A Catered Birthday Party Read Online Free

now.’”
    Bernie brushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “I gotta tell you if I were married I’d never hire someone that looked like that to work for me as a personal assistant.”
    “Maybe she didn’t look like that when Annabel hired her. Maybe Richard bought her her boobs,” Libby opined.
    “Well, someone did.”
    Libby laughed.
    “I have to say you’re getting jaded in your old age,” Bernie told her.
    Libby ate another piece of chocolate. “Learned it from you.”
    Bernie was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Or maybe Annabel doesn’t care what Richard’s personal assistant looks like. Maybe she doesn’t want to have sex with her husband. Maybe she’s happy to be relieved of the responsibility.”
    “I can’t imagine that,” Libby said.
    “I can,” said Bernie. “There are a couple of women at the gym like that.” And she proceeded to fill Libby in on the details.
    “Still. If he leaves her…”
    “Maybe she has all the money,” Bernie said as she started chewing on a carrot stick. “Richard doesn’t look like someone who would leave his meal ticket.”
    “You just don’t like him because he was wearing salmon socks,” Libby said.
    “No. I don’t like him because he was rude and obnoxious and he was wearing salmon-colored socks,” Bernie replied. “Of course,” she reflected, “Annabel is no prize either. They’re equally matched.” She went back to unloading the carton. “I guess this is what Bree meant when she called Richard and Annabel Colbert an interesting couple.” She held up her hand, forestalling Libby’s comment. “Or words to that effect. Fortunately, we’ll be out of here in two and a half hours so they’re not our problem. I just hope that the other people who are coming are a little more enthusiastic.”
    “Well, even if they’re not, their dogs will be,” Libby said. She began laying bread slices out on the counter in preparation for cutting them into bonelike shapes. Not just any bread, mind you. This was bread made with 100 percent organic flour and baked in-house. As Annabel had said, nothing was too good for Trudy. “I just had this terrible thought,” Libby went on. “It would be really bad if the dogs didn’t like what we were serving.”
    “That’s one of the virtues of the canine species. They eat virtually anything,” Bernie observed. “Well, almost anything,” she amended as she picked up a half-eaten dog biscuit still in its wrapper and threw it in the trash. “I don’t think most dogs like citrus fruit.”
    “Maybe we should have taste tested the menu first?”
    “For the species that eats from garbage cans,” said Bernie as she thought of the neighbor’s dog that had gotten into their trash last week. “Anyway, what’s not to like? All the dogs will like the liver toast points, the peanut butter and bacon canapés, the steak and mashed potatoes. I’m not too sure about the carrot coins with ginger and the tossed salad, but under the circumstances I don’t think it matters all that much.”
    “Well, I hope you’re right,” Libby said as she finished cutting out the bread.
    Then while Bernie was putting peanut butter on the cutouts, Libby took the silver serving pieces that Annabel had laid out and filled the dishes up with the Kalamata and Nicoise olives, the spiced pecans she’d made yesterday, and the salted almonds she’d roasted this morning. Then she took everything into the room Annabel had indicated they’d be serving the hors d’oeuvres in.
    The Eaton room, as Annabel called it, was painted a dark hunter green with white molding and had a white ceiling made of molded plaster. The walls were covered with pictures of dogs and horses in the British style, while the sofa and the armchairs were upholstered in chintz fabric. There were Oriental rugs over the dark wood flooring. The only thing missing, Libby decided, was a coat of arms.
    In line with Annabel’s wishes to limit wine to the main meal, the highboy