Catering to Nobody (Goldy Schulz Series)

the funeral with the teachers and others who also knew her.”

“What was your relationship in Illinois? And did you have contact with her here? I mean beyond the last office visit, of course.”

“Now Goldy, you know I take care of women. But that doesn’t mean I understand them.” He laughed and shook his head. “She showed us this town, Aspen Meadow, one time when we came out on a skiing vacation. She was helping us with our … family. But we weren’t close after … after we moved out here. We loved Aspen Meadow. When it came time to leave Illinois, we moved here in part because we had loved it when we’d seen it before and in part because at that time Colorado and Illinois had reciprocal licensing procedures for doctors. But Laura … she … knew Vonette—”

“Why exactly did you leave Illinois? And why did Laura come to see you the day she died? If she wasn’t a patient of yours?”

Fritz stuffed some brownie into his mouth.

“Goldy,” he said between chews, “I’ve told you everything I can. You know I can’t talk to you about office matters or anything along those lines.” He Wiped his mouth and fingers with a paper napkin and then regarded me. His eyes were steely, then soft. “Look,” he went on, conciliatory again, “I know you’ve gotten all involved in this since your business was closed down because of that unfortunate incident at Laura’s house.”

I looked at him and then puffed up my stomach and chest with air. It was a yoga breathing thing I had learned in the Seventies that was supposed to calm you down. It didn’t work.

“Unfortunate,” I said, “indeed. It happened to you, and you seem pretty indifferent. What’s worse, it just doesn’t seem to be getting solved, does it? I keep getting more questions than answers. Pretty weird, huh? Do you know if Laura had medical problems? Emotional problems?”

He pursed his lips, shook his head.

“Goldy,” he said, “I don’t. She was a troubled girl, woman, that’s why she killed herself. We just all need to put losing her behind us. And I sure would like to help you financially through this particular time of stress. Let Vonette and me give you a couple thousand until you reopen. Okay?”

I shook my head, but he ignored me.

He said, “And I would appreciate it if you would quit worrying about this rat-poison silliness. Just let the police finish their job. They’re the ones with the most information. They know what they’re doing.”

I stood up to clear my place. I said, “As I recall, that was the approach that worked so well with Watergate.”

He smiled, stood up, sat down, sighed.

“Tough as nails, that’s our Goldy. Now if I had been John Richard, I would have learned how to keep you —”

“Well now, isn’t this cozy,” said Marla as she waddled up to us. She was wearing a sky-blue sweat suit embroidered with tiny turquoise feathers. Close on her heels fluttered Patty Sue, a vision in rose mohair sweater and white wool slacks. “Is the pastry shop neutral territory? No attempted poisonings allowed? No need for hostilities, it was a joke. Let’s see. What are we having? Pasties and chocolate! But I’m interrupting.”

“You’re not interrupting,” I said as I motioned to Patty Sue that we had to leave. Marla pouted. I said to her, “Fritz was just telling me how he doesn’t understand women, and he was hoping you could enlighten him.”

“Oh Fritz, this just sounds too scrumptious a topic for words,” said Marla, seating herself beside him and eyeing his remaining brownie. “I’ve never enlightened anyone in my life.”

On that hopeful note, I guided Patty Sue out of the shop. Pomeroy had instructed me to obtain a learner’s permit for her. This proved easy enough at the local office of the Division of Motor Vehicles, because, happily, Patty Sue had learned enough from her handbook to pass the written test.

“I haven’t had any lunch,” she said, once she was done and we were on the way to the lesson. “Have you?”

She picked up a hot dog and cone at the Dairy Delight next to the high school. We started to walk to class; I held the cone while she worked on the wiener.

“Patty Sue,” I began in what I hoped was a mild tone, “could we just try chatting a little bit about Laura Smiley? Please?”

She groaned.

“That reminds me,” she said through bites. “Trixie called. From the athletic club. She wanted to know exactly when it was you were going to clean over there, and when we were going to set up the food.”

“Right,” I said. “Did you all talk about anything else?”

Patty Sue gave me a glassy look. She said, “Not this time,” and began on her cone.

“What did you talk about last time?”

“I can’t tell you, Goldy.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t. It’s too … dangerous.”

Oh give me a break, I thought. I looked around. Pom had said Driver Ed was above the parking lot, next to Dairy Delight. Why the county commissioners had permitted a small commercial zone between two areas of the high school grounds was beyond me. But as with the workings of the police department, I didn’t question it.

“No more goodies now,” I said firmly to Patty Sue as she gave a longing look back at the giant glass ice cream sculpture. “You don’t want to turn into a pillar of salt.”

“Huh?”

“You know,” I said, “Lot’s wife. She looked back when she wasn’t supposed to.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Forget it.”

One of the boys in my Sunday school class, after hearing this part of the Sodom and Gomorrah story, had said his mom looked back at their house and she turned into a telephone pole. Now I gave a longing look back at my van. I would have preferred being anywhere other than where we were going.

We clambered over a sloped concrete embankment and saw Pomeroy and his students clustered in the middle of the paved expanse ahead. Although the weather had warmed to a cool fifty degrees, the teens standing around in groups wore no sweaters or jackets, but only the uniforms of their group: preppies, punks, or jocks. No hippies, though, and no ideological messages on the shirts. Things had changed.

“There you are,” said Pomeroy as he came sauntering up to us. My heart flip-flopped, but I ignored it.

“I have delivered your trainee,” I announced. “Now may I go sit over on the embankment while you teach?”

Pom shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, “I need you to stay in the car with her. Most of the other kids in the class have been learning to drive for the last six weeks. But Patty Sue here will need more supervision.” He smiled at my roommate in her pink and white outfit.

She said, “I’m glad to be learning from a real driving teacher this time.”

“You can use my driver-ed car,” Pom told me and motioned to a yellow Japanese number on the other side of the lot. “I rigged it up myself so that it’s equipped with a brake on your side. That way you can slow things down if you need to. That’s old-fashioned driver ed. This is my last class of the day, so when we’re done we can go over to Dairy Delight and have hot fudge sundaes. Sound good?”

“It sounds super,” said Patty Sue.

He winked at me. “I’ll give her the stationary instructions once we get over to the course. You can drive her over,” he said, then turned to Patty Sue. “Young lady, you’re going to be driving like a pro in no time.”

Oh, God. No time was what I had for this educational experience.

“Brother,” said Patty Sue as she opened the door to the old yellow Civic, “this car sure is little.”

“Compared to the van,” I said as I slid in on the driver side, “it is.”

The teens were trudging across the course marked with fluorescent orange cones toward the Dairy Delight edge of the Driver Ed lot. There, about half of them formed a group to one side while the others disappeared into a line of dark cars with taxi-type signs on top—CAUTION! STUDENT DRIVER!

I had noticed ours didn’t have a sign, probably because it was Pom’s. Well, who needed a warning about us? I looked at the small windshield and tried to rid myself of a mental image of going through it.

Patty Sue said, “I’m scared. Well, you know what I mean. I wish Pom was the one in here with me.” That made two of us. Patty Sue wiggled in her seat. She said, “I feel so cramped.”