Diane Davidson - The Cereal Murders

He seemed satisfied. Julian decided his homework and the SAT review could wait. He helped Arch load the plywood wardrobe into the van while I packed up the stir-fry ingredients. On the way to Denver, I decided to broach the topic of Arch’s weekend. Despite his basically nonathletic nature, he had learned to ski at an early age and enjoyed the sport quite a bit. For Halloween, I asked, did he want to ski early with his father, go out for trick-of-treat, what?

“I don’t have any friends from Elk Park Prep to go trick-or-treating with,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Besides, if Dad wants to ski-wait! I could go around in his condo building!”

“And dress up as … ?” Julian asked.

“Galileo, what else?”

I grinned as we pulled into the bookstore’s parking garage. Audrey was waiting for us in her silver van by the third-floor store entrance. She hopped out and swiped her security card through the machine next to the door. Arch, a security nut, had her repeat the process, which he studied with furrowed brow as Julian and I unloaded my van. While helping us haul in the electric wok and bags of ingredients, Audrey said the store was empty for the two-and-a-half-hour break between closing and reopening for the seminar. The other seven staff members present were doing some last-minute preparation… dinner was planned for six-forty, and she’d already started cooking some rice she’d found in a cupboard… was that okay?

“Is now a good time to ask her about the wardrobe?” Arch whispered to me in the elevator to the fourth floor.

We had fifteen minutes before cooking had to begin. I nodded; Arch made his request.

“A wardrobe with a false back!” Audrey cried. “You’re so creative! Just like Heather… why, I remember when she was nine, she loved C. S. Lewis too. How old are you?” Arch reddened and said he was twelve. Audrey shrugged and plowed ahead. “When Heather was nine, she wanted a planetary voyager for Christmas, and, of course, she is so gifted in science, why, one summer she built a time-travel machine with little electric gizmos right in our backyard … “

Arch rolled his eyes at me; Julian cleared his throat and looked away. I think Audrey caught the look, because she stopped abruptly and gnawed her lip. “Well, Arch, I’m sorry, but we probably can’t,” she said plaintively. “I mean, I can’t authorize you putting up a false-back display, somebody might get hurt… .”

Arch looked disappointed, but then piped up, “Can I see the secret closet, then? I know you have one, a kid at school told me.”

“Uh, I suppose,” Audrey said, hesitating, “but it isn’t exactly The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Are you sure?”

Arch replied with an enthusiastic affirmative. Arch, Julian, Audrey, and I unloaded the supplies and rode down to the first floor. In Business Books, Audrey carefully pulled out an entire floor-to-ceiling shelf. In back was a small closet. Arch insisted on being closed into it.

His muffled voice said, “Yeah, it’s cool all right! Now let me out.”

This we did. Satisfied, he returned to the fourth floor with us and minutes later was stringing snow peas to go in the stir-fry under Julian’s direction.

As I heated oil in the electric wok, Arch said, “Did you do stuff like that during the summer when you were nine, Mom? Make a time-travel machine?”

Julian snorted. I replied, “The only thing I did during the summer when I was nine was swim in the ocean and eat something called fireballs.”

Arch pushed his glasses up on his nose and nodded, considering. Finally he said, “Okay. I guess I’m not too dumb.”

I gave him an exasperated look, which he returned. The oil was beginning to pop, so I eased in the marinated beef. The luscious smell of garlic-sauteed beef wafted up from the wok.

“Thank you, thank you,” gushed Audrey. “I don’t know what I would have done without you, I’ve just been so stressed lately – “

“No problem.” I tossed the sizzling beef against the sides of the wok until the red faded to pink. When the beef slices were just tender, I eased them onto a platter and heated more oil for the broccoli, carrots, baby corn, and snow peas, an inviting palette of emerald, orange, and pale yellow. When the vegetables were hot and crisp, I poured on the oyster-sauce mixture, then added the beef and a sprinkling of chopped scallions. I served the whole hot steaming mass with the rice to Arch, Audrey, and her staff, who exclaimed over the fresh veggies’ crunchiness, the tenderness and rich garlic flavor of the steak.

“I love to feed people,” I replied with a smile, and then wielded chopsticks into the goodies myself.

On the way home, Julian ate a cheese sandwich he’d brought, pronounced himself exhausted, and lay down in the back seat. He was snoring within seconds. Arch rambled in a conspiratorial tone about the upcoming weekend, skiing, the amount of loot he’d collect trick-or-treating at his father’s condo, being able to see more constellations in Keystone because it was farther from the lights of Denver. He wanted to know, if I hadn’t read C. S. Lewis when I was his age, had I at least liked to look at stars? Did I wait until it was dark to see Polaris, and could you see a lot of stars, living near the Jersey shore? Like in the summertime, maybe? I told him the only thing I looked forward to on summer evenings when I was his age was getting a popsicle from the Good Humor man.

“Oh, Mom! Fireballs and popsicles! All you ever think about is food!”

I took this as a compliment, and laughed. I wanted to ask him how school was going, how he thought Julian was doing, how life was going in general, but. experience had taught me he would interpret it as prying. Besides, he spared me the trouble as we chugged up the last portion of Interstate 70 that led to our exit.

“Speaking of food, I’m glad we had meat tonight,” my son whispered. “Sometimes I think eating that brown rice and tofu stuff is what makes Julian so unhappy.”

Chinese Beef Stir-Fry with Veqetables

1 pound good-quality (such as Omaha Steaks) sirloin tips, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch

˝ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons and ˝ teaspoon vegetable oil

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, pressed

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

2 large stalks of broccoli, stems removed and cut into florets

2 carrots, peeled and sliced on a diagonal

˝ cup beef broth

8 spears (˝ 15-ounce can) water-packed baby corn, drained

20 fresh snow peas

1 scallion, both white and green parts, chopped Marinate the sirloin at room temperature in a mixture of the sherry, soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of the cornstarch, the sugar, ˝ teaspoon of the oil, the pepper, and garlic for an hour. Heat 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil in a wok over high heat. Stir-fry beef quickly, until the meat is brown outside and pink inside. Remove.

Mix the remaining 2 teaspoons cornstarch with the oyster sauce. Reheat the wok with the remaining tablespoon oil. Add the broccoli and carrots; stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the broth, cover the wok, and steam for approximately 1 minute or until the vegetables are tender but retain their crunch. Add the corn, snow peas, scallion, beef, and oyster sauce-cornstarch mixture. Heat quickly, until the sauce is clear and thickened. Serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Monday morning brought slate-gray clouds creeping up from the southernmost part of the eastern horizon. Below the cloud layer, a slice of sunrise sparkled pink as fiberglass. I stretched through my yoga routine, then turned on the radio in time to hear that the blanket of clouds threatened the Front Range with – dreaded words – a chance of snow. The reason Coloradans do not use the eastern word autumn is that October offers either late summer or early winter, with precious little in between.