Page 9 of Ellen Found
“You’ve been kind to me, Mr. Penrose,” she said, “you and Gwen both. And Mr. Child too. I’ll do my best work here.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said and joined his crew.
Mr. Child came in for coffee after the dishes were done. “Charles Penrose told me what you did this morning.”
“I like things to be orderly,” she said,hoping she didn’t sound silly, and remembered her request, hoping it didn’t sound silly either. “Mr. Child, do you have a spare bedsheet? I want to cut it up and make napkins.”
“I have a better idea,” he told her. “Come with me.”
Ellie followed Mr. Child into the massive cavern that would become the lobby someday. He looked through one crate and another, then pulled out tablecloths and napkins already folded and separated into stacks by the dozen.
“Use these, starting tonight. Mr. Blackstock, a vice president from the Northern Pacific, is coming to dinner.” His gesture took in the vast unfinished room. “The railroad is funding this venture. I didn’t think we could do anything fancy, but ...”
Ellie heard what he was trying to say. She saw the audacity all around her of a project unlike any other, in a place suited for the unusual. “You would like a banquet tonight,” she said simply. “Maybe a glimpse of what we ...” The enterprise grabbed her and caught hold. She held out her arms for the tablecloths and napkins. “Whatwecan show the public this summer.”
“You have it,” he said. “The soldiers are bringing elk roasts for tonight. What can you do to make it special?”
“A cake,” she said with no hesitation. “Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Canned vegetables, but that can’t be helped. Rolls.”
“You’re on, Miss Found.” He started for the big doors. She could hear men stamping around on the roof over the entrance. “Six o’clock?”
She wondered how Mrs. Quincy would appreciate taking orders from her. “Yes, sir.”
Six it was. The hardest part was informing Mrs. Quincy what she and their boss had agreed to. To her surprise, Mrs. Quincy merely nodded. “I’ll do the meat and gravy,” she said.
“I’ll do rolls and a cake,” Ellie added.
“Wonderful.”
What had happened? It was as though a light switch—none of which were here in the hotel yet—had turned on, and her advice mattered. Ellie looked at Mrs. Quincy for explanation. What she saw was an older woman, a tired one, maybe someone who had served her own apprenticeship in a Mercury Street Café somewhere, only it had turned hersuspicious and maybe bitter. And sad about being replaced by a French cook in an elegant house.I think I understand you, Mrs. Quincy, Ellie thought.
So the day went. Lunch for the crew was a hurried affair eaten on the porch, potted meat and pilot bread sandwiches and plenty of hot coffee. Gwen came by in the middle of the afternoon to check up on her father, which meant Ellie took a break and joined her beyond the porch to step outside and watch the carpenters, some of whom were shingling outer walls, too.
Gwen pointed to the pinnacle, with its flat surface and railing. “Papa is up there, where he watches.” She blew a kiss. Far above, Mr. Penrose touched his cheek where the “kiss” landed. “You could blow him a kiss,” Gwen said. “He wouldn’t mind.”
Oh no. Ellie invited Gwen inside to help roll yeasty doughballs and stuff them three at a time into muffin tins. “Cloverleaf rolls,” Ellie explained. No need to let anyone know that she had never made anything this elegant for the Mercury Street Café, where Mr. Linson would have berated her for wastingtime on bums.
The shingling was done by four o’clock, just as the cake—Ellie’s first, but no one needed to know that—came out of the oven and the first batch of rolls went in. She looked around, pleased to hear Mr. Penrose compliment his daughter on the symmetry of her doughballs.
Gwen sidled closer to Ellie. “Can we butter him one or two?”
“If he behaves,” she teased. “Perhaps he can tell me something about this... monster, if he has a moment to spare.”
“You’ll hear more tonight from the architect himself,” he said as Gwen handed him a cloverleaf roll. “Other ruffians, as Mrs. Quincy likes to call us, have been framing the other levels, the hotel rooms.” She saw the pride as his gaze took in the men lounging on the porch, some smoking, others downing more coffee, all of them done for the day, which was quickly turning to dusk. “Soon you’ll see amazing scaffolding going up inside. We’ll get it done.”
He indicated the small man with gold-rimmed glasses who stood at the entrance to the lobby, a clipboard under his arm. “Mr. Reamer is in charge. See? He has a clipboard.”
She thought about clipboard efficiency, as she iced the sheet cake after Mr. Penrose left. “No, Plato, I have never made a cake before, and I don’t have a clipboard,” she told her cat, who lounged between the warmth of both Majestic ranges. “But I can read a cookbook, and you can’t.”
Plato didn’t seem to give the matter much thought. He rolled onto his back as if to announce,I am full of mice. “Don’t concern yourself,” she added, then laughed when Mrs. Quincy regarded her. “Yes, ma’am, I talk to my cat. He’s my friend.”
“I’d say that Mr. Penrose and his daughter are your friends.”
She could blush and deny and keep her head down, but why? Something was changing in her. Maybe she could blame it on geysers. “I hope they are my friends.” And why not? “You too, Mrs. Quincy.”
Great banquet. Ellen Found is even more of an asset than Mr. Child realized when he hired her. She has a quiet way of taking charge. I doubt she is aware of it, but I am.
“THEY TUCKED IN their shirttails,” Mrs. Quincy whispered to Ellie. “Even One-Eyed Wilson.”
