find out at the nine o’clock step class.”
“Tell me about this unknown scandal with Miss… who was Schlichtmaier’s predecessor?”
“Pamela Samuelson, I told you.”
“Could you check on it? I’d like to get together with her.”
“She’s moved to another aerobics class, so it’ll be tough.”
“Okay, let me tell Schulz all this.” Marla giggled suggestively. “Really, I just told this story so you’d have an excuse to call him this morning.”
She rang off with the promise that she would do all this snooping if I paid her in cookies. I promised her Chocolate-Dipped Biscotti, and she swooned.
I did my yoga, then reflected on the communications network in Aspen Meadow as I dressed. When the town developed from a mountain resort to a place where people lived year-round, the first social institution had been the fire department. In a climate so dry a fire could consume acres of forest in less than a blink, the need for mutual protection had drawn even rugged loners into social contact. With the weather and roads unpredictable in winter, now it was the telephone that people used to tell everything about everybody. That is, if you didn’t have the benefit of step aerobics. But sometimes I would hear so much news about somebody that the next time I saw the person in question, he would look as if he’d aged. Egon Schlichtmaier could easily sprout gray hairs in the next week, and I would never notice.
By the time I got downstairs, the sky had turned the color of charcoal and was beginning to spit flakes of snow onto the pine trees around my house. But the enveloping grayness brought no dark mood. In fact, I realized suddenly, I felt fabulous. The weather was a quilt over a delicious inner coziness. I didn’t want to admit-to Marla, Schulz, Arch, even to myself ? what this new state was, but it felt a lot like falling in you-know-what.
Seeing Arch and Julian in the kitchen, however, gave me a jolt of alarm. Julian’s skin was as ashen as the sky outside, and the pouches under his eyes were deep smudges. When we lived and worked at a client’s house over the summer, he went to bed early, was up at six to swim his laps, shower, and dress carefully before setting off for Elk Park Prep. I couldn’t remember when he’d taken the time to swim in the week since Keith’s murder. This morning he looked as if he had had no sleep at all, and he was wearing the same rumpled clothes from the night before. I was beginning to wonder if living with us was the best thing for him. But I didn’t want to get him upset by asking more questions, so I just gave Arch, who was dressed in three layers of green shirts complemented by dark green jeans, a cheery smile. Arch smiled back gleefully.
“Julian’s heating his special chocolate croissants!” he announced. “He says we don’t have time for anything else!” To my look of dismay, Arch added, “Come on, Mom. Have one with your espresso.”
While a chocolate croissant would hardly be Headmaster Perkins’ idea of a nutritious breakfast, I quickly surrendered. Julian was not just a good cook, he was an artist. He had the touch with food and the love of culinary creation that are truly rare, and he’d had early and excellent experience as an assisting pastry chef at his father’s bakery in Bluff, Utah. Given his preference for healthful food, his experimentation with puff pastry was a delightful aberration. In helping with my business, Julian had turned out to be worth his weight in Beluga caviar. Or radicchio, which he would prefer. But I knew he had a calculus midterm that afternoon, and I didn’t want him to be bustling around making breakfast in addition to everything else.
“Julian, let me do this,” I said gently.
“Just let me finish!” he said gruffly. He pulled a cookie sheet from the oven. The golden-brown pastry cylinders oozed melted chocolate.
I was saved from having to deal with Julian’s hostility by the phone.
“Goldilocks’ Catering ? “
“Feeling good?”
?Yes, yes.?
“How about this, then,” Tom Schulz said. “Are you feeling great?” I could hear his grin. Unfortunately, I could also feel myself blush.”
“Of course, what do you expect?” Something about my tone caused both Arch and Julian to turn inquiring faces in my direction. I turned away from them, coloring furiously. “Where are you?”
“At work, drinking probably the worst coffee known to the human species. When can I see you again?”
I wanted that to be soon, and I needed to tell him Marla’s news, but I wasn’t going to say so in front of Julian. “Lunch? Can you come up here? Aspen Meadow Cafe??
“If you call the entrees that they serve at that place lunch, then sure. Noon.” And with that summary judgment of nouvelle cuisine, he rang off.
“Arch,” I said when we were all munching the marvelous croissants, “you didn’t tell me you called Torn Schulz about the snake.”
Arch put down his croissant. “Mom,” he said with his earnest voice and look. “What, do you really think I’m going to rely on Mr. Perkins to do anything for me? Come on.”
“Boy, you got that right,” Julian mumbled.
“Still,” I insisted as gently as possible, “I want you to be careful today. Promise?”
He chirped, “Maybe I should just stay home from school.”
“Come on, buster. Just keep everything in your bookbag. Don’t even use your locker.”
Julian lowered his eyebrows, and his mouth tightened stubbornly.
“Hey, I didn’t put the snake in his locker,” I said defensively. “I despise vipers, rodents, and spiders. Detest them. Ask Arch.”
“She does,” said Arch without being asked. “I can’t have hamsters or gerbils. I can’t even have an ant farm.” He swallowed the last bite of his croissant, wiped his mouth, and got up from the table. “You should add insects to that list.”
Arch clomped upstairs to finish getting ready for school. As soon as he was gone, Julian leaned toward me conspiratorially. His haggard face made my heart ache.
“I’m going to help him with his classes. You know, set up a study schedule, encourage him, like that. We’re going to work in the dining room each night, if that’s okay with you. There’s more room there.”
“Julian, you do not have time to ? “
My phone rang again. It was going to be one of those days.
“Let me get it.” Julian jumped up and grabbed the receiver, but instead of giving my business greeting, he said, “Yeah?”
I certainly hoped it was not an Aspen Meadow Country Club client. Julian mouthed, “Greer Dawson,” and I shook my head.
Julian said, “What? You’re kidding.” Silence. “Oh, well, I’m busy anyway.” Then he handed me the phone and said “Bitch” under his breath.
I said, “Yes, Greer, what can I do for you?”
Her voice was high, stiff, formal. “I’ve developed a new raspberry preserve I’d like you to try, Goldy.. It’s … exquisite. We want you to use it in a Linzertorte that you could make for the cafe.”
“Oh, really? Who’s we?”
She tsked.
“Let me think about it, Greer.”
“Well, how long will that take? I need to know before the end of the school day so I can put it on my application that I have to get in the mail.”
“Put what on your application?”
“That I developed a commercially successful recipe for raspberry preserve.”
I detest ultimatums, especially those delivered before eight o’clock in the morning. “Tell your mother I’ll stop into the cafe kitchen just before noon to try it out and talk to her about it.” Without waiting for an answer, I hung up. My croissant was cold. I turned to Julian. “What are you mad at her about?”
“We were supposed to be partners in quizzing each other before the SATs. I didn’t do as well as I wanted to last year, too nervous, I guess, so I really wanted to, you know, review. Miss Ferrell” ? he pronounced the name with the profound disgust of the young ? “says we shouldn’t need this kind of cramming, but she encouraged us to go over a few things anyway. I quizzed Greer yesterday. But instead of quizzing me, Greer has to rush down to Denver for her last session of private SAT review.” His shoulders slumped. “Oh, well. It’ll give me more time to get started with Arch. We can use the school library.”
