and rabbits left over at the end of the school year, stray dogs abandoned by families moving away. She also exercised fanatically at both the athletic club and the local recreation center.
But the shelves of books, the cadre of pets, the soft body that refused to become fit, had been no help, she had sadly announced at a meeting of Amour Anonymous, our support group for women who felt they were addicted to relationships. After two years of denial, Audrey Coopersmith had finally begun divorce proceedings against her husband of eighteen years. With a deviousness that had fooled no one but Audrey, Carl Coopersmith had been supporting another woman in Denver for the past fifteen years. This other woman had children by a previous marriage, but Carl had been hanging around for so long that the other woman’s kids called him Dad and the other woman’s neighbors all thought “Dad” was the other woman’s husband. Which, when it came to financial support, made for a very confusing situation for everyone but the lawyers. With delays, requests for documents, filing motions and countermotions, the legal beagles were having a field day.
Bottom line was, Carl “Dad” Coopersmith had cancelled Audrey’s cash card, credit cards, and provided a copious supply of lies about his salary and other accounts. The court order on permanent support for Audrey and their daughter, Heather, was supposed to come down any moment. But as was typical, it had been delayed three times. Two months ago Audrey had asked me for part-time work. She couldn’t earn too much, she told me, for that would undermine what she was asking from Carl.
But she was having trouble making ends meet. She balanced the work she had from me with a part-time job at the Tattered Cover, Denver’s largest bookstore, a place she claimed to love. But as you might expect, Audrey was always exhausted, always broke, always unhappy.
The one bright spot in her life was super-achieving Heather, an eighteen-year-old science whiz who ranked third in the senior class at Elk Park Prep. To my utter dismay, there were only two things Audrey wanted in life: for Heather to get into MIT, and for Carl to come to his senses, leave the other woman, her kids, and her neighbors, and return to their home in Aspen Meadow Country Club.
” Now, this was a woman who was addicted to a relationship. Not to mention that she didn’t have too firm a grasp on reality. Audrey desperately wanted to return to the status quo. In Amour Anonymous, we had all tried to enlighten her, to no avail. Sometimes people just have to go through things.
The phone had not even rung one full time when she answered. Once she realized I wasn’t Carl, her voice went from lively to remote. Yes, she remembered that she was supposed to help me with the football party. But then she remembered that she was supposed to make a stir-fry for a small staff meeting after she filled in at the bookstore that afternoon.
I said, “Filled in?”
She gave a short laugh. “Best department.”
“Really?” I said. “Cookbooks?”
“Self-improvement.”
So I asked if she could help with the church refreshments instead, and I’d see if I could get someone else for the Dawsons’ party in the afternoon. She agreed and added that she had to get off the phone because for some reason the police were at her door.
For some reason. I hung up. So Headmaster Perkins had already given the police Audrey’s name. But that surely would not be the end of it. I looked out my kitchen window at lodgepole pine branches heavy with snow. A number of Elk Park Prep parents were Episcopalians. By the time of the service, the investigative team already would have visited some of them. The official interrogations, not to mention Keith’s bizarre death, would be guaranteed topics of conversation during the church coffee hour.
Cook, I ordered myself, you’ll feel better. I folded shiny slivers of orange zest into a pillowy spongecake batter to make Bronco-fan cupcakes for the Dawsons’ brunch. When the cupcakes were in the oven, I drained and chopped fat purple plums for a Happy Endings Plum Cake, a prototype for Caroline Dawson, who had promised to taste it at church. If she and Hank liked the cake, they’d said I could sell them at their restaurant, the Aspen Meadow Cafe.
For the rest of the church refreshments, I sliced two dozen crisp Granny Smith apples into bird-shaped centerpieces that would be surrounded by concentric circles of Gouda and cheddar wedges. I didn’t even want to think about the price of the cheeses in this little spread. I reminded myself that this was an advertising opportunity, even if it was church. To complete the cheese tray, I cut several loaves of fragrant homemade oatmeal bread into triangles and threw in a wheel of Jarlsberg for good measure. Advertising could get expensive.
Arch dressed with minimal complaining, since he didn’t want to wake up Julian, who was snoring deeply. The wind bit through our clothing as we climbed into the van. The sky was luminescent, like the inside of a pearl. Streets slick with newly plowed snow made the going slow. By the time we arrived at the big stone church with its great diamond-shaped windows, the parking lot was already half filled with Cadillacs, Rivieras, and Chrysler New Yorkers, with the occasional Mercedes, Lexus, and Infiniti.
I scanned the parking lot for my ex-husband’s Jeep with its GYN license plate, but he was not making one of his rare church appearances. The personalized tags indicated who had already arrived. The Dawsons’ matching vans advertised the presence of parents and offspring. Greer Dawson was known to her volleyball teammates as G.D., the Hammer, hence the tag GD HMR. Her parents’ more sedate tag read AMCAFE, for the Aspen Meadow Cafe. There was MR E, from a local mystery writer, and UR4GVN, from who else? The priest. I pulled in next to the gold Jaguar belonging to Marla Korman, my best friend, who also happened to be Dr. John Richard Korman’s other ex-wife. Her license tag said simply, AVLBL.
When Arch and I pushed through the heavy doors with our platters, Marla shrieked a greeting and rushed across the foyer toward us. Large in body and spirit, Marla always dressed according to the season. This morning, an early appearance of winter demanded a silver suede suit sprinkled with an abundance of pewter buttons across a jacket and skirt. Sparkly silver barrettes, my gift for her fortieth birthday, held back her eternally frizzed brown hair. She folded me in a hug that was all bangle bracelets and soft leather.
“What in the hell happened out at that school last night?” she hissed in my ear.
“How did you find out about it?”
“What, are you kidding? My phone started ringing at six-thirty this morning!”
The organist sounded the opening notes of a Bach fugue. I whispered back, “It was awful, but I can’t talk about it now. Help me in the kitchen afterward and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Marla told me she had visitors she had promised to sit with during the service, but that she could help later with the food. Then she whispered, “I heard this kid stole credit cards.”
“He did not,” said Arch in a very loud voice behind us. “He was nice.” At this, heads in the pews swiveled to stare at us. The Bach was in full swing. Marla lifted her double chin in an imperial gesture. I pretended not to know either of them and hustled the first bird-apple centerpiece out to the church kitchen.
We mumbled along through the service until the passing of the peace, when you wish the priest God’s peace and then turn to your neighbors and wish them the same. But in this parish the peace was a signal to pass along news, commentary on weather, parish illnesses and absences, and so on, until the priest halted the ruckus to make announcements. Unfortunately, the peace discussion this day was devoted to the events out at Elk Park Prep.
Happy Endings Plum Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
z cup granulated sugar
z cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
I teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ? cups all-purpose flour (high altitude: add 2 tablespoons)
2 teaspoons baking powder (high altitude: subtract ? teaspoon)
1 teaspoon baking soda
? teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 16-ounce can purple plums packed in syrup, well drained, the syrup reserved and the plums chopped
confectioners’ sugar
Preheat the oven to 400°. In a large , mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy and light, then gradually add
