Jean was a stocky, balding man with thick, dark eyebrows and an unfortunate mustache. His chef whites were splattered with various sauces and he sneered-actually sneered-at Margot as she walked into his kitchen.
"What are you doing in ma' kitchen?" he demanded in an exaggerated French accent. "I tell you before. No outside staff when I am creating."
"Jean, would you explain to me why there is a shrimp tower in the middle of my venue?"
"I was overcome by the muse this morning. I decide to build you a shrimp tower. Only four hundred dollars extra. I do you favor, eh?"
"Wait. Is that shrimp salad on the crostini?" Margot asked, stopping a waiter before he left with his tray of appetizers. "Because we agreed on poached quail eggs. Mrs. Sutter, the hostess of tonight's event, whom you've cooked for on several occasions, is allergic to shrimp. As in, she can't even be around people who are eating shrimp because she might come into contact with the proteins. I wrote it on everything. Everything."
Margot motioned to the field refrigeration unit where she had taped a neon-green sign that read PLEASE REMEMBER THAT MRS. SUTTER IS HIGHLY ALLERGIC TO SHRIMP.
Jean waved her off. "I do not read the cards. My sous chef reads the cards."
"Jean. Drop the French accent that we both know is about as real as that ridiculous hairpiece and tell me what you are feeding the mayor's wife."
The chef, whose real name was John Dill, shrugged and in his natural, Midwestern voice said, "The market didn't have enough quail eggs, so I took the shrimp. It's not a big deal. If she's allergic, she'll know not to touch it. People make too much of their food allergies anyway."
"It's just lovely to know that someone with that attitude is making food for innocent bystanders," Margot snapped. She called out loud enough for the entire kitchen staff to hear, "Eighty-six the shrimp crostini. Throw them out and take the bags out of the tent. All of you wash your hands-twice-and any utensils that have touched the shrimp-also twice. I need one uncontaminated staff member to make a special shrimp-free plate of food for Mrs. Sutter so we can feed her tonight without poisoning her. Get it done, now."
Jean was seething, but Margot didn't give a single damn. Mandy popped through the plastic curtain, a stricken expression on her angular face.
"There's a problem with the tower," she said. "It's too heavy to move. But they're working on disassembling the shrimp trays to bring them back in before people notice."
"I don't care if it's made of concrete. I need it-" Margot's response was cut short by a strange honking ruckus from the greenhouse, followed by screams and crashing . . . and running?
One of Margot's golden eyebrows rose. "What is that?"
Mandy grimaced. "Don't flamingos eat shrimp?"
Margot dropped her clipboard and her headset to the ground and scrambled through the plastic curtain. "Oh, no."
The flamingos were making a run at the shrimp tower, pink wings flapping, pecking at the waiters who were attempting to remove the shellfish. The guests were falling all over one another trying to get away from the shrimp-frenzied birds and in the process had knocked over several cocktail tables and the votive candles on top. Those candles had set fire to the tablecloths, which set off the greenhouse's sprinklers and alarms. The parrots did not appreciate the clanging alarms or the sudden scramble of people. They broke free from their perches and were flying around the greenhouse, leaving "deposits" on the guests in protest. Oh, and Mrs. Sutter was purple and covered in hives.
///
Margot gave herself ten seconds to surrender to the panic. She let her stomach churn. She let her ice-cold hands shake. She allowed herself to hear everything and nothing all at once. In her head, she saw her career going up in flames with the tablecloths. The promotion and partnership she'd worked for were disappearing before her eyes in puffs of smoke. Everything she'd planned, everything she wanted in life, was slipping out of her fingers because of some misplaced shellfish.
And then Margot put a lid on her anxiety and did what she did best. She put out fires metaphorical and literal. She called an ambulance and the fire department, grabbed the EpiPen from Mrs. Sutter's purse, and jabbed her in the thigh. Hell, she even took off her pumps and wrangled the shrimp-seeking flamingos back into the lagoon.
But the damage was done. The news photographers who'd prepared themselves for a boring evening shooting glamour poses gleefully snapped photos of society matrons in soaked designer gowns and runny makeup dashing for shelter from the sprinklers. A guest who happened to be a member of PETA started screaming at Margot for mistreating the flamingos while trying to herd them away from (attacking) the guests. And a conservators' board member handed her an invoice for the thousands of dollars in rare orchid species that had been trampled in the melee.