Diane Davidson - Dying for Chocolate

“Arch?” I called through the wood.

To my surprise he opened the door. He was dressed in one of his all-purpose sweat suits and held his bag of magic tricks in one hand. He had his glasses on, a good sign that he had been up for a while.

“Your dad will be by this afternoon,” I told him. Then, before he could say anything, I said, “You didn’t finish telling me about the first day. Were the kids nice?”

He looked into my face and pulled his mouth into a straight line. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “they weren’t as bad as I expected.” He paused and looked around the room. “Hold on, Mom, I got you something.” He reached over to a shelf and solemnly handed me a Russell Stover Mint Dream. My heart warmed. Arch knew I loved chocolate with mint. He was always on the lookout for new combinations of the two ingredients.

“Well, thanks very much,” I said as I fingered the silver-green foil. This was Arch’s way of saying he was sorry about Philip Miller.

“You going to eat it?”

“Not before eight in the morning. But I will! It’s my favorite, you know that.”

He was not listening but was again rummaging through his belongings. “Wait. There’s a note here for you from Adele, er, Mrs. Farquhar.” He handed me a crumpled index card.

The Nelsons have canceled and Weezie Harrington is beside herself. She called this morning and invited Julian and a date for tonight. I told her you’d already bought the food. I don’t think she knows Julian is a vegetarian. Sorry if this causes problems! A.

I looked back at Arch.

“So what about the first day?”

“I told you, the kids weren’t too bad. Watch.” He turned his back to me, then pivoted and held up one, two, three ropes. He caught my eyes again and gave a tiny, knowing grin. “And now,” he said with a flourish, and whipped out a single, long rope.

I clapped.

“I did it for the kids in my class at orientation. They liked it. Okay, Mom,” he said by way of dismissal, “anything else?”

“How’d you get the candy?”

“Julian took me to Aspen Meadow Drug in the general’s car. I told him my parents were divorced and my mom had lost her boyfriend and I needed to get her something.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Okay, Mom. I need to practice now. Nobody was mean to me at the school. You don’t need to worry.”

Back in the bathroom, I started water gushing into the Farquhars’ claw-footed tub. For myself, I was quite sure I hadn’t snubbed anyone in years. Poverty will do that to you. But as a former doctor’s wife, I had learned all about snub-ers and snub-ees. With the post-divorce reduction in circumstances, my friends, with the exception of Marla and a few others, had evaporated like the steam now rising from the bathwater. Former acquaintances feigned looks of confusion when they encountered me at catered functions, as when I’d seen a surgeon’s wife I knew at the Elk Park Prep brunch. There I was up to my elbows in cheese strata and sausage cake, and Mrs. Frosted Hair Usually Seen in Tennis Clothes had said, “Oh, Goldy!” (as if she’d been trying to reach me for weeks) “How are you?” (as if I’d just recovered from a failed suicide attempt) “Are you working now? I mean, besides this.”

Yes indeed, I thought as I lowered myself into the water. Just this.

I reached for the pad of yellow legal paper I kept on a nearby stool that Arch had piled high with back issues of Magician magazine. Well, at least it wasn’t Playboy. I wrote “Dinner For Six” across the top yellow sheet.

The hostess, Weezie Harrington, had given me an overview of aphrodisiac foods. I had placed a meat and seafood order, but vegetarian Julian and his date would present a problem.

“I have to have six,” Weezie had said. “It sets up the right psychological dynamic.” For Julian’s meal I would have to do additional research. All I remembered at this point was Weezie’s raised eyebrow when she’d said, “Chocolate for dessert. At one point, the church banned chocolate because it was believed to be inciteful of lust. So make it decadent.”

I wrote “DECADENT” in large letters and wondered why Weezie and Brian Harrington, who had been married six years, needed aphrodisiacs anyway. He was an energetic and fit fifty. She was in her mid-forties, slender and elegant and with the look of an aging Greek goddess. The story around town was that Brian had courted Weezie lavishly to get hold of her gently sloping thousand acres just north of Interstate 70 near the Aspen Meadow exit. Once successful in obtaining Flicker Ridge, the story went, Brian had moved on to other conquests in the world of real women and real estate. And Weezie had recently steeped herself in the lore of desire-producing foods and substances, much to the current amusement of the country club. Whether she would win Brian back by these charms was up to the caterer, apparently.

I stared at the yellow pad. Brian, Weezie, Adele and Bo, Julian Teller and a female friend. I had already asked about food allergies, and managed not to smile when Weezie told me Brian was allergic to nuts. Since Venus was born in the sea, we were starting off with shellfish. Except for Julian. I sighed.

The library did not open until ten, this being Aspen Meadow and suitably provincial. I would have to whip around and finish shopping by eleven to have enough time to cook. Maybe the Farquhars’ encyclopedia could yield info. Surely it would carry more than entries for rocket-propelled grenades and C-4.

I pulled the tub’s plug. Feel great, I said to myself in the most persuasive way possible. Let the mood fit the food, André, my cooking instructor, had said when he trained me. Act hurried and your clients will feel hassled. Have a great time and your clients will have a great time. How I was supposed to act at an aphrodisiac dinner I did not know.

I reached for one of Adele’s plush floral towels. Sudden tears bit the back of my eyes as the water sucked loudly down the drain. Have a great time.

Once dressed, I made my way quickly to the Farquhars’ library-cum-study in the back of the house. Outside there was the regular slap-slap of Julian’s arms hitting water. Through the window I could see him plowing through his morning laps. He had vacuumed up the dirt clods—remnants of the garden explosion—from the pool floor. But there was still dirt everywhere else, and the water looked somewhat murky. General Bo was sweating over another row of pansies. I turned to the books.

Volume A of the encyclopedia cracked open in my lap to “Aphrodisiacs.”

I remembered Weezie tossing her lioness mane of blond and silver hair at our interview.

“Spanish fly,” she’d said, “is really dried cantharides, a kind of beetle. Deadly as hell, despite its reputation.”

The encyclopedia article talked about bark from the yohimbé tree in Africa. No help there; I was pretty sure yohimbé didn’t grow in Aspen Meadow. And then there was the warning that ingesting Spanish fly was a highly toxic way of causing inflammation in the lower abdominal and genital regions. Burning pain accompanied the inflammation. If enough was taken, the inflammation was followed by death. Better avoid that one, too; didn’t sound as if it would fit the ticket.

What Weezie had told me was that the effect from food was very subtle. She’d said, “You have to tell them what’s supposed to happen.” Tell them what? This will work if you think it does?

The encyclopedia concurred. The idea of inciting lust rested largely on the powers of suggestion and sympathetic magic. The rhinoceros had been particularly abused, I learned, owing to the unfortunate resemblance its horn bore to the erect male member.