Chapter 3: "I Finally Did Somethin' Right"
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"Willie! Come down here!" Barnabas shouted loudly up the stairs
"I'm comin' Barnabas." Willie's muffled voice called back, as he loudly came down the stairs,
"What's wrong?" he asked
"Nothing," Barnabas replied, "in fact I have some good news."
"What's that?"
"We are going to have a party here at the Old House. It will be a costume party."
Willie looked surprised, "A party? Here?"
"That's right. It will be in one week, so you need to start getting more of the repairs completed and also be thinking about preparing hors d'oeuvres." he said
That meant cooking. Willie hadn't cooked in years. Oh he knew how, since his father used to be a cook in the Army, but he couldn't remember the last time he made a meal. Lately he had gotten into the habit of throwing a can of soup on the stove, if he was hungry enough to eat at all.
"A-alright." Willie stuttered, "Is there anything in particula' you want me ta make?"
"No, just simply use your imagination, but make them good. I will not have this party ruined because of your cooking." Barnabas said, "Oh and I forgot to mention, I will need you to dress your part as well, I'm sure we have an old servant suit somewhere."
"But, Barnabas I'm not family I shouldn't be dressin' up." he complained
"You will do as I say, and you will be wearing a costume." Barnabas said forcefully
"Ok." Willie sighed, knowing it was useless to argue, "Barnabas, do ya think it's safe? I mean, all
of the Collins' comin' over here like that . . ."
Barnabas cut in mid-way through Willie's sentence, "I have everything under control, Maggie is no longer here. Now just do as your told!"
"Ok," Willie said, "I'll start gettin' on things."
Barnabas nodded, "Good . . . I wish for everything to be immaculate. Nothing must go wrong."
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So, starting that night and continuing all that week, Willie worked doubly hard getting things done. Fixing various broken furniture, sending the carpets and drapes to get cleaned, and facing his most challenging problem . . . what to do about appetizers.
With his mom baking, and his dad cooking, he racked his brain of things they would have done.
"Come on Willie, think o'the basics." he told himself, while puzzling over the problem in his room with the party two days away. "Let's see, they probably woulda made some kinda bread, and maybe put out a dessert." Then it struck him . . . that was it!
He would make those little Italian breads with the tomato topping, (called Crostini, but Willie didn't remember at the time), maybe some of those really good jelly topped cookies that his mom used to bake, and put out a platter of fruit and a bowl of mixed nuts out. "Yea," he thought, "that would be just right." He then grabbed the pen and notebook sitting by his bed and began scribbling down the ingredients he would be needing.
The next morning, Willie left the house, dropped off the costumes at the New House and went to the store to buy the ingredients he needed: a bag of mixed nuts, a random selection of fruit (grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, ect . . .), tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, bread, basil leaves, olives, oil, brown sugar, shortening, butter, vanilla, strawberry and boysenberry jam, eggs, and flour.
After this, he rushed home, put the items away, and finished sweeping, dusting, and washing out dishes and cups. He needed to get as much of the other work done as possible, because tomorrow, he would need most of the afternoon to cook and get the appetizers and drinks ready.
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The next day . . . the morning of the party . . .
After Willie woke the next morning, he decided to finally just sit down, have a little breakfast and some coffee. He hadn't eaten much breakfast that week because of all of the work that needed to be done. But, since there was less work that needed doing, he put on some coffee and cooked himself a scrambled egg with a piece of toast with butter.
He ate slowly, remembering how his mother and father used to cook the food that he was to prepare . . .
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"Willie, be careful when you stir, you don't want to get brown sugar all over the sink." his mother told the young boy as he concentrated very hard on not spilling anything on the counter.
"There, very good. Now, take little bits of the batter and roll them in your hands, making a little ball, then put the ball on the cookie sheet." Willie did as his mother instructed, placing nice sized dough-ball drops onto the foil sitting on the sheet.
"Now what you do, is you take your second finger make a little indent in the middle of each dough-ball. Then take the jelly and put a little bit of it in each indent" She said, chuckling as she watched Willie's facial expressions. His tongue was sitting on his top lip and his eyes were glued on his task.
When he was done, they popped the sheet in the oven and let the cookies bake. Willie then looked up at his mom, "Hey ma, is it ok if I lick the bowl now?"
His mother let out a beautiful bell-like laugh, "Of course Willie." she replied, "Of course."
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Willie smiled he looked at the large mixing bowl laced on the sides with cookie-dough, now sitting in his hands. Willie couldn't help himself as he grabbed the spoon next to him and began scraping the remaining dough off of the bowl and slowly putting it into his mouth. Willie figured he had a right to, he knew he wouldn't be eating any tonight. Well, maybe one of the cookies and one of the Crostini when they were done, just to make sure they tasted alright. But if he couldn't really enjoy his own cooking, he could at least lick the bowl.
After he was done, he pulled out a small serving table, and gently draped a long, pretty doilie Barnabas had picked out, on top. He then pulled out the punch bowl, platters, cups, dishes, and napkins and placed them on the table, arranging them in an orderly fashion.
He then, got on his costume. It was a typical male servant's costume from the period. He felt highly uncomfortable wearing it, but it was either that, or an angry Barnabas . . . and he chose the outfit. By this time, the food was done, and he left them in the oven to stay warm, made the punch, and waited.
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It's party time . . .
By the time the party started, Willie was drained. He had worked non-stop for a solid week on this, and so far Barnabas was getting all the credit. That was the only thing that irked Willie about doing work around the Old House; he never got credit for any of it, Barnabas did.
He gave a quiet sigh as another comment was made to Barnabas by Carolyn, "Oh Barnabas, where did you get these cookies?" she asked
Barnabas smiled slightly, thinking that the cookies weren't good, "I didn't buy them, Willie made them. Didn't you Willie?" he said, glancing over to Willie, who glanced back with a surprised look at his master. "Yea, yea I made 'em." he replied with a worried look at Carolyn. Willie actually didn't think they tasted that bad, in fact they were quite good if he did say so himself. "Th-they were my ma's recipe." he stuttered
Carolyn, along with the all of the other guests (who had also heard this remark), were quite surprised at this.
"You mean, that you did this yourself?" Elizabeth Collins asked,
Willie nodded dumbly and Elizabeth raised another question, "Did you make the Crostini's too?"
"Yea I did. I used to help dad make 'em all time growin' up." he replied
"Well, everything is delicious Willie. You did a wonderful job." Vicki commented, the rest of the company nodded and murmured in agreement, looking over and flashing the occasional smile at him, than slowly began to continue with their normal conversation.
"Willie, refill our guests' drinks I would like to propose a toast." Barnabas, a hint of coldness behind his voice.
Willie did as he was bidden, smiling inwardly to himself, "I finally got credit fer somethin' I did," he thought, "I finally did somethin' right."