Dying for Chocolate Page 20

  Arch explained on the way back to the Farquhars that he was so sick of doing his schoolwork that he just needed a break in the pool.

  I said, “That’s not the point. It’s too dangerous to go into a pool that’s not completely built.”

  “Mais la piscine est finie!”

  Well, I was impressed that he knew how to say in French that the pool was finished. But I was not going to let him off the hook that easily.

  “Then why have a security fence around it?”

  “Oh, Mom! They just filled it with really, really chlorinated water yesterday. It’s supposed to, like, shock the bacteria out of the pool. The gym teacher said the water would be clear in a couple of days.” He drew some rope and a piece of bamboo out of his magic bag, then dangled them by my face. “Just wait, Mom,” he said. “You’re going to be amazed. Check out these Chinese manacles.”

  I smiled. This was no time to argue about dangerous tricks. The potentially treacherous road to Aspen Meadow demanded my attention. “You always amaze me,” I told him evenly. “If we’re going to have a magic party, we need to call your pals pretty quickly. Have you talked to Adele?”

  “Yes, didn’t she tell you?” He tilted his head from side to side in front of the dashboard heater. His hair was a mass of dried fluff and wet streaks. “You were supposed to invite my friends to the anniversary barbecue tomorrow night. I left you a list of friends in your Edgar Allan Poe book. Also, hate to tell you, but I still need to get a top hat and cape.”

  “Arch! I haven’t called anybody!”

  “Mom!”

  I sighed. “I’ll do it when we get home. Find out how much the cape and hat cost when they’re not made of silk.”

  “Gee, Mom, thanks.”

  “I didn’t say I’d get them!”

  “Yeah, but whenever you tell me to check on the price I know you’re going to do it.”

  I dropped Arch at the Farquhars and drove toward Philip’s office. Between Interstate 70 and downtown Aspen Meadow there was a business complex done all in dark horizontal wood paneling with pale turquoise deck railings and trim. This mountain style-meets-Santa Fe commercial space, known as Aspen Meadow North, housed Philip’s office, Aspen Meadow Café, Elizabeth’s store— To Your Health!—and assorted real estate and medical centers. Aspen Meadow had more chiropractors per square foot than any area outside of northern California. Two new ones had set up shop in this complex, which had originally been developed by Harrington and Associates. There was also, I noticed as I drove in, an optometrist.

  I parked and picked up the packet of decals. My cover, I would tell Schulz later.

  Elizabeth was not back in her store yet. To my surprise, there was no GET INTO THE SWIM! decal in her window. The clerk did not feel a donation from the cash register was possible in the owner’s absence. No problem, I said, and bought some dried pineapple. Neither of the chiropractors wanted to give to the school. I asked if there was anything I could do to adjust their opinion, but they just looked at me blankly and said no. Aspen Meadow Café already had a decal. The curtained windows of Philip’s office had no decal. I moved on to my true quarry.

  Doggone. The optometrist’s window had a decal. I went in anyway.

  “I’m interested in contact lenses,” I told the receptionist.

  We discussed an eye exam. When was my last one? I couldn’t remember. There had been a cancellation for that afternoon; she thought she could schedule me. She’d have to ask the doctor. I entreated. She disappeared and I quickly turned the appointment book back to Friday, June 3.

  There it was. 9:30. Philip Miller. I flipped back to the current date.

  The receptionist returned, triumphant. “He can see you in half an hour,” she announced.

  I said I’d take it. While filling out the necessary forms, I felt the attention of the receptionist on me.

  She said, “Don’t I know you?”

  I felt so proud when people recognized me. It made all the work on publicizing the business worthwhile.

  “I’m Aspen Meadow’s only caterer.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “that’s not it.” There was a flash of recognition. “You’re the one who was married to Dr. John Richard Korman.”

  “One of the ones.”

  “God,” she said as she rolled her eyes and giggled. “He is so good-looking!”

  The nurse appeared at the doorway and called me.

  Within five minutes, I wished I had taken extra-strength pain reliever before starting the exam. I couldn’t read the bottom row of letters, tried too hard, felt like a failure. If my eyes were good enough for the driver’s license test, why weren’t they good enough here? Then on to the big circles of lenses. Which looks better, number one or number two?

  Neither.

  The optometrist was named H. D. Cartwheel. He had more freckles than I would have believed possible for a single human being. He had tamed his mass of red hair over to one side with a sweet-smelling cream. I had to bite my lip to keep from asking if the H. D. stood for Howdy Doody. Actually, I should have been asking questions about contact lenses. But I couldn’t think of anything except how soon the pain would be over. Cartwheel pulled my eyelid to one side and put a drop in, then repeated this with the other eye. It was anesthetic for the glaucoma test, he explained. Then he dimmed the lights again. My head felt as if a toddler was banging on it with a wooden hammer.

  “Please stop,” I said finally.

  “Now don’t be frightened,” he said in a patronizing tone.

  I said, “I can’t take any more.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Please! Turn the lights on!”

  He did. Then he wrinkled his forehead and blinked at me. He said, “I’m not finished with the glaucoma test. We need to—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t deal with any more in one day.”

  Cartwheel was taken aback. The nurse came scurrying in.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “The problem,” I said quietly, “is that I am only interested in contact lenses.”

  They both said, “Excuse me?”

  Cartwheel said, “You have to let me finish the glaucoma test.”

  “I don’t have to let you do anything,” I said. “If I had contact lenses,” I said to the nurse, “where would they be right now? In my eyes?”

  Cartwheel stood up and walked out.

  “Doctor’s very upset,” said the nurse.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “Where would the contacts be?”

  She shook her head. “Not in your eyes,” she said. “We usually remove the enzyme buildup in the ultrasound machine while the patient is in the exam.”

  “This machine disinfects?”

  “No, that’s to get rid of bacteria. But there’s another kind of—” She looked at me sympathetically. Didn’t want to use too many big words, apparently. “Another kind of—stuff—that grows on the lenses and can make them foggy and uncomfortable. Patients use a separate procedure to remove that buildup weekly, but when they come in for their exam we do an extra-good job with the machine.” She smiled weakly. “Shall I call Doctor back?”

  “No, thanks. I’d like to see the machine. I can’t manage any more exam today.”

  She said, “Well, Doctor was almost done,” but led me down the hall to the machine anyway. “This is it,” she said, and pointed to a metal box on a shelf.

  “What’s in it?” I asked. “I mean besides ultrasound.”

  “A peroxide solution.”

  I looked at her. “A peroxide solution dissolves the buildup?”

  “Yes, kind of burns it off, you’d say. But, don’t worry, we rinse that solution off before we give the patients back their lenses.”

  “Rinse it off with what?”

  She picked up a bottle of saline solution and handed it to me. “Believe me,” she said, “if even a trace of the peroxide is left on the lenses, the patient will scream bloody murder because of the pain.
Most of them wear prescription sunglasses out of here, because when people actually finish the eye exam,” here she gave me a stern look, “their pupils are dilated and they don’t want to wear their contacts anyway.”

  I thought for several minutes. She asked me if I wanted to finish the exam. I said no.

  “Then do you want to leave? We do have other patients coming in.”

  I closed the door to the room with the ultrasound machine.

  “Please,” I said, “I need your help.”

  “If you want contacts, you have to finish the exam.”

  “I don’t want contacts,” I said slowly. “I just need to ask you about a contact-lens patient of yours.” I gave her my most beseeching look. “His name was Philip Miller.”

  21.

  She shook her head. “You must know I can’t talk to you about patients. Especially,” here she paused for effect, as if I were a criminal, “since the police have already been in.”

  “I know, I know,” I said. “But please listen. Philip Miller was a friend of mine. A good friend,” I added earnestly. “And you don’t have to tell me anything about him personally or his medical history. I just want to know a couple of things about his visit.”

  She hesitated. Her experience with odd patients was clearly limited.

  “You see,” I went on in a rush, “I was behind him when he crashed. I’m trying to help the police.” Sort of, I added mentally.

  She was mellowing. “So what do you want to know?”

  I picked up the saline-solution bottle. “This—” I said after a minute. “Do you remember this from his appointment?”

  “I told the policeman all about it. Miller was the first appointment of the morning.”

  In good Rogerian fashion, I said, “The first appointment.”

  She took the bottle and shook it. “I always do that before I rinse off the lenses. There was just a little bit left in the bottle when he came in. I used it to rinse off his lenses, and then I threw it away. That’s all. That’s it.”

  “And did he put the lenses in?”

  She nodded. “I watched him do it.”

  Whatever happened, I thought on the way home to the Farquhars, must have been something of a delayed reaction. Philip had not excused himself from the brunch, had not left me for more than a moment. I didn’t believe he could have done anything to his lenses—or had anything done—without my noticing. Still, though, figuring on an hour for the appointment, how could you account for that half hour from leaving the optometrist’s office, coming to Elk Park Prep, and then driving back to Aspen Meadow? Why didn’t Philip feel any pain? Why did he suddenly go blind?

  As usual, cooking was the cure for distress. The rain had cleared and the air was filled with a sweet, moist smell. I turned off the security system that guarded the first-floor windows and opened them all. Out back, Arch and Julian were splashing and yelling in the pool.

  With Julian in for dinner I decided on a crustless quiche made with Jarlsberg and two other cheeses, a salad of lovely greens the general had picked up on one of his shopping expeditions, and some cloverleaf rolls I had brought frozen from my old house. I grated the Jarlsberg into a golden mountain of creamy strands. To my surprise the phone only rang once. It was my lawyer telling me Three Bears Catering had a legitimate case and it would not cost too much to have my name changed. Of course, to him nothing cost too much. I told him I would think about it.

  After plugging in the recorder I let my mind wander back to what it was Elizabeth had said about Philip studying an abused woman. One thing I had noticed about making a marital mistake: you compounded the error by spending even more emotional energy ruminating on why you made the mistake, even if you corrected it by divorce. Furthermore, if Philip was so interested in why I had stayed with John Richard for so long, why hadn’t he asked me himself?

  I melted the butter and stirred in flour for the cream sauce that was the actual base for the quiche. While I stirred in the milk, I imagined myself hiking with Philip and having him pose the question to me himself. Why did you stay?

  Because, I saw myself saying to him. Because I ignored the evidence. I believed that John Richard would change. Because that was what I wanted to believe, just like those poor suckers who went to great lengths to demonstrate that the world is flat. No matter how strong a person you are, if you want to cling to a falsehood, you will. By the same token, I had known that someday I would have to get out. That realization led me to study catering systematically. If I could cook well enough and learn the business, I could keep Arch and have enough money to live on.

  In my mind’s eye I could see Philip, see his questioning look. It reminded me of the questioning look I had received from a male social worker at a National Organization for Women meeting, the first and last one I ever went to. The social worker had talked about spouse abuse.

  “Look,” I’d said defensively to the social worker during the break, incipient tears closing my throat, “sometimes it’s hard to leave.”

  He had given me a questioning look.

  “I guess I need to see a shrink,” I’d whispered to him then. “Are you available?”

  Sage that he was, the social worker had said I should work with a woman. Which is what I began to do. It was very hard to be verbally vulnerable, to let down defenses and admit that I was staying in an insane situation. You’re so together, people always said to me. You’re so articulate. No one said to me, You’re so crazy. Until that NOW meeting, I had not admitted that I might indeed be losing my mind.

  CRUSTLESS JARLSBERG QUICHE

  ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

  ½ cup all-purpose flour

  1 ½ cups milk

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 ½ cups small curd cottage cheese

  1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard

  9 eggs

  11 ounces cream cheese, softened

  ¾ pound Jarlsberg cheese, grated

  1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

  Preheat oven to 350° (high altitude: 375°). In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat, add the flour, and stir just until mixture bubbles. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly. Stir this cream sauce until it thickens. Set aside to cool. Stir baking powder, and mustard, and salt into cottage cheese. Beat eggs well, then beat in softened cream cheese and cottage cheese mixture. Slowly beat in cream sauce, then thoroughly incorporate Jarlsberg and Parmesan. Pour into 2 buttered 10-inch pie plates. Bake for about 45 minutes or until puffed and browned. Cut each quiche into eight large wedges.

  Makes 16 servings

  “I know what losing your mind is,” Arch had said to me once as I drove him to first grade.

  “You do?”

  “It’s like when you can’t remember someone’s name, just for a minute. And just for that minute, you’ve lost your mind! Then it comes back.”

  “Ah,” I’d said.

  It came back. My mind. The counselor was wonderful. The cooking was salvation. André, who trained me in catering, was a friend. In his big Denver kitchen the activity swirled all around me as I tried to keep tears from falling into the bread dough I was mixing.

  “You know salt slows down the action of the yeast,” he had said once over my shoulder. He saw me crying but never asked about it, just handed me gifts of food to take home to Arch. He would ask me, How did that dinner for Mrs. Sweeney go? Those chile rellenos stay hot? André offered his presence and his faith in me. It sped up the healing process.

  Cooking helped, both before and after I told John Richard I was divorcing him. That was what I would have told Philip, I decided as I scooped the egg, cheese, and sauce mixture into two pie plates. Cooking anesthetized my feelings. I could throw myself into a complicated recipe and within an hour I would feel better.

  Wait a minute.

  By the time I was done, I would feel better.

  The cooking took the pain away.

  Anesthetic. That was it.

 
; Philip Miller. He had not felt any pain in his eyes for thirty minutes because he had had anesthetic in his eyes from the glaucoma test. He could see. He just couldn’t feel the damage that was being done to his eyes until it was too late.

  I reached for the phone.

  Tom Schulz was not at his desk. I left a message and finished preparing the dinner. The quiches puffed up to golden-brown perfection. Arch had two slices, Julian four. When we finished, General Farquhar surprised us with a new jar of macadamia-nut sauce for our pound cake.

  Later, I tucked Arch in over his protestations that he was getting too old to be tucked in. I asked him if he remembered when he was six, telling me that losing your mind was when you forgot something.

  He said, “Why? Did you forget to call the people for the magic party?” I had promised to do it as soon as I got home.

  I apologized. I promised to get the list from tue Poe book and make the calls first thing in the morning. Kids could do things on the spur of the moment, couldn’t they?

  He said, “I guess,” and gave me a brief hug.

  I went into my room and waited for the house to get quiet. I was going to sneak out. I didn’t want anyone in the household to know my intentions.

  Ten o’clock: Adele tap-stepped her way up to the master bedroom, ran water for twenty minutes, and then settled in after a therapeutic soak.

  Eleven: The general’s muffled telephone voice stopped and the door to his study gently opened and closed. Then there was the sound of more water, then quiet.

  Midnight: The faint boom-boom and twang of Julian’s rock music stopped wafting up from the ground floor.

  Finally there were no sounds except the breeze sighing in the pines. I had left my van on the street. Now all I had to do was get out of the house without making a catastrophic amount of noise.

  General Farquhar had closed the windows and reset the security system. If I set it off and no one interrupted the automatic dial, an armed representative of Aspen Meadow Security would arrive in a pickup truck at the bottom of the driveway. He would then wait for someone to come out and give the secret password, signaling the all-clear. If no one came, the security man would call the police. Julian had provided the password: CHOCOLATE.