Julia's Chocolates Read online

  One time during my visit, he brought her a little box with something silky inside. Aunt Lydia shoved it back in the box real quick, tied the ribbon up tight, and threw it at his head. I’ve never seen Stash laugh so hard. He left the box on the dining room table.

  Stash owns hundreds of acres of farmland, all of it surrounding Lydia’s five acres. He has a company called Oregon’s Natural Products, and he sells his goods all over the nation. He has farmhands and “business hands,” as he likes to call them, who help him run “The Biz.”

  I remembered that Aunt Lydia pretended to get angry every time he came over. “Would you quit staring at me, Stash?” she’d snap, and he would laugh. “Can’t look away from a beacon of light,” he’d always say. Then he would settle back in a chair and watch my Aunt Lydia as she puttered around the kitchen or talked to her plants.

  Whenever Stash could, he’d run his fingers through her thick, graying hair or hug her slender body to his. Now and then she’d allow it, but most of the time she slapped his hands away and told him to behave because there was a child in the house. The last time this happened, I was thirty-two.

  He always kissed her right on the lips before he left and then told her what he was going to do. “I’m gonna plow your back acres tomorrow, Lydia Jean,” or, “I’m sending the guys out to harvest your corn on Thursday,” or, “If you make some more of that jam, I’ll sell it for you at the Saturday market.”

  “Stay off of my land,” Aunt Lydia always yelled as the screen door slammed behind him. I could tell she didn’t mean it, because she had to try hard to hide her smile. Stash always left with one of Lydia’s jars of jelly or fresh-baked bread.

  I don’t really know why Aunt Lydia has named a pig after Stash except that she really does take her poker seriously and is not a good sport about losing.

  But the pigs do gather a lot of attention from anyone driving by her farm. “No sense having a boring front yard,” Aunt Lydia has told me on several occasions during our talks. “Life is too short for boredom, and pigs are never boring.”

  Aunt Lydia also has a real, live pig she calls Melissa Lynn and a multitude of parakeets and lovebirds she lets out of their cages twice a day so they can stretch their wings in the house. Remarkably, they will usually agree to go back into the cages.

  She cleans her gun every day after target shooting, loves to do crafts of any type, and grows a little pot in her basement. “For my colitis,” she tells me, although she hasn’t been to a doctor in decades.

  Aunt Lydia, I reflected, was the one stable person in my life, and within about three days, driving almost straight through, I would arrive at her home. I wiped the tears from my face, tears I had no idea had sprung from my eyes, and floored the accelerator, even as fear gnawed at the insides of my stomach like giant claws.

  No need to worry about the size of my butt anymore. Robert was gone, and I had no use for men. None. I wiped my eyes again. Stupid men. Stupid and mean and beastly and selfish. With all the men running the world it is a damn miracle we have not blown ourselves to smithereens. Yet.

  The wind whipped around my head, and on impulse, I ripped the rubber band out of my brownish-blondish curls and let them whip around my face for the first time in two years. Robert had had no use for “wild-looking women.”

  Sweating, dirty, and exhausted, I knew the only cure: chocolate. I drove with my knees and peered through the red bag on the passenger seat, grabbing a Baggie full of chocolate squares I had made myself. The first bit of chocolate hit my tongue like a slice of heaven. The second had my tears drying up. The third had me laughing, in a pathetic sort of way, about my hapless wedding dress.

  I dropped two chocolates into my mouth. I had failed in almost every aspect of my life, I thought in a burst of disgusting self-pity, but the one thing I was good at was melting in my mouth right at that moment. I knew chocolate. And, Lord, no one anywhere made chocolate as good as I did.

  Golden reminded me a bit of the tree where my wedding dress was probably still flapping. It had at one time been a thriving little town, but the logging boom was over, the endangered species had won, and many of the residents had moved on. There was one rather long Main Street, lined by the requisite trees; spring flowers hung from the lampposts. The flowers were the only things that looked alive.

  Several of the shops were simply gaping black holes of businesses that had come and gone. But there was a corner drugstore with a broken sign that read S MS DRU STORE.

  There was also a movie theater, a cozy-looking coffee shop with red tablecloths, a grocery, an auto repair shop, a hardware store, and several other stores one would expect to see. There were people out on the streets—coming home, I thought, from one of the town’s two restaurants or a board meeting at school.

  I suddenly felt my heart lighten a bit. I didn’t feel like I was going to vomit in fear, the way I did when I was packing up my suitcases in Boston over a week ago, leaving my tight white heels behind.

  “For God’s sake, Possum, your feet are huge!” I could still hear the sneer in Robert’s voice a month ago. “Shit, bitch, don’t look at me like that! I’m just stating a fact. You always take things so personally.”

  He had picked up my foot and then shoved it off his lap as if he couldn’t bear to have it touching him for a moment longer.

  And still, I tried to appease him, briefly wondering if I could get my feet surgically shortened. But Robert had wanted me. Me—with my frizzy curls and large butt and a family history that could make your blood curdle in your veins and a past I couldn’t share for fear of the revulsion I’d see on people’s faces. I wanted out of my past before it became my present, and Robert offered me a new type of life, light years from apartments with rats the size of possums and cockroaches that knew no fear.

  He had been so charming, so possessive at first, wanting to spend all his time with me, sweeping me off my very big feet. He wanted to know where I was all the time, who I had talked to at the art museum, had any men talked to me? Who?

  He had discouraged me from going out with any friends. Not that I had a lot. Okay, I had only two women friends, but he soon thought I shouldn’t see them anymore and I had caved in and agreed.

  At first I was almost sickeningly dizzy with delight. Robert wanted me all to himself! He loved me! That was why he didn’t want other people in my life.

  But then I had started to irritate him, and I felt his scorn like a sledgehammer. He would upset me, I would cry, he would pin me down on the bed and badger me until I sobbed, but then he would so sweetly apologize, blaming his bad behavior on a fight with his high-profile father or the checker at the supermarket.

  Later Robert sometimes lost his cool and sometimes cracked me in the face with his palm or shoved me against the wall, or leaned me over a chair and stripped off my pants even though I protested. Well…later he would beg me to come back to him, to forgive him, and I did.

  And soon I had my ring. I had slept with him, and come hell or high water, I was going to get married. I was going to leave my wasted mother and jailbird father behind. I was going to be proper and respected in a proper and respected family.

  Even though Robert’s violent behavior escalated and scared the living shit out of me more and more as time went on.

  I shook my head, blowing thoughts out of my mind, and rolled down my window, the mountain air cool. I inhaled the familiar scent of pine trees as I paused at the town’s one and only stoplight. I thought I could hear the river rushing by, although I knew that was unlikely because it was too far out of town.

  After running my fingers through my hair, I switched on the overhead light and stared in the rearview mirror. Yep. Looking lovely again. My eyes were swollen, my face a lovely shade of death, my lips puffy and chapped.

  Gorgeous. No wonder the men were breaking down my door. I ate more chocolate.

  I turned right, went past a few other small businesses, and then through a tiny neighborhood where big wheels and bikes were scattered in the f
ront lawns. Taking a turn into the country, I drove about two miles straight out, then took a left at the mailbox with a giant wooden pig attached to the top with his tongue hanging out.

  Like I said earlier, you can’t miss Aunt Lydia’s house, and when I turned into the gravel drive and saw the giant pigs, the toilets, and the rainbow bridge, all freshly painted, just like I remembered from years ago, I parked the car, bent my head against the steering wheel, and cried.

  And that’s how Aunt Lydia found me.

  2

  “Men are pricks!” Lydia whacked a wooden spoon against the giant pan, the strawberries melting into a thick goo that would turn out to be the most delicious jam you have ever tasted in your life. I remember drinking the jam right from the jar as a child.

  It was Aunt Lydia who had turned me on to cooking and, particularly, baking chocolate desserts and cookies when I was a kid. We had spent hundreds of hours right here among her plants and books and birds. It was the happiest time of my life.

  “Big pricks. Little pricks. They are all”—she slammed the wooden spoon against the rim of the pot for the umpteenth time—“pricks!”

  I sipped the herbal tea she had thrust at me the instant I arrived. It was laced with a good deal of rum, so I figured I would have at least three or four teas tonight. Maybe five. I took a shuddery breath. The wood stove she’d settled me by in the kitchen was blowing out heat like a fire-breathing dragon.

  “But!” Aunt Lydia declared, her green eyes flashing, her thick gray hair dancing around her face as if all the energy packed into her was flying through the follicles. “I am so glad you didn’t marry the King Prick, Robert.”

  I ignored the stab of pain that shot right through my heart. “You never even met him.” Why was I defending him? Geez. I am a sick, wimpy woman. And my eye had looked like hard purple and green vomit today, too.

  “I knew by the way you talked, by what you didn’t say. By how I could never call you at your apartment because he would tell you to get off the phone.” Her eyes flew open so I saw all the white. “I didn’t want to spend any time with King Prick. Do you think I should have Janice make me another pig and name him King Prick?”

  I opened and closed my mouth. A giant pig named after my ex-fiancé. There was some appeal.

  “No!” Lydia shouted, arguing aloud with herself as she stomped her tiny foot. “I won’t. I don’t want any piece of him near my property. Oh, Good Lord.” She sorted through the cabinets above her head. “I am ALMOST out of cinnamon! I can’t BELIEVE it!” This last part she yelled so loud the multitude of birds in three giant cages went crazy.

  “I’ll go get you some cinnamon—”

  “No! Heavens, no, Julia. I’ll get some tomorrow. But I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE IT!”

  This is classic Lydia. The smallest problems leave her totally exasperated, even furious. Astounded. And yet, the big problems, the terrible things in her life that had happened, like losing her father and brother as a child in a car accident and being stuck in that car with two dead people for hours while the police dismantled the car, she rarely talked about, and when she did it was with strength and courage and acceptance.

  And she never talked about being raped by a stranger when she was twenty-five. That was about five years after she had a miscarriage and a drunk doctor slipped with the knife and made Aunt Lydia forever infertile, and then her husband left her. My mother had told me about that.

  Aunt Lydia’s phone rang again, but she didn’t answer it. In the other room I could hear her birds singing to each other. “Cinnamon. Well, I don’t need it for the jam. But I was going to make cinnamon rolls for the girls tonight. It’s Psychic Night, and we’re having it here, I did tell you, didn’t I?”

  “Psychic Night?” I choked a bit on my tea, but I could feel the rum floating through my body, and it felt like a river of pure warmth. Or maybe that was the wood stove that was so hot my back felt as if it were on fire.

  She pushed her gray hair out of her eyes and peered at me. “We’re discussing the power of breasts.”

  My mug dropped onto the table. “The power of what?”

  “The power of our BREASTS!” Aunt Lydia held two fingers in the air, then pointed at her own breasts. “You know what they are! Your mother and I and you”—she glared with indignant accusation at my chest—“all have the same big boobs. And there’s power there. We have to rein it in and use it for our own benefit.”

  “Absolutely,” I muttered. “I need to rein in my Breast Power.”

  “That’s right! Rein in your Breast Power!” Lydia rolled the words in her mouth. “Brrreeeassstt power! Perfect! We’ll call it Breast Power Psychic Night. Every week we have a new title. I’m so glad you’re here, honey. Here, come and stir the jam for me.”

  I brought my big breasts with me as I got up obediently and started stirring, watching the strawberries getting smaller and smaller, the color a brilliant burgundy and soft red. It fascinated me, and I couldn’t look away as Lydia picked up the phone and called her friends.

  I heard her talk to a Katie, a Caroline, and a Lara. It was only on the last phone call that I really listened in.

  “No, no, don’t bring a thing, Lara,” Lydia tossed a dish towel from one hand to another like a ball juggler. “I’m making The Brownies. I ran out of cinnamon! Can you BELIEVE IT? No cinnamon!” She tsked herself deep in her throat. “So a little pot would be okay? Right, just enough to take the edge off of life, that’s a good way of putting it, dear. And good luck with that infernal Bible study. Oh, for God’s sakes, you know as sure as hell I don’t want to go to anything like that! You know what happened the last time…. I don’t care if Linda still talks about it, she needed to hear that God doesn’t like self-righteous, sanctimonious prisses who tell everyone they’re going to burn in hell!”

  Aunt Lydia listened again, then laughed. “Oh, heckles! Tell them to pray for my poor soul and that I’m hoping to get saved by next Tuesday at eight o’clock, right before I out-drink Stash before our next poker game. See you tonight, love.”

  “Who was that?” I finally looked up from my stirring and took another sip of tea. Aunt Lydia tipped a bit more rum into my cup.

  “That was the minister’s wife, Lara Keene. Dear girl. She’ll be here tonight.”

  I stopped stirring, my jaw falling open. If there had been a fly in that room, it could have flown straight in, making several circles around my molars. “The minister’s wife is coming to Breast Power Psychic Night?”

  “Of course! Lara is a splendid person. Very religious. Very kind and holy.” Aunt Lydia tightened her lips. “I had to agree to only put a bit of pot in the brownies, though. Lord knows, after Bible study with that group of Bible-thumping losers, she’s going to need more than a bit of pot!”

  “I can’t—”

  “What is it?” Aunt Lydia, in a whirl as usual, started dumping the ingredients for brownies all over the huge wooden farm table that sat in the middle of the kitchen. Windows surrounding the room and two sets of French doors brought in the spring sunshine in golden columns, their rays settling on the ingredients as if in blessing.

  “I’m surprised, that’s all, that a minister’s wife would be coming.”

  “Well, she is. She comes every week. She needs a break from the preaching and screeching and likes to hang out with people who don’t use Jesus as a weapon to make others feel inferior. God. One time she dragged me to one of those Bible studies, and I swear all those women wanted to do was stand around and see who could say, ‘I’ve been blessed…I’ve been praying…the Lord has been good to me…it’s His will…’ the most number of times. It was pathetic. I’m positive God is sick to shit of them.”

  “Do…do other people in the town know that Lara comes to the Psychic Night meetings?” Sheesh. A minister’s wife at a meeting like this? In a small town?

  “Heck, no. Are you kidding?” Aunt Lydia started melting chocolate. She’s good at her chocolate desserts, but not as good as me, although she is bette
r at every other type of dessert. “Four people know. Me, you, Katie, and Caroline. And all of us took an oath over a bottle of brandy and a cigar and swore to keep it secret. Lara needs a place where she can be herself without someone talking about all the souls in Golden who will not be saved and will be thrown into hell to burn there forever like hot dogs on a stick.”

  I contemplated burning in hell forever like a hot dog on a stick. The rum wound its way down my body. “So, what do you do in these meetings?”

  “Caroline is psychic, like I told you, and she tells us what’s going to happen to us, which makes it an official Psychic Night. Caroline only charges the women of this town a few dollars to do their readings.” Aunt Lydia, a true businesswoman, shook her head. “Although she did it for Mrs. Guzman for homemade tequila and for Dr. Tims for some of his salsa. Come to think of it, she also does readings for Terri, the postmistress, in exchange for Terri’s pies, which I think are terrible, and she does readings for Chad Whitmore, whose wife died. He takes care of their four kids and works. In exchange he gives her bacon every year from one of their pigs.

  “I have no idea how that woman makes it. She owns a tiny little home, about the size of a dollhouse, not far from here, and drives a car I swear will break down any second. Stash has had to go and get her on three different occasions.” Aunt Lydia froze for a minute. “I should tell Caroline to paint her door black to ward off diseases and seedy men. I can’t BELIEVE I forgot to tell her that. Next time she goes to the city I’ll whip on over there and paint it for her. She’ll appreciate that.”

  I imagined a woman leaving her home with a maroon-colored door and coming home to a black door. “She makes a living as a psychic?” I imagined tea leaves and cards and a woman whose face looked as if it had been shoved through a strainer, the wrinkles hardened and grooved on her cheeks. A cigarette would burn aimlessly, and I’d reach to share one short drag, then stop myself. No more smoking. I had smoked for a year, then quit. And the lust for nicotine could still turn my head.