Dying for Chocolate

Birds squawked and flitted between the pines. The sun was warm. A bird darted into a well of sunlight and flashed a white underbelly. It was getting on to late afternoon. Snow melted noisily all around us as we made our way to the car. Tree branches dripped and the earth sucked and popped in absorbing the wet. Here and there on the lawn and in the general’s new flower pots were clods of dirt that had been blown over the roof by the backyard garden-explosion. At Schulz’s car, I thanked him for bringing me home. Avoiding his eyes, I said, “You’ve been kind. Thanks.”

He waited for me to say more, to say something about seeing him again or wanting to. But I did not.

He said, “Goldy?”

“Yes?”

“Call me if you want to talk about the accident. Or anything else.”

“You need to come home,” Marla was saying into the kitchen phone when I returned. She hung up. “Adele,” she explained, rolling her eyes. “Wanted to know why I was answering the phone in her house, so I told her about you and Philip and the accident. Talk about stunned. She was speechless.”

“Where was she?”

“Still at Elk Park Prep. My sister, the storm-trooper fund-raiser. It’s like putting General Bo into one of those paint-pellet games. God help the school.” She paused for a moment, then pulled a clear plastic container filled with salad from one of the bags. “Speaking of Bo,” she said, “I bought something that sounds like a uniform. Field greens? Think you can get them on the black market, too? Anybody done a study of terrorist food?”

I turned to her with my mouth open. “Field greens?” I didn’t get it. Suddenly the absurdity of everything swept over me. I gagged. Marla reached out to hold me.

“It’s okay,” she said.

Firmly, Marla sat me down. With the efficiency I admired so much in her, she made some espresso. She knew I loved the stuff, and she even remembered not to ruin it with lemon peel or sugar. I liked it better than tea anyway. When she set the tiny cup down, she glanced out back.

“What’s the general doing? Putting in a gold mine?”

“No, a garden.”

She shook her heavy cheeks. “Too bad he’s never gone hand to hand with The Jerk.” She giggled and sat down next to me in a flurry of feathers and sequins. She said, “There are a lot of people we should call. About Philip.”

I nodded. In Aspen Meadow you had to call people in times of crisis. You had to let them know they’d be needed. She found pencil and paper and asked for numbers, which I read to her from our slender town phone book. At Elizabeth’s house she got the answering machine. Next she tried a neighbor of Elizabeth’s in the hope that we could get somebody to be with her. There was no answer. Marla then tried Aspen Meadow Health Food. She told the clerk what had happened, asked her to put up a sign closing the place for the next few days, and left our numbers to be called.

When I had finished the coffee we put away the food Marla had purchased: there was enough for several days. She asked me about the evening meal. Chicken salad, in the refrigerator. I could not imagine eating. I looked at my watch.

Where was Arch?

“Goldy.” Marla touched my shoulder. “What is it?”

“Find out where Arch is,” I said in a whisper.

Marla turned crisply and called the school, was put on hold, fumed and fussed, and eventually had an answer. She held her hand over the receiver. “Adele offered to bring him home when the general comes by later. But she’s not authorized to take him, so Arch is still there, and Adele is coming home early with somebody else. Want me to go?”

I shook my head and got on the phone with the minor bureaucrat, said General Farquhar would be by later and he had my authorization to pick up Arch.

Marla asked if I wanted more coffee or what. I shook my head as she took out lace place mats and English china for the evening meal, then searched out the general. I wanted Arch to be home. I wanted this day to be over. When Marla returned, she moved between the kitchen and dining room to set the table. I furiously began to wash the teacups. Work was always the best antidote for frustration.

Also the best antidote for . . .

With a pang I saw Philip’s face crinkled with laughter the last time we’d gone out. I’d told him Arch had bought a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook and refused to yield it to me when I’d demanded it. Philip had found this amusing.

“Censorship,” he accused. “Even if it is a cookbook.”

“For bombs,” I said. “I’m not sure the general’s influence is good for him.”

“You know as well as I do,” he said, “that the more upset you get about it, the more he’s going to want it. Just talk to him. Don’t lose your cool. He’s been in therapy; he can always go back. And you’ve got me.”

A teacup slid through my hands and broke to smithereens in the sink. Marla rushed over and ordered me to sit down. She said the general had gone in his Range Rover to check on the T-bird and get Arch. Just relax, she kept telling me, everything is going to be okay.