Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series) gs-1 Page 14

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured again. In the clouded light I could just see her hand. I took it and squeezed; she squeezed back.

  I said, “Want to talk?”

  “Maybe sometime. I need to figure out how to break the mirror news to my husband … ha ha.” She let go of my hand.

  “I didn’t see your husband at Laura Smiley’s house,” I said.

  She said, “God, it’s getting hot in here.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, Martin,” she said vaguely, as if she had just remembered his name. “He was out of town. Doesn’t like the thought of death, anyway. Since … well.”

  “Of course,” I said, and nodded in the dark mist. I cleared my throat and said, “I went over to Fritz Korman’s the other day. He was doing better, went into the office Wednesday.”

  “Don’t mention that man to me.”

  “Mad at the doctor? Why?”

  “Don’t call him a doctor,” she said evenly as she swung her body around and rearranged herself on the room’s tile steps. “Don’t exaggerate.”

  I needed a cold shower. In the last ten minutes heat and moisture had built up in the steam room to almost unbearable proportions. But I couldn’t go yet.

  “Hey,” I said, “I called Fritz’s son a husband, and that was the worst exaggeration of my life.”

  This brought a laugh. She said, “I know I’m being disagreeable. I’m just worried about the cash for the mirror.”

  “I wrote the book on money worries making you disagreeable. At least no one’s asking if I’m premenstrual.”

  Another harsh laugh.

  “Anyway,” I added, “if that theory worked, my roommate would be the most agreeable person in the world.”

  “Also the stupidest,” said Trixie acidly, “since she’s going to Fritz Korman for treatment.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “She told me, sitting right in here not long ago. She was talking to Laura Smiley about it one time when I came in.”

  “What? I didn’t even know she knew Laura.”

  Trixie let out a breath. “I’m not saying she knew her, Goldy. I’m just saying that one time she was talking to her. I didn’t even hear the whole conversation, since I came in in the middle and had to leave before they finished.”

  “But what were they talking about? What were they saying?”

  “I don’t know. They were talking about Fritz. Patty Sue was upset. When I first came in they stopped talking, you know how people do. When I asked them if they wanted me to leave, Laura was, what’s the word, cryptic. She said, ‘Trixie had the same doctor. She doesn’t think too much of him.’ ”

  “Then what?”

  Trixie said, “Patty Sue was saying she was sorry she had bothered Laura, and Laura was saying that was okay. I had already dumped all my grievances on Laura once before, and I didn’t want to hear any more about Korman. So I got out.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I think so. So what?”

  I thought for a minute. Then I said, “Well, judging from what happened last Saturday, you weren’t the only one dissatisfied with Fritz.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Of course,” I said bitterly, “whoever was upset with him could have managed to give him rat poison someplace besides Laura’s funeral.”

  “Odd that he would even come,” said Trixie.

  “Why is that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. As I said, Laura and I used to talk in here. And usually not with your roommate around. It’s hard. With Laura gone, I mean.”

  “What did you and Laura talk about?”

  “Jesus, what is this? Interrogation time?”

  “I’m sorry, forgive me,” I said. “I’m just interested because of my business being closed down from what happened at her house. Sorry,” I said again. I thought I was going to faint from the heat and humidity in the small dark room. The ambient temperature must have been a hundred and twenty. But instead of leaving I cleared my throat and said, “Have you thought any more about coming to our group?”

  She moved around on the tiles.

  “Tell me again when you’re meeting.”

  “Next week, Thursday, and also Friday night, October thirtieth. I just thought you might enjoy it.”

  “Well, at least I can enjoy the food, right?” She gave a harsh laugh. Then, “The thirtieth, I guess.”

  “You’ll be glad you did.”

  She said, “I guess,” and stood to leave. The door slammed behind her.

  Twenty minutes later I was dried and dressed but still full of questions. While Trixie worked on her hair and makeup I tried to bring up the subject of Laura again, to no avail. When I asked if we could get together before the meeting on the thirtieth she gave me a curious look.

  “Just to chat,” I said.

  “No,” she said, then picked up her gym bag and swept out.

  The locker room was empty. I groped around in my handbag for the key to Laura’s locker. L221. The L stood for Ladies; that much I knew. I wouldn’t get over to do the M side until I did my first cleaning job here. For that I could wait.

  There was a sudden hush in the locker room. Saturday classes were over before noon. Everyone had left to chop firewood or shop for groceries. This set burgling into high relief, morally speaking.

  I put the flat metal key into 221 and turned. Gooseflesh crawled up my neck. The key wouldn’t budge. I jiggled it and tried again. The door clanged open.

  The inside of the locker door was plastered with homemade signs, and I began to wonder if Laura had a fixation with slogans. “You Can’t Find These Muscles on the Seashore.” Too much. The uppermost sign was a copy of the Serenity Prayer. She had underlined to change the things I can.

  On the top shelf was the usual array of female bath accessories, shampoo, rinse, body lotion. Still no razor, I noticed, and made a mental note to tell Schulz. Not that he would care. My ideas didn’t seem to carry much weight with the local constabulary. Behind the toiletries was a paperback, which I imagined from its brittle condition to be reading material Laura took into the sauna. It was a day-by-day meditation book, advocating strength and courage and calm. For what?

  Underneath her name in the front of the book were the words Sundays, noon, Episcopal church. Thinking of my old parish, I tried to remember what went on at noon on Sundays, after everyone had left. Several times I had stayed to clean the Sunday school room while Arch threw stones into Cottonwood Creek. One time I had gone into the ladies’ room to cry when John Richard slipped out with the choir lady. Arch had thrown enough stones into the creek to qualify him for dam construction by the time I came out, red-eyed and sniffly. And there had been a meeting going on, where I remembered several of the people had also been red-eyed and sniffly. What was it? Memory failed.

  My hand slid across the cool metal of the shelf. In the far corner there was a piece of paper that was stuck. Perhaps Laura had put a wet bottle of shampoo or damp washcloth up there. It was probably just an old label from soap. Without thinking I pulled, and half of whatever it was came off in my hand.

  The torn paper was not a label, and I cursed myself for not trying to extricate it more carefully. It was part of a yellowed article from an old newspaper with a scrawled note: Show P.S. and T. I tried to release the rest of the stuck paper from the shelf with my fingernail, but got only illegible bits.

  The torn part read:

  The upper left-hand corner said October 6, 1961.

  I put the book with the notation about Sunday meetings, as well as the article, into my gym bag and headed for the front desk. In 1967 John Richard had been ten years old, so that even if he would be willing to explain this, he probably wouldn’t remember. If I could get Vonette sober, she might tell me more. Maybe Schulz had already found out what this was about, though I doubted that. Like the book of advice or the church meeting, or the fact that Vonette had said that Laura had been a nanny for them, I did not know how this fit.

&nb
sp; At the desk I received a note telling me Arch’s teacher had tried to reach me at home and had been told to call here, and would I please call her at home during the weekend. Nothing urgent, she’d said, just call at your convenience.

  You bet, I thought, but first I had some other business to attend to. I dialed the number for the office of Korman and Korman, asked for an appointment, and was informed that the doctors had left for the weekend. Would I like to see Dr. Korman senior on Monday?

  “Yes,” I said. “I have to bring Patty Sue Williams in anyway; maybe you could fit me in around that time.”

  There was a pause.

  “I only need to see him for about ten minutes,” I said.

  “Oh? And what is your problem, Miss Bear? Are you in pain?”

  “Chronic. Lower abdomen. I know he’ll be able to help me.” I said, “There’s just so much I can’t digest,” and hung up.

  CHAPTER 12

  Show P.S. and T.

  Why had Laura Smiley made that note on an article about a mistrial? It had been in her locker; one had to assume that P.S. and T. were available in the athletic club. It was an article about Dr. Fritz Korman, something from two decades before, something which, for a reason I did not know, had relevance for P.S. and T.

  I put the article down and tried to call Arch’s teacher, Janet Heath, but got her answering machine instead. I stared at the article again.

  Trixie (T.?) had said that she and Laura had talked about Korman in the steam room after exercise class. She also had said that Laura and Patty Sue, of all people, had had a tête-à-tête in the same steam room. Time for me to have a little chat with P.S. myself, especially since she was the only woman I knew who was a current patient of Fritz Korman’s.

  But Patty Sue was out running when I arrived home. When she came back Arch was in and out with Todd so that it was impossible to ask questions. Then she went to bed after we finished the dishes. What was the point of all that exercise if it rendered you constitutionally incapable of staying up past nine at night?

  Well, we still lived under the same roof. Sunday morning would do for questions. I dialed Janet Heath again and got her machine again. Another chat set aside for the next morning.

  As usual I awoke early. Sunday, with its inevitable doldrums, is the bane of the single person who has been married. For couples and families it is a day of church, picnics, fishing, football games, pizza, and movies. Now the emptiness descended like one of the cold fogs that go creeping through the mountain valleys in winter. The frigid moisture is almost invisible, but you can see the way the icy clouds turn green pines to silver; you can feel the chill seep into your bones.

  So I followed my routine. Cooking was the cure for loss. The candy for Arch’s Halloween party at Furman Elementary was the next order of business.

  A batch of my Terrific Toffee would do for the sixth graders. The candy would keep in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. I buttered two nine-by-thirteen-inch glass pans and started to melt butter with brown sugar in a big pot. I rummaged through my knife drawer for the candy thermometer, then snapped its long bulb onto the side of the pan.

  I stirred, and remembered when Arch was five. We had spent a lot of time playing the game Candyland. This had led to long discussions about how they made all the sweets for that place, which Arch believed existed outside of the game board. The Candyland cement mixer trucks were full of toffee, he insisted, because they could keep it moving all the time. Car engines had little blades to chop up peppermint drops so you could stir them into Christmas fudge. Two years later John Richard moved out, and two months after that dismal Christmas I found a hoard of old

  Goldy’s Terrific Toffee

  2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

  2 pounds (8 sticks) unsalted butter, plus extra for pans

  2 pounds best-quality milk chocolate (Lindt)

  4 cups packed dark brown sugar

  Note: A candy thermometer is essential for this recipe. Making a good toffee is tricky at high altitude, because the traditional soft-crack stage is not reached until the thermometer reaches 300°F., at which point the toffee is in danger of burning. Therefore, at high altitude, if you are close to 300°F., detect a burning smell, and stir up a darker substance from the bottom of the pan, stop stirring immediately, remove the toffee from the heat, and quickly pour it into the prepared pans without scraping the bottom of the cooking pan. If you have managed not to stir in any of the burnt candy, the toffee will still be delicious. It will be chewier than that made at sea level, but proper refrigeration will maintain a good candy texture.

  Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spread the pecans in two 9-inch glass pie plates, and roast until the nuts have turned slightly darker and are well toasted, about 10 minutes. Stir once or twice during the roasting process to ensure even browning. Remove the pecans from the oven, spread out to cool on paper towels, and set aside until you finish the toffee.

  Butter two 9 × 13-inch glass pans and set aside. Unwrap the chocolate and divide it between two plates. Break all the chocolate into squares and set aside. Using a deep, heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter with the sugar and cook over medium to medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until a candy thermometer hits 285°F. to 290°F. (high altitude: 300°F.), the soft-crack stage. (Candy will be very hot; be sure to protect your skin and clothing through the cooking and pouring processes.) Pour the toffee into the prepared pans and immediately place the squares of chocolate in rows across the toffee (1 pound of chocolate per pan). When the chocolate has softened, spread It to the edges of the toffee. Sprinkle 1 cup of the toasted pecans over the chocolate in each pan. Allow to cool, then cover with foil and chill.

  Using a large, heavy-duty knife, break the toffee into 1- to 3-inch pieces.

  Makes approximately 6 dozen pieces

  mint-flavored fudge in one of Arch’s drawers. When I asked him about it he said he just kept it there to smell it, so he could pretend he was in Candyland instead of being at home.

  The thermometer hit 300°; I poured the bubbling brown stuff into the two pans. Then each pan got a pound bar of chocolate, which I had successfully hidden from Patty Sue. I pushed the bars around over the molten toffee until they melted into soft chocolate lakes. For fancy parties I would have sprinkled minced pecans or filberts on top, but kids were finicky about pimentos, olives, and nuts, so I always omitted them.

  “Man,” said Patty Sue as she entered the kitchen at ten o’clock, “what smells so great?”

  “Toffee for Arch’s school Halloween party,” I replied. I looked at her. Her face was wan. Her hair, like her general outlook, had dulled since she had arrived in August. She puttered slowly around the kitchen, and I wondered if more could be wrong with her than her cyclical problems.

  “Patty Sue,” I began, “are you feeling all right?”

  She was taking an English muffin out of the toaster.

  “Sure,” she said without looking at me. “I was just tired after my run yesterday.” She spread chokecherry jelly on the muffin, then changed her mind and scraped it off.

  I walked over to her and said in a low voice, “Are Dr. Korman’s treatments working at all? You don’t look very good. Is he giving you iron or any special medication?”

  She said, “Yes, he’s giving me some pills and no, I’m not normal yet.” She sat down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs. “He knows what he’s doing. Why would my doctor send me out here if he didn’t?”

  “I don’t know. Why did you talk to Laura Smiley about it?”

  She froze in midbite.

  I said, “Trixie told me.”

  She said, “Well, uh …” and then was quiet.

  “Patty Sue, I didn’t even know you knew Laura Smiley.”

  “I didn’t know her.”

  “You talked to her.”

  “One time.”

  “When did this conversation take place? Did she say she wanted to show you an article about Fritz?”

  Patty Sue pushed the plate away and began
to catch her breath, as if she was about to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m just so sorry.”

  “For what?”

  She stood up. “Please leave me alone, please, Goldy, I feel really bad.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything,” she said with a cough, before running out of the room. She called back, “Please leave me alone!”

  “I’m coming with you to the doctor’s office tomorrow,” I yelled after her.

  “Gee, Mom,” said a sleepy Arch as he shuffled into the kitchen. “What’s going on? What’s all the racket about? Are you sick?”

  “No. I just told Patty Sue that I’m taking her to her appointment tomorrow, that’s all.”

  He poured himself some cereal. Between bites he said, “You always take her. Maybe after her driving lesson on Friday she’ll be able to drive herself and you guys can stop yelling.”

  I said, “I doubt both.”

  He ate silently and then rinsed his bowl.

  “Just remember,” he said in his little-adult voice, “Pomeroy has some old-fashioned kind of driver-ed cars. That’s what he told me. You’d better be careful.”

  I said, “You and Pomeroy had all kinds of conversations, didn’t you?” Arch shrugged. “I think what he meant,” I went on, “is that his cars are the old driver-ed kind, because he can’t get an increase in funds from the school board to set up a more modem instructional program. I read about it in the paper.”

  “Oh-kay-ay,” he said in that singsong cadence associated with Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “I need to make an important phone call.”

  He nodded and drifted out of the kitchen while I dialed Janet Heath. She didn’t sound too happy about being called on Sunday morning, but I was not going to risk another encounter with her answering machine.

  “I would like to see you sometime soon,” she said stiffly when we had exchanged pleasantries. “About Arch.”

  I coughed. I said, “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Well, that’s what I don’t know. I just need to talk to you about some things going on in the classroom. Can you come in this week?”