“It’s okay,” I said, and then stopped to take her hand. I said, “That’s what you told Laura Smiley, isn’t it? That he had been having relations with you.”
She nodded. “He said it would help my condition. Laura already knew what was going on. She told me she needed to talk to me about it.”
I said gently, “What did she say?”
“She said I had to get him to stop. But I told her I was afraid of him. What did I know about medicine? Maybe he was right. And he told me that if I told anyone about the treatment he would call my parents and tell them I was uncooperative.”
She started to cry again, a miserable sobbing that erupted from her chest. I leaned over and hugged her until she stopped.
I said into her ear, “Can you just tell me what Laura said when you said you couldn’t confront him?”
Patty Sue coughed before whispering back, “She said she could get him to stop. She thought he had changed from the way he was before, you know, from what Vonette told us. Laura said she thought Fritz had reformed. Then it was strange because she said she could ruin his practice. She said she had the power to do that.”
“Do you know what she meant?”
“The next time I heard about Laura, she was dead.”
I called Patty Sue’s parents. Her mother answered. When I related my news there was a long silence.
Patty Sue’s mother said, “She didn’t tell us she had a boyfriend.”
I told her Patty Sue would tell them all about it. She said she and her husband could be at the hospital shortly after eight that morning.
Now the mist clouded my windshield so thickly that I slowed to twenty miles an hour and pulled over into the far right lane. When winter approaches in Colorado, it comes like the poet’s cat. It pads along the back roads and darkens the sky earlier each evening until finally, near mid-December, it plops on its ample backside as the cold sets in. During those months of early darkness, the residents take refuge by their firesides or bulk themselves up with Coors and ski stories to await the coming snows.
And it began this way, not with the ferocious onslaught of thunder and hail that mark spring’s arrival, but gently, subtly, with a cold cloud of mist.
Fog swallowed the cars around me. I straightened up to peer through the glass and thought about Patty Sue. When she came to live with us she had worked hard learning to cook. She had asked questions about my life, and she had told me about hers. It was in September that she wafted off, first into indifference, and late in the month into distraction. The distracted behavior coincided, I now realized, with the confession to Laura and Laura’s death.
My heart tugged for this twenty-year-old about to learn the rigors of motherhood. I would have stayed with her longer but I was worried about Arch. He had been very drowsy when I had told him of the impending trip to the hospital.
Arch, Arch. What was he up to with liches and magic spells and lessons in making Molotov cocktails? Worse than that, what were his plans for a used surgical kit?
I pushed open the front door. The house’s air was warm and still, a place wrapped in sleep. Soon Arch’s alarm broke the silence. I ground coffee beans, ran water, and turned up the radio news, which warned of clouds and wind and possibly snow in the mountains Halloween night.
The phone rang: Marla.
She said, “Vonette overdosed last night. She’s really in bad shape. There’s a possibility it was a suicide attempt.”
“Oh my God. How’d you hear that?”
“Fritz called the priest from the hospital and the churchwomen set up a phone tree. I feel horrible. What do you think we should do?”
“Not sure. I have to get Arch off to school. How about if you call John Richard? We have to keep up with how she’s doing.”
“Thanks a lot,” Marla said without enthusiasm. “Don’t suppose it could wait until tonight, do you? I mean, if she’s out of danger and they’re still going to come to the party. I suppose that would be
“I wouldn’t put anything past them. Call me later. I’ll be up to my rear in chips and dip. Almost forgot. Patty Sue’s two months pregnant.”
“What? Expecting? I didn’t even know.”
“Neither did she. By Fritz, no less.”
“Jesus,” Marla said. “That guy never quits. If I were Vonette, I’d want to die too.”
An hour later I had shooed Arch off to school wearing his lich costume. Asking him tough questions was simply not within my emotional repertoire after the events of the previous night. The house was silent. No clients calling for parties. No Arch sneaking about. No Patty Sue bumping into walls. Still. Questions hung heavily in the air.
Time to let the mind cook along with the hands. As usual.
First on the agenda for the athletic club party was the preparation of guy bow, an Oriental chicken-and-egg affair seasoned with soy and encased in a bread shell.
But as I folded and rolled out the dough, I could not get the image of Vonette out of my mind. She seemed a sudden absence. Prayer had been a difficult proposition since I’d stopped teaching Sunday school. But I prayed now for Vonette.
I set aside the guy bow and prayed.
Why had Vonette done it? Had the headaches finally become unbearable? Had something not killed the pain?
Worst question of all was one that filled my mind like the bowls of silky guacamole.
Had the messy anger of our meeting the evening before triggered some deep mechanism that had been operating all along, only incrementally, with liquor and drugs? Instead of killing herself slowly, had Vonette gone over the edge because of what the meeting had made her think about? And what about her oath to confront Fritz?
About that I did not even want to think. But had to.
Before starting the deviled eggs and empanadas I called the hospital. Patty Sue was okay; her parents were with her.
A nurse who knew me said Vonette Korman was in a coma. I didn’t ask if anyone was with her. I could imagine her face and her curly orange hair, but she wasn’t there. It was as if the ground around our relationship had suddenly collapsed.
I tried to focus back on the party. My next task was to arrange concentric circles of the empanadas and deviled
Holy Moly Guacamole
1 large or 2 small avocados, peeled, pitted and mashed to make 1 cup
1? teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated onion
? teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon picante sauce
? cup mayonnaise
Corn Chips
Place the mashed avocado in a non-metallic bowl. Mix in the juice, onion, salt, and picante sauce until well blended. Spread the mayonnaise over the top to the edges, cover the bowl, and refrigerate. At serving time, uncover the bowl and thoroughly mix in the mayonnaise. Serve with corn chips.
