Dying for Chocolate

20.

At that moment, Julian came shuffling down the stairs to the so-called snack bar. How long had he been listening? I did not know.

“Hey, what’s happening,” he said. I said nothing. He scanned Sissy’s face and then mine. He was looking for a mood.

“Are you done with your lab work yet?” Sissy demanded.

“Yeah, I’m done, are you upset?”

She assumed a light tone. “I’d hate to think what would happen if you actually had to be responsible, Julian. Now you have to drive back to the club, and I’m going to be late for the library. If you were me, would you be upset?”

I took a deep breath and said, “Now, now.” Almost immediately, I regretted opening my mouth. Both teenagers turned mind-your-own-beeswax looks in my direction. I said, “I’ll take Arch home if it will speed things up. There’s really no need for a conflict here.”

Sissy said, “Since when are you the expert at patching things up?”

I itched to say something bitchy, but remembered my words to Arch regarding taunting on the playground. I’d say, Don’t get down on their level, sweetheart, just walk away. For once, I took my own advice.

“Hey, wait up!” Julian hollered after me when I had reached the landing.

“I’ll be looking for Arch,” I called over my shoulder.

Outside the weather obliged by rolling a cool breeze off the mountains. More dark clouds threatened. Where had Arch gotten to, anyway?

“Look, hey, I’m sorry about that,” said Julian when he reached me. He cast his eyes down, embarrassed. I leaned against a dusty Acura Legend. It was an expensive car; probably belonged to a seventeen-year-old.

I said, “You’re not responsible for the way she acts, you know. Even if you were married to her, you wouldn’t be responsible for her. And by the way, I would strongly advise against further interest in this girl.”

He pulled his mouth over in a half-smile.

“The caterer with the advice.”

“Oh,” I said, “spare me.” I called Arch’s name.

Droplets of rain splatted into the dust as I began to traipse toward the pool site. Julian was close on my heels. I found myself worrying about the water dripping through the pinpoints of Julian’s bleached hair. His scalp would become drenched. He would come down with bronchitis. Not responsible, I reminded myself, not responsible! In fact, I would serve Hostess Twinkies in hell before I would tell him to cover his head.

“Look!” Julian raised his voice over the hissing of the rain. “Sissy’s just—”

“You don’t need to make excuses.”

We came up on the pool site. Fat lot of good a six-foot fence would do if someone left the gate open. In the pool, Arch, splashing around as if he were blind, yelled, “Marco!”

I called again. The two friends who had been answering “Polo!” leaped out of the pool and disappeared. I thought, Aren’t there any regulations around here? I howled for Arch and glared at Julian.

He went on talking as if it were not raining and I was not trying to get Arch out of the pool. He said, “Sissy’s sort of, like, possessive.”

“Ah. Explains everything.” I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the rain. Once Arch realized his friends were gone, he opened his eyes, saw me, and propelled himself up the side of the pool. He yelled that he would be there in a minute.

“Really,” Julian said. He craned his neck back and shook his head the way a wet dog would. “She worries about me.”

“I think you had it right the first time.”

“Thing is, I’m not sure she . . . wants me.” He shifted his weight and looked around. I wanted to say something about perhaps trying another hairdo when without warning he leaned close to me.

“What is it?” I blustered, and thought immediately of Brian Harrington. Why were males suddenly attracted to me? Maybe I was losing weight.

“What’s the secret?” he said in a low tone.

“What secret?”

“About aphrodisiacs.”

I said, “You’re a child, for God’s sake!”

A throat cleared behind us. I turned around.

It was Tom Schulz. His head was cocked, his eyebrows lifted. Arch, wearing flip-flops, clopped up to join us. He shivered underneath his towel.

“What were you doing?” I demanded of him.

Arch tsked, as if I were terribly overbearing.

Tom Schulz murmured, “Might want to ask the same thing of you, Miss G.”

At that moment Sissy strode up; she and Julian wordlessly withdrew.

“Hey!” Arch called after them. “I thought you guys were taking me!”

“Things have changed,” I announced. “I’m taking you. After I get an explanation.”

His lips were blue, but he managed to say, “It’s not official, but they’ve filled the pool with water. We were just having some fun. But then it started raining.”

I said, “No kidding.” I brushed raindrops from my face and arms. “Would you please get into the van?” I handed him the keys. He knew how to start it and warm it up. He also knew better than to launch a verbal defense at that moment.

Schulz said, “Want to get into my car for a minute? I can tell when you’re not in one of your better moods, Miss Goldy.”

“Should I be in a good mood?” The raindrops turned to heavy mist. The road to Aspen Meadow was shrouded in fog and rain, just as it had been after the brunch. The pool water reflected the dark sky. “I’m worried about Arch,” I said. “I want to stay where I can see him.”

Schulz said, “By the way, I do think Julian Teller is a little young for you.”

I gasped sharply.

His large, moist face beamed when he laughed.

“Didn’t you see what he—” I began.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Behind us my van started up. I hoped Arch turned the heat to high. “Listen, the general said you’d be out here doing fund-raising for someone other than yourself.”

“Excuse me? How’d he know that? I was the only one who talked to the fund-raising lady.”

“Look, Goldy, you live with a former member of the intelligence community, you gotta figure he’s going to do what he does best.”

“Great.” If he was going to listen in, why didn’t he just answer the phone himself?

“Anyway,” Schulz was saying, “something’s come up with the Philip Miller case.” He paused and looked around. “Something you said about the way he was driving made me call back the coroner’s office. They just checked Miller’s eyes briefly because he was a cornea donor. You know, that procedure has to be done within a few hours or it’s no good. So I called the cornea bank. You’re not going to believe this.” He took a deep breath, his green eyes suddenly solemn. “Miller’s corneas were rejected.”

“What?”

“The coroner’s office doesn’t remove contact lenses, which Miller had on. Remember, he had gone to the eye doctor that morning?” I nodded and he continued, “Miller’s contacts, according to the ophthalmologist at the cornea bank, were embedded with peroxide. The tainted contacts burned off the epithelium, or top layer of the cornea. He couldn’t see.”

I was incredulous. “Couldn’t see? He could see me at the brunch. He drove fine on the road for a while. How could this happen?”

“Goldy. I do not know. I called the eye doctor. He said Philip Miller was fine when he left his office. And obviously he could see well enough to get to the brunch. Another thing. The doctor said peroxide on your ienses would cause intense pain. And right away. It’s not possible anyone could stand the pain for more than a few seconds.”

I ran my fingers through my damp hair and shook my head.

“I gotta go,” said Schulz. “Lot of work to do. Mind if I peek in at Arch?” He eyed the van.

“Sure.”

He opened the door and said a few words to Arch that I could not hear. They both laughed, then Schulz slammed the door and swaggered over to give me a hug. Into my ear, he said, “There’s just one thing I want.”

“What’s that?”

“Whatever it was Julian Teller wanted.”

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.”