Diane Davidson - The Grilling Season

It is going to happen, Tom had frequently assured me. John Richard Korman will go too far, get caught, and be nailed. In fact, I had been vaguely aware that John Richard was having financial problems. After all, I hadn’t received a child support payment in three months. He was usually late, but not this late. Despite Patricia’s dire news about the Keystone condo, I’d actually been hoping that John Richard could talk to me this morning about his money situation, without lawyers, without lying, and without loudness. Fat chance.

But, as they say, I was going to be in that neck of the woods, so I might as well try to chat with him. With Arch as a buffer, and before John Richard had had a drink or two, we could occasionally communicate. Besides, if I thought we could get something settled, it would make the chauffeuring job this morning less irksome. The house where Arch was staying was only two miles from John Richard’s neo-Tudor monstrosity, while it was close to ten miles from our place.

I was doing the pickup because Arch had been desperate to attend the party. The poor kid had not made many friends at the private school he’d started attending two years ago. Now that he was going into ninth grade, he relished the idea of someone inviting him over, even if it was because he was one of the few kids not currently away on an exotic summer vacation. An invite is an invite, Arch had reminded me seriously as he nudged his tortoiseshell glasses up his nose and donned a too-large pair of denim shorts to go with a raggedy nut-brown shirt that matched his hair. And I’m going.

I slid the bowl of frosting into the walk-in, set the cupcakes on racks to cool, and scribbled a note to Tom to have one for breakfast if he craved an early-morning chocolate fix. I would be back soon, I wrote. Tom had been out past midnight working on a case. In the hours before dawn he had crept in and tried not to wake me. But whenever he pulled the Velcro straps off his bulletproof vest, I woke in a sudden sweat. For over a year, he’d been telling me I’d get used to it. I never had.

I tiptoed upstairs to check on our boarder. Recovering from mononucleosis, nineteen-year-old Macguire Perkins was spending the summer with us until his father came home from teaching a course in Vermont. A tousle of red hair, a patch of pale skin, and loud snores indicated that Macguire was sleeping, as usual. Arch’s bloodhound, Jake, dozed at Macguire’s side, while our cat, an adopted stray named Scout, kept a watchful emerald eye from his perch on the dresser.

I finished getting ready and quietly crept out our front door. Another fresh morning breeze whispered through the aspens. After a nastily wet spring, we were enjoying what the locals call a one-in-ten year for wildflowers. This was probably going to be a one-in-ten year for the elk population, too, but I didn’t mind. I revved up Tom’s dark blue Chrysler sedan that he’d left in the driveway behind my van. Backing out, I tried to avoid blue flax, blush-pink wild roses, and brilliant white daisies, all nodding in the warm wind.

Actually, one of the reasons I’d come to admire John Richard’s current girlfriend, Suz Craig, was that she had learned the names of nearly a hundred different kinds of flowers that were being put in as part of an elaborate landscaping project at her country-club home. While I was setting up for the business lunch in July, Suz had taken the time to point out the varieties of campanula and columbines that her landscapers were planting between the quartz boulders and striped chunks of riprap rock. Even businesswomen who were vice-presidents needed a hobby, I supposed. The lunch had been a going-away gig for some AstuteCare people visiting from out of town. As ACHMO’s regional veep, it was Suz’s job to provide their “day in the mountains,” a de rigueur excursion for visiting out-of-staters. The buffet as well as the day had been Colorado picture-postcard perfect: sapphire-blue sky, sweet mountain air redolent of pine, platters of chilled steamed Rocky Mountain trout, and luscious chocolate truffles.

The only mishap of the catered lunch had occurred when Chris Corey, the overweight head of ACHMO’s Provider Relations, had taken a spill down an incomplete set of stone steps. Chris had sprained his ankle and Suz had vowed to fire the landscapers. One of the guests had taken a bite of trout, winked at me, and commented that firing people was what Suz did best. I’d made a mental note. Maybe she’d dump the Jerk before too long. I wondered how he would react.

The sedan’s engine purred as I passed Aspen Meadow Lake, where the early-morning sun and whiff of breeze had whipped the placid water into jagged sparkles. At the Lakeview Shopping Center across the road from the lake, a tattered banner, ruffling slightly, announced that Aspen Meadow Health Foods was under new management. Beneath the banner a beautifully painted sign advertised the upcoming doll show at the LakeCenter. BABSIE BASH! the curlicued script screamed. GO BERSERK! I pressed the accelerator and hummed along with the engine. When I thought about Babsie dolls these days, I didn’t think berserk, I thought bread and butter. Starting Tuesday, I’d be catering to the doll folks for two days. The bash organizers had warned me that they didn’t want any food to get on the display tables, the Babsie costume boxes, the eensy-weensy furniture, the tiny high heels, the fanciful costumes, or, God forbid, the dolls. I’d assured them I could do all their meals, including a final barbecue, outside – complete with finger bowls, if they wanted. They’d said I should find a Chef Babsie outfit to wear. I’d been afraid to ask them if they were kidding.

Once I’d rounded the lake, the sedan started uphill toward the country-club area. Actually, Suz Craig had always reminded me of Babsie. Beyond her looks, though, I had to admit that Suz had a phenomenal mind and a charismatic personality to go with her statuesque, size-six body. I never had been able to understand how the Jerk could attract women like her.

I glanced in the rearview mirror at my slightly chubby face, brown eyes, and Shirley Temple-blond-brown curls. “He got you, didn’t he?” I said to my puzzled reflection, then laughed.

The stone entryway into the country-club area had been graffiti-sprayed by vandals. The vandals’ defacement of property was one of this summer’s ongoing problems in our little town. Still, I knew my way to Arch’s friend’s house without having to decipher the spray-painted street signs. The developer for the old part of the club had been an indiscriminate Anglophile. He’d given the streets names like Beowulf, Chaucer, Elizabethan, Cromwell, Tudor, and Brinsley. As long as you knew a bit about English history, you were in good shape. I approached the turn to Jacobean Drive, where Suz Craig lived, and hesitated. I pulled over and the sedan tires crunched on the gravel. Despite my best intentions, I was suffering a typical Jerk-inspired dilemma. Would he be home yet?

Tom’s cellular was close at hand. I could call John Richard first to make sure he was awake and ready for Arch’s arrival. On the other hand, I didn’t want to wake him up and risk one of his infamous tantrums. If I drove past Suz’s and saw one of his cars in the driveway, I would know to stall on picking up Arch. But stall how? I tapped the dashboard in frustration.

Okay – I remembered that the woebegone landscapers had been planning three patios, along with a series of steps, on Suz’s sloping property. The vandalism had been so bad in the country club that Suz had confessed to being afraid to have the flagstones delivered and left outside, where they ran the risk of being spray-painted with cuss words. So Suz’s garage was full of flagstones, and if John Richard had spent the night with his girlfriend, one of his Jeeps would be sitting in her driveway. This, in spite of the fact that his house was close by. But John Richard never walked for exercise; he played tennis.