Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson Page B

over the receiver. “Adele offered to bring him home when the general comes by later. But she’s not authorized to take him, so Arch is still there, and Adele is coming home early with somebody else. Want me to go?”
    I shook my head and got on the phone with the minor bureaucrat, said General Farquhar would be by later and he had my authorization to pick up Arch.
    Marla asked if I wanted more coffee or what. I shook my head as she took out lace place mats and English china for the evening meal, then searched out the general. I wanted Arch to be home. I wanted this day to be over. When Marla returned, she moved between the kitchen and dining room to set the table. I furiously began to wash the teacups. Work was always the best antidote for frustration.
    Also the best antidote for . . .
    With a pang I saw Philip’s face crinkled with laughter the last time we’d gone out. I’d told him Arch had bought a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook and refused to yield it to me when I’d demanded it. Philip had found this amusing.
    “Censorship,” he accused. “Even if it is a cookbook.”
    “For bombs,” I said. “I’m not sure the general’s influence is good for him.”
    “You know as well as I do,” he said, “that the more upset you get about it, the more he’s going to want it. Just talk to him. Don’t lose your cool. He’s been in therapy; he can always go back. And you’ve got me.”
    A teacup slid through my hands and broke to smithereens in the sink. Marla rushed over and ordered me to sit down. She said the general had gone in his Range Rover to check on the T-bird and get Arch. Just relax, she kept telling me, everything is going to be okay.
    I looked out the west-facing kitchen window. Gray clouds had again billowed up over the mountains. On the hills below, lodgepole and ponderosa pines absorbed the sudden darkness. Stands of white-skinned aspens stood out like skeletons. The aspens’ tiny cupped green leaves held the light and turned a fluorescent lime color as the gloom gathered.
    “Goldy!” Adele Farquhar’s voice rang down the hall. “Marla? Who’s here?” The wooden hall floor echoed her familiar tap-step, tap-step. “Where are you?” Adele appeared at the kitchen doorway. Her thin, made-up face was pinched into lines of dismay. Her strawlike hair, dyed dark to hide the gray and cut into a severe pageboy, set off her navy-blue silk dress. Her hand gripped her cane so tightly her knuckles were white. She swept forward to embrace me; her voice cracked. “Thank God you’re alive.”
    “It was awful,” I said, my voice muffled by her shoulder. Adele smelled like floral powder mixed delicately with sweat. Her hair brushed my cheek; her pearls pressed into my neck. I could feel the bones of her thin shoulders under the layer of silk. After a moment I pulled away.
    She said, “At the school they told us what happened.” She shook her head in disbelief, her hazel eyes filled with questions. “He was a nice man. And a good psychologist. It’s unbelievable. Philip was helping Julian so much . . . I don’t know. God! This weather’s so unpredictable.”
    I looked at her, a taller, thinner, older version of Marla. She was glancing around the kitchen in a distracted way, as if something contained in the polished, professional space could provide the cure for cold spring weather.
    Her eyes found her sister. “Marla!”
    “It is I,” said Marla as she trundled forward and gave Adele a peck on the cheek. Sequins flashed against navy-blue silk. “I won’t be staying long,” she added apologetically. “I was just trying to help Goldy.”
    “No, that’s fine, really. Stay. Where’s Bo now?”
    Marla’s and my voices tumbled over each other as we told of the explosion and the general going for Arch.
    “For heaven’s sake,” Adele said, shaking her perfect hair. She pulled herself up stiffly. “Let’s go out to the porch. You’ve had too much of a shock.”
    “I’ll be going,”