"Maybe you're just not ready," Sara said, tears threatening. "Two years we've been together, college is out next week. But maybe you're not sure yet."

Brent Bell did not look at Sara and this seemed to work her up to a more anxious level of alarm.

"Oh my God!" she said, with a trace of a sob. "Do you want to call this wedding off?"

"Of course not," Brent said, mildly.

"I think you do!" she yelled, standing. She was very beautiful, in an exotic dusky way. And as she worked herself up, her black hair bounced. "Here you are, and it's just days before our wedding, and you humiliate me in front of all these people. How am I supposed to feel?" She turned to me. "He stopped talking about the wedding weeks ago. He just turned off. We went to taste wedding cake and that was the last time he said boo about our plans."

Can there be any doubt in anyone's mind why I am simply not cut out to counsel young brides?

Brent spoke up. "Sar, you don't want my advice. Okay? You just want to drag me along. That's fine. Here I am. Only don't suggest you are going to listen to me, okay?"

She didn't answer him but directed her comments to me, getting worked up with each word. "He wanted chocolate! For the wedding cake! Great idea, huh? Well, I'm allergic to chocolate and he knows it. So what does that say about how he feels about me?" Her nose began to drip as she cried.

"Then why do you ask me?" Brent started getting steamed. "It's my wedding too, right? And I happen to like chocolate. Aren't I supposed to have anything I like?"

She needed a tissue, and I didn't have one nearby, so I held out the white damask napkin. She took it and wiped her face.

"I'm going to give you folks a little privacy to iron out your plans," I said, taking my only opening to get the hell out of there.

"No! Wait. I think this wedding is canceled," Sara said, her eyes on Brent.

"Is that what you really want?" he asked her, hurt but subdued.

"What I want? Of course not! I love you. I want to marry you. But you don't want to marry me, do you? Do you?"

"You think I don't want to marry you?" he asked, finally getting a little heated up. "Then why do you think I'm going through all this?"

"You're impossible!" Sara yelled. "'Going through all this?' This is our wedding! You're supposed to love going through all this!" She turned to me, "Isn't he?"

"Sara. Brent. I don't know the two of you. I don't know if you have been happy together or miserable. I don't know if you have family troubles or career troubles or money troubles or health troubles."

They both looked at me, listening. I can't imagine why. Having a big eight years on them, I must have looked like an older and wiser soul. Or maybe they were both ready for someone, anyone, to talk them back down. With my recent brush with death, I was full of things to say.

"What I do know is that we have only got this instant in time. There are no guarantees that any of us will have months and years and decades ahead of us to make mistakes and fix them and learn from them. We might, any of us, be hit by a car walking out of this shop." Okay, so you knew that one was coming. Hey, I was freaked.

"So what are you going to do? Are you going to drive yourselves crazy? Or are you going to take what life offers and make it sweet?

"I'm a party planner, but believe me when I tell you, parties do not matter. So don't wig out, okay? This whole wedding thing should really be about, well, love."

Like I really know, I thought, as I stood back up. I was shaking a little, I can't imagine why. This cursed wedding-consulting business was so over-the-top emotional!

"I do love you, Sar," Brent said, putting an arm around her.

"Oh, Brent, honey," Sara said, clinging.

I quickly left them to sort it all out.

"Is it off?" Darius asked when I came up to the counter.

"Don't know. But I am not cut out for the wedding planner game. What do I know about it? I don't know if those two ought to be getting married!"

"So-o-o," Darius said, smiling, "Now tell me what really happened with Vivian Duncan."

"Why don't you tell me? Little coincidence, huh, Vivian showing up at your shop right when I'm here, and you talking to me so tenderly about me taking over her business?"

"Oh, Maddie. She did ask me to invite you over here this afternoon. She was planning to get here a little earlier and ask you to consider joining her team or whatever. But what went on there, outside, with that horrible car and whatever? I have no idea!"

"Maybe just a freak accident," I said, wondering what to believe. "Or maybe..."

At that moment we were approached by what might or might not be the Silver-Bell wedding couple.

"Madeline, please excuse us," Sara said, smiling. Brent hung back but seemed more relaxed. "We've decided you are right. We are going ahead with our plans. Hey, who says things should be perfect?"

"Well, actually, Maddie usually does," piped in Darius.

"Now, now," I said, trying to avoid any more doubts. "I've got an idea that is very exciting, very current, and it might help heal the wedding cake blues. The latest thing is to have the bakery make each layer of the wedding cake out of different kinds of cake, but still covered with the same frosting. Like a secret. Might that work for you, Sara?"

"How cute!" she said, turning to Brent. "You could have your chocolate cake."

"Yeah," he said, looking at me with a smile.

"Fine, I'll let Vivian know and she'll contact the bakery."

Ms. Silver and Mr. Bell walked out, arm in arm, and Darius let out a low whistle. "Watch out, Vivian Duncan, a powerhouse of new age wisdom and the latest cake trends is among us! Is there anything, my dear, you cannot do?" With that he reached over the counter and presented me with a fabulous gift-a duplicate of the flower arrangement I'd earlier lost grip of, only this time done in the palest lavender roses above a bubble vase filled with limes.

"It's fantastic," I said. "The colors are amazing. Better than the last one, even."

"Cut flowers," Darius said, looking at the lavender blooms. "In the sixteenth-century Flemish paintings, they represented the transitory nature of life. You know, cut down in its bloom. Beautiful one moment and dead and rotting the next."

"Darius," I said, shaking my head. "You...are...so...damn...up!"

Chapter 4.

At the end of a charming cul-de-sac, in the historic Whitley Heights section of the Hollywood Hills, amid a dozen pale stucco houses designed in the early thirties when residential architecture had real style, sits my little abode. Smack next to a retaining wall. Smack next to the 101 Freeway. In Hollywood Hills real estate, charm was either very expensive or extremely noisy.

Climbing up my front steps, the mighty river of rushing cars can be heard if not seen. But inside, door shut, the roar of traffic becomes instantly muffled. Darling though it is, this is not a house in which one may carelessly throw open a window. True.

Yet, I love the place. Adorable and affordable, my Spanish charmer has a pedigree that goes back to its original owner, a silent film comedian who was famed for his googly eyes.

"Holly? Wes?" I called.

The lower level of my house has been converted to suit my business, with offices where the original living and dining rooms were, and a largely remodeled kitchen, which can withstand the industrial-sized cooking assignments we love. Upstairs, I've converted the space into my private quarters.

I checked my watch as I walked through the empty entry hall, past Holly's deserted desk and computer. Six-fifty. I just couldn't wait to tell them about meeting Vivian Duncan. They'd die.

"Anybody home?"

As I turned on a light in my office, I detected the excellent aromas of frying olive oil and perhaps ham, wafting from the direction of the kitchen. Dropping my purse and Vivian's pink portfolio onto my desk, I heard Wes's voice calling. I hefted the bowl of lavender roses and headed toward the voice.

In the kitchen, I felt at once relaxed and restored. The bright lights gleamed off all the shiny white tiles, the brushed aluminum appliances, and the worn butcher-block countertops. My two friends were here, huddled at the large, marble-topped island in the center of the room.

"We didn't know when you would be home," Holly said, looking up, a cup of coffee in her hand. "Ooh, great flowers!" She pushed her stick-straight bangs back off her forehead and looked a bit anxious. "We started to make dinner, hope you don't freak."

"Moi? Freak?" How well they knew me.

Holly grinned. Standing with one hand on top of her head, white-blond hair pulled back off her forehead, this beanpole of a young woman was stretched to her fullest height, a height that was formidable enough even without the three-inch open-toed wedgies she was wearing at the moment.

"Anything left for me to do?" I asked, trying for nonchalant rather than freaky. I love to roll my sleeves up and become consumed in the, okay, I know it's hokey, the joy of cooking.

"Of course," Wes said, sticking his head up from the magazine he'd been consulting. "We were just doing Bon Appetit roulette. Why don't you take the main course, sweetie?"

I keep an enormous stack of cooking magazines, back issues for years. Sometimes, we just close our eyes and open the page and make whatever we land on. Apparently Holly had just gotten back from the market.

"Great," I said, looking at the recipe Wes was reading. "Great." I gave him a little hug.

Wesley Westcott is my right hand. Or perhaps I should say I'm his. We met just after I finished studying at the Culinary Institute in San Francisco about nine years ago, and have stuck like glue to each other ever since. I was working as the lowest sous chef at a celebrated foodie haunt up in Berkeley, paying my dues, and loving it. Wes was finishing up his Ph.D. in comparative intelligences, or something obscure, and he talked me into moving down to L.A. to see if we could start our own firm, catering big Hollywood parties and even working at the studios, catering meals for the stars.

I thought it was a radical idea. I'd been very wrapped up in my own bitter love life at the time. In fact, I'd been dumped by a chef. And a major move southward was the perfect escape. In this way, a new career was born, and Wes and I have been together to this day. I vowed never again to let romance enter into the picture when I was cooking, and with Wesley Westcott, I'd been able to develop the best relationship I've ever had with a man.

"What's this? Paella?" I asked, reading from the page they had marked. "Oh, the pungent taste of saffron!" I did a rather good Julia Child impersonation.

"But," Wes insisted, as I read through the recipe, "we're not putting in that many onions."

"I'm making the salad," Holly said, bending down to whisper in my ear. "Mad, honey, I think Wesley's taste buds are getting totally ghetto."

"As in...?" I had gotten lost. Holly Nichols needed to come with her own glossary. Updated daily.

"Oh," Wes said, airily, "skateboarder talk. She's dissin' me. Thinks I can't hack the stronger spices." Wes retied the white chef's apron he wore over his denim shirt and dungarees. "Use however many onions you want to, board girl." He picked up another magazine and flipped the page, reading. "I'll do the cake."

The fun of cooking is enhanced, I think, when you can do it with friends. And as I poured good olive oil into the heavy enameled pan, I began to gather my ingredients. First thing to do was finish sauteing the hot Cajun sausages. I loved the aroma and hiss of it all. While they were losing their inner pink, I lined up a dozen chicken thighs and a few dozen large shrimp, and began cleaning and chopping an onion (who needs two?) and peeling the dozen garlic cloves I'd use later.

"What took you so long?" Wes asked, always needing details. He turned the bowl of pale lavender roses around, checking them with his discerning eye. "You made it to Beverly Hills and got the full Darius treatment. And then...?"

"What a weird afternoon," I said, as I removed the sausage and added the chicken, skin side down, to the hot pan. Holly handed me the lid and I covered the thighs to let them cook gently through.

"I met Vivian Duncan."

"No shit!"

Holly was standing next to me at the industrial eight-burner range, sprinkling oregano over a mixture of baguette cubes and coarsely chopped prosciutto. When she thought I wasn't looking, she swiped a few peeled cloves of garlic and tossed them into her pan.

"Hey!"

"So you met Vivian Duncan," Wes said, eyes gleaming. "Was blood drawn?"

"It's a pretty strange story. She had her car stolen in broad daylight right from the alley behind the shops on Rodeo. Right near Darius. She was so shook up she asked me to take over a client meeting for her. Isn't that odd? I mean, we work in this town for all these years and I've never ever run into her, and then all of a sudden there she was, sitting on the pavement with a huge run in her pantyhose."

"She was car-jacked?" Holly asked. "I give up. I mean, you hear about those things happening," she said, shaking her white-blond wisps, "but when old broads can't get a manicure in B.H. without getting mugged, it's too much. We should move."

"Away from L.A.?" I moved in for a surreptitious taste of Holly's migas, the Spanish starter of ham fried with garlicky breadcrumbs she'd been stirring up. She caught me and shooed me off.

"Well, we can't leave town yet," Wes said, diffidently, as he buttered his third cake pan and began mincing orange peel. "We've been invited to a wedding."

"What?" I spun and looked at him.

"My, what a coincidence," he said, chuckling. "While you were out, we got a phone call from that man who works with Vivian Duncan. Ted Pettibone."

"You're kidding," I said.

"What do they all call him?" Holly asked. In the small world of caterers and party planners and restauranteurs, the gossip factor was appallingly high, and I had to admit, Holly was responsible for a fair share of it.

"Whisper," Wes said. "Those who know him well call him Whisper Pettibone, although I don't know why. He spoke in a perfectly civil tone on the phone."

"Maybe he whispers sweet nothings in Vivian's ear," chuckled Holly, as she washed the arugula and romaine.

"Not even a possibility," Wes said, enjoying his fair share of gossip, too. "Vivian's married to that handsome man who doesn't do anything. Doesn't really work, I mean. And they have a grown daughter, don't they? But anyway, no matter what Vivian might be up to, Whisper is a, well, a confirmed bachelor."

"Oh," said Holly.

"Oh," I said.

I added the cooked chicken to the bowl of cooked sausage, and began sauteing the chopped onion and garlic cloves. Recalling the recent garlic theft, I quickly peeled and chopped two more cloves.

"Did Whisper Pettibone invite us to the Silver-Bell wedding?" I asked, intrigued.

"The what?" Holly asked.

"June tenth at the Museum of Nature," Wes confirmed, as he moved to the food processor to mix together his dry ingredients-flour, baking powder, salt, and a cup of almonds.

"Sara Silver and Brent Bell. That's the couple I met with today," I explained to Holly. "Isn't it sweet that they wanted to invite us to their wedding?"

"Where in the museum are they getting married?" Holly asked. "Not in the Hall of Dinosaurs! That is so nug!"

"Nug?" I looked to Wes for translation but he only shrugged.

"Man, I love fossils," Holly said, excited. "The Triceratops was a plant-eater, did you know that?"

"Is that so?" Wes commented dryly. "Well, there will be no paella for that, uh, bad boy."