunn tossed her scrubs into the laundry hamper in the corner and pulled on her violet, terry robe. “He smiled right at me. I think he was flirting,” she shouted through her bedroom door.
“Cameron Irvine?”
“No, Doug. Why would Cameron flirt with me?” Doug Little had smiled at her. Jackie had suffered from a terrible crush on him in high school. She’d been positive she was over it until he’d come back to Hopewell in April. Then it returned in full force. Jackie had thought it was bad being in a couple classes with him. That was nothing with having to work with him, day in and day out, with him barely acknowledging her. Until today. Maybe.
She headed to the bathroom, ducking past her roommate, who was leaning against her own bedroom doorframe, sipping from a can of soda. Her best friend was already dressed in a white blouse, black slacks and black shoes.
“Didn’t you ask Doug to prom?”
“We aren’t talking about that.” The memory of his rejection still burned. She’d been utterly heartbroken for weeks.
“Who did you end up going to prom with again?” Patricia asked.
Jackie made a face. “Jason Nickel.” When her roommate fake-gagged, Jackie gave her a shrug. “I was desperate, and it was slim pickings around here. It still is, but you’ll notice I haven’t repeated my mistake.”
She was closing the bathroom door when she heard Patricia say, “You know Jason asked me out last month.”
Jackie opened the door again. “Why? You’ve been out since we graduated.”
“Because he’s Jason?”
“I’m sure he’ll grow up someday. Not anytime soon, but someday,” she said as she closed the door all the way.
It was a good thing the water bill was included as part of their rent. Jackie showered twice a day. Once before she started her day as a radiologist, to wash off all the germs she’d otherwise take into work, and again when she came home, to eradicate anything she’d picked up at the hospital, and to get rid of the institutional smell that permeated her clothes. On days like this, she might take a third one before she went to bed.
Her second job was more demanding than her first. She was the boss, head chef, marketer, main server, and dishwasher in her own catering company. Jackie never knew if that made Dunn Home Cooking her second through sixth jobs, or if they all counted as a single really big one. She didn’t mind any of them; the business was her baby.
The only problem was, at the moment, neither job paid enough for her to live on individually. When she’d started at Hopewell Hospital, she’d been just shy of full-time. A year and a half later, they’d reduced her hours to half-time, with more budget cuts rumoured to be around the corner. Unfortunately, she couldn’t lower her student loan payments by the same amount. She’d be constantly losing ground without the two or three catering bookings Dunn Home Cooking brought in a month. Even then, she was only breaking even.
The thought of her next loan payment made her more grateful for the jobs she had on the calendar. Tonight’s was an especially good one. She had to prepare and serve two dozen four-course meals at the high school. She’d be ahead by half a payment by the end of the night. Only eleven-and-a-half to go after that.
Jackie twisted her brown hair back into a bun. Between the spray, the bobby pins, and the hair net, it wouldn’t move until she wanted it to. She donned her own white blouse and black slacks and added a white apron which covered everything.
They took separate vehicles to the school. Although it was a short drive, it still took close to forty minutes to transfer everything into the home economics room and get organized. Scarlett St. James bustled into the room as Jackie slipped the first trays into the oven. The deceptively named strawberry-blonde, who had graduated a year ahead of her, dropped her bags onto a table and then came to the counter to examine their organized chaos. “Are we good?” she asked.
“We’re good,” Jackie said. “The salads are in the fridge. The bruschetta topping just needs to be spread, topped with cheese, and reheated in the oven. The china and flatware are ready to be set as soon as you tell us the tables are ready.”
Scarlett pointed to her bags. “I have the tablecloths and decorations in there. Jason is supposed help me set up.” She checked the clock on the wall and the minute hand inched over the six.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be perfect,” Jackie assured her. “I saw Doug and Cameron already. You’re going to have such a fun time tonight.”
Scarlett’s face perked up, her pale skin already flushed with exertion after running around the school. “Cam’s in town? Excellent! After Colleen had to cancel, I wasn’t sure he’d still come.” She hefted the largest of the bags, and the tail of a silver Mylar banner slithered to the floor. “I should get started.”
“Let me know when you’re ready for us.”
Patricia slapped the lid on a large blue cooler and slid it under a table. “I caught a blast of chopped raw onions. I need some air.” She shook her head, sending her short blonde hair flying, and scrunched up her nose. “The food is all in the fridge. I’ll see if Scarlett wants a hand, unless you need me.”
“Go. I’ll text you when we’re ready for stage two.”
Jackie didn’t mind the solitude. It gave her a moment to get her head in the game. Cooking was both an art and a science, but few people realized it was also a lot of time management to ensure everything was ready when it was needed. Nobody wanted a cold steak because it cooled off waiting for the baked potato to be ready, or a thirty-minute delay on dessert because the apple blossoms were late going into the oven.
Had she packed the apple blossoms? She didn’t remember seeing them as she loaded the trunk.
She checked; the apple blossoms were on two cookie sheets in the second fridge. Patricia must have packed them. Crisis averted.
She checked for the vanilla ice cream. Just in case. It was in the freezer.
“Hey, Jackie.” A lanky dirty blonde with a thick beard and mustache paused in the doorway. He glanced down the hallway and back at her. “Have you seen Scarlett? I have the chairs she wanted in the back of my truck, but she told me to meet her in the parking lot and she’s not there.”
“She was here two minutes ago. She said she was heading to the gym, Jason.”
“Thanks. It smells great in here. Do you need a taste tester? I’m available.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
“I’m fine. Go find Scarlett. She’ll be glad to see you.”
Jason Nickel, on time and ready to work. Jackie was surprised. Maybe the reunion would be good for him.
Patricia returned a couple minutes later. She was no longer crying, and her blue eyes had only a residual tint of pink. “People are starting to show up. Scarlett booked the small gym, so they’ll have some privacy. She has a self-serve bar in the corner. I’m supposed to tell you she’s ready for us to set the tables.”
“Is privacy an issue? There’s only going to be twenty-four of them.”
“Fifteen. Four couples cancelled, and Cameron didn’t bring his plus-one, which was probably who the privacy was for. Guess who gets Chicken Kiev, Parmesan green beans, and mashed potatoes for dinner tomorrow?”
Patricia’s chipper view on the dropouts made her smile. It was true. The meals were paid for. She’d likely send six home with Scarlett to give her a couple nights off from cooking for her mom and brother, but that still left three for them.
“Who’s here?” Jackie had a copy of the original guest list, but there were some notable people she knew better than others, and she didn’t know who had cancelled.
“Freddy Turnbull, although not in uniform.”
“I thought I’d seen him around town, but I haven’t talked to him. Is he on leave?”
“No, he’s totally out of the military now.”
“Who else?”
Patricia scratched her head. “Andie Ronald is on a break from her women’s hockey training in Alberta. I wonder if she brought any medals to show off. I’d like to see them.”
“That would be fun.” She didn’t know the professional athlete very well, but she heard a lot about her from Scarlett.
“Jonathan and Francine. We just got his newest release into the store.”
Jackie didn’t count Jonathan Gilbert as notable. He’d had four mystery novels published since he graduated from university, but he still lived in town and worked as one of the English teachers in the high school. Besides, he would be the first to laugh if she’d called him famous. “That doesn’t count. He’s always here.”
“Most of them are local,” Patricia scoffed. “Oh, Cordelia Ito is supposed to attend.”
That was news. “I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Me, either. Of course, the big news is Cameron.”
Cameron Irvine was actually famous, but she’d missed her chance to check him out at the hospital. The shock of seeing Doug smile at her had been too much.
If she were being fair, and she really didn’t want to, Doug—Dr. Doug Little—had made a good name for himself too. He wasn’t a celebrity, but becoming a doctor was impressive on its own.
When she thought of the guests in those terms, she realized it was a weighty list of accomplishments over the last decade for such a small group.
Ten years. Jackie was only a year younger. She was a single, almost twenty-seven-year-old with no significant other in sight, and dismal prospects for the future if she didn’t make some major changes to her life soon.
She gripped the whisk and whipped her frustration into the salad dressing she was mixing. Her student loans wouldn’t be around forever. If she buckled down and doubled her monthly bookings, Dunn Home Cooking could pay them off by the end of the year. She’d be debt-free by the time she turned twenty-eight. Twenty-eight was still young enough to find a man, settle down, and start a family before hitting the big three-oh.
She whisked faster.
That was in the long, distant future. She had two dozen meals to cook to perfection first. Then she had to serve them without falling on her face and embarrassing herself further in front of Doug Little.
Maybe she should make Patricia serve him.