No one could have told how angry Marty had been a couple of minutes before when he got up on the stage; Brett figured he must have a little actor in him himself. After he got the crowd’s attention, he said, “We’ve had a little problem in the kitchen, folks, and the meal is going to be on the late side. There’s an old saying, “Fast, cheap, and good, pick any two.” I’m the one to blame for making the wrong choice. So what we’re going to do is get the second act under way in a few minutes, and then eat afterwards. To make up for this problem, we’re going to knock twenty percent off the wine prices for the rest of the intermission. When you leave tonight, you can pick up tickets for any of the following shows on the schedule. We’ll still need your reservations, but the price will be absolutely free for sticking it out with us tonight.”

Brett and Meredith watched Marty saying that from the kitchen doorway; inside Kellye, Lu, and Rachelle were working furiously to get the meal together. “That might save the evening, and the season for that matter,” Brett whispered to his co-star.

“Yeah, shit, I sure hope so,” she said. “Let’s go back, hit the johns, fix up our makeup, and try to get back into character.”

A few minutes later Marty came back to the dressing room. “I think we’ve sold about all the wine that’s going to move for the intermission,” he told them. “So we’re ready when you are.”

“Good, let’s get going,” Brett told him. “Marty, you’re going to have to handle the lights, since Kellye’s busy in the kitchen.”

“I figured that,” he said. “I think I’ve watched you practice this enough to fake it.”

The hassle over the intermission had really gotten Brett and Meredith out of character, and they had to get back into becoming George and Doris on the fly. Fortunately, once again, they’d done the characters often enough that it wasn’t all that hard, though at least Brett felt that he would have been more on if things had gone as planned.

He was about half Brett and half George as he walked through the kitchen, and barely noticed the furious action going on there. Right now, it wasn’t his problem to deal with, it was Kellye’s. He waved to Marty from the kitchen doorway, and Marty brought the house lights down, the signal for them to get up onto the stage.

Fortunately, George and Doris were back with them enough that they were able to move right into the second act, rebuilding the suspension of disbelief the audience needed to be able to identify with the play. Within a few minutes they had the audience back with them, and things went smoothly for the rest of the play. When the final lines were spoken and Marty brought the stage lights down and turned up the house lights, they got a big and heartening round of applause as they stood on the stage bowing to the house. In spite of everything else, the play had worked as well as they could have hoped.

Now, Brett thought that he and Meredith ought to do something else to rescue the evening. He stood up, called for quiet, and said to the audience, “Thanks for coming tonight, and I’m glad you enjoyed the show. As far as I can tell from the fact that they’re putting food out on the serving line, it looks like the dinner is ready. However, as soon as the dinner is served, Meredith and I will have a brief encore piece that we’ll perform for you. It’ll only take about ten minutes, and I hope you’ll enjoy it.”

That brought another round of applause. He glanced over to the serving line and saw Kellye giving him the high sign, so apparently everything was ready. “Just to cut the confusion,” he added, “Why don’t the people at the far end of the room from the serving line start out with your meals, and you can work your way across to the near end.”

“Brett,” Meredith whispered to him, “I don’t know if we have any of the encore pieces ready enough to perform!”

“I think we’re close enough on Sunrise on 44th Street,” he said. “You’re off the book on that one, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but we haven’t tried to work it up, either.”

“We’ll just have to fake it,” he said. “Hell, we ought to able to do that.”

“I guess,” she shrugged. “We’re not going to be the only ones faking it tonight. Let’s go over to the serving line so we can thank the audience individually.”

“Good idea. After that meal screw-up, I think Marty and Samantha are going to need all the good will they can get.”

They walked over to the serving line and got there just as the first people were lining up. It was nice to shake hands with the audience, thank them for coming, and gab with them a bit. Brett was aware that Lu and Rachelle were working on the serving line, while Kellye had a big carving knife and was cutting slices of prime rib – very small slices; it was clear she was trying to stretch things out. They could see that Marty and Samantha were still briskly selling wine – not just tasting glasses, but bottles, and occasionally the odd half case, or even full case. That part of it, he thought, was going about as well as could be asked for.

By being very careful with the carving knife, and from the fact that the cast members and a few others that had obviously been asked, skipped the serving line, Kellye managed to stretch the prime rib just far enough. There could have been, at best, a serving or two left over, if that. Although neither Brett nor Meredith said anything to her about it at the time, they could see that she had been sweating it.

Just about as soon as the serving was completed – and there weren’t a lot of leftovers among the other entrées either – Lu and Rachelle went back into the kitchen and came out with a rolling cart filled with the chocolate desserts. Although small, there were more than enough of them to go around – at least they had been prepared for the full hundred people that the order had been for.

Only a couple minutes after the desserts had been served, Brett and Meredith got back up on the stage, with both the stage lights and the house lights up, and started in on their somewhat unplanned encore, Sunrise on 44th Street. It was brief, about a divorced couple meeting at a bus stop for the first time since their divorce. Though the meeting started out strained, the topic soon became one of reminiscing about the good times, rather than the bad. When they finally notice the bus coming, they agree that they need to get together again sometime. No promises are made, but there’s the hint of a romance being rekindled.

Despite having not practiced it heavily, Brett and Meredith were performers enough to make it work, and they got a good round of applause from it. Again, they bowed to the crowd, and Brett told them. “Thanks for coming tonight. You’ve been a wonderful audience here at the Curlew Creek Winery Dinner Theater. We have some really great shows planned for the rest of the season, and we hope you’ll come and join us again. Make sure you stop at the door on your way out to pick up your free tickets for a future show, and you might want to stop by the wine counter to pick up a bottle or two to take home with you.”

The pizza arrived just about the time the last of the regular guests left. Lu, Rachelle, and some of the other cast members were a long way toward getting the tables bussed, but there obviously was going to be a lot of dishwashing to be done before the evening was over with. Kellye had the pizzas spread out on one of the tables, and told those people remaining that it was open season; eat all you like since she hated stale, reheated pizza.

They did a pretty good job of working their way through the stack of pizzas, talking about the show and the audience reaction. Somehow, by common if unspoken consent, there was no discussion of the disaster in the kitchen until the group had dwindled down to the core people, consisting of the Ammermans, Brett, Meredith, Kellye, and Lu.

Now, Marty felt like he could talk a little more freely. “Let’s face it,” he said. “That had all the makings of a first-rate disaster, but I think we managed to salvage the worst of it. The play went real well, but the kitchen … well, if we hadn’t had Kellye here to bail us out, we’d have been in deep doo-doo. Kellye, you and Lu and Rachelle did a great job back there.”

“I don’t think so,” Kellye replied. “I think we did a barely adequate job, considering that we didn’t have much to start with. Let’s face it, it was a lousy dinner, and we barely managed to rescue it at all. Marty, it may have looked all right but we are going to have to do better than that in the future.”

“I’ll admit, I have been to better banquet dinners,” Samantha agreed. “But still, you did a good job in pulling it out.”

“I could have done better if I’d had decent materials to work with and time to work on it,” Kellye said. “With the exception of the beef, and I have seen much better prime rib, we had to dig into the food reserved for the rest of the weekend to get done what we managed to do. Are we expecting a bigger crowd tomorrow night?”

“About the same size,” Marty replied. “Maybe a little bigger, more than that if we get some walk-ins. I agree we have to do better.”

“We have about enough food for tomorrow night, then,” Kellye said flatly. “We’re going to be out of some stuff for Sunday and Monday.”

“Shit,” Marty snorted. “I’ll bet that damn fool woman bought food figuring on elementary school students, too. God damn it, when I agreed to her catering the dinners, I was trying to save a buck, and I guess it turned around and bit me.”

“She sure headed for the bottom line, too,” Kellye observed. “A lot of the food back there is no-brand stuff I’m sure she got from Wally World. We had to serve stuff tonight that I wouldn’t serve to some of my worst enemies. We got away with it, I think, but we can’t do it again. I mean, hell, did anyone like those mashed potatoes?”

“I thought they tasted a little funny,” Samantha agreed. “I ate a little of the leftovers since I was getting hungry, and they, well, they didn’t taste right.”

“There’s a good reason for that,” Kellye shook her head. “Wal-Mart store brand instant potatoes. Maybe little kids would eat them since they wouldn’t know any better.”

“At that we were damn lucky we had them,” Lu agreed. “I barely got the second batch made as we were running out on the serving line.”

“That is enough of that shit,” Marty sighed. “We can not have a fuck-up like that again, and we can’t serve dinners like that to our guests again, and that’s a bottom line, period.” He shook his head and went on, “Kellye, I know you’re not here to cook, but the only thing I can see to do is to ask you to take this on. We’ll just keep the cooking in-house. Are you up for it?”

Kellye sighed before she started her reply: “Marty, let me put it this way. I’ll dig you out this weekend, maybe even next weekend, at least if Lu will help, along with maybe Rachelle and a couple of the others.”

“That will be a big help.”

“I hope it will. But Marty, I came here because I wanted to be in plays, not in a kitchen. It doesn’t matter for this show, since I’m just farting around, trying to help out. But as soon as we’re done with the run of this show, I’m going to be more involved in rehearsing for the upcoming plays. Look, I’m the second lead in The Odd Couple, and that’s going to take a hell of a lot of work. It’s the biggest role I’ve ever had, and until this came up it probably would have been the biggest role I could have ever had. I don’t want to louse it up by spending all day of the show messing around in the kitchen, then throwing on a costume heading out to the stage at the last second. Maybe Brett and Meredith could do something like that, but let’s face it, they’re more used to getting into character than I am.”

“Well, I’ll give you that,” Marty conceded. “I understand where you’re coming from, and you have every right to feel that way. But if you can handle it this weekend, maybe next weekend, in that time I might be able to come up with some alternative.”

“I’m willing to do it that long,” Kellye told him. “But only that long.”

“That will help,” he agreed. “I guess it’s good that tomorrow is Saturday, since it looks like you have to go grocery shopping, and don’t even think about doing it at fucking Wal-Mart. We have to serve good food, and that’s final. I guess we’ll just have to pay for it, like it or not.”

“I agree with you on that one. I don’t see any other choice but to spend the money to do it right.”

“The hell of it is,” Marty complained, “is that we set the ticket price based on the price of the meals I was quoted. I’m guessing you’re saying we need to spend at least another couple bucks a head, right?”

“Not knowing what was budgeted or what was spent, you’re probably right. It could be more than that. On the other hand, maybe not. I was surprised to not see any cans or anything from wholesale restaurant distributors back there. They’re easier to use for large meals, and while the quality may not be quite haute cuisine, it beats the hell out of Wally World.”

“If that old bat even knew about it, she probably didn’t want to go to the trouble,” he shook his head. “Shit, did I ever boot that one.”

“It’s not all your fault,” Samantha observed. “I may not be the world’s greatest cook, but I should have paid more attention to what was going on back in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done,” he sighed. “We’re just going to have to take it on the chin financially on this. There’s nothing that can be done about the ticket prices now, we’re stuck with them for the season, and we’ll just have to go over budget on food. That much said, if we can continue to have crowds as good as tonight’s, not counting the freebies, of course, we might come out pretty close to pulling even.”

Brett felt he had to add his opinion. “I thought it was a pretty good evening in that respect,” he said. “The hell of it is, it was an opening night and my experience elsewhere is that opening nights tend to draw crowds that are a little better than normal.”

“You’re probably right,” Marty agreed. “I do have to say that we must have made out pretty well on the wine sales. That may make things even out a little.”

“I know we did pretty well,” Samantha replied. “Even with the discounts you threw in at the intermission. I haven’t added the numbers up yet, but I think they were better than I expected.”

“Well, there’s that,” Marty sighed. “But again, we can’t expect wine sales to be that good every night, either. Look, most of this is just sitting around and bitching over spilled milk. Kellye, you were planning on being at the rehearsal for The Odd Couple in the morning, weren’t you?”

“That was what was planned.”

“Can Rachelle fill in for you on that? I mean, even if she’s just reading it out of the book? I think you need to plan on going grocery shopping.”

“It would work this time since we don’t have a whole lot of choice,” she agreed. “But I don’t see how we could do it as a regular thing. Lu, as soon as the practice is over with, I’ll need you, maybe Rachelle, and maybe some of the others to help me out in the kitchen.”

“Sure, I’m ready to help since it’s an emergency,” Lu agreed. “But like you, I don’t want to do it on a regular basis.”

“We’ll work something out,” Marty promised. “We just have to dig out of this weekend, first.”

Lu sat back, thought for a moment, then let out a sigh. “Look, I think there’s another problem lying there that we may not have thought about. I think I remember that old bat you had cooking from when I was in elementary school. The food there wasn’t very good either, but I was just a kid, and I didn’t care much then.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, if I remember that old bat correctly, she’s not the nicest person in the world, and I’ll bet she tries to get back at you.”

“You’re probably right,” Marty nodded. “How do you think she’ll do it?”

“I don’t know. She will probably badmouth you all around Oxford, for one thing. But this county is pretty pissy about food handler’s cards, and I wouldn’t put the idea of her calling up the health department and bitching at them.”

“Shit, I never thought about that,” Kellye shook her head. “I’ve got a food handler’s card, but it’s not for this county, or even for this state.”

“There is a bright side to that,” Samantha said. “It is Memorial Day weekend, after all. She probably can’t do anything until at least Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” Marty agreed. “But then she could have someone all over our asses. We can probably get away with it for this weekend, but what are the odds that we’ll get an inspector or something here next weekend? Do you have any idea what’s involved in getting a food handler’s card?”

“I know you have to attend some stupid class,” Lu told them. “It only meets like once every other month, and then it’s a couple hours of pure bullshit, or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“So the chances of getting food handler’s cards for you and Kellye and Rachelle or somebody between now and next weekend are nil,” he nodded. “Well, shit. That means I have to do some fast looking for people who already have them.”

“Maybe the unemployment office could help,” Samantha pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s a thought. Well, it’s just going to be more money. Jesus, I wish I’d even had an inkling of this when we set the ticket prices. Maybe we should have allowed a little better profit margin, but I was trying to offer a deal. But I’ve learned one thing out of this mess tonight, and that’s that we need to keep a lot closer eye on what’s going on in the kitchen, food handler’s cards or no food handler’s cards. Lu, thanks for pointing that one out to me. You could be right, and we could have gotten our butts burned big time on that. Shit, an inspector showing up at the wrong time could make tonight’s disaster look like a walk in the park. With luck, maybe we can patch something together for next weekend, but we have to think about all summer, too.”

“I hate to point this out,” Kellye said, “but there’s a huge pot load of dishes back there that have got to be washed tonight, and no dishwasher. We can sit here and piss and moan about things all we want, but it’s not getting them done.”

“Well, if we all pitch in, it will go a little faster,” Marty sighed. “You’re right, Kellye. Let’s go back and get started.”

The group of them headed back to the kitchen. Meredith and Brett didn’t go straight back there, since they still had their George and Doris costumes on and didn’t want to get them messed up washing dishes. It took them a few minutes to change, and then they went out to join the rest, to discover that Marty and Lu were working hard at the sinks.

“Hey,” Lu said as she washed a plate. “I might have an idea that would solve at least part of the problem.”

“What’s that?” Marty asked.

“There’s a couple things I’m not sure about, and I know the person I’d have to work through is out of town for the holiday weekend. But I’ll ask her as soon as she gets back.”

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