Diane Davidson - Dying for Chocolate

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” came one voice, high, shrill, angry. I moved off the rock and sidled up to a blue spruce. It wasn’t that I was eavesdropping or nosy, I told myself. I just didn’t want to embarrass the combatants by suddenly arriving with a box of aphrodisiacal dumplings.

“I can’t believe you could be so crass . . . to ask if he left anything to you—”

“Oh, calm down, for Christ’s sake!”

I peered through the sweet-smelling branches of the prickly spruce. Elizabeth Miller had her arms folded across her narrow chest, and had turned away from Weezie Harrington.

I had not seen Elizabeth since the accident. Why was she with Weezie? And what in the world could they be arguing about?

“Please,” shouted Weezie. “Listen, will you? We were working on something together. He told me he would leave—”

“You listen!” screamed Elizabeth. “He left his body to science, if that’s what you want to know.”

There was a silence. I felt intrusive, even though I was sure they had not seen me. One of the women was crying; it was hard to tell which one. Returning to the rock, I picked up the boxes, backtracked over the damp ground through the pines and grass and back through the Farquhars’ house. By the time I made it to the front door of the Harringtons’ place I thought I would start counting the hours until I had my van back Monday morning. The voices became indistinguishable.

The Harringtons’ house was a glass and stucco affair with a tile roof, the hybrid of Spanish colonial and French provincial that had been the rage in Aspen Meadow about fifteen years before. That is, insofar as any phenomenon in a town of thirty-five thousand people can be said to have been the rage.

A brass coyote-head door knocker echoed klok klok klok through the quiet interior. For a moment the screeching female voices rose again. My chest felt as if it were in a hammerlock.

Sometimes clients start drinking early on the day of a party. To relieve tension. Start the festivities early. Whatever. The problem was that this occasionally resulted in their canceling everything. Then all you got was your deposit, a whole lot of food, and anticipation of going to small-claims court, which I’d had to do from time to time. I fervently hoped that Weezie and Elizabeth had not added booze to their altercation. Just as suddenly as it had begun, the screeching stopped. I knocked again.

No one answered. I leaned against the stucco and peered through one of the double-pane windows, a standard insulating feature in mountain homes. The glass was cloudy, as often happens when the window was getting old. It had been a while since Brian had been king of the hill in Aspen Meadow Country Club, and the people he’d sold land to hadn’t yet had the chance to build. The massive rough-hewn door, another hallmark of older club homes, swung open to reveal Brian Harrington.

“Sorry, Mr. Harrington,” I said, flustered and apologetic in my clumsy attempt to pull back from the window. “I’m the cate—”

He stopped me with a wave of the hand and closed eyes. Silver chest hairs curled out of the V in his turquoise sport shirt. His shorts, a paler hue of turquoise, revealed muscular legs also covered with curly gray hair. Like everyone else in town, I had seen Brian’s elegant self strolling down Main Street in the company of bankers or a Cadillac-load of oil people from Dallas. But I had never seen that chiseled face up close. I took a deep breath. He was gorgeous, the human equivalent of a male silver-backed gorilla. If I were Weezie Harrington I’d get out the aphrodisiacs, too.

My voice wobbled. “I’m the cate—”

“Listen,” he interrupted, “there’s a bit of a problem out back.” He lifted the raised hand and ran it through his wiry hair, then shook his head.

“Problem,” I echoed. With some effort I picked up a box. “Mr. Harrington,” I said with as much authority as I could muster, “I need to get started in your kitchen if you expect to have a party tonight.”

“Oh, yes, sure,” he said absentmindedly as he opened the door all the way and I heaved the first of my boxes over the threshold. “Just follow me.” He turned away and started down a hallway. Bastard. He could have at least offered to take a box. Good looks, yes. Chivalry, no.

The kitchen was one of those L-shaped affairs that made figuring out where to put and prepare things difficult. Again big Bri was no help. He promptly disappeared around the kitchen’s corner. Five minutes later, looking for a platter for the cake, I found him lurking by the back door that led to the patio.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “Those women are still arguing.” He regarded me, his face pulled into puzzlement. Perhaps this was because his wife was one of those women. He shook his head and turned back to catch the sound of the again-raised voices. He closed the door abruptly and started toward me.

“I wouldn’t mind two gals fighting over my body,” he said with a wink, “but not if I were dead.”

“Do you know where there’s a cake plate, Mr. Harrington?”

“No. But you better look busy. They’re coming.”

With this he started to open cupboard doors and clatter through them as if he were genuinely seeking a plate or a glass or something, which he was not. I was standing holding the cake and feeling stupid when Weezie and Elizabeth came banging into the kitchen.

Elizabeth’s voice was loud and still hostile. She said, “You’re the one who’s vulgar.”

Then the two of them stopped, startled to see Brian and me gaping at them. Brian was clutching an upside-down casserole dish and I was balancing the cake. Weezie cocked her slender, evenly tanned face toward Brian. Her silver-blond mane, long, glazed scarlet nails, and crinkled tan pantsuit gave her the aspect of a cougar about to strike.

“What the hell is this?” she demanded.

“Honey, don’t—”

“Mrs. Harrington—”

“Don’t call me,” Elizabeth interrupted Brian’s and my protestations in her same furious tone. She cocked her head of wild blond frizz at Weezie. She had that drawn look vegetarians get when they aren’t getting enough of something. I wanted to reach out to her, to say something to her about Philip, but her rage with Weezie immobilized me. “Don’t call,” she said to Weezie, her finger stabbing the air, “don’t write, don’t get your friends to bug me. Leave me and the memory of my brother alone, do you understand?”

“Why won’t you listen to me?” shrieked Weezie, but Elizabeth had whirled and stomped off. While the three of us stood there, Elizabeth’s Aspen Meadow Health Food truck whizzed down Sam Snead Lane.

“Honey,” said Brian Harrington, “how about a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Weezie said crisply. “I have a little surprise for Goldy,” she said. One of the glazed nails was pointing at me. “Let me know when you’ve finished setting up,” she ordered before breezing out. She did not look at her husband or me. When she was marching noisily up the hall stairs, Brian eyed me ruefully.

“Do you want a drink?”

“No, thanks,” I said. I felt sorry for him. But I knew if I had one teensy-weensy drink, with what my ex-husband had told me earlier about Weezie and Philip, and the impending problems with the two Pettigrews, I’d be tempted to drown my grief in an entire fifth. “Maybe later,” I added with more sympathy than I intended. “After the party.”

“Oh?” He gave me a look. With a half-smile and raised eyebrows, he asked, “Are you staying after the party?”

How had I gotten into this? I had heard about Brian Harrington. I had seen him leaning toward my aerobics instructor and asking questions: “Where exactly are the obliques? Trace the muscle out for me when I twist over in this sit-up. Oh,” he’d say, “I’m not sure I’m tensing the hamstring muscle when I’m pulling it out in this ski exercise. Put your hand on it.”