Dying for Chocolate

While I stood admiring the living room, Schulz called to me from the kitchen. “I figured after all that fancy cooking you’ve been doing for the Farquhars, you’d be ready for a steak.”

“Am I ever,” I said. He handed me a bottle of my favorite brand of nonalcoholic beer, then got one for himself. “Did you buy this especially for me?” But I knew he had. “Gee, am I ready for somebody to be nice.”

“I take it you saw the paper.”

“Change the subject, please. So we’re having steak? I thought you liked fancy cooking.”

“I like so many things, you can hardly imagine.” He winked. “Let’s go sit.”

I went back out to the porch and settled tentatively on the swing. It was one of the old-fashioned kind with slats.

“Wait here a sec,” he said as he took my fake-beer bottle and put it on the deck railing. He returned with an alpaca blanket, which he unfolded and carefully tucked around me.

I said, “Thank you, Daddy.”

“Shut up and drink this stuff that means I don’t have to worry about you driving home.” He handed me the bottle and lowered himself to the other side of the swing.

“You really are wonderful, you know,” I said without looking at him. The drink was cold and fizzy; my chest warmed in response. The scratchy alpaca felt snug and safe.

“Yeah, aren’t I something. Goldy, I want you to report this attack, whether anybody saw the guy or not.”

“Will do.”

“You can bet we’re not going to let any aspect of this thing rest in peace now.”

I nodded. Silence enveloped us as the sun sank behind the mountains. The air was gauzy from the melting hail.

He said, “You’re still feeling bad about this Philip Miller fellow.” It was not a question.

An involuntary tightness gathered in the area where my ribs ached. I said, “Sometimes. It seems like such a waste.”

“Oh. I don’t think so.”

“What do you know about it?” I sipped, looked out at the view.

“Well, Miss G., as hard as it may be for you to believe, I had a girlfriend once. Went to high school together, all that. She was killed in Vietnam.”

I was nonplussed. “I thought women weren’t—“

“She was a nurse. Hit in an artillery shelling.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. Point is, love is never wasted.”

“Really. I wasted it for seven years on The Jerk. And I’m not sure I was in love with Philip Miller.”

He let that pass. After a few minutes he said, “Feel like talking about him, then? In an unemotional kind of way? It involves people you know better than I do.”

I swished the liquid around in its green bottle until it foamed. I said, “Sure. Go ahead.”

“For starters, there’s Philip Miller and the people who live next door to you.”

I said flatly, “I don’t know whether he was having an affair with Weezie.”

“That’s the rumor I heard from four people. Also, if she’s so interested in aphrodisiacs, do you think she’d go so far as to use this Spanish fly? Might explain why Philip had it.”

“I told you, I know the rumor about the affair. That’s it.”

“Actually, I’m wondering if you know anything about the relationship between our good shrink and Brian Harrington.”

“Oh, please.”

“Not that kind of relationship. Business. Rivalry. Philip Miller, the politically correct counselor, active in Protect Our Mountains, president of the local Audubon Society, and an opponent of development of ecologically sensitive Flicker Ridge. Which is owned by Mr. Harrington.”

I said, “Show me a part of Colorado, even one rock, that somebody’s not insisting is ecologically sensitive.” I got up to hunt for another fake beer.

“Okay, okay,” he said as he followed me back to his compact kitchen. “Let me do this,” he said as he took my bottle and rattled around in the refrigerator for another one. “I’m the host. I just wanted to know if you knew anything about it.”

“Audubon Society, I don’t know. I’m doing a picnic for them tomorrow with the Farquhars. As to specifics, the only kind of birds I know about are the kind you eat.”

“Can’t say that I blame you,” he said as he handed me another cold bottle. “Bring that out back so we can do the steaks. I need to talk to you about health food, anyway.”

“Another one of my favorite topics.”

He smiled at me. “The sun’s gone down. You need a sweater or something?” He looked questioningly at my thin jacket.

I said I would get the alpaca and meet him around back. When I arrived at the patio, the steaks had begun to sizzle on the grill. The enticing smell of barbecue smoke drifted upward into the darkening sky. I rewrapped myself and sat down on a picnic bench, Indian-style.

“Okay,” he said as he tossed a few drops of water on the fire to bring the flames down. The coals hissed. He moved his big body around to face me, and I felt a surge of warmth not associated with the fake beer or the blanket. He said, “The sister. Elizabeth. Having trouble with her health-food-store mortgage payment until Philip’s will takes care of everything.”