"So much for Saint Andrews. This is a pretty dark side. Maybe it explains why he wasn't universally liked. I mean, an expose? Blackmailing a powerful parent?"
Schulz's hand grasped the trunk lid, making it creak. "Well, Marensky thought the blackmail was a joke, since he'd gone to Columbia so many years ago, and didn't have any influence there. He says. Claims he never got his two hundred dollars back. I asked the headmaster about Marensky, and he said he was like a, a, now, let's see, what did he say..."
I punched Schulz lightly on the shoulder. "Don't." Looking down at the jumble of papers in the trunk, I shivered. "I can't look at this stuff anymore. Let's go have some of your shrimp enchiladas."
"You peeked."
"Hey! This is a caterer you're talking to! Every meal someone else slaves over is a spy mission."
"Just tell me if you know whether Julian and Keith had any real animosity. Before I question Julian again myself. You think he'd break some body's windshield?"
"He's got some hostility, but I doubt he'd do that."
"Do you know whether any of the teaching staff were Romeos?"
I felt my voice rising. "No! I don't! Gosh, what is the matter with that school? I wish I could find out what's going on."
"Well, you're doing those dinners for them. You hear stuff. I want to know about anything that sounds strange, out of place."
"Look, this murder happened at a dinner I was catering! It's my window that was broken and my son's locker that was vandalized! For crying out loud, Tom, the Andrews boy even looked like Arch. You think I want my kid in a school with a murderer on the loose? I have a stake in finding out what's going on out there. Believe me, I'll keep you informed."
He tilted his head and regarded me beneath the tent- like brows. "Just don't go off half cocked, Miss G."
"Oh, jeez, give me a break, will you? What do you think I am, some kind of petty criminal?"
Schulz took large steps ahead of me back to the house. "Who, you? The light of my life? The fearless breaker-and-enterer? You? Never!"
"You are so awful." I traipsed after him, unsure how I felt to be called the light of anyone's life.
Schulz settled me at his cherrywood dining room table, and then began to ferry out dishes. He had outdone himself. Plump, succulent shrimp nestled inside blue corn tortillas smothered with a green chile and cream cheese sauce. Next to these he served bacon-sprinkled refried black beans, a perfectly puffed Mexican corn pudding, and my fragrant Irish bread. A basket of raw vegetables and pot of picante made with fresh papaya graced the table between the candles. I savored it all. When was the last time I'd enjoyed an entire dinner that I had not exhausted myself preparing? I couldn't remember.
"Save room for chocolate," Schulz warned when the room had grown dark except for the candlelight flickering across his face.
"Not to worry." Twenty minutes later, I was curled up on his couch. Schulz lit the enormous pile of logs. Soon the snap and roar of burning wood filled the air. Schulz retreated to the kitchen and returned with cups of espresso and a miniature chocolate cake.
I groaned. "It's a good thing I'm not prone to jealousy. I'd say you were a better cook than I am."
"Not much chance of that." He had turned on his outside light and was peering into the night. "Darn. It's stopped snowing."
So we had had the same thought. Once again I veered away from this emotional territory, the way you leap onto a makeshift sidewalk when the sign says HARD HATS ONLY!
Schulz wordlessly cut the cake and handed me a generous slice of what was actually two thin layers of fudge cake separated by a fat wedge of raspberry sherbet. Unlike my ex-husband, who had always had a vague notion that I liked licorice (I detest it), Schulz invariably served chocolate - my weakness.
Of course, the cake was exquisite. When it was reduced to crumbs, I licked my fingers, sighed, and asked, "Does Keith Andrews' family have money?"
He shrugged and leaned over to turn off the light. "Yes and no." He picked up my hand and ran his fingers over it lightly. The same gesture he had used with the credit card, I remembered. "Thought any more about my name-change offer?"
"Yes and no."
He let out an exasperated chuckle. "Wrong answer." The firelight flickered over his sturdy body, over his hopeful, inviting face, and into eyes dark with a caring I wasn't quite willing to face.
"Goldy," he said. He smiled. "I care. Believe it?"
"Yeah. Sure. But... aren't you... don't you... think about all that's happened? You know, your nurse?"
"Excuse me, Miss G., but it's you who lives in the past." He took both of my hands in his, lifted them, and kissed them.
"I do not live in the past." My protest sounded weak. "And I have the psychotherapy bills to prove it."
He leaned in to kiss me. He caught about half of my mouth, which made us both laugh. The only sounds in the room were fire crackle and slow breaths. For a change, I was at a loss for words.
Without unlocking his eyes from mine, Schulz slipped one hand to the small of my back and inscribed gentle circles there. How I wanted to be loved again.
I said, "Oh, I don't know..."
"You do care about me, don't you?"
"Yes."
And I did, too. I loved having this beautiful meal, this hissing fire, this lovely man whose touch now made me shiver after all the years of self-righteous celibacy. The wax from the lit red candles on the dining table melted, dripped, and spiraled. I took Schulz's hands. They were rough, big hands, hands that every day, in ways I could only imagine, probed questions about life and death and feeling morally grounded in your actions. I smiled, lifted my hands to his face, and corrected the angle of his head so that when I brought his lips to mine, this time they would fit exactly.
We made love on his couch, our clothes mostly on, in a great shuddering hurry. Then, tenderly, he put his hands around my waist and said we should go upstairs. On the staircase, with my loosened clothes more or less falling around me, one of his hands caught me by the hip and pressed me into the wall. And this time he did not miss when his warm mouth found mine.
His log-paneled bedroom with its high-pitched ceiling had the inviting scent of aftershave and pinewood. Schulz handed me a thick, soft terry-cloth robe. He lit a kerosene lamp next to his hewn four-poster. The flame lit us and the bed, leaving the far reaches of the room deep in shadow. Beneath my bare feet the wood floor felt creamy-cold. i slipped between cool cotton sheets, keeping the robe on.
He bent toward me. "You all right?"
"I am very all right."
Schulz's body depressed the mattress next to me when he slid between the sheets and I involuntarily slid toward him. The sensation was odd after five years of sleeping alone. He pulled the down comforter around my shoulders and whispered, "I love you now and forever and ever."
I couldn't help it. Tears slid out of my eyes. My breath raked across the back of my throat. He hugged me tightly and I mumbled into his warm shoulder, "Thank you. Thank you," as his fingers tenderly worked their way under the robe.
This time the caresses were slow and lingering, so that the great heaving release took us by surprise. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I saw Schulz, somewhere in my mind's eye, take my ripped carcass of a heart and gently, gently begin sewing.
I woke up with a start sometime in the middle of the night. I thought: I have to get home, God, this is incredible. Schulz and I had rolled apart. I turned to look at his face and the shape of his body in the moonlight streaming through the uncurtained window. His cheeks were slack, like a child's; his mouth was slightly open. I kissed his eyelids. They were like the velvety skin of new peaches. His eyes opened. He propped himself up on an elbow. "You okay? Need to go? Need some help?"
"Yes, I need to go, but no thanks, I don't need help." And I was fine. For a change.
I dressed quickly, gave Schulz a long, wordless hug, and hightailed it toward home in the Rover. It was just past midnight. The snow had stopped and the clouds had parted. The moon shone high and bright in the sky, a pure white crescent. The clean, cold air gushing through the car windows was incomparably sweet. I felt wonderful, light-headed, lighthearted, giddy. I steered the Rover with one hand and laughed. An enormous weight had lifted from me; I was floating.
Unfortunately, my hope of sneaking quietly to bed was not to be realized. When I pulled up curbside, it was my house, and mine alone on the snow-covered street, that shone like a beacon. Lights blazed from every window.
"Where have you been?" Julian accused when I came through the security system.
The house reeked of cigarette smoke. Julian had beer on his breath. He looked horrid. His face was gray, his eyes bloodshot. His unwashed mohawk haircut stood up in tiny tepees.
"Don't tell me you had more trouble with someone throwing - " I began, stunned out of my idyll. When he shook his head, I said, "Never mind where I've been. What is going on here? You don't smoke. You're a swimmer, for God's sake! And what's with the beer breath, Mr. Underage?"
"I have been so worried!" Julian hollered as he slammed into the kitchen ahead of me.
So much for my great mood. What in heaven's name was going on? How had Julian gotten himself into such a state? I came home late all the time, although now I recalled belatedly that Julian and Arch usually checked the calendar to see where my catering assignment was on any given evening. Maybe Julian just wasn't used to not knowing where I was. On the other hand, maybe he was worried about something else. Stay calm, I resolved.
.I followed him into the kitchen. "Where is Arch?" I said in a low voice.
"In bed," Julian tossed over his shoulder, and opened my walk-in refrigerator. Next to the sink were three glass beer bottles, empty, ready to be recycled. Three beers! I could be put in jail for allowing him to drink in my home.
Chinese stars were scattered over the financial aid books stacked on the gingham tablecloth. Chinese stars are sharp-edged metal stars about the size of an adult's palm, which is where you can hide them, I had once been told. I had learned about the weapons unexpectedly, when a boy at Arch's elementary school had been caught with them. The principal had sent the students home with a mimeographed note about the weapons. Used in Tae Kwon Do, Chinese stars were banned at the school because when thrown, the letter explained, they could inflict great damage. The fellow who had brought them to Furman Elementary School had been summarily suspended. Looking straight at Julian, I scooped them all up and placed them in a pile on the counter.
"What is going on?"
Julian emerged from the refrigerator. He held a platter of cookies. In times of stress, eat sweets.
He said, "I'm going to kill the kid who threatened Arch." So saying, he popped two cookies into his mouth and chewed voraciously.
"Really. If you have cookies on top of beer, you'll throw up."
He slammed the platter down. "Don't you even care? Do you realize he's not safe at that school?"
"Well, excuse me, Mr. Mom. Yes, I realize it. Mr. Perkins seems to think it's a joke, however. A seventh-grade joke." I took a cookie. "Arch called Schulz, though, and told him all about the snake."
Julian slapped his compact body down on a chair; he ran a hand through the sparse crop of hair. "Do you think we could hire a bodyguard for Arch? How much would that cost?"
I swallowed. "Julian. You are very protective and sweet. However. You are overreacting. A bodyguard is not the answer to Arch's problems."
"You don't know these people! They're vicious! They steal and cheat! Look at what they did to Keith!"
"What people?"
He squeezed his eyes shut. "You just don't get it. You're just... indifferent. The Elk Park Prep people, that's what people. Perkins is always talking about trust and responsibility. Two coats, a cassette, and forty dollars were stolen out of my locker last year. Trust? It's a crock."
"Okay. Look. Julian, please. I'm not indifferent; I agree with you that there's a problem. I just don't know what to do. But I can tell you a bodyguard is out of the question."
His eyes opened; he scowled. "I went to the newspaper because I know there's a snake lady in Aspen Meadow. You know, she comes into the schools and does demonstrations with live snakes. Maybe we can find out who got the rattler by contacting her, I know she sells them - "
"Julian! For heaven's sake!" "Don't you understand what's at stake here? He's not safe! None of us is safe!"
With a third cookie halfway to my mouth, I gaped at him. "Couldn't you please cool off? The way to react to this is not to smoke, drink, pullout your weapons, and put the screws on the snake lady, okay?" I put the cookie back on the platter and took a deep breath. "Won't you please go up and get some sleep? You're going to need your energy, with that midterm tomorrow and the college boards right around the corner. I need to go to bed too," I added as an afterthought.
