Dying for Chocolate

“She gone?”

It was Julian.

I nodded. “Where’s Arch?”

“Down by the pool. Don’t worry, Adele’s watching him. He’s practicing his front flip. He’s getting pretty good,” he added.

I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms. Julian had never once sought my company. He looked around the kitchen.

“You fixing dessert tonight?” he asked.

“Sherbet.”

“Let me fix something, then,” he said. He reached for a cookbook, a fancy one on chocolate. The recipes were fairly complicated, I had noted on a recent reading, and pretty iffy at high altitude.

He read, “ ‘Filbertines, good with ice cream.’ ” He stuck out his chin. “Want me to?”

“Up to you. Why don’t you just tell me why you came up?”

He began to open cupboards, got out French chocolate and superfine sugar and flour.

“Did she tell you we were having problems?”

I said, “She did.” Can this relationship be saved?

Julian backed out of the refrigerator with unsalted butter and eggs.

“Who taught you to make filbertines?”

“My—” He hesitated, swiveled his head to eye me. “You’ve been talking to Sissy.”

“More like, I’ve been listening to Sissy.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my business.”

I poured myself another soft drink. “Fine,” I said, and sipped. “Sure.”

“That’s really not the problem with our relationship, anyway.”

“What isn’t the problem?”

“What I’m trying to do.”

“You mean like looking for parents, learning to be a doctor or a cook, what?”

“No, none of that. The problem with our relationship is just. . . that you don’t learn to be cool down in Navajoland.”

“Learn to be cool,” I echoed.

“I mean, you know, sex appeal and all that dumb stuff.” He began to whisk eggs in a copper bowl.

I reflected on his words. You know, sex appeal? No, I really did not.

“I’ll tell you what I do know, Julian.” I refilled my glass and watched the foam fizzle up the sides. “Sissy likes you a lot, cares about you.”

He snorted.

I said, “It’s like with Arch and me. Or even Arch with his father. Some people have strange ways of showing they care.”

He gave me his defiant look. He said, “You should know.”

As if in answer to his comment, the security gate buzzed. I flipped on the closed-circuit camera. Oh yes, Saturday afternoon, how could I have forgotten who would be arriving?

The Jerk.

19.

I called the general over the intercom. He made one of his silent appearances in the kitchen and about scared me to death. How could he get around so quietly? Of course, that immediately made me think of what else he’d said he could do without making any noise.

I said, “He’s here.”

“Right. Call Arch. Meet me in the front hall.”

I obeyed orders, alternating between feeling cold waves of fear and a sense of silliness. Were these elaborate troop movements really necessary? Five minutes later we all reconnoitered in the foyer. The general was wearing a shoulder holster.

Arch said, “Wow! Is that cool!”

“Oh please,” I said, “not a gun.”

The general narrowed his eyes. He said, “Deterrent.”

“This is Aspen Meadow!” I cried. “Not Beirut, for crying out loud.”

The Jerk’s Jeep horn blew. Braat! Braat!

The general leaned into my face. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “They thought I was crazy in Washington. They may think I’m crazy here. But. It’s all the same, Goldy. All over the world. You have to be ready.”

Arch said, “Can we go? I’m ready.”

And so the three of us walked slowly to the end of the driveway. Seeing John Richard made my heart involuntarily twist. He wore a white shirt, white shorts, white socks with his Nikes. His long fingers threaded through the bars of the fence. Sunlight caught gold glints in his brown hair. A tennis racket lay across the back seat of the Jeep. We used to play tennis quite a bit. Was he going to play with someone now? Was that what he had done this morning? Why did this still hurt so much?

“Is the show of force really necessary?” he called through the gate.

I did not answer and neither did the general, who gazed stonily forward once we had let Arch through. When Arch was in the Jeep, John Richard paused before getting in. Always the parting shot.

He said to me, “I was nowhere near that damn café, you bitch. Just think of how many patients I lose when your cop buddies come around, and what that does to my ability to make money, and how that can affect you and Arch, and maybe you’ll be a little less eager to bug me.”

“Say nothing,” the general instructed me under his breath. “Walk slowly back to the house. I’ll stay here until he’s gone.”

This I did. So Schulz had not waited for me to report the incident in the café. Somehow this did not make me feel better, and my shoulders felt terribly heavy as I walked. Worse, the aches in my arm and chest began to pound, as if they had been awakened by the menace in John Richard’s voice. Not Beirut, I reminded myself.