Dying for Chocolate

Schulz had been attentive, God knew. On my birthday, on Arch’s birthday, on Julia Child’s birthday, he had sent cards with pictures of mice eating cookies, rabbits downing carrot cakes, French poodles dancing through french fries. Valentine’s Day brought the arrival of the most sumptuous box of candy I had ever received. For this gift I had written him a thank-you note. When he called I told him Arch was taking a carefully wrapped piece in his lunch each day.

“What about you?” he had asked. “Did you like it?”

“Of course,” I’d said carefully. “It’s wonderful.” And then I’d begged off with a catering assignment.

Finally he had asked the dreaded question: Do you see our relationship going anywhere? How could I say I didn’t know? How could I say stop being so nice? How could I admit to running against stereotype, the first woman afraid to commit?

There are many bad ways that relationships end, I reflected as I mixed together the wet and dry ingredients. Death. Divorce. I knew all about the latter. But I had deliberately let the relationship with Schulz wane until there was little left. We had been like the hot chocolate they sell at the ski resorts. For your buck fifty, a machine first spews dark, thick syrup into a cup. This liquid gradually turns to a mixture of chocolate and hot water. Soon there is just a stream of hot water, and in a moment, drops. You wish the chocolate part would go on gushing forever, but it doesn’t.

This was what I should have told Schulz on Valentine’s Day. I simply had not been equal to the task. And then it was a week, a month, three months: His calls became less frequent, and I had heard the siren song of a more enigmatic relationship, the one with Philip Miller.

I put the tin of muffins into the oven. When I set the timer I could hear the slap-slap of Julian doing his laps. I fixed a pot of coffee for when he was done. Not that he would care or be grateful, I was sure.

Arch wandered into the kitchen carrying a large grocery bag. He looked sleepy, which he often did after spending the weekend with The Jerk. His glasses were far down on his nose, but I noticed that he had on a clean unrumpled sweat suit. Seeing him after only a two-day absence made something in my chest ache.

MONTESSORI MUFFINS

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped pitted prunes

1 egg, beaten

¼ cup oil

½ cup molasses

1 ½ cups milk

Preheat oven to 400°. Combine whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and prunes in a bowl. Stir together egg, oil, molasses, and milk in another bowl. Combine the mixtures, mixing just until blended. Spoon into a greased 12-cup muffin tin. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Makes 12 muffins

He looked up, pushed the glasses back on his nose, and regarded me with magnified brown eyes. He said, “You look tired, Mom.”

“You’re projecting.”

“Oh. I don’t know what that means.” He was rooting through the bag.

“Sorry. It just means when you’re tired yourself, you think I am.”

He did not answer, but drew a newspaper from the bag.

I said, “What’s that?”

“You’ll see.”

I halved fat Valencia oranges, whirred them on the Farquhars’ electric juicer to extract pulpy nectar. I poured the thick juice into another Waterford pitcher, one that had survived the garden explosion. The buzzer for the muffins went off. When I turned back from putting them on a cooling rack, Arch was carefully pouring the fresh juice into the newspaper.

I gasped. Arch said nothing. Trying hard not to lose my temper as the last of the juice drained into the folded paper, I said, “Please. What are you doing?”

He said, “Experimenting,” without looking at me.

Then he did look at me. He unfolded the newspaper with a flourish, paged carefully through it to show that it was just a newspaper. No liquid, no stain. Then he refolded it with aplomb. He dropped his chin, gave me another knowing look over the top of his glasses, and poured the juice out of the newspaper back into the pitcher.

“All rightl” said Julian from the kitchen doorway, where, unknown to me, he had been standing watching. Julian held on to his towel with one hand and enthusiastically clapped the counter with the other.

I smiled. “Let’s drink that juice,” I said. “I’ll make more for Bo and Adele.”

When the two of them had drained their glasses, Julian said to Arch, “You going to show that trick to your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” came Arch’s hot protest.

I said, “Excuse me?”

Julian gave Arch a profoundly apologetic look. Then he snitched a muffin and walked quickly out of the kitchen, tossing a comment over his shoulder. Arch, he said, should be ready to go to Elk Park Prep in thirty minutes.

I echoed, “Girlfriend?”

Arch let out a deep breath. He took a bite of muffin. He looked at me and shrugged. Said, “Remember I told you Julian really likes your cooking, Mom? He even told me he wants to, like, take lessons from you.”