Dying for Chocolate

“It’s the perfect thing! You’ll make money, the school will make money, we can invite Julian and Arch and the Harringtons and all kinds of people! It’ll be a smash hit. Oh, Goldy, you’re wonderful! I never would have thought of it if you hadn’t told me about the badges.” She put her finger to her lip again, a bad sign. “And about Joan. She just needs to be coddled.”

Right. Rasmussen the Egg. More like hard-boiled, I’d say.

“Brought along, you know.” As usual, I didn’t. “I suppose I should invite her over for lunch today.”

I had been trying to give her comfort. Be a soul friend, the way I was with her sister, Marla. Suddenly, everything was backfiring.

Adele continued, “Could you just do a little soup and salad? Please? I know you need to get your van, but Bo and I can get it for you.” Her hazel eyes implored me.

Okay, I’d screwed up with the Rasmussen woman. Here was Adele, new to the community, walking with a cane, trying to make friends, using her time and money to be helpful when she couldn’t get people to raise money in the summer, and her employee had just blown off the co-chair. Well, I needed to.

I swallowed and said, “Sure. Lunch is no problem. Rolls and fruit salad with Goldilocks’ Gourmet Spinach Soup?” She nodded. Good, I’d brought a container of frozen soup from my house. “I can have it done before I leave for the picnic.”

Adele smiled in relief. Then she rose like a queen and picked up the phone to call Joan Rasmussen about lunch and the birding expedition. Rasmussen must have thought it was a good idea, because then Adele called Bo on the intercom and asked him to call his golfing friend whose wife was in the Audubon Society. Then with a wink she took the van keys I gave her and tap-stepped her way out of the kitchen.

Adele was like and unlike Marla, I reflected as I stirred molasses into the bubbling pot of baked beans. Like Marla in being used to wealth and the power it confers. Unlike Marla in that Adele never discussed her back problems, she just poured the pain into energy for good deeds. If Marla was in pain, she made sure that it was news for the entire county. And to Marla, good deeds were for the Rockefellers.

Arch reappeared at the kitchen doorway.

“Mom,” he announced, “I need two hundred dollars for a silk cape and top hat.” He grinned.

“Excuse me?”

“I can ask Dad if it’s too much for you.”

“Arch, don’t. You know he’ll say no, that it should come out of the child-support money. Come on, hon. Can’t you do without it?”

He looked at me, a child’s freckled face wrinkled in adultlike dismay. “Well, I have to have them for the magic show,” he insisted. “Maybe Dad will get them since I talked him into paying for the other stuff.”

“What other stuff? Like that newspaper?”

Arch ducked into his bag and brought out a pair of handcuffs and a set of Chinese manacles. This latter I recognized as his favorite trick from our visits to magic shows when he was little. He couldn’t seem to decide between the two tricks. Finally he held up the handcuffs with his eyebrows raised.

“Lock these behind me, please.”

This was turning into a busy morning. But I acquiesced.

There was a pause as he leaned forward slightly. Then he triumphantly brought up his hands and the cuffs.

“How did you do that?”

“A magician never tells, Mom. Anyway, wait until you see me do it under water.”

“Under water! You can hardly do the doggie paddle. And remember the doctor said you should be extra careful because of that bronchitis and asthma you had in February—”

GOLDILOCKS’ GOURMET SPINACH SOUP

5 tablespoons unsalted butter

¼ A pound fresh mushrooms, washed, dried, trimmed, and diced

1 scallion, chopped

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups milk

½ teaspoon salt (optional)

black pepper (preferably freshly ground)

ground nutmeg (optional)

¼ A pound cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes

1 cup grated Swiss cheese (recommended: Jarlsberg)

¼ pound fresh spinach, washed, trimmed, cooked, and chopped

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. In it slowly sauté the mushrooms and scallion until tender. Add flour and stir just until flour is cooked, a couple of minutes. Whisk in first chicken broth and then milk, stirring until thickened. Add salt if desired, pepper, nutmeg if desired, cream cheese, and Swiss cheese; stir until melted. Then stir in spinach. Heat and stir very gently. Season to taste. Serve hot.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Arch turned away. When I opened my mouth to say I was sorry, Julian’s honk sounded from outside.

“Gotta go. Oh,” he said as he ducked to retrieve something else. “One more thing.” It was the tone of voice he used when he knew I wasn’t going to like it. These things he always saved until the last moment before his school bus came, so we wouldn’t have time to argue. Apparently, summer school was no different.

I said, “I hope this one more thing will mean I can get all my cooking done today.”