Killer Pancake

inside, when you’re at a banquet? And why were you asking about security? The security guys were all out here.”

“Oh, they were, were they?”

“Frances, don’t jive me.”

“And you, Goldy, are the only one I know who’d use the phrase ‘don’t jive me.’” She drew lavishly on the cigarette. “That department store has a lot of problems,” she said with an arched eyebrow. She blew out smoke, stuck the cigarette back between her lips, and used both hands to rezip her dress. “Or haven’t you heard?” When I shook my head, she shrugged. “I’ve heard some rumors. You know, got to follow everything up, check everything out. Let’s just say I thought the cosmetics place was a good place to start.”

I decided to ponder that in silence.

When she’d finished her smoke we walked back to the nightclub, picked up the last batch of boxes, and took them to the van. We chatted about the heat and how we would never in a million years spend the money Mignon was asking for all that night cream, day cream, outside—and inside—and in-between cream. Once the boxes were stacked and secured, I hopped behind the steering wheel, turned on the motor, and thanked Frances again for helping me. As I drove away, I watched her oddly stylish silhouette in my rearview mirror. Just checking out rumors, my feijoada. A new dress, high-heeled shoes, nail polish, and no cigarette for two hours of banquet and presentation? Lucky for me, I knew when she was jiving me.

Sometimes I think my van returns to Aspen Meadow by rote. And it’s a good thing too, since I was in no shape to be analytical about anything, least of all driving. I rolled down the windows and filled my lungs with hot air. It wasn’t much of a relief after the putrid-smelling warmth of the mall garage. Heat shuddered off the windows and pressed down on the van’s roof. My elbow burned the second I accidentally rested it on the fiery chrome. When I started out in the catering business, most of my jobs had been in Aspen Meadow. So of course I hadn’t bothered to get air-conditioning in my vehicle. Occasionally, like today, I regretted making that small saving.

The van wheezed up westbound Interstate 70 and soon the sultry wind flooding the car cooled. Thirty minutes later I pulled over to take a few deep breaths under a pylon of what Aspen Meadow folks call the Ooh-Ah Bridge, nicknamed for its spectacular panoramic view of the Continental Divide. A small herd of buffalo grazed in a fenced meadow near the bridge. I stared dejectedly at them and felt a fresh surge of remorse. Why hadn’t I accompanied Claire to her vehicle? Why hadn’t I insisted Julian go with her? No, that wouldn’t have been a good idea. In his lovestruck state of mind, Julian could have been hit as well. But a contingent of the sheriff’s department had been stationed nearby. Why hadn’t I insisted a policeman walk with Claire? Why?

Afternoon clouds billowed above the horizon like mutant cauliflower. Below them, the sweep of mountains were deeply shadowed in purple. My ears started to buzz. Tom would be calling. Three dark, stolid-looking buffalo eyed me, blinked, and then shuffled away. I had a sudden memory of Julian reeling out of control as his eyes fluttered shut. Julian was in shock. Next to the road, delicate bluebell blossoms bent in the mountain breeze. Claire, lovely violet-eyed Claire, was dead.

I drove home. I needed to be in my own place, needed a cold beverage, needed most of all to reconnect with my family and friends. When I came through the back door, the place felt empty and unusually stuffy. Irritation snaked up my spine. Because of the security system I’d been forced to install to keep my periodically violent ex- husband at bay, the windows stayed shut—and therefore wired—in my absence. I’d been tempted to disable the system once I was married to a formidable, gun-toting policeman. But Tom promptly vetoed that idea. You never know when he might turn up, he warned. I can’t always be around. But it was okay now, I’d protested. The Jerk wouldn’t dare bother me with a policeman in residence. Although he was ridiculously vain about being a doctor, my ex-husband was basically a coward. You haven’t seen ex-husband jealousy the way I’ve seen it, Tom replied flatly. Believe me, you don’t want to was the unspoken end of that warning.

Anyway, I’d given up trying to convince Tom to let me disable the system about two weeks after we were married this spring. Back then, during a typically frigid and snowy April in Aspen Meadow, I hadn’t thought we’d have a summer with record-shattering heat. But now it was July, and June had been the hottest since the state started keeping weather statistics in the late 1800s. Coming into the old house when it had been clamped up tight in our absence, I felt like Gretel being forced into the oven by the witch.

I opened the windows downstairs, then threw the upstairs windows open and allowed the afternoon breeze off Aspen Meadow Lake, a half-mile away, to drift in. Combined with the lilting notes of jazz saxophone coming from down the street the fresh air felt heavenly. The music came from the Routts’ place. Dusty’s grandfather played the instrument to placate Dusty’s little brother, Colin, who was born prematurely at the beginning of April, before the Habitat house had been finished. Dusty’s mother hadn’t done too well hanging on to men; I’d heard both Dusty’s father and the father of the infant had taken hikes.

Mesmerized by the music, I crossed to the windows looking out on the street and gazed at the Routts’ place. To build the dwelling, the local Habitat for Humanity had relied on funds and workers from our parish, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. The house was a simple two-story affair with inexpensive wood paneling, a tiny deck, and a room with jalousie windows off the right side. Church workers had repeatedly graded the driveway during Aspen Meadow’s muddy spring. The yard was covered with freshly excavated dirt. Red clay over the septic tank was as raw as a wound. Along the sidewalk, a stand of purple fireweed had somehow survived the construction. Unlike several of our neighbors, I’d welcomed the Routts, even if they were poor. I’d enjoyed being the church person assigned with coordinating two weeks of dinners sent in during the move and unpacking. Although I’d never met the grandfather, Dusty and her mother, Sally, had been profoundly thankful. I liked them. And at the moment I was even jealous of them: The saxophone music was coming out of open windows, something I could have only when I was home.

Maybe Tom would agree to keeping the upper-story windows ajar, at least for the summer. Even if I regretted marrying the Jerk, shouldn’t I be able at least to get a summer breeze? My ex was a wimpy, jealous, temper-tantrum thrower who had given me black eyes more times than I cared to remember. But of one thing I was sure—John Richard Korman would never scale an exterior wall to get in a window.

Downstairs, the saxophone music was louder. I flopped into a wingchair and listened to the music, taking care not to look at the couch where Julian and Claire had embraced only a few hours before. Where was Arch? I checked the kitchen, where a note in his handwriting was taped on my computer screen: Todd and I came back & now we’re doing tie-dying back at his house, just like they did in the sixties. Back around 5. Have fun today, Mom.

Arch, the most serious thirteen-year-old on the planet, always hoped I had fun. It was good he wasn’t here. I didn’t want him asking forty-five questions about Julian or Claire before I had any information. Besides, with his new activity, Arch was well occupied. At his age, my son developed enthusiasms on a biannual basis, and I had learned to go with whatever was the current wave. This had not always been the case. When he’d become involved in role-playing games two years ago, I was convinced one of us was going to end up institutionalized. When he finally abandoned constructing paper dungeons and fictional dragons, he and his friend Todd Druckman had switched to elaborate trivia quizzes. For months, Guinness books of records had spilled off every available shelf. Although Arch’s ability to spout interesting facts still had not positively affected his school performance, the trivia obsession had eventually lost its lure when Todd had refused to answer one more question about Evel Knievel. Then Arch had renewed his interest in magic. He’d been intensely serious about magic all last summer. But the magic phase had been quickly followed by a C. S. Lewis phase, complete with a handmade model of the Dawn Treader.

Now Arch was fascinated by the sixties. Posters of Eugene McCarthy and Malcolm X decorated his bedroom. The walls reverberated with the sound of the Beatles and Rolling Stones. My general attitude toward these hobby- passions was that as long as they were neither extravagantly expensive nor physically dangerous, they were okay. At least he wasn’t into gangs.

Still, I sighed. I suddenly missed him intensely, and Tom, and Julian. And I didn’t even mind solitude as much as I minded a lack of information. Why didn’t somebody call to tell me how Julian was? I took a deep breath to steady myself.

Loneliness frequently brought my ex-husband to mind. I remembered the many nights I’d waited for him. Most of the time, instead of being in the delivery room with a mother-to-be, he’d been with a waitress, or a nurse, or someone he’d just met…. Marla, who’d stayed married to John Richard Korman six years less than I, told me