Free A Piggly Wiggly Christmas by Robert Dalby Page B

you?”
    “How perceptive of you, Vester!” Gaylie Girl exclaimed. “He did bring some important work home with him, as it happens. He’s working on a bond issue—The Pet Pothole Project, as he likes to call it. If he’s able to get Second Creekers to pass it, we’ll get a much-needed overlay of all the downtown streets. But he definitely asked to be remembered to you and your divine cuisine meanwhile.”
    “Ah, each to his own purpose in time. Mayor Dunbar to mind the potholes, and Vester Morrow to mind the pot roast. Perhaps we’ll see him another evening, then. I know with that enormous sweet tooth of his, he won’t be able to stay away from us very long. He’s never been able to resist our warm walnut-pecan pie à la mode.”
    “Oh, don’t you dare let me forget,” Gaylie Girl added, touching a finger to her temple smartly and then patting her perfect coiffure. “I’m to bring home a healthy slice in a to-go box. Minus the à la mode, of course. But don’t you worry. He’ll still get that big sugar high as he burns the midnight oil.”
    “Duly noted. Our naked pie should do the trick quite nicely,” Vester said, his pencil immediately poised for cocktail orders.
    A minute or so later, he was reviewing the instructions for the bartender out loud. “Now, let’s see—a Manhattan straight up for Mrs. Dunbar and don’t forget the cherry, a glass each of our own delicious Delta muscadine wine for Mr. and Mrs. Hampton, and for you, Lady Roth, a dirty Gibson with not one, not two, but three pearl onions. Do I have everything straight?”
    Lady Roth immediately delivered a monologue in her barking mode even as everyone else was nodding pleasantly. “Just be sure you don’t skimp on those onions! Oh, and I forgot to tell you to put them on one of those little plastic swords that you find in all those fussy umbrella drinks. I don’t like my garbage resting on the bottom like so much Mississippi mud. The way I’ve devised for drinking a Gibson is a very important ritual to me, and I simply must have the convenience of that little skewer. I start out with an onion just before I take my first sip, then have a second halfway through, and finally—en garde—the one that’s soaked to the gills after my very last drop.”
    Vester appeared to be writing an essay on his ordering pad and mumbled out loud while casting surreptitious glances at Lady Roth. . . . The . . . one . . . that’s . . . soaked . . . to . . . the . . . gills . . . after . . . the . . . very . . . last . . . drop. Then he straightened his tall frame and crisply bowed his head. “I’ll run this order right over to the bartender and get your very special evening here at the Tea Room under way posthaste.”
    Lady Roth continued her running commentary the instant Vester was out of earshot. “You would think he knew why we were all here the way he was carrying on so. Not that he doesn’t usually flit around the premises that same way. I get exhausted just watching him. But did he somehow hear through the grapevine that my role in the upcoming Caroling in The Square on Christmas Eve is finally to be revealed to me tonight?”
    Laurie stepped up with the perfect retort. “When we called up for the reservation, Lady Roth, we told Vester that we expected the best of everything the Tea Room has to offer. Nothing less would do on this momentous occasion. But we didn’t reveal anything more than that.”
    Lady Roth appeared supremely pleased but did not maintain that demeanor very long. “I will admit that I like your approach, dear. This keeping-me-in-suspense business has its charms, I suppose. I enjoy parlor games as much as the next person. But by the time I’ve gobbled up that third cocktail onion, I expect to have every little detail of my Christmas carol assignment under my belt.”
    While Laurie and Powell exchanged hasty glances, it was Gaylie Girl who seized the moment, keeping the mood upbeat. “That will happen shortly, and we’re