Dying for Chocolate

The phone rang. This time Adele motioned me to sit as she painfully rose to answer it. I could hear a one-sided conversation with the choirmaster from Utah. Some people never quit.

I pulled a periwinkle-and-white afghan from its matching overstuffed cushion held snug in a white wicker divan. Adele had decorated the house the way she dressed herself, with elegance and money. The style was traditional, without a rustic wood piece or southwestern accent in sight.

I tucked the afghan around my legs and gazed off into the distance. Fingers of fog snaked down the nearby canyons. In the meadow below, puffs of vapor glided by, ghostlike. Clumps of wild iris stood like clusters of pale-purple flags between hummocks of new green grass. Everything else was a tumult of greens: new green of wet spring grass, black-green of ponderosa pines, pale blue-green of spruce, bright green of new aspen trees. Another hummingbird dropped a twittering ribbon of sound as it shot by us. Adele tap-stepped back out to the porch.

“I put the machine on,” she said apologetically. Then she held up a finger as we again heard the phone. After three rings the machine picked up. “Peace,” she said as she sat down again. Her eyes found mine.

“I was following him to town,” I said to her unasked question, “to pick up a few things for the Harringtons’ dinner tomorrow night.” I faltered. In my mind’s eye the BMW careened down the last hill toward the bus. I looked at Adele, who had screwed up her face at the mention of the Harringtons.

She said, “I don’t suppose Weezie will cancel, even though I think she was . . . you know, seeing him.” She shook her head. “But you were saying . . .”

“Well. It was awful. I tried to help him, but—”

“You tried to help him? How gruesome. You poor thing.” Her voice, like Marla’s, was threaded with warmth and sympathy. The muscles in my neck relaxed.

“It all went too fast. And the way he was driving . . . Crazy, just crazy, as if he were drunk.”

“Horrid.”

I wasn’t hungry, but I reached for Julian’s fudge anyway. The buttery, rich chocolate melted, warming my mouth.

“Is Julian going to be okay? How close were they?” I asked.

Adele pursed her lips. “Poor Julian, I believe, had just grown to trust Philip Miller, I think this will be extremely hard for him.” Her fingers brushed the pearls around her neck; the large diamond in her West Point miniature trapped the sun in a fleeting explosion of light.

I said, “Excuse me, Adele.”

I went into the bathroom and buried my face in a towel.

When I came out, Adele assured me she would care for Arch when the general brought him. She convinced me to go up and lie down. The combination of brandy, tea, and espresso had the unusual effect of zonking me out for five hours. I awoke to the gray light of dusk. In my confusion I thought it was the next morning. But the sun slanting through the third-floor dormer windows and playing over the sloped ceiling and walls brought the realization that it was an early-June evening, around eight. I hoped the Farquhars had managed dinner.

In my mind I saw Philip’s sightless face. I shook the image away.

Arch was rummaging around next door. I thought with dismay of all the work I would have to do the next day for the Harrington dinner. Usually I organized such affairs well in advance. But the headmaster at Elk Park Prep had pleaded so fervently that I salvage his brunch that my whole schedule had been put in disarray. I remembered that a cop might come out and ask more questions about the accident. Well. Sufficient unto the day. I needed to talk to Arch.

“Arch,” I said through his closed door. “Did you hear about Philip Miller?”

“Yeah, I heard,” came his muffled voice. “Bummer!” A pause. “Do you know where my suit is? I’m going swimming.”

I caught myself making an audible groan and stifled it. Julian was trying to teach Arch how to do the front and back flip, the jackknife, and other dives in the Farquhars’ pool. Chronic ear infections and bouts of virally induced asthma when Arch was little had prevented his learning to swim when other kids had. He was still not adept at anything besides the doggie paddle, so the diving gave me fits.

I said, “How’d the first day of summer school go?”

His head appeared at the door. Behind him I could see discarded clothes strewn around in piles. He had found the trunks, expensive blue Jams I had found on sale at a Denver department store. He said, “Huh?”

I repeated my question.

“Okay,” he said. “Classes don’t start until Monday. Can we talk about this later? I gotta go.”

I steeled myself. He hated it when I acted protective, when I told him how much I worried about him, how it was especially bad when there was a loss like this. But. He was okay. That was all that mattered.

I said, “What are you studying?”

Arch pushed past me to get a towel from the linen closet. He said, “We start with Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

He didn’t. He backed out of the linen closet with a beach towel.