Episode VI of our serialized, bite-by-bite novella, The Will of Venus (Otherwise Known as a Fairy-Tale for Superwomen) is all about poison. Poison and partridge and plum cobbler. Bad, Bad Lovers, if your sister is married to an incorrigible, bloviating, womanizing cad, what can you do? Well, if you’re a chef, and you’re making dinner, you could always poison the sod. And we shall learn whether Livia does or she doesn’t. But first, Aunt Pearl’s apotheosis. FYI, at the very, very end, reference is made to a pay phone. A public telephone, for which one needs coins. If you’ve never seen one, maybe ask your mother. And if you’re just joining us, a warm and poisoned-cobbler welcome to you–if you’re of a mind, you can start right from the beginning, by going here.
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Aunt Pearl’s Apotheosis
When Pearl died, she did so, fittingly, in the kitchen. Cornelia had gone on before her almost exactly a year earlier. It was after a Thanksgiving dinner, the last one Livia and Danae had eaten together. Livia came from college, and Danae drove over from New Orleans (Bretton had backed out at the last minute), to share one of the finest meals either could ever remember eating. They had left Pearl sitting at the kitchen table just after midnight, to savor one more glass of mulberry wine–she’d be up in a few minutes.
Livia woke early the next day to a glorious fall morning only barely begun. The air bit like the finest of new wines and the leaves on the trees seemed to shimmer in utter delight at having first been melted into honey and then molded into marzipan replicas of their former selves. She ran down the stairs, hoping for a cup of coffee with her great-aunt before Danae spoiled the mood with actress talk and anecdotes about Bretton which painfully revealed his cloddishness to everyone but his wife.
There was a heavenly aroma of plum cobbler wafting up from the kitchen. Plum cobbler. That was what she’d have for breakfast. With clotted cream.
In the hallway, Livia noticed a silence deeper than the one she usually associated with early mornings; a hushed tension hovered over the still downstairs, draping itself gently over the worn velvet chairs in the entry hall where no one ever sat.
Pearl was slumped over the table, the last drops of mulberry wine still clinging to the bottom of her glass. At first, Livia thought her great-aunt was sleeping, but the peaceful expression on her face did not alter when Livia tried repeatedly to wake her. There was no cobbler in the oven (Livia checked, even as the tears rolled down her cheeks. The oven was empty). But the heavenly aroma persisted.
Livia had heard stories of medieval saints whose deceased bodies emitted the aromas of roses or lilies, or lilacs, or even gardenias. Never of food. But if anyone was a saint, it was Aunt Pearl, and if she was going to smell like anything, nothing more fitting than plum cobbler.
Livia ran up the stairs to wake Danae, both to inform her of their loss and to ask her opinion on the plum-cobbler aroma. Perhaps they should call a priest. Danae took half an hour to get dressed and put on her make-up, half an hour during which the smell of plums deliquescing beneath crunchy, flaky pastry with burnt sugar on top became almost unbearable in its delicious intensity. Livia, to her great chagrin, felt her mouth begin to water.
When she finally came down, Danae claimed, as she dried her eyes (gently, so as not to muss her mascara), not to notice anything, and Livia finally desisted. But she did think about that aroma sometimes and had definitely been inspired by it when she created her own version of plum cobbler for the restaurant. She had simply replaced the pie crust with a phyllo pastry to lighten it up a bit and make it appealing after a heavy meal. It was the only dessert she did for them. They served it every Thanksgiving.
Danae insisted that they call the doctor immediately, not because he could do anything (Pearl’s cheeks were already cold to the touch), but because they should. It was what you did when people died. Livia would have preferred to be alone with Pearl a little longer, to enjoy the aroma and her aunt’s peaceful, slumbering face there in the kitchen, but could think of no good reasons to oppose her sister’s practicality.
When the doctor arrived, Livia learned that Pearl had suffered a heart attack, one which he had warned her wouldn’t be long in coming. She had merely to wait, for she had a defective heart. An operation would have been possible, had Pearl been willing to travel to Baltimore. Pearl had answered that she had never traveled more than fifty miles from the farm and she saw no reason to start now. God would call her when he wanted her, and not before.
Livia never mentioned the plum-cobbler aroma again to Danae; any reference to the supernatural made her sister squirm. But Livia did notice the doctor, as he was packing his bag to leave and assuring them that a representative from the funeral home would be along soon, sniffing about expectantly. He had already finished his coffee; he was probably wondering why they hadn’t offered him a piece of cobbler.
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Wanda
Partridge. That was the last item on Livia’s list. It was almost seven; she had wasted a lot of time thinking, without coming to useful conclusions. She seized the sharpest of her knives and began to prepare the tiny, defenseless bird-bodies for marinating. She still had to plan the menu for Danae’s dinner; perhaps partridge would make a suitable main course. Bretton disliked raspberry marinade (the motions of Livia’s knife became more vehement, less precise, as she thought of her sister’s husband). She would make raspberry marinade.
Livia’s small mouth curved into a malicious smile. Bretton was such a glutton (he preferred “gourmand”–he pronounced it “gore-man”), with his big potbelly. He avowed that sit-ups were anathema to any Shakespearean actor worth his salt–they tightened up the voice cavity–but now that he taught and directed and only acted occasionally, Livia saw no reason that an occasional sit-up might not be permitted to him. Bretton would be livid (and, Livia felt, properly served) if the main course of the opulent meal to which he had looked forward since his wife’s last significant birthday (that was, her thirty-fifth) were something he disliked.
Or. Bretton adored plum sauce. Perhaps plum sauce laced with arsenic for Bretton and an irrevocable loosening of the marital reins for her sister. Livia thought she knew where to obtain arsenic. She worked in a steady, contented rhythm for half an hour or so, enjoying intermittent visions of Bretton choking, Bretton’s potbelly pointing sky-upward after she and Danae had lain him on the floor, Danae would have called the emergency room…
No, she couldn’t allow her sister to call the emergency room. They’d discover the poisoning in no time. She’d have to tell Danae about the plan beforehand. That would make her sister an accomplice; she would have to quietly allow Bretton to die, and then pretend to discover him the following morning. Maybe Danae would wish to return for a few weeks with her to New York. Maybe she would even stay.
But what if Danae resisted? She was still devoted to the sod; that, Livia theorized, was precisely because of the shoddy manner in which he treated her. It is always easier to want something one will never have (the love, for example, of someone never meant to love us) than to decide what to do with that something once we are assured of it. If she told Danae of her plan and Danae were against it, Danae was even capable of warning Bretton (Danae would take Livia’s plan very seriously; if Livia planned to do something, she generally did it). Bretton might call the police. She would be searched, and there she would be with the arsenic. Guilty. No, too risky.
She had to think of something. The raspberry marinade was already beginning to turn the flesh of the partridges a pale pink. Like the lips of a young girl, or like Danae’s bathwater if she decided to cut her wrists after all. If she didn’t think of something, Danae would do it. Maybe not on the night of her fortieth birthday (she would be aware of Livia’s intentions of stopping her), but she would do it. Livia couldn’t watch her forever.
Livia furiously scrubbed down her workstation. There had to be a solution. Something she could do. She rinsed the sponge, dried her hands, and reached for the bottle of brandy. Her shift was over; tonight she would have a full shot. As she headed toward the subway, Livia felt in her pocket for change; she needed to call Wanda about some hors-d’oeuvres she had promised to provide for a gallery opening the following week.
Wanda. She would ask Wanda. Wanda had helped her find a satisfactory mode for the living of that trickiest of aspects of one’s life, the sentimental one. Danae’s situation was of much greater import than was the issue of how often, with whom, and with what consequences Livia would have sex, and Wanda’s solutions to problems were not rational, but Livia was desperate. She found a pay phone, deposited the coins, and dialed her friend’s number.
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More to come, Bad, Bad Lovers, more to come.
Right here, next week, same bad channel, same bad, bad place…
Till then, y’all, be good. Or if you can’t be good, then please, please, please be very, very bad.
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