One Autumn Night

Chapter Seven

After a solid hour spent directing her crew on their next tasks, answering questions, and problem solving when ingredients were scant, she took a moment to check progress on the task list. The onion gravy was simmering, two rounds of potatoes were peeled and in pots of water, lettuce filled a serving dish and the rest was being torn and placed into large plastic bags, and eggs were cooling, almost ready to be peeled.

"Abigail?" Danielle's voice came from the walk-in fridge. "How should we organize things in here? I don't want to not take something at the last minute, you know? Or haul stuff we don't need."

Abigail scribbled a checkmark by one of the tasks then looked up. "Good thinking. There's a roll of pink leopard print tape behind the bar. Put a strip of that on items we take with us."

"Pink leopard print tape?" Beckett asked as he continued dicing onions next to Declan who was doing the same. "Why don't I know about these things?"

"Because it's not yours. And because you're a boy and you'd use it then lose it," she said, pushing up her sleeves to wash bouquets of chives.

"Eh, probably right." Beckett looked to Declan. "Nice dicing there, man. Almost as good as me and way better than Ben. But that's a low bar."

Abigail glanced over her shoulder in time to see Ben glare at Beckett then her.

"If the rain keeps on through the evening," she began, ignoring Ben's brooding stare, talking to Declan as she dried the chives with paper towels. "How does that change things with the tents and dinner set up?"

"What do you mean?"

The blue of Declan's eyes questioned from beneath a blur of watery tears and Abigail smiled in response. "Need a break from the onions?"

"How the hell do you do this every day?" Declan asked Beckett as he wiped at his eyes with his forearm.

"Aww, little lady, let me help you with that." Beckett held a rag to Declan's face to dab at the tears.

Declan laughed, slapping Beckett's hand away.

Watching her youngest brother tease and interact with Declan caused a perky burst of something in her. Pride? No, not pride. She wasn't sure what it was but seeing them work easily together in her kitchen made her feel happy, whole. Beckett had only been thirteen when she and Declan broke up, and she wondered how much her baby brother remembered.

Ben, she knew, being only one year older than Beckett and acutely more aware, had known she'd hurt, had likely heard tears weep out of her on occasion. She'd need to have a conversation with him later, after the work was done, she decided, but what would she say? Thoughts hadn't exactly gelled in her own mind yet.

Focus, she reminded herself. "Should we prepare for any alternatives in regards to serving dinner if the rain makes an appearance tonight? What sort of precautions are in place?" She asked Declan. "I just want to be as prepared as possible. We can't pick the weather but we can prepare for it."

"Yesterday the crew was hauling in flooring, so that'll be under the tent. Heat lamps were dragged in, there's also some kind of dance floor that the DJ apparently insisted on. Michael Bublé's singing so I guess there'll be a stage or something. Maybe. Didn't pay much attention to those details."

"Michael Bublé's going to be there? Oh, he's so cute," Danielle did a little jiggle dance from behind the bowl of cucumbers she was slicing. Then she raised one of the cucumbers in the air and sang to it.

"I thought only older women liked Michael Bublé," Kelly tossed out, unenthused, as she tore exhaustively at more lettuce.

"Are you calling me an old woman? I'm twenty-one," Danielle told her. "And so are you."