Eggsecutive Orders

Bucky glanced at me quickly-almost as though he was fearful that I would take Cyan’s comment as a slam against me. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Bucky, if they ever give us the money to redesign the kitchen, you’re the man. I can’t imagine anyone doing it better.”

He gave a half smile, which was an odd sight. It didn’t last long. He clapped his hands again. Bucky was ready to work, and in this domain, he was clearly the boss.

“I arranged for the eggs to be delivered here,” he said.

Cyan had opened his super-sized refrigerator and turned to us with a pained look on her face. “This is nowhere near enough.” she said. “Looks like maybe ten dozen or so.”

My stomach dropped. Bucky had assured me he could handle the egg acquisition, and I’d trusted him to do so, without any double-checking. Bucky shook his head. “The rest are downstairs,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

Nana opted to stay on the main level, but the rest of us traipsed down the steps into the dungeon-like cellar. “Wow,” Cyan said, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “It’s cold down here.”

At the head of our little troupe, Bucky turned. “Exactly,” he said. “I keep it at about thirty-six degrees.” He opened a heavy door and pointed to a thermometer inside. Flicking on the light, he kept talking, even as the rest of us gasped. “Here we are.”

He wasn’t kidding. There were eggs… everywhere.

“This is almost as big as our storage at the White House,” Cyan said in awe. “You could start your own banquet business out of your house.”

Bucky winced. I wondered if his fears about our losing our White House positions were working on him. He stepped forward and rested his hand on one of many stainless steel carts filled, top to bottom, with fresh eggs.

“I talked with our friends at the American Egg Board,” he said. “They’re sympathetic to the situation and after a little coaxing, they agreed to let me hold on to these for transport.” He turned to me. “But I had to promise that they’d get them back as soon as the Egg Roll was over.”

“No problem,” I said. “Bucky, you’re a miracle worker.”

Again, the half smile. “Have you talked with Paul recently?”

“I called him just before we left,” I said. “No updates yet.” “So, we could be doing all this work for nothing?”

“So, we could be doing all this work for nothing?”

“We could.”

Bucky nodded. “Well, you’re the boss.”

“And I think this is a great idea,” Cyan said. “It sure beats staying home waiting for the phone to ring. At least we’re doing something.”

Upstairs, we settled ourselves into an assembly line of sorts. We estimated we had approximately six thousand eggs on site. “That’s a great start,” I said. “If we can get these done, then maybe in the next few days we’ll be able to pick up the rest, and by the time Monday rolls around, we’ll be all set.”

Cyan and I were the ru

Once the eggs were boiled, Bucky ran them under cold water, then dried and placed them back into their cradles. “Why do you bother to dry them off?” Nana asked. “I never do that. The heat makes the water evaporate.”

He pointed into one of the crates. “If they’re not dry, they tend to drip and then the eggs sit in little puddles of water.” He shook his head. “I don’t like that.”

“But when we dye them, they’ll just get wet again.” Nana said.

“And I’ll dry them again,” he said patiently. The caustic, angry Bucky we knew from our White House kitchen was surprisingly gentle with my mom and nana. “You see, if we let them sit in the crates wet”-he wadded up a cloth and dipped it into one of the egg holders-“we would have to then go in one by one and dry out these spaces out. If we don’t, we’ll wind up with little round water spots at the base of every colored egg.” He wrinkled his nose. “Not nice.”

While each new batch of eggs boiled, Nana, Mom, Cyan, and I took each and every dried egg by hand, and dipped them into vivid pinks, blues, greens, and yellows.

Eggs, eggs, and more eggs. I was going to dream about eggs tonight. After so many hours surrounded by steam, heat, dripping dye, and eggy smells, I started feeling just a little bit punchy.

“Hey Bucky,” I said. “You did an eggcellent job of getting all this together.”

He rolled his eyes. Cyan laughed.

Mom said, “Relax. It’s just a yolk.”

Nana held up a pink-dyed egg. She giggled. “Isn’t this an eggsquisite color?”

This time we all groaned.

Bucky glanced up at the clock for about the third time in as many minutes. Cyan noticed, too. She and I exchanged a look.

He turned to us. “How many more eggs are left downstairs?”

Cyan stood. “I’ll go check.”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, that’s okay. I just was wondering.”

Again he checked the wall clock.

“Are you eggspecting someone?” Cyan asked.

While the rest of us smiled at her attempt, Bucky frowned. He wiped his hands on his apron. “I think we should start wrapping up for today, don’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, he poured out the boiling water, even though the eggs still had another minute to cook. “It’s getting late and I know you wanted me to take a look at that DVD tonight. You made me a copy, right?”

“I thought…” I gestured to encompass myself and Cyan, “We were all pla

“I lost track of time,” he said without apology. “Did you make an extra copy? Can you leave it with me? I’ll get to it tonight.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said, bewildered. “I didn’t think we’d need any extras.” Mom and Nana stood and started to clean up.

“No, no,” Bucky said, stopping them. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You’re acting a little weird all of a sudden,” I said.

“Is it so strange to have another commitment?” he asked, the old crustiness back in place. “I told you I lost track of time and I’d rather not…”

Bumping sounds from the back of the house silenced us all. There was the unmistakable sound of a door opening, closing, and of footsteps coming up the back way. I turned to Bucky. He looked miserable.

A clear voice called out, “Buck?” Female voice. Slightly familiar. “Can you give me a hand?”

He’d gone red in the face. “Hang on,” he called, then bolted for the back door.

We heard low conversation, all of us leaning closer to the door to hear better. They weren’t having an argument, but Bucky’s lower-timbered voice sounded terse. A moment later he came through the door carrying two eco-friendly shopping bags jammed with groceries, wearing a look of resigned indignation.

He stopped in the doorway and I got the impression that he intended to stay there, blocking our view. “Buck,” the voice said, from behind him. “Can I get through?”

She was tall, with clear Irish skin, long red hair, and a smile as wide as the Potomac. Recognition kicked in a half-second later. “Brandy?” I said.

She placed the bags she carried on the nearest open countertop and came over to greet me. “How are you, Ollie?” With a glance around the kitchen, she said, “Looks like you’ve gotten a lot done today.” Long-limbed and bright-eyed, she always wore an aura of confidence that allowed her to carry off such an unusual moniker.

Mom and Nana were looking at me, mildly perplexed. Cyan was wide-eyed. “Brandy,” she said. “How are things going?”

I introduced my family, relying on my autopilot politeness to carry me through. When Cyan and I exchanged a glance a moment later, Brandy caught it. “Yeah,” she said, tossing her head back in a laugh, “I’m the big secret.” She held up her fingers to make air-quotation marks, then pointed at the back door. “Can you believe he was trying to convince me to tell you I was just making a delivery?” She laughed again. “Sorry, honey,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. Even though he was obviously uncomfortable, he didn’t seem entirely displeased by her display of affection.