Dying for Chocolate

difficult. Again big Bri was no help. He promptly disappeared around the kitchen’s corner. Five minutes later, looking for a platter for the cake, I found him lurking by the back door that led to the patio.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “Those women are still arguing.” He regarded me, his face pulled into puzzlement. Perhaps this was because his wife was one of those women. He shook his head and turned back to catch the sound of the again-raised voices. He closed the door abruptly and started toward me.

“I wouldn’t mind two gals fighting over my body,” he said with a wink, “but not if I were dead.”

“Do you know where there’s a cake plate, Mr. Harrington?”

“No. But you better look busy. They’re coming.”

With this he started to open cupboard doors and clatter through them as if he were genuinely seeking a plate or a glass or something, which he was not. I was standing holding the cake and feeling stupid when Weezie and Elizabeth came banging into the kitchen.

Elizabeth’s voice was loud and still hostile. She said, “You’re the one who’s vulgar.”

Then the two of them stopped, startled to see Brian and me gaping at them. Brian was clutching an upside- down casserole dish and I was balancing the cake. Weezie cocked her slender, evenly tanned face toward Brian. Her silver-blond mane, long, glazed scarlet nails, and crinkled tan pantsuit gave her the aspect of a cougar about to strike.

“What the hell is this?” she demanded.

“Honey, don’t—”

“Mrs. Harrington—”

“Don’t call me,” Elizabeth interrupted Brian’s and my protestations in her same furious tone. She cocked her head of wild blond frizz at Weezie. She had that drawn look vegetarians get when they aren’t getting enough of something. I wanted to reach out to her, to say something to her about Philip, but her rage with Weezie immobilized me. “Don’t call,” she said to Weezie, her finger stabbing the air, “don’t write, don’t get your friends to bug me. Leave me and the memory of my brother alone, do you understand?”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” shrieked Weezie, but Elizabeth had whirled and stomped off. While the three of us stood there, Elizabeth’s Aspen Meadow Health Food truck whizzed down Sam Snead Lane.

“Honey,” said Brian Harrington, “how about a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Weezie said crisply. “I have a little surprise for Goldy,” she said. One of the glazed nails was pointing at me. “Let me know when you’ve finished setting up,” she ordered before breezing out. She did not look at her husband or me. When she was marching noisily up the hall stairs, Brian eyed me ruefully.

“Do you want a drink?”

“No, thanks,” I said. I felt sorry for him. But I knew if I had one teensy-weensy drink, with what my ex- husband had told me earlier about Weezie and Philip, and the impending problems with the two Pettigrews, I’d be tempted to drown my grief in an entire fifth. “Maybe later,” I added with more sympathy than I intended. “After the party.”

“Oh?” He gave me a look. With a half-smile and raised eyebrows, he asked, “Are you staying after the party?”

How had I gotten into this? I had heard about Brian Harrington. I had seen him leaning toward my aerobics instructor and asking questions: “Where exactly are the obliques? Trace the muscle out for me when I twist over in this sit-up. Oh,” he’d say, “I’m not sure I’m tensing the hamstring muscle when I’m pulling it out in this ski exercise. Put your hand on it.”

Was I staying after the party? Ha. I didn’t answer, but carefully put the cake down on the countertop. My arms ached. Then I rummaged through a cupboard until I found, miraculously, a crystal serving plate. That feeling of irritation, of being intruded upon, was creeping up. I needed to be alone to work. Never mind that it was his kitchen.

I said, “I’m staying to clean up, that’s it. Does Mrs. Harrington have a salad bowl she wants me to use tonight? I really need to get to work in here.”

“Oh, sure. It’s probably around here somewhere.” He didn’t move but eyed me steadily with a suggestive half-smile.

I pursed my mouth into my best imitation of a displeased schoolteacher and put my hands on my hips.

Brian Harrington raised his eyebrows again and said, “Am I being dismissed?”

“Sorry. I need to be alone while I work.”

He remained immobile while I began the hunt for a bowl. He said, “You were going out with Philip Miller, weren’t you?” I slammed cabinet doors and nodded curtly. He went on, “Did you hear his sister say something about giving his body to science?”

I found a salad bowl on top of the refrigerator and began to line it with paper towels. “He didn’t talk to me about being an organ donor. If you don’t mind, I’d really rather not talk about it.” So saying, I rattled through drawers looking for serving utensils.

“Aah. . .” he began.

What in the world was the matter with the man? I sighed to let him know I was put out and said, “Now what is it?”

He smiled. “Will Sissy Stone be coming tonight?”

“If I tell you, will you let me do my work?”

“Yes, you cute little thing, you.”

I picked up the cake and walked quickly toward the refrigerator. I said, “Sissy is coming tonight.”

I could feel him moving in my direction. He murmured, “That cake just looks good enough to eat.”

I hrumphed and opened the refrigerator with my elbow and knee. If I hadn’t been concentrating so hard, I would have realized how close he was. Suddenly there was a small nibble of cool lips on my neck.

He was kissing me.

I dropped the cake.

Crystal shattered with an ear-splitting crash. The mousse fillings splattered wildly, like cream and mud flung all over the floor. Clods of cake skittered in every direction. The tempered chocolate broke like bricks.

“You idiot!” I yelled.

Brian calmly surveyed the mess. “Sorry, dear,” he said mildly. “You should have been more careful.” He glided out of the kitchen.

I looked around. I think I was looking for a rope. The kind you strangle people with. I shouted after him, “Now what am I supposed to serve for dessert?”

10.

After twenty minutes of mousse, crystal, and cake removal, I traipsed back toward the Farquhars. The last thing I needed was more cooking.

I was so angry I was beside myself. I struggled to focus on Andre, my mentor in food matters. When I apprenticed with him at his restaurant in Denver, his shelves creaked under their loads of dense Callebaut chocolate and fragrant African vanilla beans. Each of his cooks received a five-pound block of butter at the beginning of the workday. All he would say was, “Use it up.” Andre insisted on making Italian meringue for each batch of fudge. “Essential,” he would shout over the roar of the mixer. On our lunch break he would expound. “Let the dieters be responsible for their own willpower. Their health is not your concern; your income is not theirs.” He would demand, “Do you know the significance of the last course? It is what will linger in the memory and on the tongue.”

What does that best?

Chocolate. In spite of my fury I smiled, remembering. Beneath my feet the ground was cold and spongy. Chilly fingers of grass swished against my heels. I came through the security gate and made a graceless leap onto the Farquhars’ driveway, sidestepped rivulets of melting snow, and thought about the most important thing.

Even before Weezie insisted on it, I knew serving clients chocolate nurtured them emotionally. I’d read an article that said people crave chocolate, gorge on it in fact, when they have been let go by a lover, boss, or spouse. Weezie had told me that ingesting the food of the gods, as the Aztecs named it, produces an enzyme that creates