mean, I can’t authorize you putting up a false-back display, somebody might get hurt… .”
Arch looked disappointed, but then piped up, “Can I see the secret closet, then? I know you have one, a kid at school told me.”
“Uh, I suppose,” Audrey said, hesitating, “but it isn’t exactly The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Are you sure?”
Arch replied with an enthusiastic affirmative. Arch, Julian, Audrey, and I unloaded the supplies and rode down to the first floor. In Business Books, Audrey carefully pulled out an entire floor-to-ceiling shelf. In back was a small closet. Arch insisted on being closed into it.
His muffled voice said, “Yeah, it’s cool all right! Now let me out.”
This we did. Satisfied, he returned to the fourth floor with us and minutes later was stringing snow peas to go in the stir-fry under Julian’s direction.
As I heated oil in the electric wok, Arch said, “Did you do stuff like that during the summer when you were nine, Mom? Make a time-travel machine?”
Julian snorted. I replied, “The only thing I did during the summer when I was nine was swim in the ocean and eat something called fireballs.”
Arch pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded, considering. Finally he said, “Okay. I guess I’m not too dumb.”
I gave him an exasperated look, which he returned. The oil was beginning to pop, so I eased in the marinated beef. The luscious smell of garlic-sauteed beef wafted up from the wok.
“Thank you, thank you,” gushed Audrey. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, I’ve just been so stressed lately ? “
“No problem.” I tossed the sizzling beef against the sides of the wok until the red faded to pink. When the beef slices were just tender, I eased them onto a platter and heated more oil for the broccoli, carrots, baby corn, and snow peas, an inviting palette of emerald, orange, and pale yellow. When the vegetables were hot and crisp, I poured on the oyster-sauce mixture, then added the beef and a sprinkling of chopped scallions. I served the whole hot steaming mass with the rice to Arch, Audrey, and her staff, who exclaimed over the fresh veggies’ crunchiness, the tenderness and rich garlic flavor of the steak.
“I love to feed people,” I replied with a smile, and then wielded chopsticks into the goodies myself.
On the way home, Julian ate a cheese sandwich he’d brought, pronounced himself exhausted, and lay down in the back seat. He was snoring within seconds. Arch rambled in a conspiratorial tone about the upcoming weekend, skiing, the amount of loot he’d collect trick-or-treating at his father’s condo, being able to see more constellations in Keystone because it was farther from the lights of Denver. He wanted to know, if I hadn’t read C. S. Lewis when I was his age, had I at least liked to look at stars? Did I wait until it was dark to see Polaris, and could you see a lot of stars, living near the Jersey shore? Like in the summertime, maybe? I told him the only thing I looked forward to on summer evenings when I was his age was getting a popsicle from the Good Humor man.
“Oh, Mom! Fireballs and popsicles! All you ever think about is food!”
I took this as a compliment, and laughed. I wanted to ask him how school was going, how he thought Julian was doing, how life was going in general, but. experience had taught me he would interpret it as prying. Besides, he spared me the trouble as we chugged up the last portion of Interstate 70 that led to our exit.
“Speaking of food, I’m glad we had meat tonight,” my son whispered. “Sometimes I think eating that brown rice and tofu stuff is what makes Julian so unhappy.”
Chinese Beef Stir-Fry with Veqetables
1 pound good-quality (such as Omaha Steaks) sirloin tips, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon dry sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch
? teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons and ? teaspoon vegetable oil
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 large stalks of broccoli, stems removed and cut into florets
2 carrots, peeled and sliced on a diagonal
? cup beef broth
8 spears (? 15-ounce can) water-packed baby corn, drained
20 fresh snow peas
1 scallion, both white and green parts, chopped Marinate the sirloin at room temperature in a mixture of the sherry, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of the cornstarch, the sugar, ? teaspoon of the oil, the pepper, and garlic for an hour. Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil in a wok over high heat. Stir-fry beef quickly, until the meat is brown outside and pink inside. Remove.
Mix the remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch with the oyster sauce. Reheat the wok with the remaining tablespoon oil. Add the broccoli and carrots; stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the broth, cover the wok, and steam for approximately 1 minute or until the vegetables are tender but retain their crunch. Add the corn, snow peas, scallion, beef, and oyster sauce-cornstarch mixture. Heat quickly, until the sauce is clear and thickened. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.
Monday morning brought slate-gray clouds creeping up from the southernmost part of the eastern horizon. Below the cloud layer, a slice of sunrise sparkled pink as fiberglass. I stretched through my yoga routine, then turned on the radio in time to hear that the blanket of clouds threatened the Front Range with ? dreaded words ? a chance of snow. The reason Coloradans do not use the eastern word autumn is that October offers either late summer or early winter, with precious little in between.
I dressed and made espresso. Arch and Julian shuffled sleepily out of their room and joined me. I flipped thick, egg-rich slices of hot French toast for them and poured amber lakes of maple syrup all around. This perked them both up. After the boys left for school, I worked on my accounts, sent out some bills and paid some, ordered supplies for the upcoming week, and then took off for Elk Park Prep with the raccoon coat rolled into a furry ball on the front seat of my van.
The winding driveway to the prep school had been paved and straightened out somewhat at the end of the summer. But the approach to the magnificent old hotel was still breathtaking. Several of the driveway’s curves even afforded glimpses of snow-capped peaks. Saturday night’s snowfall, now mostly melted, had reduced the roadside hillocks of planted wildflowers to rust-colored stalks topped with wrinkled flowers in faded hues of blue and purple.
As I rounded the last curve and rolled over speed bump number three, I noticed that the school had finished tearing down the chain-link fence around the pool construction site. In its place was a decorous stone wall surrounded by hemlock bushes. Looked like the administration didn’t want kids thinking about swimming with winter coming on. Over the summer Arch had nearly drowned in that damn pool. I didn’t want to think about swimming, either.
I parked, grabbed the fur coat, and leaped out onto the iced driveway. Over by the headmaster’s house I could see two policemen methodically sweeping the ground with metal detectors. I turned away.
Someone had taped photocopied pictures of Keith Andrews onto the front doors of the school. Black crepe paper hung around each. The angelic, uncannily Arch-like face stared out from both flat photos. I closed my eyes and pushed through the doors.
In the carpeted lobby, chessboards left in mid-game were perched on tables with their chairs left at hurriedly pulled-out angles. Piles of books and papers spilled off benches. Through this clutter threaded Egon Schlichtmaier, my muscular faculty assistant from the college dinner. Today he was conspicuously spiffy in a very unFaustian sheepskin jacket. Next to him clomped the much less sartorial Macguire Perkins in a faded denim coat. Macguire’s acne-covered face had a dour expression; Egon Schlichtmaier’s baby face was grim. They had just come in from outside, and they were in a hurry.
“You heff made us late,” Egon was scolding.
