Dark Tort

quickly slung his book bag over his shoulder and followed his half brother out to the Mercedes. Belatedly, I remembered Gus’s junior-varsity practice. Would we have to wait for him?

“No practice today,” Gus announced, as if reading my mind. He tossed his book bag on the floor and scooted into the backseat beside Arch. “Coach is on a business trip. Thanks for getting us. Hi, Marla.”

“Yo, kid. You, too, Arch.”

“Marla,” Arch said patiently, “don’t try to talk jive. It doesn’t work, okay?”

Marla sighed and hit the pedal. Soon we were on our way back up the interstate. How was I going to gauge if Arch was upset about Dusty? He hadn’t ever known her very well, which, at this juncture, I took to be a good thing.

I turned around and faced the boys. Gus, ever energetic, had brought with him the clean smell of boy sweat and notebooks. As he rustled around in his book bag, Arch, quiet and always worried, sat very still and frowned at me for paying undue attention to him.

“What is it, Mom?”

“Just checking on you, that’s all.”

Gus stopped rummaging around in his books and flopped back on the seat. He raised his eyebrows at Arch, as in What’s she talking about?

“Our neighbor, Dusty Routt, died this morning,” Arch said quickly. To me, he said, “Does Tom know anything yet?”

“No. Sorry, hon.”

“Does that mean we can’t sell magazine subscriptions tonight?” Gus asked. “I mean, are the neighbors going to be all upset? We’ve got a deadline on this drive. Maybe we could go to another neighborhood. Marla, could you drive us?”

Marla opened her eyes wide at me, as in How did I get dragged into this? But she said, “I suppose so.”

Thick pillows of gray cloud had moved in while we were waiting for the boys. As we ascended the steepest part of the interstate, snow began to fall. First there were just a few flakes, rushing toward Marla’s windshield at a slant. When we crested the peak of the interstate and entered the wide downward curve to Aspen Meadow, the fall of tiny flakes suddenly thickened. On either side of us, cars began to slow; wipers started sweeping away new layers of flakes.

“I guess this means we won’t be able to sell subscriptions,” Arch said, with the relief audible in his voice.

“Oh, it’s okay to sell stuff when it’s snowing,” Gus replied, his voice as confident as ever. “I used to do it all the time in Utah. Especially if you don’t wear a hat and you have, like, icicles frozen in your hair. Then people buy all kinds of stuff, ’cuz they feel sorry for you.”

Arch snorted. “I hate people feeling sorry for me. I’ve had it my whole life, and it sucks.”

Gus said, “Trust me, Arch. It’s like power. People feel sorry for you, you can get whatever you want.”

I wasn’t sure that was true. But with the memory of Dusty’s inert body so fresh in my mind, I was reluctant to venture an opinion. In our cooking lessons, I’d come to feel heartily sorry for Dusty, with her lack of money and her high ambitions. Now I’d heard the sad story of her bad luck and mistreatment at the hands of a drama teacher. And then, just when she’d gotten a good job and was moving up in the world, someone had strangled her.

Yes, I felt very sorry for Dusty. I also felt painfully sympathetic toward her mother, Sally.

As Marla pressed the accelerator and urged the Mercedes back up the mountain, I bit the inside of my cheek. Gus could talk all he wanted about sympathy generating power. But it seemed to me that neither Dusty nor Sally had, or had ever had, any power at all.

CHAPTER 8

When Marla swung into the driveway of Aspen Meadow Imports, a tall mechanic with long, droopy cheeks and a gray ponytail came out waving a rag.

“Wait,” he called to us. When he was beside the Mercedes, he said, “You can’t leave that food truck here. That van. What does it say? Goldilocks’ Catering. We’ve had trouble with a bear coming down every night and foraging in our garbage.”

Under her breath, Marla said, “One bear’s food is another bear’s trash. But still, can mountain bears read?”

I hated it when people made fun of my Germanic maiden name, but I was prepared to ignore my best friend. To the mechanic, I said, “I’m moving it. I was just helping out a friend.”

The mechanic’s cheeks drooped even farther. “Okay, lady. Those bears can smell food. I wouldn’t want to be responsible if one of ’em broke into your vehicle.”

“I’m moving it!”

Marla laughed, then promised she would call if she heard anything. I thanked her for the ride and bustled Gus and Arch into the van.

At the boys’ request, I left them off three blocks from our house. They swore they’d be home by half past five, because they’d be famished, Gus said, his smile huge. As usual, Gus was upbeat at the prospect of being a fund-raising vendor of magazines. Arch, on the other hand, was morose, as he hated selling more than having his teeth pulled without anesthetic. But I couldn’t even try to cheer him up the way I usually did. In point of fact, I didn’t feel as if I had any cheer left.

I pulled my van into the driveway rather than parking it on the street. If by some miracle the plow came through that night, I didn’t want to get walled in by a hardpacked, man-made snowdrift. I also didn’t want to risk leaving my van on the curb again. When I stepped out into the three-inch-deep icy carpet of snow, I shrieked with surprise. But that didn’t stop me from traipsing up and locking the van doors with the remote. I pressed the button twice, so that the security system beeped. This time, I wanted to be sure the van was locked.

Completely chilled, I raced through the fall of flakes to the front of the house. Once I’d slammed the door, I leaned on it and shuddered. I let my coat slip to the floor, limped to the living room, and flopped onto the couch. Tom was rattling around in the kitchen, for which I was thankful. Apparently, he hadn’t heard me come in.

But our animals had. Scout the cat and Jake the bloodhound rushed to greet me. Well, I shouldn’t say that Scout rushed, because that cat never went quickly to anything, even food. But he did stride into the living room and, sensing I might need comfort, dropped his back on top of my shoes and rolled over, all in one smooth movement. You can pat me if it will make you feel better. I did, while Jake slobbered kisses on my cheeks. The large hound also began to whine between large liquid tonguings. Don’t tell me animals can’t sense moods.

“There you are,” said Tom as he whisked into the living room carrying a silver tray sporting two glasses of sherry, homemade crackers, and a wedge of sharp English cheddar, his favorite. “It’s a bit early for a cocktail.” His tone was cheery, his handsome face the picture of confidence. “Then again, I thought you might need one.”

“What I need most of all is to talk to you.”

“One thing at a time, wife.”

I smiled my thanks and left to change and wash my hands. By the time I’d pulled on sweats and returned to the living room, Tom had built a cozy fire and set the silver tray on his antique cherrywood butler’s tray, which he’d judiciously placed in front of my old sofa when he’d moved into the house. The scene was typically Tom-and-Goldy. On the one hand, there was Tom’s lovingly purchased, laboriously polished cherry furniture. He said taking care of his pieces helped reduce stress from the job. And then there was my old sofa. Once I’d kicked out the Jerk, I’d wanted to remove as many memories of his presence as possible, and I’d had every piece in the living room reupholstered in the cheapest fabric available. It was a sunny orange that I’d determinedly told myself was going to match my new circumstances. Unfortunately, the orange had turned somewhat dingy, and I kept thinking I was going to have everything redone one of these days. But so far, that day had not materialized.

And then there was the sherry, aged and golden, bought by Tom. He’d poured it into antique cut-crystal glasses that had belonged to my grandmother. These, too, felt like Tom’s, since he’d salvaged them from a basement cardboard box that I’d hidden behind our Christmas decorations. Talk about erasing memories: I hadn’t even remembered packing up the crystal and putting it out of sight some years before. In any event, the glasses