Dying for Chocolate

Elizabeth was squeezing through occupied chairs to get to the back of the room. When she arrived at the serving table, she whispered, “The food’s great and most of my friends are here.” She smiled to dismiss her earlier complaint.

I felt like telling her to phone the Mountain Journal with a review, but I did not want to interrupt the world’s most boring headmaster. I noticed Philip eyeing his sister. I said, “Your brother’s here.”

She said, “And?”

I smiled.

“No news to report yet,” I said. “Can’t rush these things. You know,” I added.

“I’m depending on you to keep an eye on him,” she said in a low voice.

Philip sauntered back. He said, “Want to get out of here?”

I said, “Absolutely.”

Elizabeth offered him a bite of sausage cake. “It’s not good for you,” she said with a sly smile, “but Goldy made it, so it’ll taste super. You have time to visit now?”

He chewed, winked at me, then shook his head to her question.

He said, “Call you?” When she nodded, he grinned and gave me a time-to-go look. “If we don’t leave, we’re going to get caught in the crush.”

I glanced at my watch: 11:30. Rain still streaked across the tall windows of the dining room. With some effort, we could load the platters and boxes into the Thunderbird in one trip. The school staff had promised to do the dishes. The headmaster was winding down: he had gone from the fund-raising pitch to a discussion of Elk Park’s policies on drugs (they were against them), parties with alcoholic beverages (ditto), and casual sex (ditto ditto). The alums’ interest seemed to pick up with this last topic. Philip and I placed the last of the pitchers in a crate and together we carried my supplies through the mud and rain to the Thunderbird’s trunk.

Philip gave a short wave before he started his car, a BMW 325 I-X the color of vanilla pudding. For at least the hundredth time, I thought I should have become a shrink instead of a caterer.

Cold spring rain pelted and washed and blew over our cars as we bumped over muddy ruts on our way out of the staff parking lot. We passed the buses and cars that had brought the students for orientation, then came up on the pool construction site. A six-foot-high chain-link fence surrounded the excavated area. The headmaster had just informed us that the plumbing was in and that the concrete would be shot in under pressure in the next few days. The school’s board of trustees was forging ahead to build the pool before they actually had the money. Not a luxury, they’d said, but a necessity. Ah, rich folks.

When we drove past the construction-site fence, I waved and flashed my lights at Philip. He did not respond, but signaled to turn onto Highway 203.

As we started down the narrow two-lane, the raindrops turned to white flakes. I sighed; I’d known it was coming. Snow in Colorado on the third of June is not the dry type that powders the ski slopes in winter. Instead, fat wet spring flakes plopped on the car like bits of mashed potatoes. The T-bird’s windshield wipers strained against the weight. At our altitude this was—my New Jersey relatives were always appalled to hear— seasonal weather. As we headed downhill I wondered if the Thunderbird had on snow tires.

The BMW belched a cloud of black smoke. I accelerated gently; the five-hundred-foot curved descent to Aspen Meadow would be much more treacherous if the snow began to stick. Behind us the school’s red tile roof was already frosted with white. The T-bird’s windshield wipers hummed as they swept off thin blankets of snow. I turned on the defroster and for a moment lost sight of Philip whizzing around a curve.

“Machismo,” I said with a groan, and pushed Adele’s car up to thirty.

Beside the road a red fox, usually a nocturnal animal, darted out from a stand of bushes. I was startled and swung wide. No need: at the sight of the car, the animal scurried back to his lair. Even wildlife knew better than to be out in this mess.

Once around the curve I caught sight of the BMW a quarter mile ahead. My right foot pushed the accelerator.

We had been driving a few minutes when Philip abruptly careened to the right. His tires spewed a wave of mud from the shoulder. The paved part of the road was beginning to ice. I wondered if he had slid or had seen an animal, too.

The snow fell steadily. I accelerated very gently. Philip slowed for a moment and then swerved over the center line to the left. Then he straightened out to straddle the dotted line.

I honked. Was something wrong with his car? Was the snow bothering him? Maybe his windshield wipers weren’t working. I honked again, but there was no answer. Surely Philip knew the hazards of this drive. If he was having a steering problem, now was the time to pull over.