The next morning was the regular Saturday practice of The Odd Couple for the full cast, less Kellye, of course – Rachelle sat in for her, having to read from the play book. Brett wasn’t worried about it as Kellye and Meredith had been working on the part when they’d had the time; this rehearsal was mostly for the other cast members. Since they didn’t want to mess up the Same Time Next Year set, they set up in an open area near the kitchen to do their run-through.

They were just finishing the rehearsal when Kellye came into the room. “If you’re about done,” she told them, “I’ve got a bunch of groceries that need to be carried in. Then, I’ve got about forty pounds of spuds that need to be peeled and chopped. I sure could use some help.”

Of course, the whole cast had been at the debacle the night before, and Brett had explained to those who hadn’t been at the late meeting about the decision to have Kellye concentrate on cooking that night’s meal. So most of them headed out to the kitchen and started in with potato peelers and paring knives.

It was uncomfortably warm that day, and humid, not always good signs in that part of the country at that time of the year. Even a glance at the sky told anyone who cared to look that there was a good chance of storms that evening, and that meant the possibility of tornadoes. That was evident to everyone in the potato-peeling party, and there was some talk around the kitchen about it.

Brett had seen a couple of tornadoes from a distance closer than he was comfortable with, but Jody, who played Vera in The Odd Couple, could top that story: her home had been blown away by one when she’d been a small child, and she remembered it vividly. “That’s about as close to one of those damn things as you can get, and it was more than close enough for me. I keep thinking about moving out of this part of the country when I get out of college. I keep thinking about Florida, since I really hate cold weather.”

“They get tornadoes there, too,” Brett told her. “And on top of it, they also get hurricanes, and they’re about due to get nailed again one of these years.”

“All right, then,” Jody shook her head. “How about California?”

“Earthquakes,” Brett said. “I was never in a real bad one while I was out there, but I remember getting shaken a couple of times. Everybody says they’re overdue for a really big one.”

“How about New York?”

“They got whomped by a storm a few years ago, and then you have to think about the World Trade Center,” Brett shrugged, then the country boy in him couldn’t help but add, “But then you have to remember that New York is pretty much a disaster to begin with.”

“A lot of help you are,” she shook her head. “How many more of these spuds do we have to peel?”

After a while they got done with the potatoes and some of the workers began to drift off – there were other things they had to do this weekend, and many would not be there for the show that evening. “Anything else we can do to help?” Brett asked Kellye.

“Why don’t you two get out of here?” she replied. “Get relaxed. The tough part comes for you this evening.”

Brett and Meredith didn’t have to be told twice on that one. Kellye and Lu seemed to have everything under control, not that Brett knew much about it. Within a couple minutes the two of them were walking down the road to the house. “I feel sort of guilty about leaving her to deal with that,” Meredith said.

“Yeah, I do too, but she’s right, we do have other things to do.”

“You know, as much as we’ve done Same Time Next Year, I still think there’s room for improvement. But I think it went pretty well last night. It might have gone better in the second act if it hadn’t been for the screw-up in the kitchen.”

“We’ll do better tonight. The heck of it is, we’ve been looking forward to it for so long, now that it’s here it’s almost over with. We set ourselves a pretty tough schedule for the summer, Meredith. That many plays, that short a time – well, now that it’s turning real it’s getting to be something of a hassle.”

“It’s too bad we didn’t think about that when there was some time to do something about it,” she agreed. “Now we get to do it the hard way. I’m glad I’m directing Hermit rather than having to remember some of those lines.”

“Yeah, some of them are killers,” he agreed. “But there should be some fun stuff to do, too.”

“I’m really looking forward to Chocolate,” she replied. “I’ve exchanged a few e-mails with Janine Warrenton about it. Not so much about the interpretation of it, just gossip. She seems to be a really nice person, and she’s really looking forward to seeing her play done.”

“Do you know if she’s going to be here for the whole weekend?”

“I think so. I was half tempted to invite her to stay with us, but we don’t have the room, and I don’t know if I’d want her to see the dump we’re living in, anyway.”

“Yeah, well,” he agreed. “You said she’s never had a play done, right?”

“No, never. I sort of wonder about that. I don’t know a lot about her, but you’d think she would have had one done sometime.”

“It has to be different to do it yourself and see someone else doing it. Sort of like validating your work or something. However it works out, I hope she likes it.”

“I do, too. I’m looking forward to meeting her. Do you want to do anything this afternoon besides take a nap?”

“I thought about maybe hiking back to the swimming hole, but I don’t want to go by myself.”

“You know, as much as I’d like a nap too, I wouldn’t mind going with you. Let’s not stay too long, though, since I would still like a nap.”

“Well, we should have time to do both.”

They spent an hour or so just messing around at the swimming hole and talking about things. As always, Meredith was a very appealing girl in her bikini, and it was hard for Brett to remember that however appealing she might be, it wasn’t going to happen. After a while, they walked back to the house, took a nap, then started to get ready for the performance.

The sky looked even more threatening as they walked back to the mill. As they got there, they noticed several cars in the parking lot, and more arriving. “Looks like we might not do too bad tonight,” he commented.

“Marty said something about eighty-seven tickets and he was hoping for a few sold at the door. I hope Kellye is cooking enough extra if there are.”

“I don’t think Kellye is going to let much get by her in that department after last night.”

It was time to get their theater faces on, to really try to be ready to turn into George and Doris. As show time approached, Brett sneaked a peek out the back door, and the sky looked even worse, if anything.

He apparently wasn’t the only one thinking about it. Just before the show was to start, Marty got up on the stage and told the crowd, “I’m sure you’re all just about as concerned about the weather as we are. During the show, we will have someone monitoring the weather service, and keeping an eye on both the television and the radar on the Internet. In the event of really threatening weather, we’ll stop the show where we are and have everyone head down to the wine cellar. That’s through the kitchen, and then down the stairs to your left. It is about the safest place I can think of in a storm, and if we’re stuck down there, well, I can’t think of a much better place to be.”

“Glad he thought of that,” Brett whispered to Meredith as they waited by the kitchen door for Marty to bring the lights down. As soon as it was dark in the theater, they hurried through the very dim light onto the stage, got into their places in bed, and once again, the show began. George got out of bed and slowly began to dress, thinking that Doris wasn’t watching him; but she was. “That’s a real sharp looking outfit,” she began, and from there on they had things under control, and they stayed under control all through the first act.

They’d all figured they’d learned a little about holding the dinner the night before, and George and Doris were dimly aware that Kellye and Lu, along with some others were getting the serving line set up as the last scene of the first act came to a close. As soon as they finished, and sneaked through the darkness to the kitchen, they were aware that the serving line was all set up and ready to go. They barely made it through the kitchen door before the house lights came up and Marty made the announcement about people from the far end of the room coming up to the serving line first.

To have dinner during the intermission had always seemed long, and it had seemed longer the night before, when they’d done the whole thing. To make the break as short as possible, it had been decided to hold off on the desserts until after the last scene, even though it would mean almost certainly having to do the encore again – it would increase the chances for wine sales, after all.

Even though the serving was a little hurried, from what Brett could tell there was plenty for all, even with seconds for a few hungry folks, something that would not have been possible the night before. From his viewpoint, serving the meal at this point made the intermission a little on the long side, but he couldn’t think of any way to do it better.

Another innovation that evening was to have people serve themselves desserts after the main show, since there was a larger selection than there had been the night before. Once again, Brett and Meredith stationed themselves at the serving line to thank people for coming to see the show and to take compliments. There were several; as far as he could tell the play itself had gone even better than it had the night before.

All in all, the second night of the dinner theater told everyone that the problems and errors of the first night had been fixed as well as they could be, at least for now. Best of all, Mike had been keeping a close eye on the weather, and while he reported that a hell of a big storm had gone through to their south, it had missed them by a comfortable distance and had never been any real concern.

The threatening weather had long since blown through by the next afternoon, the first of the matinee shows. Brett and everyone else had been curious about how well that would work; it seemed strange to have a show that early, but it was worth a try. As it worked out, the turnout was a little low compared to the night before, but it was a happy crowd, and things went fine all the way around. After everything was wrapped up, still well before dark, Brett, Meredith, Kellye, Marty, and Samantha compared notes on the afternoon. It seemed pretty much like normal except for the early hour, but Samantha reported that the wine moved really well, and that the normal tasting room had a lot of traffic and inquiries about the play, as well. Several tickets for future performances had been sold as a result.

There had been quite a bit of debate about bothering with the Monday matinee performance on Memorial Day at all. They’d only decided to try it since Marty and Samantha reported having good tasting room traffic from people on their way home for the holiday.

Advance ticket sales were down, as they had expected, so Kellye didn’t prepare anything like as much food as she had the last two days. That was almost a mistake, since Samantha sold several tickets to people who walked into the tasting room and decided to stay and see the show, not having heard anything about it until that moment. As a result, Kellye had to stretch the food a little and there wasn’t a lot left for seconds for those who wanted them. She even had to make up a few extra desserts during the second act so she could be sure there would be enough for everyone.

Best of all, wine sales had been even better, to the point where Marty commented that he and Chuck, the wine master, were going to have to get some more of a couple different types bottled over the course of the next week. “We weren’t in any danger of running out this weekend,” he told the group who met following the performance to critique things, make plans, and do the dishes. “But if we don’t, we could be in trouble next weekend.”

“That’s what you were shooting for, wasn’t it?” Brett asked.

“Oh, yeah. We have plenty in barrels, but this is cutting into the reserves. In spite of all the hassles on Friday night, I think this is going to work out just fine. Let’s get these dishes done, then you kids can take the rest of the day off. Go out to the swimming hole or something, and just take it easy. One weekend down, fifteen to go.”

Brett, Meredith, and Kellye celebrated having the weekend over with by sleeping in on Tuesday morning; in the early afternoon of the nice day they decided to walk down to the swimming hole – not to swim, but to drill each other on lines for upcoming plays. Early in the evening they were back in the theater, down in the practice area since they still didn’t want to mess up the Same Time Next Year set. Both Brett and Meredith felt they’d done about what they could do with Chocolate, Roses and Sex until they could do it on the real stage, which they couldn’t do until after the next weekend. Along with Mike, they also agreed that they were close to the same point on A Marriage Proposal. So they’d decided the time had come to get serious about preparing for The Hermit of Walden.

Much of the play, especially in the first of its two acts, consists of a long conversation between Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the tiny cabin Thoreau build in the woods near Concord. Lidian, Emerson’s wife, is present for much of the discussion and at times throws in some female perspectives, sometimes disagreeing with Thoreau, and sometimes with her husband. In the second act, a pair of berry pickers, Aaron and Martha, come calling, and their views and perspectives are both simpler and more realistic than the high-flown debate between the two philosophers. The berry pickers were being played by David and Rachelle, but since their parts were small it had been agreed they didn’t need to show up until later.

Part of the problem with Hermit was that the language was a little dated, but since the script often was direct quotes from either Thoreau, played by Brett, or Emerson, played by Mike, there could not be any deviations from them. That made it a little harder to get things right. Emerson and Lidian, played by Kellye, were sitting at a small table in two of the three chairs in the cabin, while Thoreau was standing, debating with them. “‘How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five by forty,’” he was saying when the outside door opened and Lu came in.

“Can I break in?” Lu said to Meredith, who was directing the play.

“Yeah, we’re not that serious right now,” Meredith replied. “Is this something important?”

“Well, yes. I need to grab Kellye. We need to talk with Marty and Samantha.”

“All right, let’s take five,” Meredith spoke up to the others. “As far as I know, they’re over in the tasting room,” she added to Lu.

More than a little curious, they all followed Lu over to the tasting room, which was open later in the summer, although not busy at the moment. “Marty, Samantha,” Lu said, “I think I’ve solved the kitchen problem.”

“If you have, it’s going to be a miracle,” Marty said. “We got jumped by an inspector from the health department this afternoon. Of course, he couldn’t prove anything but I’m sure the nosy bastard is going to be here with bells on Friday night.”

“This should solve that problem, too,” she said. “Look, you have to buy off on it, but I think it’s a good deal.”

“What is it?” Marty asked.

“Well, my sister and her husband belong to a little church over toward Centerton, the Funston Federated Methodist Church.”

“I think I know where Funston is,” Marty said, “what there is of it.”

“There isn’t much to it, a tiny village, just one house and the church, along with a Grange Hall,” Lu explained. “It’s a small church, the membership is older, and they’re struggling financially. They’re willing to do the meals, the serving, and the cleaning up as a fundraiser.”

“That’s a different approach, one I wouldn’t have thought of,” Marty agreed. “But doesn’t that leave us with a food handler’s card problem?”

“Amazingly enough, no,” Lu said. “And I spent a little time today checking on it, just to be sure. It seems we have a cottage food law in this state that specifically exempts church members from the requirement at church fundraisers.”

“Boy, that’s sneaky,” Marty grinned. “Now I’m looking forward to that idiot from the health department showing up Friday night.”

“There are a couple of requirements,” Lu told them. “Like it has to be specifically announced that the church is doing it as a fundraiser.”

“That’s not a big deal,” Marty agreed. “We can even put up a sign. But if I remember from my younger or church-going days, Methodists tend to be hell on drinking. Do these people know this is a winery, that the place is awash with the stuff and people will be using it?”

“I made sure to tell them,” Lu said. “First off, these aren’t United Methodists, they’re independents, and I don’t understand it either, but whatever they are, they aren’t prohibitionists. More importantly, they need the money.”

“Oh, boy,” Brett grinned. “This could be interesting. I mean, real interesting!”

“You mean about the drinking?” Marty frowned.

Brett shook his head. “Marty, you’re basically a city guy, aren’t you? Samantha?”

“Well, until we moved here,” Samantha replied.

“I don’t get you,” Kellye said, glancing at Lu’s big grin, which was roughly as wide as Brett’s.

“Then you’ve never been to a church dinner at a small rural church. I never heard of this Federated Methodist outfit, but if they’re like any other country church, they know how to put on a feed.”

“Oh, yes,” Lu laughed. “I’ve been to some of their dinners with my sister. The food is real good, and there’s lots of it. You’d have to provide the food, but if I know these people at all, they’ll add on some embellishments.”

“What do you mean by embellishments?” Kellye asked, a little suspiciously.

“Oh, hard to say,” Brett laughed. “This time of year, around home anyway, maybe strawberries only a few hours out of the field, not something that was grown in Mexico and has been in shipment for weeks. Or, a little later in the year, sweet corn an hour from the stalk to the pot. And some of those old gals we have in the church back home really know how to cook.”

“They do there, too,” Lu smiled. “Now, bear in mind we were only kicking it around, but my sister’s mother-in-law said prime rib is all right as far as it goes, but she thinks it would get a little dull after a while. She was throwing around ideas like Amish-style fried chicken cooked outside over charcoal, roast turkey, and roast beef. Oh, and let me tell you, it sounds a little, well, square, but the beef and noodles those ladies make is to die for. And you’ll love it since some wine is involved.”

“Oh, my,” Samantha shook her head.

“Lu, it sounds like you’ve hit a winner,” Marty smiled. “What’s this going to cost, and what do we have to do?”

“I can’t tell you since I’m sort of in the middle on this one. You’ll have to work it out with them directly, and I’d think you’ll want Kellye along when you do.”

“It’s not too late to call someone if you can tell me who to call.”

“I can tell you that,” Lu said. “But tell them you really want them to do their beef and noodles sometime.”

“Lu, I owe you on this. In fact, I owe you big time. We’re going to have to find some way to make it up to you.”

“Beef and noodles,” she grinned. “Remember that. Beef and noodles.”

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