Read Online Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson - Free Book Online
Authors: Diane Mott Davidson
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Marla said.
“You don’t have to,” was Adele’s halfhearted protest.
I looked from one to the other of them. This was the first time I had seen the two sisters together since Marla had introduced us a week ago, when I arrived. I had sensed some slight discomfort then, but I had put it down to the move. Where Marla was always full of news and information, a walking radio station in designer sweat suits, Adele was reserved, elegantly groomed, erect in a wardrobe that featured only natural materials: silk, cotton, linen, cashmere. It was more than the ten-year difference in their ages. My emotional antennae picked up on unresolved pain. I would have to ask Marla about it. But not now.
“Bye, everybody,” said Marla with a nod to us both. She whipped out the front door so quickly that I had only a moment to remember to press the button for the driveway gate. Her Jaguar revved, then growled down Sam Snead Lane.
“Let’s go outside,” Adele said. She turned and hobbled efficiently ahead of me to what the general called “the veranda.” “Poor Bo, I don’t know what he was thinking with that garden. I don’t want to know what the neighbors must think . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I whisked back to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water and two glasses, then rummaged through the kitchen desk to get Adele’s antiinflammatory and muscle-relaxant medicine. If I did not bring it with me, she would be asking for it once we sat down. I found them behind a tin of Julian’s fudge, which I put along with the pills, water, and glasses on a Florentine painted wood tray. Like the knickknacks and art objects in the living room, the tray was one of the many souvenirs of the Farquhars’ travels before Adele’s back problems had slowed them down.
On the covered porch it was quite chilly. Storm clouds still threatened to obscure the late afternoon sun. Adele gave me a wan smile and looked off toward the tops of the nearby mountains, where snow glimmered between the deep greens as incongruously as ice in a jungle. Next to the deck, birds—robins, jays, chickadees—were all busy, loud and angry at the weather for disturbing their nest-making. A jewel-winged hummingbird soared past, then swooped back to hover at the long-necked feeder.
“Water?” I asked. Adele nodded gratefully and reached for her pills.
I set the tray on the wicker coffee table, then let myself down into one of the wicker chairs. Again fatigue like a chill crept up from the floor. I sipped water, tried to shake the feeling off.
“Adele,” I said, “I need to talk to you about your car. The T-bird. I’m sorry—I was trying to save Philip.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. Her cane circumscribed a circle on the tile.
The phone rang. This time Adele motioned me to sit as she painfully rose to answer it. I could hear a one-sided conversation with the choirmaster from Utah. Some people never quit.
I pulled a periwinkle-and-white afghan from its matching overstuffed cushion held snug in a white wicker divan. Adele had decorated the house the way she dressed herself, with elegance and money. The style was traditional, without a rustic wood piece or southwestern accent in sight.
I tucked the afghan around my legs and gazed off into the distance. Fingers of fog snaked down the nearby canyons. In the meadow below, puffs of vapor glided by, ghostlike. Clumps of wild iris stood like clusters of pale-purple flags between hummocks of new green grass. Everything else was a tumult of greens: new green of wet spring grass, black-green of ponderosa pines, pale blue-green of spruce, bright green of new aspen trees. Another hummingbird dropped a twittering ribbon of sound as it shot by us. Adele tap-stepped back out to the porch.
“I put the machine on,” she said apologetically. Then she held up a finger as we again heard the phone. After three rings the machine picked up. “Peace,” she said as she sat down again. Her eyes found mine.
“I was
“You don’t have to,” was Adele’s halfhearted protest.
I looked from one to the other of them. This was the first time I had seen the two sisters together since Marla had introduced us a week ago, when I arrived. I had sensed some slight discomfort then, but I had put it down to the move. Where Marla was always full of news and information, a walking radio station in designer sweat suits, Adele was reserved, elegantly groomed, erect in a wardrobe that featured only natural materials: silk, cotton, linen, cashmere. It was more than the ten-year difference in their ages. My emotional antennae picked up on unresolved pain. I would have to ask Marla about it. But not now.
“Bye, everybody,” said Marla with a nod to us both. She whipped out the front door so quickly that I had only a moment to remember to press the button for the driveway gate. Her Jaguar revved, then growled down Sam Snead Lane.
“Let’s go outside,” Adele said. She turned and hobbled efficiently ahead of me to what the general called “the veranda.” “Poor Bo, I don’t know what he was thinking with that garden. I don’t want to know what the neighbors must think . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I whisked back to the kitchen to get a pitcher of water and two glasses, then rummaged through the kitchen desk to get Adele’s antiinflammatory and muscle-relaxant medicine. If I did not bring it with me, she would be asking for it once we sat down. I found them behind a tin of Julian’s fudge, which I put along with the pills, water, and glasses on a Florentine painted wood tray. Like the knickknacks and art objects in the living room, the tray was one of the many souvenirs of the Farquhars’ travels before Adele’s back problems had slowed them down.
On the covered porch it was quite chilly. Storm clouds still threatened to obscure the late afternoon sun. Adele gave me a wan smile and looked off toward the tops of the nearby mountains, where snow glimmered between the deep greens as incongruously as ice in a jungle. Next to the deck, birds—robins, jays, chickadees—were all busy, loud and angry at the weather for disturbing their nest-making. A jewel-winged hummingbird soared past, then swooped back to hover at the long-necked feeder.
“Water?” I asked. Adele nodded gratefully and reached for her pills.
I set the tray on the wicker coffee table, then let myself down into one of the wicker chairs. Again fatigue like a chill crept up from the floor. I sipped water, tried to shake the feeling off.
“Adele,” I said, “I need to talk to you about your car. The T-bird. I’m sorry—I was trying to save Philip.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. Her cane circumscribed a circle on the tile.
The phone rang. This time Adele motioned me to sit as she painfully rose to answer it. I could hear a one-sided conversation with the choirmaster from Utah. Some people never quit.
I pulled a periwinkle-and-white afghan from its matching overstuffed cushion held snug in a white wicker divan. Adele had decorated the house the way she dressed herself, with elegance and money. The style was traditional, without a rustic wood piece or southwestern accent in sight.
I tucked the afghan around my legs and gazed off into the distance. Fingers of fog snaked down the nearby canyons. In the meadow below, puffs of vapor glided by, ghostlike. Clumps of wild iris stood like clusters of pale-purple flags between hummocks of new green grass. Everything else was a tumult of greens: new green of wet spring grass, black-green of ponderosa pines, pale blue-green of spruce, bright green of new aspen trees. Another hummingbird dropped a twittering ribbon of sound as it shot by us. Adele tap-stepped back out to the porch.
“I put the machine on,” she said apologetically. Then she held up a finger as we again heard the phone. After three rings the machine picked up. “Peace,” she said as she sat down again. Her eyes found mine.
“I was
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