Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,39
to do with Michael . . .”
Again her friends questioned her, but again, Beth clammed up like a . . . well, like a clam. We trooped into the kitchen (where I didn’t see a trace of flan) and Beth bustled to the refrigerator and took out eggs, butter, and milk. She set it on the quartz countertop while Celia brought over almonds and crackers, and Glynis went into a walk-in pantry as big as the kitchen in my apartment to get a bottle of vanilla extract.
“Thing is,” Beth said, “Michael doesn’t like flan when it’s really cold. You know, the way you usually get it when you order it in a restaurant. Go figure. He’s got this weird thing about flan. He likes it when it’s had just enough time to chill to set up.”
“That’s . . . nice.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“We’ll serve it after the appetizers and the wine,” Celia informed me. At the same time she grabbed a green linen apron embroidered with bunnies and looped it over my head. “You know, when we bring out the coffee.”
“What a surprise!” Beth clapped her hands together in excitement. “Fresh flan, and not too cold. Just the way Michael likes it!” Beth was smiling when she ducked around behind me to tie the apron strings behind my back.
And me? I was standing in the middle of the kitchen, feeling a little like Cinderella in that cartoon scene where the mice get her dressed for the ball. Like those mice, Celia, Glynis, and Beth stepped back and gave me their nodding approval.
I plucked at the apron. “I would have brought my own, but—”
“No need!” Beth’s smile was a mile wide. “No problem at all with you using one of mine. I mean, it’s the least we can do for you.”
I looked from one woman to the other. I might have been more encouraged if they weren’t all smiling. “It’s the least you can do for me because I’m going to . . .”
Celia laughed. “You’re going to make the flan, of course.”
My heart thudded to my toes, then bounced up again. It wedged in my throat. At the same time I scrambled for something to say that might save me from the fate worse than death, I told myself I’d never believe Jim MacDonald again. Not ever again. He was the one who assured me there would be no cooking involved in tonight’s festivities. And now that I thought about it, he was the one who’d been too busy at Bellywasher’s to come along. If he had taken a couple hours off and joined me in McLean, I would have gladly given over the apron to him and he would have just as gladly produced a flan to be proud of. Me?
I didn’t have the strength to even think about it.
Automatically, I reached around my back to untie the apron. “I really don’t think this is a good idea. I mean—”
“But you said you took classes at Très Bonne Cuisine,” Glynis protested.
Beth pouted. “And flan is Michael’s favorite.”
I forced myself to smile while I tried to think of a way out, and while I was still smiling, a sneaky suspicion formed in my mind: Celia, Glynis, and Beth all loved to cook. I knew this because they all took classes at Sonny’s. If I was going to be one of the crowd, I had to prove I loved to cook, too. And if I was going to find out anything about Vickie Monroe’s life—and more importantly, her death—I had to be one of the crowd.
Since my hands were still behind my back, it was no effort at all to cross my fingers when I announced, “Flan just happens to be one of my specialties.”
HERE’S THE THING ABOUT FLAN: IT DOESN’T HAVE very many ingredients. That meant when I looked over the recipe Beth handed me, it all seemed pretty straightforward. A second look, though, and the all-too-familiar rat-a-tat of culinary doubt started up inside my brain. There’s this whole process of caramelizing sugar in a pan, see, and then coating the pan with the caramelized sugar, and then baking the custardy flan in the caramelized pan while the flan in the caramelized pan is set in another pan of hot water.
Just thinking about it leaves me light-headed and out of breath.
Sure, Jim could have done it with his eyes closed. Norman could have produced a magnificent flan with his hands tied behind his back. Even Eve,